Games

This morning on our way to daycare, Reshen suddenly said “Do you see a clue, Mommy?” At first I was wondering what the heck he was talking about, but when I looked in the mirror, I saw him holding his magna doodle, his right hand poised for drawing. I knew exactly what he was doing. “Like Blue’s Clues?” I asked him? “Yeah” he answered with a huge grin. For those who haven’t been inducted into the world of Noggin on TV, Blue’s Clues is a show where the main character (Steve or Joe, depending on what season you’re watching) and the viewer have to find clues (objects with Blue’s (the dog’s) paw prints on them). When a clue is found, Steve/Joe will draw a picture of it in his “handy-dandy” notebook. At the end of the show we piece together the clues and try to figure out what Blue was trying to say.

So we spent the drive looking for clues… really just me shouting out object we passed and Reshen drawing it on his magna doodle. When we got to Pam’s house, we tried to figure out what it all meant… I think I came up with something lame like, “Blue wants us to drive carefully and read all the traffic signs and stop at red lights”. But Reshen was happy with it.

His favorite game at home has been playing with his train station airport… yeah you read that correctly.. it’s an airport that has train tracks passing through it.. what more could a 2-year-old transportation junkie want? So I am always instructed to play with the “guy and the girl” and Reshen controls the airplane and the train. My job is simply to take the people on and off their transportation and make them say things, when I am instructed to. He is very bossy, though, and doesn’t like me to stray too much from his inward script. I hear a lot of “No mommy, they don’t say that.” And heaven forbid I try to bring in another “guy” into the game, or introduce a truck or car instead of the train… It has to be just so… I guess there’s only room for one imagination in Reshen’s play world ;-)

So as you may have read in an earlier post, we’ve had sleeping success, but now we’re at a potty training standstill. I thought we were moving forward a few months ago, as he seemed interested in underwear and went in the potty a handful of times. But he is totally against the potty now. He freaks out if I try to get him to wear underwear, or even those disposable pull-ups. He only wants diapers. Most of the time he won’t even sit on the potty when it’s suggested, and when he does, he doesn’t produce anything and will pee minutes after getting off of it. The other day we were talking about it and Reshen volunteered “Remember when I pooped on the potty one time?” I acted all excited and said “Yes- I am so proud of you for pooping on the potty. Are you going to do it again sometime?” “Nope.” He answered very matter-of-factly. “That’s it.” **Sigh** So we’re laying off of it for awhile. I still question whether he’s even physically ready yet. Perhaps when his body is ready, it will click and he will actually want to do it without all the bribing. We can only hope!