(Never) Mind Your Manners

Dad here, and I fear that we have reached the stage where we are at risk of being banned from several neighborhood restaurants. Some time ago we enjoyed a tasty brunch at a local place called Pauline's. The outdoor table was too small to move our food out of Ezra's reach. So toast, pancakes, hash browns and egg were fodder for merry destruction. He'd reach over and grab fistfuls of flapjack, and knead them vigorously into a dough ball and mill the oozy stuff through his clenched fingers. He'd bite creamer cups until they popped. By the time we left, the floor around our table looked like a compost heap.

So it seems we've reached a new phase of toddlerhood, wherein we dine at home. Not that meals here are much better. We've wondered from time to time when the appropriate point is to begin teaching table manners. The video below offers some hint as to what we're up against:

Though it's not obvious in the video, Ezra has made some progress in establishing a few socially acceptable eating habits. He's finally managed to take charge of his sippy cup (though he still chucks it on the floor now and then), and he's actually learning to use a spoon -- only, he doesn't always use it for eating. Sometimes he uses it as a drumstick, makeup applicator or pry-bar. But we take these as steps in the right direction.

He continues to home in on walking. He's taken wobbly steps a few times, and can stand for long stretches unassisted. In speech-related news, he's added a few words as well: "baby," "taco" (seriously), "bath" and possibly "water" round out the vocabulary. He also enjoys picking up objects -- remote controls, wallets, etc. -- and holding them to his ear as if they are a telephone. We've had some delightful conversations and we're thinking of adding him to our "Friends and Family" plan.

--> time lapse <--

OK, a few hours have passed since I began this post, and we just wrapped up putting the child to bed. We have a big Curious George book that we open up occasionally. It's one of those sorts that has no story, just a page of, say, different animals or fruits or tools or whatever, labeled. There's a page of vehicles, and we started asking him to point to different ones. "Ezra, where's the motorcycle?" Nailed it. "Ezra, where's the boat?" Bingo. Over and over -- train, truck, tractor. It's just wild -- I had no idea he knew some of those concepts. We've been reading to him since day one, and I got kind of used to the idea that he abstractly

enjoyed story time, but had no idea what anything in the books meant, let alone the names for them. It's just a reminder that there's so, so much going on in his little brain that we only get glimpses of every once in a while. It made us intensely proud.

Onward,

Gabe, Ash and Ez