I frequently have to laugh in looking back at some of the older About Me posts. Right now I'm thinking about The Inquisitive Toddler and how relatively quaint that time was. Yes there were a lot of questions, but it turns out we weren't anywhere near the peak of that behavior. We probably still aren't. There are definitely more questions each day now than there were then. This, as much as I can tell, comes both from shorter pauses between questions and less time overall that isn't a conversation in one form or another. It's a fast and furious, riveting discussion around here all the time. Admittedly you can take this with a grain of salt, because I'm someone who likes quiet.
Three year olds are so so curious, even when they aren't actually interested in learning the answer to what they just asked. Many of the conversations I have with our son are completely circular in nature. He asks about something, and then the why, and then the next question returns to where we started. Each time he'd like to continue on through the same things we talked about a minute before. I'm not sure if he's not connecting the dots or if the questions come automatically before his brain can catch up. Either way, it's funny for a while. Then it gets a little frustrating.
There's also the thing where he asks the same questions over and over. The worst times are when we answer a question and then he goes on and asks the same thing again, and possibly again. Either he gets a thrill from doing this or isn't listening to the response. Other questions we get day after day, but at least they aren't immediately following each other. Examples of what he asks appears to be a popular thing, so I'll mention a few of these:
- Why is it the end of the day? (when we're eating dinner, the sun is setting, or it's bedtime)
- Why does brother want to play with the things I want to play with? (all day long)
- Why is *anywhere* close to our house? (when we're running errands or returning home)
When he's not asking questions, our elder son shifts seamlessly to singing or, more often the case, humming. Our conversations and his 'singing' flow in and out as he fills any silence. He loves a lot of different music but definitely has a preferred playlist, requesting (as he says it) the songs that I like or some of my favorite songs. He asks to listen to these at random times throughout the day, especially in the car, like when I have the radio on and he's not enjoying it or if he's otherwise just bored. And while he'd prefer to have them played for him, best case would be a YouTube video, he'll gladly belt them out himself. I have to say that even if there aren't words he knows the tunes amazingly well. I'm always impressed by his memory when he wants to use it. Here's the list:
- Raiders March, or 'Indiana Jones' (which ramped way up after the John Williams post)
- A number of Twenty Trucks songs
- Police vehicles, especially the beginning which imitates sirens
- Dump dump dump dump it! Dump it dump truNk, dump dump dump it
- Wheels on the Bus/Old McDonald/B-I-N-G-O
- Life is a Highway (the Rascal Flatts version from Cars)
You seriously need to hear him do Raiders March. He starts, like the actual score, with the softer horns before building to the recognizable theme. There's no rushing perfection. He does, however, want to listen to it way more often than even this Indy fan can bear. (Shrugs.)
More than anything else, what I'm trying to convey here is the increased and non-stop volume. The questions keep on coming, until they don't. Songs then fill the gaps and they always get louder as he gets into it. He sometimes shrieks for no apparent reason, though the reason could be that he simply likes being loud. He yells for our attention now, often after he's the one who left the room. Daddy? Daddy! DADDY! This all would be one thing if only one kid was making noise, but the younger one is discovering his voice too. Sometimes he's just upset because his needs aren't being met, or he doesn't want to be stuck in his pack-and-play or carseat. I can't fault him for any of that. Other times he's clearly trying to be like his brother. And he's at the age where he throws toys he's playing with out of reach and then gets screaming mad. It is truly funny, and not annoying at all, to watch him get gleefully super noisy in busy public spaces because, it seems, he again wants to get in on the action. But when it's only me and the two kids together and they're both at their max (i.e. one talking/singing, the other crying/screaming), I can struggle to handle it.
It's in times like this that I regularly think of this page from the Grinch, with part of me perhaps resembling the yet unrepentant title character.
Hopefully not too much.
Yes, yes, I know I'm being dramatic.
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