David Weekly, #40, Thanksgiving Edition

Moments of magic...this is why we have children, to share moments of magic...It's Friday night, at 10 PM, and I just put David down to bed. It's been a beautiful day. We watched The Polar Express, and it's wonderful that he's able to become emotionally involved in the movie. Two hours is a little long for him to watch a complete movie, but I'm not sure if the commercial breaks were a blessing or a curse. After about 90 minutes or so, he wasn't sure if the movie was over yet. So he kept asking. The "emotionally involved" part is when in the movie, Santa gives the little boy a bell, but the boy loses the bell because of a hole in his pocket. The next morning, after opening all of the presents, there's one left, and it's the bell. David saw this and just smiled a great big smile and hugged me in happiness and relief.

I got a Christmas tree for my house, and David helped to decorate it, along with Jared and Avery, and my mom, of course. I've been calling it the "Charlie Brown" tree, because it's small, about 4 and a half feet or so. It has lights and decorations and such. We had a blast putting it up. After it was all done, and everyone was gone, I turned off all the lights except for the tree, and the one or two other things I have that have lights in them, such as the porcelain little town shops and such that I have. I was telling David that this is magic. He whispers to me "magic"...he really gets it.

Of course, this is Thanksgiving week, and we went to our traditional feast of turkey and trimmings, at my sister's in-laws' house. David got to run around and play with Avery and Jared, relatively unsupervised. He's getting to where I don't need to be on top of his every move to make sure he doesn't hurt himself or destroy things. David doesn't like saying grace, for some reason. My mother said the blessing, but David wasn't having it. But he was at least quiet anyway, for the most part.

Wednesday I went to Gabrielle's Glen to eat lunch with him there, with all the other parents. It was nice for us to eat together with all the other families that were able to come to the lunch.

Last week I mentioned about his language growing, and changing. So here's an example conversation w/ David:

D: I want somefing to drink
R: How do you ask?
D: May I haf some gold juice, please?
R: Would you like Gatorade?
D: No. Gold juice, I fink.

It's that last part that gets me. That's the extra flourish that I'm talking about that he does...and another thing. Lately when I ask him something, and he doesn't want it, he says, "No way!" Not just "no." It kills me when I hear that.

Another item from last week: Amanda tells me that David learned about the traffic light with her when he was up there last time. It's funny how that works. When we were decorating the tree and talking about Santa Clause, he already has all the vocabulary that goes with it, even things we haven't discussed. It's almost like he learned it last year, but the words didn't come out until this year. Same thing with the traffic light. It took some time to settle in his brain for him to be able to communicate it back out.

He also is demonstrating some other emotional awareness: "Are you happy or sad?" But I'm frequently neither, so I'll say, "I'm concerned" or "Frustrated," which is how I feel in the mornings when he won't let me sleep. It used to be that I'd ask him to go play in his room, and he'd go play in his room for a little while so I could sleep. That doesn't happen anymore. Instead, he wants to wake me up, at any cost, which is sooooo hard for me to do, but he really doesn't care. "Just wake up! Daddy..." A positive note about this, though, is that his diaper is dry when he wakes up now. He still wants to sleep in my bed, too..."Frustrated."

His French is getting better. I tell him "Je t'aime" now and he made the connection, "That means I lwove you," he says. On the other hand, I ask him to count in French, or say things in French, I tell him things in French, and he says, "No. In Engwlish." Other times he's willing to do the French thing with me. It comes and goes, I suppose.

Monday and Tuesday David had another cough, so I was giving him the full regimen of cough medicine, nebulizer, and vapo-rub on his chest. At 5 AM on Monday he actually woke me up to go potty. I wish I could understand what made him want to do that, since he doesn't do it any other time. Maybe just because he was sick. Funnier was that he has these two little hippos and an elephant. The elephant is brown, and the one hippo is purple, and the other one is a baby blue-ish color. He was adamant that I hold the blue hippo. Absolutely adamant. He still makes me hold it from time to time now. I don't completely understand it, but I dutifully hold the thing.

Saturday was another day of coming home to a house full of people: David playing with Jesse's two nephews...but then they were gone, and Jesse, David, and I went out to eat. Sunday was another day of shopping for furniture for my now spare bedroom, Colleen's old room.

So...now the Christmas season has begun. It's funny that we have a holiday to think about how we're thankful for things, and people, and events that have shaped us for the better, then go into the headlong rush of Christmas. By coincidence (or not?) David asked to watch a Veggie Tales DVD of "Madame Blueberry," the tale of how to have a thankful heart. As I mentioned last week, I do have a thankful heart, and I look forward to making this Christmas magical for my son and those around me.