A Mile(stone) a Minute!

  I can’t keep up with these kids!  I thought being a 21st Century Dad meant I was ahead of the game.  Not a chance!

  First prize goes to Charlie.  At 11 months, 6 days, he’s basically normal in his motor development.  I’m sure I could find a hundred parent-child web sites out there with statistics about when he should do various things, like starting to climb up steps.  I knew he would do that eventually (the steps, that is).  Point is, he surprised us with how quickly he went from theoretical curiousity about these step things to, oh, I don’t know, climbing all 13 to the upstairs in about 10 seconds flat!

  Now I’ve got to find out where in the heck we put that stairgate that’s been up thrice before already.  Indeed, it’s probably going to have to be a this-weekend chore, else we’re surely setting ourselves up for a Humpty-Dumpty-like fall.  Just last night we avoided a Charlie tumble back down the stairs by leaping the stairs ourselves, 4-5 steps at a time, to stop him from crawling over the edge to come back down!  Oops.  We had only let him alone for 10, maybe 15 seconds and didn’t realize he’d climbed the stairs.  We’re still trying to mentally get our arms around the fact that, when Charlie is quiet for more than 5 seconds now, it no longer just means that he’s BM’ing or eating toilet paper!

  Check him out in action:

Ready … Set … Go!

And He’s Off!

Crossing the Finish Line!

  Another first prize goes to Finn.  (I can’t give a second prize here.  Life isn’t a competition, right?  Especially between the 21st Century Dad’s kids.  They all win first prizes every time!  Uh oh.  I sense I need another blog to get used to the idea that I, as parent, need to teach my kids that life isn’t always fair, that you don’t always win first place, and that the point is dusting yourself off and getting back in the game for another round.  But I digress …)

  I have to give the set-up for this story to make sense.  Kara and I were in Chicago earlier this week for 3 days without the kids.  Loved it.  Great city.  Walked, shopped, sight-saw (is this a word?), great meals out, caught an awesome show (Wicked … see www.wickedthemusical.com), had cocktails with Donald Trump–OK, not with him, just at a bar in his new hotel there!–and missed the kids.  It was our first time away from the kids by ourselves since we only had Michael and Finn (thanks to Aunt Amy + family and Grandma Zech, Granny Moyle, and Uncle Jeff, who all stayed with the kids while we were gone).

  Naturally, we debated about when we should call home.  First, we didn’t want to call too soon, or too often, for fear of displaying or even just implying a lack of confidence in our family who were staying with the kids.  Second, we didn’t want to overwhelm the kids with constant calls–why draw their attention to the fact that we were gone, right?  If they were going to have problems with our absence, pointing out to them with our phone calls that we weren’t there wasn’t going to help matters any.

  So when we did finally call and ask to talk to the kids, it was quite an event for us.  Finn was the most excited, wanting to hear all about the show Wicked (he was entranced with the idea that we were seeing a show about witches).  He did talk too about missing us.  But, as the call took its next turn, it became quickly obvious that he didn’t miss us too much.  I think I have to give the transcript of the next sequence of events to really give a sense of how this played out, and, yes, the next milestone is in here too.

  Finn (on the phone):  Daddy, hang on a second, I’ll be right back.

  (Sound of phone being put down on a hard surface of some kind.)

  (Perhaps 15-20 seconds elapse, during which miscellaneous background noises of a bustling house with kids and adults are audible.)

  Finn (back on the phone now):  OK, Daddy.  I’m back.  I had to catch a fly.

  Catch a fly?  Did I hear him correctly?  So I ask …

  Daddy:  Finn, did you catch a fly?

  Finn:  Yup.

  Daddy:  What did you do with him?

  Finn:  I opened up the screen door and let him out there so he could fly away.

  Boy-o-boy, is he Kara’s son or what?  His first concern is letting the fly out so he (the fly) can be safe and fly away.  Kara’s save-the-world-one-insect-at-a-time mantra is rubbing off on the kids!

  I should note here that this was not the first fly-catching display.  Finn’s also caught dragonflies, at Potter Park zoo recently and earlier at home outside by our sandbox, and he’s caught other flies too.

  But to the point, I’m not sure what kind of milestone this is.  For this, I can’t find a website describing a fly-catching talent as a developmental milestone for a 4-and-a-half year-old.  Of course I was reminded of the scene from the 1980s movie Karate Kid where Daniel, the teen-age karate protege star of the movie, catches a fly with chopsticks.  Granted, Finn didn’t catch his fly with chopsticks, but, then again, he’s only 4, and the movie fly-catcher was probably 16 or so.  At this rate, with Finn developing his talent already this early, by 16 he ought to be ready to master fly-catching with chopsticks too.

  OK, one final thing as this post draws to a close.  Charlie is awake now, while the rest of our family still sleeps on this pre-7:00 a.m. Saturday morn.  I got him up a few minutes ago, and he’s been patiently watching me type feverishly here to finish this up, sometimes on my lap, sometimes down on the floor to check on his “Smile for Elmo” book.  Now, he wants to finish up by demonstrating yet another milestone for him–his typing skills:

6d ghtjmvt djtviktekjijkiikiic io

Explore posts in the same categories: Parenting

Tags: Charlie, Finn, Milestones, Traveling

You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.