What About T?

Lately, this blog has been focused on what we are doing in homeschooling.  I thought it might be time to give a glimpse of what T's been up to, the kind of little person he is becoming.

~  I'm so happy with the way he caught on to potty training.  We did the cold-turkey method with him.  We didn't start till after he was 2 1/2, but went straight from diapers to big-boy underwear.  It was a mess-filled two weeks, but then he got it.  Public restroom potties are still a problem as is overnight training, but that will come with time.  
~ He participates in all of K's homeschool activities.  He doesn't want to miss a thing.  He loves joining us on the couch to read the stories, and as I said in the last post, he often has parts of the books memorized after we've gone through them for several days.  For some of the activities, I find a simplified way that he can make the projects; other times, he's content to scribble on a paper as K completes the more academic exercises.  Other times he just wants to take over my lap and make it difficult to complete an activity with K.
~ He is still my cuddle bug.  Extra sensitive, he has times where he finds great reassurance in sitting in a lap for awhile.  But those times are definitely growing shorter and farther in between.  Though he's getting bigger and stronger and more independent, he still has a need for physical contact. 
~ He's got the all-boy-constant-motion thing going.  Today K came to tell me, "T's making tremendous throws.  Is that ok?"  A few minutes later I find them both "doing tremendous jumps".   
~ He is a natural at pretending and can make anything within reach into a play-acting story.  Toy plastic shapes have conversations with each other; in a pinch his hand can be a car. 
~ And what he imagines is to him completely real.  A couple months ago, he went through a phase where he was afraid to play in one of the rooms of the house because of  "the tiger outside the window".  Another day, as we sat eating dinner, he suddenly began telling B about the lion in the back yard.  He explained that Mama wouldn't let it come inside. 
~ He has an admirable ability to imitate noises, especially those of vehicles.
~ He is a child of happy highs and passionate lows.
~  When explaining something, he often uses his hands to talk.
~ Some of his sayings: He picked out one of the dice from a game and brought it to me, singing, "He died for me.  He died for me.."

I often give him sliced bananas for lunch.  Every time, he searches out the end piece and triumphantly holds it up, saying "Bananan hat!"

One day after the phone rang, he asked me "Was it Mark Shasha?"  Mark Shasha was the author of the FIAR book we were reading that week.