who is this little person, anyway?
It should go without saying, but Harvey is a person, his own person in fact, pre-programed with likes, dislikes, and super-awesome-must-have-at-this-second emotions. As his mom, I get the unique pleasure of finding these things out as I get to know him.
For one, it seems clear that Harvey really loves animals. It started out with dogs (for obvious Rascally reasons) and has extended to all varieties of farm animals, fish, and wild animals excluding bugs. In any book it's the animals he'll point to first and he practically jumps off my lap when exclaiming their names. He never seems happier than at Chip In farm feeding beans to the animals there, and in between visits he'll spend an entire day asking, "Goat? Cow? Sheep? Goat? Cow?..."
People he's not too keen on. We have three designated play times a week: library hour on Tuesday, small group on Friday, and church on Sunday. Sometimes he'll deign to play in the same square foot as another child; at other times he'll hide in a corner or atop a chair and cry "uppy!" In my weaker moments I worry about his socialization. In my more normal moments I remember that he's a toddler child of two extreme introverts, that he demonstrates plenty of love and empathy when around adults or non-human companions, and that everything will turn out fine, even if he never snags a play date until he's married.
He also loves books. Boy howdy does he love books. With a few interruptions for singing and dancing I think we could read books all day long and he'd still be entertained. He also loves playing outside, and eating. He's not too interested in drawing, playing with playdough, or crafting in general (although he likes pushing the buttons on my sewing machine.) He loves balls and tractors. I think in his ideal world we would live on a farm and play outside all day, feeding the animals from our hands, with a stack of books on the side. That doesn't sound too bad to me either, when it comes to that. Maybe we're related.
I say this because we're going to have another baby on the way, and who knows what the next one will be like. I have a hard time believing that any child could possibly be as smart, beautiful, and fun as Harvey. He or she has got a lot to live up to.