Everett has now entered the activity phase, meaning he is signed up for a variety of classes and activities. He is currently signed up for piano lessons with Mom, soccer class with Mom or Dad, kidnastics with Mom and swimming lessons with Dad. There were a few different motivations for this. One is to expose him to a variety of different things and see what he likes. Another is to help him get into the habit of practicing a skill to become proficient. So far he seems to enjoy all of them. Certainly a big reason is to burn off some extra energy. Often when Chris gets home from work it goes something like this:
“Helloooooo! I’m home!”
“Dada, I want to roughhouse!”
“Can we roughhouse?”
“Can we go upstairs and roughhouse?”
“Can we go up right now?”
“Can you roughhouse me?”
“Can I roughhouse you?”
“I…want…to…ROUGHHOUSE!”
So usually we will go upstairs for about 15 minutes and have some play time while Mom finishes getting dinner ready. During dinner we will try to persuade Everett to stop talking long enough to take a few bites of food, and by the end of dinner he will start asking questions like “Dada, can we go upstairs and do something that beings with Rrrrrr?”
“You mean read?”
“No.”
“Rest?”
“No!”
“Relax?”
“Roughhouse!”
We note that he recently started developing more of an appetite and that he is growing rapidly. After a recent and particularly intense roughhousing session Chris remarked “I feel like I’m training someone who is going to defeat me one day.” Melissa responded “I think you just summarized parenting in a nutshell.”