Growing Older / Älter werden

Nikolas wants to be older. "Am I bigger now? Can I do that now? Today I am six! Am I six?" all are constant indicators that he understands that he is young and little and his desire to be older and bigger.

A couple weeks ago, Peter and he had the idea to record his height in the living room doorway. It's become an almost daily ritual now, Nikolas jumping up from whatever he's doing and running to the doorway shrieking, "We forgot to measure! Am I bigger now?" Then he and Peter go through the ritual measure and Peter generally says something like, "You're still growing," which means he hasn't grown, but seems to satisfy Nikolas none-the-less. The other day, to our shock, he really was bigger -- about a centimeter overnight -- which impressed us greatly, but him no more than the other days because he's not as big as us yet.

Another area for change is playing. Nikolas loves to play. Intricate games that include almost every toy he owns seem to overtake our living room. Even if a particular Lego tower only plays a 3 second role in the game, it cannot possibly be cleaned up until the game is over. But will the game ever be over, we wonder?

Playtime has taken on a whole new meaning this week. Nikolas has made a connection between wasting time on three-year-old mind-games with things like eating and dressing and whining and sitting on his head and the impact that these have on his playtime. It's an early, and somewhat inconsistent, understanding of cause and effect.

It all started the other night at dinner. While Nikolas eats like a grownup at school, fork in hand and bottom in seat, elbows off the table, saying please and thank you and eating until all is gone (we've witnessed it, so we know it is true), the same is not always the case at home. On that particular night, he was having trouble staying in his chair without slipping under the table. The fork kept falling from his hand onto the table. The chair kept moving backwards away from the table. And nothing was moving from his plate into his mouth. At some point after Peter and I had finished eating this enjoyable meal and we were still sitting there tired of coaxing, the church bells rang their six o'clock chime which is an indication that bath time is coming before too long. Usually Nikolas is finished with dinner and in the midst of a last round of play by the time the church bells ring. From under the table, Nikolas announced, "I want to play!"

We looked at the clock knowing that play time wasn't going to happen and that bath time was in jeopardy. We were still sitting at the table, playing his mind-games. I think it was I who said, "You've used up your playtime."

"I've used up my playtime?" Nikolas asked, surprised, surfacing from below the table. And then he put his head down on his chair and wept, heart wrenching sobs over the playtime he had used up.

Since then, meal times have been much better. Getting dressed has been much better. Just about everything that used to be a power struggle has gotten much better. Almost as soon as he starts dilly-dallying, Nikolas catches himself, stops momentarily, and asks, "Am I using up my playtime?"

At some point I might look back and say, "Oh, I miss when Nikolas was three and mostly irrational but thought he knew best and liked to struggle over everything." But for now I welcome these steps towards becoming a more rational, grownup boy. He's still got a long way to go, but for now I'll take what I can get.