I mentioned in the last post that I thought Leif was probably a little speech delayed.

One of the reasons for this is that he isn't making two word sentences yet. However, today he woke up from his nap and koyote wasn't there. He signed "all gone" (which he's actually never done before that I've noticed) and said "da".

So he seems to be discovering the concept of combining two words, at least.

We're not really concerned. He obviously hears and understands just fine, because he can follow complex directions. We'll bring it up at the next doctor's visit, but I think he just has other priorities. Like bike riding, climbing everything he can find, and otherwise scaring me to death.

He fell asleep at 8:30 again tonight. Perhaps he's going back to that schedule. I can hope, but I'm not counting on it.

The party went well. The number who showed up was just about perfect, given the space we have. Much fun was had, and we'll be subsisting off of hummus and tatziki for the next week or so. We got to meet essara_lemuroid and family, which was nice, as we aren't really friends with many parents around here.

I have a new icon. Yay.

Leif has started getting really grabby and possessive in the past few days. I know part of it is just his age, but it's a little distressing seeing other kids treat Leif that way, and then having him immediately turn around and do the same thing (the main episodes of grabbiness were over the chalk, and earlier that day he'd had crayons taken away from him by their owner).

It's hard to know what to do when it comes to the other kids. We can get Leif to share, but we can't force other kids to behave a certain way, and Leif's too young to understand why we want him to act differently.

Speaking of disturbing, it's interesting seeing how suggestible he is when watching movies. His Wiggles movie has a song about having a drink of water, and he very frequently asks for a drink of water during that song.

Thankfully, they don't really "advertise" much in that particular movie beyond water, bananas, and vegetables.

Leif says "No" in the most adorable manner. He has an amazingly cute voice when he chooses to use it. "No" is especially cute for some reason.

Was reading through a parenting community, and found one post about a parent who had been seen verbally abusing her kid, saying (and forcing him to say) how he had been a huge mistake and ruined her life. People expressed proper horror. A bit further back, there was a post asking what people would do if their 13 year old daughter got pregnant. A lot of people said something along the lines of "If she chose to keep the baby, that's the end of her social life. I'm not providing free babysitting."

Isn't that the kind of attitude that can lead to that sort of situation? I understand not wanting to be the de facto parent... but if the baby had come at a more socially acceptable time, I imagine the grandparents would be falling all over themselves to watch the baby from time to time so the mom could do something social.

I also imagine that if the parents had another baby when the child was 13, the child would be expected to babysit and otherwise care for the baby on a regular basis.