Alphabet Soup

No world-rocking insights today, just a desire to record and remember the cute stuff Mazin is doing these days. Language is especially entertaining. Spoonerisms are his specialty. At least, I think they qualify as spoonerisms--I don't know what else to call them. They normally require getting all the consonants and vowels of a word right, but out of order somehow. Computer becomes "puke," for example. And music is "mucus" (my personal favorite). John, of course, is partial to "poo-sie," which is Mazin's word for smoothie. I know we should laugh long and hard now, because it won't be long before he corrects his mistakes. He has now totally mastered his first name, although "Swepston" is still a challenge.

He's also progressing in interesting ways on other cognitive fronts. The other night we were having dinner with friends, and Mazin spent nearly an hour entertaining himself in the living room. For most of that time, he was arranging blocks and diapers in geometric patterns on the floor. Interesting. He also loves to listen to music with headphones now--which makes long car rides much easier. A song he likes will come on and he'll tell me, "This my fave-it song."

Mealtimes have become less stressful for John and me, as we can finally reason with (read: bribe) Mazin at the dinner table. He understands the concept of compromise--of eating all of his soup to earn a bowl of applesauce. (And he seems so proud to have mastered this concept that he has yet to see the inherent injustice in a system that grants all power to the parents and none to him. I dread the day he awakens to this iniquity.)

He can now put on his own coat if you put it on the floor upside-down in front of him. I guess working the zipper will take a few more years, but that's okay! Now, how about that potty? Mazin will never pee on the floor if he's not wearing pants. He'll go directly to the potty instead. But if he's wearing anything down there, forget about it. He'll just let it go. So we've gotten in the habit of letting him streak around the house of an evening, which makes for some interesting Skype sessions with extended family. My grandmother asked me point-blank the other day, "Does that child ever wear pants?"