
Hey folks, Dale here. This isn’t really the appropriate landscape to highlight Dad’s indolence of late: he’s been working under some deadlines that have made him spotty at best in multiple regards, not the least of which are thorough and frequent postings on the website. I continue to ask how he’d manage a post position at The Times, but fearing that might jeopardize me getting chocolate, chocolate pudding, or chocolate chip cookies, I yield my inquiry and instead provide you with an update of life from my always-blue eyes.
Where am I in all of this? Just over two years and three months. I find at least a modicum of irony in that we as toddlers are all praised for our individuality, coupled with the adage that ‘every kid is different,’ yet we’re continuously measured by how our actions at a given age compare with the peak of the Gaussian distribution. How does my toilet training compare with others? Do I speak in complete sentences at least some of the time? Do I initiate games with the other toddlers? What incentive is there to achieving these tasks, just so I can become a statistic? Nobody benefits by falling within the norm, and in this vein I’ve refused to do so. To that end, I communicate exceptionally well – full sentences no problem, and more often than not finishing with a please or starting with a thank you. Just the other day, I informed Dad ‘Dad, you’ve got a piece of tissue paper on your eyebrow.’ And he did. And then they go nuts about my ability to communicate to Dad that he looks ridiculous: if these guys were scaled among any distribution, their reaction towards ebullience would suggest they need to be monitored while eating.
Now, the toilet is intense. As of last week, I’m officially interested, and as of last Tuesday, I’ve started going to the bathroom in the toilet at least once a day. I think it helps that the whole room erupts in celebration every time I’m successful, even though more often than not it means I need a change of pants. But this is insignificant in the larger picture: Rome was not built in a day, and there was rubble along the way.
I’d be dishonest if I were not to admit that the terrible twos have at least given me seasonal allergies in my age. For the most part I continue to be a spectacular student of toddlerhood, but over the past week I’ve been pushing my boundaries to see what I can get away with. Mom used to be a pushover, but that’s starting to change. Dad’s excessively rhadamanthine. I’ve endured more time outs in the past two weeks than I have in the past two years. But I have backed off a bit, and have been pleased with the response from my parents. So I think I’ll stick to being a good kid.

I entirely enjoy my matriculation to my big boy bed, and can’t even imagine what life would be like inside a crib again. The best part of all of this is that I have ready access to the books that are next to my mattress, and usually spend 20 minutes or so at night (10 in the morning) looking over the books and flipping through the pages. Dad will come in and tell me it’s time to go to sleep, but I inform him “I’m reading my book” and he usually leaves me alone. How can you scold someone for trying to advance their education? We’re not Amish.
From all of this reading, I have stunned everyone with my memory. I can recite an entire song after hearing it once. If Dad reads the first line of a story, I will tell him the next seven sentences verbatim. I’m certain this will aid me significantly in the future, but at present it is merely a fun party trick. Most importantly, I feel fortunate that I have these faculties, and choose deliberately not to hold these accomplishments above their absence in my peers. My peers are still my friends. And I cherish them at least as much as I do my ability to recount things. After all, once we lose our minds, we still have our friends, right?