You know, like a snapshot of Connor at this age.
His new favorite books?
If You Give a Mouse a Cookie
If You Give a Moose a Muffin
If You Take a Mouse to the Movies
and
Pete's a Pizza
His new favorite songs?
She'll Be Coming 'Round the Mountain When She Comes
Hot Potato, Hot Potato (Wiggles)
He sings the ABC song to himself often, too. He's got it down, even though he mispronounces certain letters, as all kids do.
What else?
He also spends a lot of time counting. His normal routine is "1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 13..." He can get pretty high into the teens, but I don't know what happened to 4 or 5. He loves the number six, I think, as he often uses the number six when he should say three or four or five. I can respect that. My favorite number is eight, and six is a close kin.
He has started saying "Mom" and "Dad" instead of "Mommy" and "Daddy" oftentimes. I'm not sure that I like it. It's too grown up. He is such a teenager sometimes. He keeps asking for a drumset. A black one. With a high hat cymbal and everything.
We make muffins every morning. He can do just about everything himself, except for the oven parts.
What about his hatred of water?
Well, I'm glad that you asked.
He never had a problem with water or baths until we took him to Lake Higgins for camping when he was about 13 months old. Something triggered an intense DISLIKE of water during that trip, whether it was the baths in the bucket on the picnic table or the lake itself...I don't know. But ever since we got home from that trip, he has HATED water. Bathtime? No dice. Pooltime? Only once has he gone swimming since then, and that was at a hotel with Papa Kirk, which involved much cajoling.
Until Friday. We went shopping earlier in the week and got matching swim gear for him and Lex (with sharks on the rash guards and board shorts). I ordered a new sling water wrap so that I could wear Lex in the pool in order to have both hands free to help Connor. We checked out the pool in person on Wednesday before our big trip to actually swim in it on Friday. Connor was so excited to go!
Until Friday morning when we were getting ready to leave. He changed his mind and told me that he wanted to stay at home. I convinced him that it would be fun, and we left. He walked so s.l.o.w.l.y. from the locker room to the pool, and even more slowly after the water first touched his toes at the zero depth end of the pool. But, he got into the water willingly. He asked to leave about 45 times during the next 25 minutes, and each time I got him interested in doing something else for another half-minute or so. Then, finally, we got out of the pool and changed again. After he was all dried off and changed into regular clothes, he went on and on about how much fun he had just had (really?!), and told me that he wanted to do it again next Friday!
So, he had a positive water outlook when we got home. Until I gave him a bath to get him all clean and to get the chlorine and pool water yuck off of him. That was too much for him, and just a quick little bath sent him into hysterics! I ended up rocking him on the sofa (far, far away from the tub) in a towel for a good 20 minutes to get him calmed down afterward.
That night, he ended up in our bed (He sneaks into it in the middle of the night like a ninja. I usually don't know he is there until I wake up much later.), and I'm pretty sure he was having some nightmares. He kept fussing in his sleep, and woke us up a few times with some sharp cries.
Kevin thinks he was dreaming about water. Trying to assimilate his new pool experience. Probably re-living whatever event triggered his water troubles up at Lake Higgins in the first place. I think this is a fabulous and highly-plausible theory.
Now I am wondering what it all means. Will our trip to the pool next Friday be a fun, easy time for him now? Will it be the same? Or will it be much worse?
Next time I do intend to get a photo of the boys in their matching shark swim gear, though, because it was just too cute!
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