Ari's World

Aaah, silence.

For the past seven hours, I have been at the epicenter of the whirling, chaotic exuberance known as "Ari". And the exuberance is finally napping. Albeit reluctantly.

It's difficult to effectively describe what it's like to spend that much time in the company of a lone, yet highly energetic, toddler. And I'll probably fail miserably and you'll wonder "so why the hell is it so exhausting?"...unless, of course, you've been there yourself. For those of you who haven't had the pleasure, imagine, if you would, a three-month old Labrador Retriever after a nice, restful nap. This post-nap phase lasts for seven straight hours. You can't kennel him. You can't really scold him because he's not misbehaving. And he wants you to join in with every game, song and dance that meanders through his head.

Now, mind you, I'm not complaining (for once). The kid has been unusually happy and relatively tantrum free for the past week or so. He's been a pleasure to be around, in fact. We've had a blast. But mom's pooped. Ari's bedtime has been stretching later and later. He's now going down (wide awake) at 9:30 and Sascha and I are left scratching our heads as to how it happened. The kid is simply not tired. Granted he sleeps in till almost 9 am now so I suppose if I were to start getting him up earlier, he'd then go to bed earlier. But, oh, let me tell you how much I savor those quiet Wendy-time mornings. I cringe at the thought of waking him up before I finish my pot of coffee. However, here's the kicker, my day still starts around 6:30 am (usually). Ari's doesn't start till 9 am. Ergo, his nap doesn't happen till 4 pm. That makes Mom's day ultra-long...I'm practically comatose and drooling by 3:30. So, still drooling, I decided to update the blog with a little blast from Ari's world :).

He's talking now. In fact, we have achieved, "No, I do." I shit you not. He did not want me anywhere near his toothbrush last night. "No, I do." We have also achieved a vague "Luv vu." Then there's the usual, "truck, car, kitty, cat, dog, puppy, baby, momma, dad, wawa (water), choo choo, apple, ball, eat, Adi (Ari), poop, pee, pee pee, poo poo (he also calls Pooh Bear "poo poo"), penis (yep), hair, eye, ear, teeth, sock," colors, animals and animal sounds, etc. etc. It's very neat because he finally understands most of what I explain to him and I can finally understand about 50% of what he's saying to me. We were driving to the library today to turn in his summer reading hours (okay okay, our summer reading hours) and he starting pointing violently and saying "cannes, cannes, cannes". I thought, huh, we have a francophile on our hands here...and then was relieved to see that he was pointing at a crane from construction site. He likes anything truck, car, construction or train-related. The bigger the better.

Songs are huge right now. He, himself, has been singing the ABC song and "Bingo" (you know, about the dog B-I-N-G-O). Anytime I start randomly singing anything (which is often), he's right there asking me to do more. Today he had Bingo stuck in his head for about 4 hours.

Climbing is also topping the charts as one of the top things to do at any minute. He's conquered our bed, which is about 32" high, every chair in the house, the couch, the stroller, the car and his car seat, playgrounds and the stairs (facing front, like a big person). The only apparati he hasn't attempted are his crib and table-like surfaces, thank God.

Reading has been taking up a lot of his/our time lately. Especially any book about trains or trucks. We sat at the library for an hour the other day, just reading and looking for "more choo choo" books.

Praying. The boy likes to pray. Don't ask me why because I wouldn't describe either of us as "devout". I have a well-used devotion book sitting in the kitchen, which I call the "God book". Almost every day while we're eating one meal or another, he says "God" and goes to get the book. "Pay, pay", he urges and folds his hands. I've tried to tell him that we don't need the book to pray, we can make the prayers up, but he insists that the book must be there. And it must be open. On the back, this book has little pictures of all the contributing authors. After we pray, Ari turns the book over and points at pictures while I read off the names. Today, he kept looking up at me and saying "God?" while pointing at one picture or another. I had no idea what he meant. "Yes, Ar, this is the God book." Points at picture, "God?" Again, points at picture, "God?" Oooh. I'm a little slow sometimes. "No Ar, God isn't in these pictures. We can't see him. He's invisible. These are the people that wrote the God book." "Ooooh. Okay." Like he totally got it.

Water. Water. Water. Any water, anywhere. Mud puddles. Suspicious-looking puddles. Bath water, hose water, water standing in flower pots, sprinkler water, water in a Rubbermaid container on the patio, water in spray bottles, water sitting on the countertop, water trickled from his sippy cup onto his highchair tray. Any water except pool water and ocean water. Go figure. He stills says "no" when we walk into swimming class. And he ran away from the water at the beach last week, laughing, like he knew it totally flummoxed me. This dissapoints Sascha just a little, being the water bug that he is. I kind of want to remind him that he was scared to death of even bath water at Ari's age.

We've been spending more and more time with kids Ari's age and, by default, mom's my age. So much that we're out socializing almost every day of the week. This gets a little tiring for me by the end of the week and I think it does for Ari as well. Today we were supposed to head to the park to meet up with the Thursday gang and he simply refused to don his clothing and leave the house. He wanted to play at home in his jammies. Well slap my ass and call me Judy. You could've knocked me over with a cat hair. This is the kid that always wants to leave the house. The kid that isn't happy unless he's out, away from the house. I guess I had finally out-played him. So, by God-Almighty, hallelujiah, we played at home (which, ironically, is more tiring for me since I'm then the prime playmate).

Oh. And he's still drooling. Check out that shirt.

That's about all that comes to mind for now, when it comes to the World of Ari. Which is good because I have, in all probability, lost all of you except grandparents by now.