Mr. Articulate

My little problem solver. What started as crying and pointing progressed to grabbing and then growling and now finally to little zen statements. And they crack me up. My mom's most quoted favorite is from when P was a year and a half and she was carrying him while she cooked. It came time to open a jar and she told P that she needed the arm he was in to open said jar. He'd have to get down. "No, switch hands" he told her.

There's (sometimes) more analytic ability to his pronouncements these days. We played with Yoav a week ago and the two became a bit fruity as the afternoon passed. Yoav was teasing P, telling him his name was this or that. How he intuited that this was The Hotspot for P I do not know, but there is nary a better tease out there to get P's fur fluffed. He started out correcting Yoav. "My name is NOT shoaeiwthoaefh, its Phoenix Hudson Schulton." Within a few minutes this entire sentence was screamed rather than stated. I explained to him that Yoav was just teasing him, maybe he'd like to make a game of it? This worked, for about a minute, and then P's internal definition of P was just toooo insulted and he was pissed again :) He asked Yoav to stop, saying he didn't like it. Yoav thought it was all very hilarious and didn't understand why P would want to stop such a funny game, so he continued. P didn't find it funny at all and couldn't fathom why Yoav wouldn't stop such silliness. This sort of frustration usually spirals into physical pushing on P's part. This time, he went into another room. A few minutes passed and I peaked in hoping he wasn't peeing all over Yoav's toys or something equally creative and found him quietly playing the xylophone. He looked up and said "I was mad at Yoav so I came in to make some music and take deep breaths. I feel better now."

Wow. I wish I had that kind of clarity when I get mad :) But once P resurfaced Yoav reintroduced his game and then accidentally tossed P's stuffed dragon. Oops. Bad combo - you Don't toss P's toys :) I prepared myself for fistcuffs and a chat about safe expression when P grabbed his dragon and roared. It then breathed fire everywhere, burning Yoav's house down. Whenever Yoav uttered a new name or blinked, the dragon roared and burned more toys. We ushered the boys to the playground as quickly as possible where the energy shifted to happy swinging games and I sent up praise (again) that Spring has sprung.