Leif Update

Leif is now 27 months old and wow is he busy! He is such a fun kid to be around, 95% of the time. The other 5% of the time he can be cranky, naughty or just mischievous. All in all he seems to enjoy life and love interacting with his friends and other people he knows and many he doesn’t know!

Yesterday was Halloween and he was a bug. The bug costume has seen its fair share of wear in the past few weeks. This is great, if we spend the money on it I want him to enjoy it for a substantial amount of time and not just one day. Leif was excited about Halloween, I am sure due in part to my enthusiasm for the holiday. To me, Halloween kicks off the holiday season, a time of year I love. My dad was always a big Halloween junky and my sister and I inherited it from him. I got the love of Halloween, she got the love of Halloween but also of all things gory.

Leif seems to have a little grasp of the concept of Halloween, the costumes, pumpkins, cats, spiders and bats, also trick or treating. We carved his pumpkin to look like a cat face and each night we lit it and he went around shutting off every light in the house (ok AB, even Leif knows where the dining room light is…) so he can stand in front of the lit pumpkin and ooh and aah. All the way in to work on Halloween morning he practiced saying Trick or Treat! When we arrived at daycare we put on his costume and he paraded proudly into his room. You could tell from the fun atmosphere that every child to that point had their few minutes of glory as the other kids analyzed his or her costumes. Leif enjoyed every minute of it as the kids touched his antennae and spare legs and the mylar eyeballs on top of his head. He ate it up.

I figure he probably had to take the costume off shortly after I left as it was quite insulating. It was the costume made for kids like me who grew up in an area where 75% of the time it snowed on Halloween and your costume was always made to fit over a parka. This one is a coat in itself with all the extra padding to make him a very round bug.

I picked him up at the end of the day and we went home and started lighting the candles and put the pumpkin outside. Within minutes kids started showing up at the door. At first this caused a lot of angst, Leif wanted his costume on (I didn’t as we were going to eat dinner) and he wanted to eat candy (again we were going to eat dinner). Meltdowns ensued. Soon though, dinner was finished, he was in his costume and we were off to go trick or treating!

He really did well trick or treating, never actually said “trick or treat” to anyone, we did get a few thank you’s out of him though. Most “trick or treats” came as we were leaving and the doors were well shut.
When we returned home, we only hit about 10 houses, Leif took up the charge in handing out candy. He stood by the window and announced “kids coming!” He would then run to the door, pick up the bucket for candy and meticulously and very carefully hand out a single piece to each kid. He ate up the whole evening!


For the past six days Leif has been holding steady at being about 75% potty trained during the day. This morning Leif was gone for a few minutes while I was doing my hair and AB was in the shower. I went to find him when he didn’t come running when I called. Out he comes out of the bathroom with his pants around his ankles. “I potty mommy,” he tells me. I was skeptical since he already had two successful potties this morning, so I went in and took a look in the toilet. There, before my eyes, was a poopy in the toilet. I just about fell over.

This is fully on his accord and the slacker mom I am hasn’t put him in underwear yet. Frankly I haven’t seen the reason why, other than to quit wasting diapers since after going potty he doesn’t want the used (but not soiled) diaper back on and wants a new diaper. Leif is fully capable of pulling his pants down, removing his diaper and crawling up onto the toilet by himself. I am pleased that so far he is learning to go to the potty based off him recognizing the desire to go.

I really would like to have him potty trained by Christmas break, but we will see how things go. No pressure on our part.


The brag book… Leif has nearly mastered counting 1-14 and his A, B, C’s. Nearly in that 5 and 9 are often forgotten. And there is some mumbling in the alphabet song particularly at f-k. He gets a sound in there for each letter but it is more of a grunting noise. He has a few books which we are not allowed to read to him. It isn’t out of dislike for the book, it is because those are his books to read to us. And he does so with gusto! One of his favorite things is to read to relatives on the webcam. He doesn’t care to be read to on the webcam, but delights in sharing his new skill with you. (So if you are one of the relatives that is determined to do this… sorry to break the bad news, but trying to hold him squirming on our laps and encourage his attention to you? Just not working, no offense.)

I have a new found admiration for the daycare teachers. I have been working to teach Leif one of my childhood favorite rhymes, Little Bunny Foo Foo. It is one of the few rhymes I have found that they haven’t beat me too. Anyways, after days and days of singing Little Bunny Foo Foo and doing my best not to giggle when he says “Little Bunny Hoo Hoo”, we still have only mastered the “popping them on the heads” part. Leif knows LOTS of rhymes from school, quite well. This means that those teachers repeat and repeat those songs over and over again. I am so sick of Little Bunny Hoo Hoo (giggles) right now. But I have determination! And a little boy who likes the concept of bonking things on the head. (Maybe this is why they don’t teach it at daycare?)

Every morning when we go to the car he has a small meltdown. “I drive!” he tells us. My poor child doesn’t realize it is at least 14 years until he can have that privilege. A special treat is to go out to the car and let him sit in the driver’s seat.