20 Month Tricks

So Goo has been up to some new tricks lately, all of them leading me to believe that we'll be entering "terrible two" territory very, very soon. For example, a few weeks ago, I caught him climbing on something he shouldn't have been. Here's how the conversation went:

• Me (in my very best stern mommy voice): Goo, be careful.


• Goo (continuing to climb, scolding himself): Get down (or "geh dow", if you want to get technical)


• Me (trying not to laugh): You're going to hurt yourself ....
  
• Goo (climbing higher, again scolding himself): No, no!
  

*sigh*

Another "situation" we've been dealing with lately is putting down the toys when it's time to go somewhere. This kid never has a free hand - there's always a matchbox car, an action figure, or an ant (from his "Ants in the Pants" game) clutched in his grip. Whenever we leave the house, I try to get it down to one thing to play with in the car, and it's usually a fight. When we leave the car, though, and take away the one toy that's left - it's meltdown city.

So you can imagine my fear when I picked him up from daycare the other day and he ran to me with hands full. I stalled, talking to the fabulous L as long as I could, hoping he'd lose interest. Nope. No such luck. Bracing myself for a battle, I told Goo we'd have to leave the toys at L's. L walked over, asked Harrison for the toys, which he sweetly handed over. Seriously ?!? Since when ?!?

Again, *sigh*

One important thing to remember about raising a Goo, is that you can't take your eyes of them for one.stinking.second. This gets a bit difficult, while trying to maintain a normal life, where things like cooking, eating, dishes, and other housework sometimes require you to divert your attention for a moment or two. I did make the mistake last night of looking away from Goo while I was running his bath .... well, I'll let the picture tell the rest of this story.

*double sigh*

With all of my fake sighing, though, I have to say that this is SUCH a fun age. We've had to re-arrange some furniture to prevent Monkey McGee from seriously hurting himself, and we REALLY have to watch what we say, but we're having a blast. He's sleeping pretty well (except when we travel), and he eats like a champ, as long as 90% of his meal is meat.

Next up is (maybe?) potty training. There's some intensive potty training going on at L's, and Goo is all of a sudden very interested in the goings-on of the bathroom. We bought him a potty chair last weekend, thinking we'd have to do it eventually, and he may as well get used to it, right? You can imagine our delight when 2 days in, he used it! Genius, I tell you. Never mind that it hasn't happened since, we're still very proud. :)