Growing Up / Spider Season

Suddenly he is growing up. Or perhaps he has been these past months, but it seems as if all the growing is occuring while we are sleeping. He has started to tell even more elaborate stories where the characters have different voices, and the action does not all revolve around trains (although most of it does.) He will ask for the German word for some things, although he prefers to make one up. (Hotpitz is a favorite.) And the other day he played nicely with the little girl from the condo next door. He even wanted to hold her hand and lead her away from the dog poop in the yard. (Until they decided it would be fun to kick.) And he tried to kiss her arm when she said that he had hurt her when trying to hold hands. Later that same day he attempted to play with a little girl at the playground. She was Ukrainian and when she said "mouth" it sounded like "mouse." Where is the mouse, JT asked, where? No, not mouse, mouth - you put the bottle to your mouth. She was having trouble communicating, but he didn't give up. These encounters were interesting to watch since JT has always been quite reserved. For the entire year of playgroup (once a week, 21-24 months), he refused to even play near the other children. (Except perhaps the very last playdate.) At his school, I have observed him pulling a litle yellow plastic wheelbarrow by himself, standing near the other kids, but not joining in. Perhaps he is coming out of his shell? Today was his first day back at school and I had to co-op. He mostly wanted to tag along with me, and when I disappeared for a minute (behind a shelf), he was upset. Perhaps tomorrow he will continue his hatching without me...

On a different note, spider season has arrived. Oy vey! This cheeky spider even spun its web right outside the backdoor. Luckily, this is the kind of spider that unweaves its web in the morning. However even if I don't run into the web when I go out to check the yard, that means that there is a fat spider hiding somewhere under a leaf or under a railing - yikes!