During what Dennis considered an exceptionally long wait for supper to finish cooking, I was desperate to distract him. I read Green Eggs and Ham, but this was a mistake because the book is all about eating (duh!), and 'eat' is a word that Dennis knows and loves. David heard the tirade that I was experiencing and came in to check on us and I asked him if he could help me search the bookshelf for any books with pictures of trucks or boats. That's the only part of Green Eggs that he enjoyed ("I will not eat them in a boat, I will not eat them with a goat...") because he could point to the boat and say "boat". David found a series of Random House Pictureback books that were his as a child (I had some of these, too), and Dennis loved the pictures in the Busy Wheels and Busy City books, and there was one book all about boats and another all about trains, and one about all different kinds of trucks. These bought me another 15 minutes of peace and happiness. He loves all kinds of cars and trucks and identifies them on the road and in parking lots. He's very much into transportation, pointing out all the boats that go by when we're at the lake (he can hear them coming and starts looking immediately). Trains don't tweak his radar, though. We point them out to him, but he just stares and doesn't respond. They are so big and loud that they are probably still a little intimidating. We need to find one that isn't moving and let him see it. Maybe a trip to the railroad museum is in order...
We spent all day at home, because yes, we DID catch the stomach virus from Dennis. It's a darn good thing I bought a giant pack of mega rolls of toilet paper yesterday. We are low on baby wipes again, though, which is a little troubling. We did enjoy the day in Dennis's room with him, playing with his blocks and cars. He can stack blocks now as well as demolishing the stacks we make for him. And he worked hard connecting two Mega Blocks (like big Legos) together on his car track--he snapped them together and took them apart and snapped them together again repeatedly. The parenting book says it's time to get him the junior Lego and Duplo building sets, and I'm going to leave that task to David, who has been waiting for this moment since the ultrasound that confirmed we were having a boy. David certainly enjoyed putting the car track together and racing cars with Dennis. Dennis did a good job of putting the car on the track just right so that it would roll down. His manual dexterity increases by the hour, and I just love watching those constantly busy little hands manipulating and sorting and touching. It's all part of learning how he works in the world, I suppose, but it feels like I have a front row seat to watch the emergence of the skills that have passed the 'survival of the fittest' test through the ages.
Speaking of manual dexterity, I watched him climb onto a chair and reach out for the doorknob to his closet (where I'd stored his shopping cart for a while, because I'm tired of picking up the "30 pieces included" with it 8 times a day). He turned it, but not quite enough to open it. But gosh, is he close to figuring it out! Time to start using our deadbolt on the front door, or he'll be in the woods before we know it.
He seemed to be feeling much better today. We did have to wash his bedding yet again, but it wasn't as visibly horrifying as yesterday morning. Thank goodness for that! And it was actually a good thing that we haven't accomplished any potty training thus far, because he would have been competing with the two of us for that coveted toilet spot in our one household bathroom today. That would have been bad.
I just know we'll all be better tomorrow. We have some bad weather coming from the tropical storm, but maybe not until tomorrow night. I'd like to get him to a playground again tomorrow since he's been cooped up for a couple of days, yesterday in the car and today in the house. We'll see what happens.
Hey, did you know that Pizza Hut makes a dessert that is basically doughnut-like breadsticks with chocolate pieces all over the top of them, and it comes with Hershey's dipping sauce? Well, yeah, they do, and I wish I didn't know about it, either. But it sure is good...
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