Stacker

Today Matthew brought Oliver over and said "Can you show Mama what we've been working on?" Oliver brought out his wooden ring stacker and carefully took off all the rings, then he grabbed them one by one and put about half of them on before starting over. What a genius we have! The top of the ring stacker has a ball/knob that fits on the end. That one is the hardest and it took him several times to get it on. At one point when it fell off again he grabbed it and shook it up and down several times in frustration. You can really see the wheels of concentration turning and the deliberation in his tasks these days. Of course with this increased sense of purpose comes frequent melt downs when he doesn't get to do what he wants. He's pretty patient with himself if he has to try several times to get something, but he's not patient with me if I won't let him do something dangerous. It is a challenge to enforce boundaries after a long days work, for sure. You end up pausing and saying to yourself, "Let's just make the next 2 hours happy ones. Is it so bad to suck on a rusty nail really?" Then you come to your senses.