Summer of Bart Pippitz

It shames me to say that "Bart Pippitz" is Nikita's sole two-word phrase. What does it mean? Igor made up the name. We checked the telephone book: none exists in the Boston area. But perhaps one may reside in yours.

As usual, I haven't written in a while. The semester ended well enough - lots of papers - and last week, I did some freelancing and graded some Freshman Evaluation Essays. Due to the intellectual property rights of the students, I unfortunately cannot quote from the essays here, but suffice to say that I came upon some gems in my readings of summaries about sleep and adolescents.

Other than that, I am free! Well, as free as a mother of a two-year old can get. Which for me is not too bad since Nikita tends to sleep a good part of the afternoon. So, my life has partially returned to what it used to be like: trying out recipes and sleeping. Igor has gotten the baking bug, which is good because I don't bake, but bad because I now have to fight for use of our small kitchen.

I have a huge list of things to do for the house, but also spend a large part of my time entertaining Nikita. A trip to the beach two weeks ago confirmed Nikita's indifference to water. While other toddlers his age lied down in the shallow water and splashed about, Nikita waded and shoveled wet sand into a dump truck. This week, even though it's only Tuesday, we checked out a playgroup and TWO library events, one singing and one storytime.

The storytime was the most successful so far, although he has to learn to actually sit still for someone new reading. The only times he sat still was to observe some older girls more closely. Yes, this is my budding Loverboy. But I think in general, he iss fascinated with older toddlers because they can talk. At the playground, he laughed when a 3-year old claimed a bucket was "Mine!" and at the library, he learned the new word "Piggy". He now loves saying "piggy", almost as much as he loves saying, "Bart Pippitz". I guess I should take comfort in that.