15 minutes of concentration, brought to you by George

Please just go ahead and file this blog post under the “children never cease to surprise you” category, but George seems to have turned the toddler/two-year-old corner just in these last two weeks.

He insists (as in borderline obsesses) on buckling himself into his own highchair:

I have been greatly impressed by George’s sheer focus while completing this task, which can sometimes take those chubby little fingers ten or fifteen minutes (I kid you not) to effect.  But he remains undeterred during that seemingly eternal length of time—I get antsy, I want to help him (“George, look, just twist the buckle like this…and hold the clasp like this”), but all I get in return is a hand block followed by a “No, Meme; no, Meme.”

There is no doubt in my mind George takes after his father in this respect.  Will can focus on a crossword puzzle or another word game for hours (although he usually doesn’t take that long – I suppose I should give him some credit here!) while I find myself wanting nothing more than to flip to the back of the book for the answers if I can’t immediately figure them out.  This gives me great hope that more of Will’s traits will start showing up in our little bundle of BOY.

[And as an aside, I am well-aware that George is much too big to still be using a highchair.  Sadly, although he has progressed on many maturity levels, staying still and eating his meal while unstrapped is not one of them.  Thus, the highchair.]

George has also been recently introduced to the computer, which he had already studied in great length from the bench:

It is safe to say, George loves being the driver though:

He hasn’t quite figured out the correlation between the mouse and the objects on the screen, but there is no doubt he is focusing on learning.  And I get a guaranteed ten or fifteen minutes of stillness.  Woohoo!

No worries, George isn’t growing up too fast.  We just ended another morning of hair-pulling and biting sprinkled with the appropriate number of time-outs.  How kind of him to remind both Frances and me that he still in that glorious toddler stage.  But I sadly realize that George is quickly approaching the same age Frances was when he was born (she seemed so old to me then).  Only this time, no number three is on his/her way.



Yep; that expression looks very familiar.



But I’m also realizing that at this stage, that might just be a good thing.  Maybe.