Hello, Cal-Pal,

Or should I say Cally?  You’ve been calling yourself that lately, though sometimes you’ll take it back and call yourself Callum-a-zoo instead.  Other times you’ll go purist and insist on just Callum.  A week or two ago, you were pretending not to know that I didn’t want you messing with Miles’s reading lamp.  I said you were being deliberately obtuse.  You said, “I’m not ‘tuse.  I’m Callum.”

You’ve been using diminutives in other situations too, like referring to the book Walter the Farting Dog as “Walty.”  It’s interesting to hear you play with language beyond base-level communication.  We chaperoned a trip with Tobin’s class to the Iowa Children’s Museum today, and another adult helper who’d been observing you told me, “He’s really smart.”  Now, I don’t think you’re a dummy, but since I don’t really hang out with any other toddlers, I don’t have much means of comparison.  In any case, I’m glad to know all those stupid videos you like haven’t shriveled your brain too much.

After a curiously cool August, we had a warm September and early October.  One day you really wanted to run through the sprinkler and eat popsicles outside.  It felt like a strange thing to do, but it was eighty-five degrees, so that’s what you did.  You crunched leaves under your feet and ran around in the cold spray until I dragged you inside for dinner.

We’ve been busy-busy-busy with your brothers’ activities, and as always, you’ve been a good sport about coming along.  I try to do special things with just you while I have the chance, though sometimes “special” just means picking out a doughnut on one of our thousand Hy-Vee runs.  Other times I get ambitious and take you to Tot Time at the gym and Toddler Story Time at the library.  You like that okay, especially the singing and dancing parts, but you’d rather use the play kitchen than sit still for a story.  Sometimes the stories are kind of boring.  You prefer more plot-driven fare, like the aforementioned Walty.

You seem to enjoy food preparation play quite a lot.  Not only do you love the play kitchen at the library, you use your own play kitchen almost every day.  That’s why our basement playroom is usually a disaster, because the play food is made up of hundreds of little plastic fruits, vegetables, cutlery, and pots and pans.  Still, you know what a kiwi is, though you’re not interested in trying a real one.

You’re becoming more independent in a lot of ways.  You can get your own sandals on and off, probably thanks to the extra practice you got via this extended sandal season.  You don’t always get them on the right feet—I set them out for you while I was getting organized to run errands, and when I checked, they were on the wrong feet.  I helped you take them off and set them out for you again, and when I checked back, you’d put them on the wrong feet again.  When I let you know that things had gone awry, you said, “But I ran out of legs!”

Despite a promising start, you have shown zero further interest in using a toilet.  Actually, that’s not true.  You love flushing toilets, whether they need it or not, but you have no interest in the earlier steps in the process.  Your flushing habit can be wasteful, but since your brothers have the bad habit of forgetting to flush, it can also be kind of helpful.  I need to use that as an incentive to get you to at least give it an honest try.

We had a fun visit to Mubby and Skitter’s house last weekend.  Unfortunately it was cool and rainy most of the time, so you didn’t get to use the sandbox nearly as much as you’d hoped.  You still got to take baths, though, which for some reason are way more fun at their house than at ours (I suspect the reason is the squirt guns Mubby lets you use).  You had fun playing with the parking ramp and other toys, and you decided to keep the piano that plays Beethoven in the closet.  You are not a big Beethoven fan.

Your current favorites:  Caillou, YouTube stars Ryan and Genevieve and their stage-parenty parents who make toys videos that exploit feature them, skipping naps, dancing, pepperoni pizza, cinnamon toast in a bowl, and climbing things.  You are awfully brave.

I can hardly believe that you’re closer to three than two now.  Two is still a baby, right?  But three is such a big boy.  A small consolation is the fact that you’re a little guy physically.  You can still fit into a lot of 24-month-sized clothes, and I noticed the shorts you were wearing the other day were actually for the average 18-monther.  Even if you’re getting older and more adventurous and verbose every day, at least it’s still easy to snuggle you up into my arms.

Love,

Mommy

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