Eugenious

Oral hygiene starts early in this family. Gramma Maria gave Sylvan a toothbrush nine months before he had any teeth, then, when Gramma Diana was here last month, she picked up another toothbrush (the downstairs toothbrush) and taught Sylvan to spit in the sink (or at least make a cute spitting sound) when he was done brushing. Sylvan’s new predilection for imitation means that brushing is great fun.

And Sylvan’s love of everything spherical has led to a new phenomenon: feeding himself! So apparently, if he can call it a ball, he wants to try to put it in his mouth. He only calls spherical objects balls if they’re larger than plums, which is convenient, since he has no interest in feeding himself grapes or cherries or any other manner of small choking hazards. Apple-balls are his new love. As I was unpacking our CSA share yesterday, Sylvan added his little bite-marks to three of the five apples.

For those of you not aware of our son’s fixations, here is Sylvan worshipping his own personal fetish, an exit sign that his Daddy gave him for his first birthday. Exit signs seem to exert magical or spiritual powers over the poor, hapless child, as you can plainly see in this photo. We first discovered the power of the exit sign at a nature center in Lewes, Delaware last May. The fish and the turtles didn’t even place a close second in holding Sylvan’s interest. Green exit signs seem just as powerful as red ones, too; when the boys were visiting me in Seattle’s Harborview Medical Center in early August, Sylvan pointed to every green exit sign as Chris walked the hallways.

Now Chris just has to figure out how to electrify the thing.

Here he is standing in Fall Creek last weekend. Click for a larger version.

This morning, Sylvan woke up, then turned, pointed out the window, and made the sign for “tree” (hold your forearm out in front of you, perpendicular to the ground, fingers extended, then rotate your wrist so that you can see the front and back of your hand alternately). There were trees out there.

He then stood up, pointed out the window, and said “truck” (actually, he says something like “tuh”, but it’s different from his other words). He was pointing at a truck.

Amazing.

Did I mention that he turns one next week?

This is the very first post on Sylvan’s weblog. More to come.

Action! (12 Sep 2005)