Good Thing He's Cute

“Uh-oh, Mama! UH-OH! Dwop-dit! Yook, Mama, YOOK!!”

Clearly, Riley is trying to tell me something. The urgency in his tiny voice tells me I better come quick and “yook” to see what’s wrong.

Oh. He dropped a blueberry on the floor. Cancel the ambulance.

I think he’s just showing off his new language skills every opportunity he gets. In the past month or so as he approaches age 2, he has unleashed a torrent of new vocabulary.* “Uh-oh”—his first word—is still in heavy rotation, which makes sense in our house, as is “Miles did it” and “No yike it.” The latter phrase is employed whenever he’s been persuaded to try a new food, and is usually accompanied by a disgusted pursing of his cherubic lips. Then, he spits out the item he doesn’t “yike” into my hand. Charming.

Still, he’s at an unbearably cute age. He sings “mewwily, mewwily” when he’s rowing his laundry basket boat down the stream hallway, and his “bitsy pie-duh” is often crawling up the water spout. (Funny, since he hates spiders.) He says “I. Wuv. Yew!” complete with hand gestures, and he’s big into hugging and kissing. Also, hitting and hair-pulling, but that’s a little less cute.

My mother always said about kids in general and hers in particular, “It’s a good thing they’re cute.” So true, so true. Just when you’re ready to take them on a one-way trip to Grandma’s for, oh, I don’t know, DRAWING ON THE COUCH WITH NONWASHABLE BLACK MARKER, they blink at you with those big brown eyes and you melt. Or at least become momentarily less homicidal.

Riley’s latest trick is boycotting his nap. Before Christmas, he was taking 3-hour naps. Not only did he not put up a fight, but he would go running for the stairs when I said, “Time to go up for your nap.” I thought like me, my baby loves his sleep.

Well. Then he figured out how to climb out of his crib. (Right on schedule, according to this blog entry about my firstborn at the same age. What would I do without my archives?!)

Unlike his big brother, however, Riley did not climb out once or twice and then resume his regular naps once the novelty wore off. Oh, no. For 2 days straight now he’s thrown a FIT about staying not only in his crib but his room during naptime. I let him cry and kick the door for an hour yesterday. (OK, probably 20 min. But it FELT like an hour.)

Here’s some “surveillance footage” of the escape artist in action.

So now we’re researching toddler beds and crib tents and plotting our next move. Just when we thought things had gotten back to normal after the holidays...

*I am aware that the topic of milestones, particularly those reached early, can induce anxiety and envy among fellow parents, so let me assure you that neither of my kids slept through the night till they were almost 1, and potty training my eldest was an extended form of torture. Feel better?

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