new developments

The signs are now familiar. It's usually around when he gets sick. He's cranky, the sickness comes, and he's very difficult to control for a while. Typically an easy-tempered child, he gets emphatically not nice. And then, the next step in his development unfolds. We're not why, but it's always wrapped in layers like this. And then, at the end he calms down, and about two days later we look at one another and say "Holy Murgatroyd! He's totally different!" We've been wondering what the new change will be, and today it became clear. For the two weeks, he's been absolutely fascinated by fireman (a gradual descent ... ascent?). In the last week, he began interrupting every book where there is a fire to demand "how did it start?" Always, he wants to know the story. I must make up stories of curtains set to flaming by unwatched candles, of electrical wires that are frayed by mice, or have nails pounded through them and set fire to the insulation. Of sparks from trains, which set off large brush fires. I had no idea that he would care so much about the how and why. (And I secretly hope that he won't turn into a total pyromaniac.) This is carrying over to other things as well. How did this get here? He has an encyclopedia of spanish words, illustrated by Dr. Seuss characters, and he now brings it over to me to demand the back-story of, say, letter J's word. Why is the flower in the jar? Why indeed. Whew. And then today I saw what was going on. His language skills have evolved to the next level. I mentioned a coat today and he said "actually, I already have it on.' He picked up his pet giraffe puppet, Carleton today (Carleton is a pacifier fetishist, or as we call it "sucker") and made his mouth move, saying "sucker! sucker!" Then he began to lecture Carleton. "No, Carleton," he said. "You cannot have a sucker because it's bad for your teeth." Later on, Simon clad himself in his fireman jacket, matching boots, fireman hat, and grabbed his big blue hose. Then he went outside and got his plastic gas tank. I was outside, and watched. "Get out of the way Prosie" he yelled to the cat. "This is poison." "You're putting poison by the cat?" I faltered. "Honey, that's not good. We don't use poison." "I'm a hot shot," he said. (We just read a story about hot shots, which talks about the people who set the back fires. Very thrilling.) He pointed to his gas pump, which has three buttons. "This button is poison. It's gas and I use it for starting fires. This button is for foam, and this button is for "... oh darn, I forgot what he said. But this is a new level of detail for him. And he continued. "I spray the gas down here to make the fire, like this (demonstrating.) Then I light the fire. And it goes and puts the other fire out. And this button is used to make foam that I spray on the fire." I might be just a tad hazy on the details, since about 75% of our time together today has been spent in him running around and exhorting at great detail. Whew. Tiring. Luckily, he's finally fallen asleep. Yay! What a great little guy. Tonight he was practicing crowd control in the kitchen. After hearing him bellow "get out of the way" I told him about how fireman actually say things like "please step back." So we practiced for a while. But I'm seeing entire phrases just tumble from his lips and not knowing where they come from. Like tonight when he said "I'm tired. I need a coffee break." "Oh," I said. "What's a coffee break?" And I wish that I could remember exactly what he said. I think he said "You sit down and eat a little bit, and then you go to sleep for a little while." Another interesting thing is happening. Simon has not been the most prolific child in terms of stories. He likes to hear them, he loves to specify conditions, but he hasn't ever done any type of running commentary on a fantasy before. All that has changed. He's operating right smack in the middle of these huge fantasy stories and he's describing them right as they occur. Pretty interesting. Might be the boy/girl thing. We tell him stories every night, and oftentimes he'll say that he wants a story about Carlos and the fireman and the lost sucker and a fire at the carwash (for example.) This is an entire step further along the complexity line. Now I get full narration as he creates the entire scenario. Tonight, I got to be the pumper truck. What great fun!