February 20, 2007

Random family news

Nathan's newest most-requested song: "You Shook Me All Night Long" from Back in Black. My heart swells with paternal pride.

Nathan likes to ask what's playing whenever he hears music. He'll ask again if the song somehow sounds different. Or he'll ask about every ten seconds, just to make sure he didn't miss a song change. For some reason, "Bring It On Home" by Led Zeppelin seems to provoke near constant querying.

His ability to express ideas is getting better and better. A couple of weeks ago, after I explained that something he was doing would likely hurt him, he said, "and that make Nathan little sad." A few days ago, after a similar conversation, it was "and that make Daddy little sad if Nathan get hurt." Today, it was "and that make Nathan sad and Daddy sad." If you wonder why we are so frequently discussing sources of great bodily injury, I suggest you've spent little time around a two-year-old boy lately.

Meredith and I went out on a date Saturday night. We never celebrate Valentine's Day, as, going back to the very first month or two we were dating, one of us (almost always her) has been busy the night of Valentine's. That first one she was on a youth group sleepover; this year she had evening class at Seattle University. So we celebrate February 17th, instead. We had dinner at Pogacha in Issaquah (tasty), then saw Shadowlands at the Village Theatre. We had a wonderful time. And then when we got home, we discovered that Nathan was still awake. He stayed that way until about 2:30 AM.

Melissa arrives Thursday night for a few days. We told Nathan on Saturday; he replied, "Nathan watch TV and wait for Aunt M to get here." Ah, no.

He's been back on a streak of taking forever to go to sleep. Also, it seems that it's my turn to be the One Parent who can get him to sleep. Meredith will try with him for an hour or two, but he just won't go to sleep with her lately. Most of the time he's decided to get picky like that, she's been it, so I guess it's my turn or something. The other night, he announced, "Nathan need milk." I said no. "Nathan drink milk, get energy." Yes, that's what he needs at 10:30 at night.

The terrible twos so far haven't been all that terrible. For sure he has more temper tantrums than we'd like (witness the ~20 minute fight to get him dressed every single day). But on the plus side, he can tell us a lot more now. He recently stopped mid-wail to say, "I crying because [whatever it was]", then went back to his wail. But at least he told us.

Posted by Mike at February 20, 2007 10:39 PM