Linnaeus 3.8

Baby led weaning for penguins!

I love watching my little boy work things out through play. This past month has been all about food & introducing foods to Brontë. Unsurprisingly, Linnaeus is doing a lot of food-related play. One day, he took his wooden shape sorter box & put Brontë's penguin stuffie into it, feet out the holes in the front like Brontë's high chair, rested a puzzle box lid on top as a tray & proceeded to feed the penguin kale, a mushroom, half an orange, half a cucumber & an ice cream cone.

Though he's apparently excited to feed his penguin, Linnaeus' appetite is inconsistent these days. Sometimes he'll eat more oatmeal for breakfast than me (like half a litre of the stuff!) or the other night he ate about 15 pieces of sushi. He often doesn't eat much of his lunch at preschool & maybe half the time he turns up his nose at most of dinner. It's never one particular food that he doesn't like, at least, it just seems to be a varying appetite.

One thing I've been enjoying lately is the terms he's been coining for things, as well as some funny new mispronunciations he's now using, along the non-linear path of language development. A few that come to mind are umpartments, honkted house, bwefixt, ding dong house, flower trees. Can you guess what they all mean?

This past month hasn't been all fun & games, of course. The most challenging thing has been Linnaeus' bad behaviour on the playground, specifically pushing & hitting other kids. I decided to do something similar to what they've been doing at preschool when he pushes someone in a potentially dangerous situation like at the top of the stairs. If he does it a the park, we immediately go home. I've had to round him up & leave three times now. I've been reminding him before & during the outings what will happen, phrasing it as his choice: be gentle with the other kids & he can stay at the park; hit or push & we go home. He talks about not wanting to push the other kids & I think it's starting to sink in that he shouldn't do it.

That about sums up the month. I'll leave you with a quick video demonstrating his budding acting skills:

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