Bachelor Week Two Behind Us
Hello to everyone.
Xavier's second week with Mom away at school went well. He is accepting his new schedule of babysitter, school, babysitter, school, babysitter. Accepting it, but not liking it. Drop offs, even at school now, can be heart-wrenching. His cling-to-Dad-like-a-welded-on-monkey makes things sad when he has to be pealed off so Dad can go to work.
Early in the week, we did get to the lesson of running around the house in a diaper and eating in front of the TV. We often have the TV on while Xavier eats breakfast as he will eat significantly more while watching one of his stories. However, this was eating junk food (animal crackers) while in a diaper and on the couch.
One of the things we've noted these past two weeks (even Rebecca noted this over our Skype connection) is that Xavier is speaking more clearly. We are wondering if Xavier's immersion with other children more these past two weeks might be the catalyst, or if he just reached a new level.
He is also starting to voice his choices rather than pantomime them out. One night I put him in his high chair for another snack. He had not eaten much after getting up from his nap, so I needed to slow him down long enough to recognize he was hungry (which, by the way, is often a standard operating procedure).
He fought being put into the chair; I actually had to use the seat belt to hold him in. He became distraught, and asked for TV. I turned it on and selected one of his favorite shows (one which I can barely tolerate, but Xavier usually prefers watching it). Xavier grew more distraught and started saying something in his frustration.
He repeated it a few times. I thought I understood what he was saying, but I wasn't sure. I moved my ear close to him and asked him to repeat what he said; he had to repeat it twice for me to understand. Though spoken on a whimper, he spoke a very clear choice of what he wanted to watch. It was the whimper that made it difficult to understand.
"Okta-nots" he spoke. My eyebrows raised and I quickly praised him for such precise word usage. After that, I changed the TV from "Little Einsteins" to "Octonauts". I was extremely excited to change shows, not because we could turn off a show I don't well like, but that Xavier so clearly spoke his unsolicited opinion about what he wanted to watch.