Big Man on Campus

This week, Aidan moved into the next classroom at daycare-- known in our house as the Big Boy Room. I bet it's been interesting for the poor teachers there, because the school insists on a schedule at this point. Cause, you know, 9 month old babies really need discipline. anyway, they have 2 naps scheduled in the day, a short one in the morning and a longer one in the afternoon. Riiiiiiiight. Aidan sleeps when he wants to, and if he doesn't GET to when he wants to, he turns into a screaming, whining, drooling, flailing harbinger of death and destruction. I can only imagine what went on the first day there....he lookedc pretty happy when I picked him up, but the teachers looked a little shell-shocked and were drooling a tad.

Being in the Big Boy Room (or BBR) means that his crawling/walking schedule will probably accelerate. Most of the kids in there can at least crawl if not walk...they're all a lot older than he is. They wander the room, hanging out in corners playing craps and drinking 40s in thier tiny satin gang jackets. Maybe not, but it is a little bit like throwing him to the wolves since he's kind of immobile right now.

Also, I forgot to mention we took him to the doctor for his 9 month checkup recently. Every time we go, they ask us a series of questions to check his developmental milestones against. One of them is "Does he understand 'No'?" Yeah. Sure. There's not really anything he does that we need to say no to him for... if he's doing something he shouldn't be, there's a 99% chance it's because we put him in a position to do so. And on the rare occasions I DO say "No" to him, he thinks it's the pinnacle of humor and giggles maniacally. So I don't know if the doctor is serious, but that's got to be one of the dumber questions they ask. While there, he got to have a test for lazy eye, which also made me question his doctor's sanity.

Here's how it works: they have you hold your baby on your lap in front of a screen. They then hook up three electrodes to his head, and put a little pirate eye-patch on one of his eyes. Then they start the test, which, as far as I can tell, also tests for epilepsy. The screen has black and white bars all the way down it which begin to flash rapidly, and get smaller and smaller. Then they reset it, and go again. This continues for like 5 years. I guess if, at the end, you (or your child) isn't convulsing on the floor, you win. The funny thing is that tney never bothered to ask if I or my wife was epileptic....and if I had a little more time to think about it, you better believe I would have faked a nice seizure just to liven up the visit.

I'm nice like that.