Doodler

This is a spider:

I think that’s not bad for a kid just over two years old! He said he was going to draw a spider, and that’s just what he did.

His recent interest in doodling had led to plenty of pen marks on our bills, homework, and other surfaces (though thankfully not on the walls yet). So last week we put away all the broken chunks of his old crayons and picked up a new box of washable crayons. Suddenly, instead of dragging all his toys from one room to the next, he just laid on the floor quietly coloring and drawing. It’s been wonderful! Truthfully, a lot of his pictures (horses, pigs, Mommy, Daddy, Peet) look like spiders -- lots of little circles and boxes with long lines (or “arms” and “legs”) stemming from them. Still, we’re having a great time watching what he creates. He also likes to ask me (a big doodler myself) to draw something, and then he colors it. This stuff is all his:

Man, getting dressed can be tough these days. I’d estimate that at least half of dressing and undressing Oliver involves some sort of protest or struggle. As with most tantrums at his age, it’s about control he wants to do as much as he can himself, but he still needs plenty of help. If be angry too if I had no control over what I wore or when I had to change my clothes. But we have places to be, and the same grubby Handy Manny pajama top cannot be worn several days in a row.

For dressing, he can sometimes get his coat on, but not much else. More and more we try to take a “you do it” approach and just see what happens. A long time ago I posted a video that still makes me laugh of Oliver trying to get his coat on. Here it is again. This is one year ago, March 2008.


In the year since, he’d gotten good at taking off his socks, shoes, and sometimes a shirt. On really good days, he even takes them to the laundry hamper. Here’s a video from yesterday of his unique method of coat removal.


Here are some cute pictures from the park on his favorite slide.