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Highchair Discourses with Carver
Our children so far are verbal by nature. Both Avey and Carver were talking long before they walked. As Avey has extended her dominion over the household while she is home, Carver often is left trying to gain some attention from his parents whenever he can get a word in. One of those times happens to be when he is in his highchair. The situation is ideal – he has little else to do but talk, and because we know he will go hungry if we are not close by to ensure that he eats, he uses that time to collect and share with us his most intimate thoughts.
What usually happens is Carver will free associate elements from shows he’s seen with situations he encounters in his daily shenanigans, and deep thoughts he’s had. For example, he might tell me all about a scene that had a bear in it, then explain that bad guys aren’t nice, and then go on to describe how his water bottle works. He often repeats himself, and the expression on his face and in his voice makes clear that he is very passionate about whatever happens to be coming from his lips.
He’s also developed a very polite habit recently. He enjoys complimenting people on anything he happens to notice about them. He might say, with a very sincere voice, “Sis’, I like your hair!” or “Dad, I like your glasses!” His favorite is to compliment someone’s shirt. One morning during breakfast, I decided to return the compliment, and say, “Carver, I like your haircut!” Carver kindly corrected my faux pas by explaining, “No Dad, you like everybody’s shirt. Is that clear?”
Hakan has been talking more and more lately too. All we need is to make eye contact with him and coo at him, and he will unleash. I will try to catch that on video soon. We gave him his first haircut yesterday, buzzing it all down to a manageable crew cut. He looks a little strange, but I’m sure it will be worth it to have it all grow in evenly now.
Avey and I begin school tomorrow. I am a little excited, but would be much more so if I had some solid data sources for my dissertation. It’s like pulling teeth trying to get governmental agencies to let me survey their staff. I got one agency agreement this week, so let’s hope that’s primed the well.
Avey met her teacher yesterday, and is thrilled to get back into her element of performance-based evaluation. She thrives at school, and will probably tell everybody she meets that she can read a whole chapter book in one day. That’s often her favorite thing to tell grocery store clerks, people in line, patrons who happen to sit near us at restaurants, and so on.
We are excited to have a family reunion in town next week, and hope to have some great stories to tell!