This Land (and pen, and computer, and toe) is My Land (and pen and computer and toe)...

Ethan has discovered the glory of "mine". Sometime a couple of weeks ago I noticed it seeping it's way into his vocabulary and now, pointing out exactly what in this world belongs to him has become his primary motivation for getting out of bed. Also? This getting out of bed in the morning thing now comes with an announcement. "Ready to get up, Mommy", which is code for "if we don't get up and out of bed at this very minute, I am going to start repeating my announcement at regular, quickly successive intervals with increasing intensity and volume until you can no longer take it." Ethan is my alarm clock.

Our days now consist of Ethan pointing out the name of everything and exactly to whom it belongs. While he does tend to focus on what belongs to him ("that's my car," "that's Ethan's paci," "This is my popcicle," "That's Ethan's boo-boo,"), he is also an equal opportunity identifier. Today I alone, Ethan has considerately pointed out to me that I am indeed wearing my shirt, am in possession of my own nose and hair (I mean that separately, not like he was pointing out nose hair, dear god!), and am in fact, the owner of my car.

He is also in possession of a memory of steel when it comes to just what belongs to whom; he can pick up a toy in the backyard that was left by a friend weeks ago and say, "That's Jackson's fire truck", or find a peace pendant in between our sofa cushions and say, "That's Lucy's." Husband and I always find ourselves slack-jawed at his ability to recall these little things. After our playdate with Kingston (a friend of ours is friends of theirs and their nanny; rest assured, I am not BFFs with Gwen Stefani), I mentioned off-hand that a song on the radio was by "Kingston's mommy". Now every single time any Gwen Stefani song comes on the radio, I can hear from the backseat, "That's Kingston's mommy."

One down-side to the dawn of the age of "this is mine and this is yours" is when there's confusion over exactly what qualifies as "IS" is that equation. In the mind of a two and a half year old, the deciding factor seems to be desire, period. I want that car that you're playing with, ergo, it is "mine", or it is "my turn! my turn!" to grab it out of your white-knuckled grasp. These are good times. Obviously to be expected, what with the age and the completely self-absorbed developmental state and all, but it really does make one long for the day when one could put one's baby down on a blanket with four other babies and know that they wouldn't kvetch over the toys because they barely even knew they were there (they being the babies themselves). Ah, the good old days when the only thing that stressed me out was the colic. Oh, wait. That was hell. I'll take this any day.