oh captain, my captain

it's very amusing to me as a parent to watch the little personalities begin to emerge in my kids as they grow.

sashka, aka xander, has gotten steadily weirder and more amusing over the last few weeks. my little bump on log has developed a motor mouth that won't quit, and lately he's started referring to himself in the third person by the appellation of "captain." i have absolutely no idea where this title came from, all i know is that a few weeks ago he started insisting he be called captain. a few days ago we were at the playground, and i was keeping an eye on him while i was doing some schoolwork with ilya. i could hear his excited squeaky voice as he played but wasn't really paying attention to what he was saying. a while later, several small boys left with their dad, waving at sashka and calling out, "bye, captain! see you later!"

another recent development is the random dancing. it's like life is a musical and he just has to dance. but this isn't like regular kid dancing where they rock out to music. we'll be walking somewhere and he suddenly starts up with a random tap routine. the other day i told him to leave my room--i was trying to concentrate and he would NOT stop talking--and he left quite obligingly, doing a little clapping tapping exit that would have fit right in on a broadway stage. the bemusing thing is i can honestly say i have no idea what prompted all this. it's not like he's watching musicals in his spare time or something--we don't have cable so if he watches tv at all it's movies he's seen a million times and trust me, he's more into "cars" than my "sound of music" dvd.

it kind of makes me wonder if this is what it was like for my parents with me. in any case, it's funny as heck to watch.