July | 2014 | From Bean to Sprout

My Little Monster July 21, 2014

Filed under: Uncategorized — frombeantosprout @ 7:47 pm

Freddy is 15 months old now. He’s growing into such a big boy. Both figuratively and physically. The kid can pack away food like it’s nobody’s business. I’m convinced he has a hollow leg or two. We were at a family party in Kingston a few weeks ago and he just sat contently at the kids table for over an hour, munching away at some corn on the cob while all the other kids got bored with their food and ran off in every direction. He’s going to be a big tall one. I see a future in football. It’s amazing how different Henry and Freddy’s personalities are. Freddy has a bit of a bruiser quality to him and isn’t showing any signs of shyness. He’ll flirt with anyone (correction, any woman) who gives him the time of day. Case in point, we were at a restaurant on the weekend and as we’re leaving, he notices a little girl on the patio. He walks to the window to flirt with her (we were sitting inside) and leans into the screen to press his face against it and do his kissy face. Well the screen pops right out and he fell right through onto the patio and scraped his head. Poor kid lost it. He cried and cried and the second we get out of the restaurant, he’s fine and wants to walk around. I think his ego was bruised the most in that moment. Embarrassed in front of a potential love.

As much as Freddy loves you though, he has a little rage issue as well. Chris and I have a theory that his mind is growing faster than his little body can keep up with. He’s blowing through milestones like crazy but if he can’t get his message across to you quickly enough, he loses it. He goes crazy hulk-like. He’ll just start shaking violently with rage, holding his arms up and with his tiny fists balled up and then slam them to the ground. If we still don’t understand what’s bugging him, he takes it to the next level where he’ll charge us, from like across the room, with his arm up, just running towards us wanting to hit and then upset that we stop him from hitting us. So then he goes in for the biting. Those little shark teeth are sharp!

We never had a biting problem with Henry. Don’t get me wrong, Henry had some rage issues at that age as well. I think all toddlers have it. He just never got physical about his anger. He would just roll around on the ground screaming/crying in frustration. Freddy needs a physical outlet. And now it’s at the point where he bites even when he’s not angry. He just thinks it’s hilarious. I’ll always remember the first time he did it to me. I was sitting on the sofa and he was trying to climb up on me. He had his hands on my legs and brought his head down and sunk his teeth into my inner thigh. I was wearing shorts at the time, so it was direct contact. I yelped, grabbed him, said “NO BITING!” and put him on the ground. He just sat there laughing about it and then tried to do it again. Now we can tell when he’s about to do it, but poor Henry is innocently clueless when he’s about to be bitten. Henry will be minding his own business and Freddy will come in and bite him on the shoulder. It got to the point yesterday that I put Freddy in his crib for a one minute time out. He freaked for like 5 seconds then started playing with a toy in his crib. I really don’t know what to do about the biting. I’m hoping he grows out of it soon.

Now I may describe him from time to time as a little monster but he’s really a sweet kid. He loves giving kisses and hugs. He’s started saying a few words. He’ll say mama, dada, ginger, dendy (I think that’s Henry), ball, milk, tree, car. It’s amazing watching him say all these things. He’s such a chatterbug. Henry was not much into talking as a young toddler. We’d find out later a lot of that had to do with him not hearing properly, so this 15 month old talking thing is all new to us. He’s great with listening as well (well, when he wants to). We’ll tell him to do something and he does it. One thing he really likes is copying his older brother. He follows Henry around like he’s his own personal hero. Henry started saying “Ooh la la” (I have no idea where he picked that up) and Freddy has started saying it too, with the same tone. It’s so frigging cute I just want to bite him….hmmm, maybe I should use a different expression there given our recent issues.