"wrok"

As many of you know I have a son who is eighteen months old.  Like most boys his age he is a go getter and the only time there is any lack of movement is the short period s he is passed out in sleep.  I love watching him explore as I can tell already he seems to figure things out very differently.  Anytime he gets a new toy, he examines it for about an hour as he tries to figure out where the buttons are and what they do.  He finds where the sounds come from and will flip the toy on all sides to see how it works best.  And then if I am lucky, he might actually play with the toy.  Unfortunately, usually once my kid has figured it all out, he is no longer interested in the toy.  This is why if you follow me on Facebook you will notice we have activity time galore.  These activities help spark that creative process and it gives him the stimulation he needs without having to tear up my house.  Well having just entered my second trimester, I just got over the big hump of nausea so as you can imagine, planning and then following through on activity times became more difficult when I kept having to run to the bathroom to purge myself.  Simple solution: going out for walks. 

My little man LOVES the outdoors and it’s easy enough to follow him around as he explores for himself.  During the last two or three walks, he seemed to have this gravitation to rock.  He would pick one up look at it very intently, carry it around and maybe try and lick before he got the “no, no that’s icky!” and then he would eventually throw the rock and go searching for a new one.  My son is at the age where he is learning quickly, so if you repeat a word enough times he tends to pick it up.  Well it only took twice before he would go around pick up a stone and say, “wrok.”   I thought it was adorable, that is until he seemed to have some sort of emotional connection with one.  Usually when we get back to the town home we discard whatever my little man is still carrying around.  When I tried to make him release the small little pebble he was carrying in his hand, he had a complete meltdown!  I figured there was no harm in bending the rule this time and allowed him to bring it in the house thinking I could throw it outside at naptime.

He never relinquished his hold on the rock and when nap time finally came with much fighting I made him finally put the rock down.  After I had seen his unexplainable attachment to it, I didn’t have the heart to discard his new found enjoyment.  Instead I placed it on the table and forgot about it.  After nap time, it happened to be the first thing he saw and once again he carted around saying, “wrok” over and over.  This has now gone on for three days!  Did I mention this “rock” is indeed a little pebble?  The kid goes crazy when we have to search for this stupid little thing.  We ended up losing it once and had to take him out for another walk where he quickly found a suitable replacement.  To think all these months of activities and toys and apparently all my kid needed all along was a rock!