DeJaVu

Photo: Another recent box creation that DH will be removing tonight. Only the boys could make it through the tunnel.

Sometimes I feel dejavu when seeing our little man revisit "stages" that our bigger boy has passed. The timing is off, sometimes he is well behind what I would expect for a almost three year old, but it makes sense given his family/orphanage history.

I forgot what it was like to try to cook, clean, walk, dance, etc with someone trying to stand on your feet or hold your knees together. DS2 has just learned to open the refrigerator door. So now exploration of "cold" has started including turning the fridge light on and off a thousand times until the buzzer to start sound. And yes, all glass items have moved to a hirer shelf in the fridge (a broken jar of relish looks pretty bizarre when mixed with mustard. It smells weird too. for about three days!)

Peek-a-boo is back in. It is more along the lines of "Where's my man?, Oh, THERE HE IS!!", to variations of "Where's the tissue? Oh, THERE IT IS!" and my personal favorite, "where is mommy's cell? Oh, THERE IT IS!, Now give it back." We are also starting to see the very beginning of hiding, like behind a door, box, wall, etc and jumping out and surprising me. Love that. Also along these lines, I think is the pretending to be asleep, and the great giggles as I wake him up.

Another favorite, is the I want to be like mommy routine. The sudden desire to try lip gloss, powder if I'm putting that on and the wearing of hear clips. This passed quickly with DS1 and I'm sure it will with DS2 as he has the older brother there to tell him "boys don't wear......" But I like seeing my boys in a necklace sporting lip gloss. Along these lines a funny thing happened a couple weeks ago at preschool. For two weeks, each day was assigned a color. Red, Blue, Green Yellow, Black, White, Brown, Orange, Pink and Rainbow. Each day I dressed DS1 in the appropriate color. But on Pink day, he had nothing. I tried to talk him into taking along one of my sweaters and just rolling up the sleeves, but no. Then my husband who takes him to school in the morning reported back that Pink day did not go as well as the others, none of the boys were wearing pink.

Last but least, I'm back to "The wheels on the bus" forty times a day. It is good as I think he likes it because he is finally able to say, or closely say, some of the words. He loves the horn goes "beep, beep, beep" but there is fondness for the babies go "wa, wa, wa" and the windows, "up and down" and the doors "open and close". However on this one, the older boy is clearly passed this stage so sometimes he suggests new actions, such as "the bears on the bus go Ra, Ra, Ra" or the "the wings on the bus take it high, high, high". Yeah, not sure where the imagination comes from, but I love to run with it.

Generally, it is heart warming to see the "repeats", to see the path again. It means he is on it, he is moving forward, he is taking strides everyday. I don't see the daily strides, I'm too close. I worry so much about his lack of language. But I see these steps toward growth, the path I'm more familiar with and I get a bit calmer, I know more growth is coming. He's on his path!