When I was a baby, I babbled as a baby, I understood as a baby, I ate as a baby: but when I became a four-year-old, I put away childish avocados.
Or, as transcribed by Joyce "Mrkrgnao!"
Zardoz pronounces "Missouri" as "Wuhwrozee", which is adorable. She also asks for those damn unboxing videos all the time by saying "I want eggs!" except it comes out more like "I want aids!" which is less adorable but fairly hilarious.
Passing out from pain in the urgent care lobby while waiting for someone to un-dislocate her "nursemaid's elbow." Also singing the alphabet all the way through, with the only error J for G.
Quote of the week: "Stop hugging me. You're going to make me hurt." Also, on #2 (as it were) in the OP, "I'm going to poop. I hear it coming! Give me the wolf magazine."
Alphabet song (imperfectly) in the flickr pool, because I'm merciless like that.
Zardoz's current version the alphabet is something like "a b c, m no p, x z, me me me".
Φ's favorite number is "seventeen nine".
Kids and their poop, man. Mine likes to clutch me (suddenly!) to her bosom as she labors on the pot.
He becomes catatonic pre-poop, then comes the heinous effluent (band name!) and it's like he's had a shot of adrenalin, climbing the walls for an hour before he gets back to normal.
The Calabat was having a hard time going to sleep the other night, and so was sitting on shiv's lap in the chair in the nursery. shiv, on the other hand, was so tired that sitting in a comfy chair with the lights out made him fall asleep. So, every few minutes, shiv snores, Calabat shouts "DADDDY! DADDY SLEEPING" and mimics his snoring perfectly.
He has the alphabet song down and can recognize most of the letters, and looks at me like I'm crazy when I insist that the number after fourteen isn't "fiveteen."
Mine keeps begging me to let him use my YouTube account to make comments on Minecraft videos. "No, son, I don't want you wasting your time making stupid comments on the Internet."
That he prefers the honest vulgarity of Trump's tower to the safe postmodern buildings of the last few years.
Actually, I wish there was a place I felt ok with him making stupid comments on the Internet, because he needs the writing practice. There should be an Unfogged Junior.
Or maybe I could just show him how to use IRC.
There should be an Unfogged Junior.
I'd read that for Smearcase's cat's comments.
when I insist that the number after fourteen isn't "fiveteen."
Thirteen, fourteen, fixteen, seventeen. I just can't bring myself to see if there's already a band called the Fixteens.
"Because I have to don't" was a great bit of synthesized grammar recently.
Teapot is 100% consistent on singing A-L and O-Z, but never gives M and N a thought. Also totally consistent: counting 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 5. Getting less consistent: counting 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 5 for every damn thing, however many of it there are.
He's got second person and first person pronouns swapped, so the running narration of his own actions sounds like a stream of imperatives, and there's a strong tendency for formality (after talking over his lullaby and missing a line: "I beg your pardon, what did you say?"). Very fond of asking things how they are: cats, xylophones, ears, whatever. Pretty sure this hit peak adorbz when he greeted a friend's dehumidifier: "Hi, that. How are you, that?"
"I beg your pardon, what did you say?"
adorable
Yes. At first I thought it was in the wrong thread, then I got it.
Everybody wants to talk about poop.
Have I mentioned that my kid went through a phase where in public he'd loudly say to me, "I'm going to poop on your head!"?
That was charming.
Little sister refers to her three older brothers as "the brothers." "Where did the brothers go?"
She has a first 100 words book and knows most of them or at least a reasonable interpretation of the picture but makes some random mistakes by substituting a much more complex word. For camel she said it was a buffalo.
8 A reenactment of Poltava is in your future.
10: well it is a pretty terrible experience, as things we do every goddamn day go. I always wish I could remember where I read the interview with the dying poet who said, about dying, "at least I'll never have to take a shit again."
23: That's just speaking truth to power.
26: I think that was Oscar Wilde, except he actually said, "Either those curtains go or I go on them."
"I find it harder and harder every day to live up to my blue china toilet bowl." Hashtag Oscar Wilde but About Excretion
26: Remember the time some dillhole compared sex to taking a decent shit?
The key is a good fiber supplement.
33 reminds me of the pilots' joke about how the three greatest things in life are a well-executed landing, a profound sexual experience and a satisfying bowel movement, and that's why it's great being a naval aviator because a carrier landing at night generally combines all three.
One of my grandfathers declared late in life that sex is overrated and pissing is underrated. I have appreciated urination more since.
I'm not planning to scorn it until I'm not having any any more.
What's wrong with pooping? Perfectly pleasant esp. if you have good reading material. And these days, with cell phones, one always has good reading material.
I'm glad we can be there for you in your time of need.
Now everyone should end their comments with "By the way, I'm pooping right now." Only when it's true? Not sure.
"I'm going to poop. I hear it coming! Give me the wolf magazine."
This might be my favorite thing I've ever read.
This no longer appears to work, but it fails pretty entertainingly.
When I was in California a couple months ago, I got a text from Roberta telling me that our seven-year-old daughter had just announced: "When I'm 18, I'm gonna be so sassy and have a pink phone and wear black cat stuff and on Halloween I'm going to be a big slut."
Well, it's good to have achievable goals, I guess.
See if more kids were like 44 I might be more amused by them. Heh. Big slut. That's cute!
If she's limiting to one day of the year you've succeeded as a parent.
Rilee and I were discussing the predators of ducks. She suggested crocodiles, dragons, and aliens.
I'm pretty sure her comment was informed by walking through the costume section at Party City.
Isn't Halloween traditionally the big slut holiday? I think St. Patricks day is a contender, but Halloween is still in the lead.
Seems like it should be Mothers Day.
Blaze your own trail. Have a slutty Arbor Day!
xelA uses 'my' as a generic first person pronoun.
'My want that one.'
'My did it!'*
He also seems to have a couple of other idiosyncratic prepositions.
'wa' - for, or belonging to.
'a' - with/and
The latter is probably coming from Czech. Not sure about 'wa', that may be some confusion between a Czech preposition, and baby pronunciation of 'for'.
Other babysplosion babies, reading Facebook reports, seem to have linguistic skills just short of writing their first monograph.
* usually said triumphantly when he turns on the TV which we've just turned off. He's worked out that if he turns off the digital TV box [which has a big glowing coloured button] and then turns it back on again, the 'smart' TV wakes up. Even if the remote control is safely out of reach.
xelA likes to take a shit in private. So if he needs to do that, he goes and stands in a corner, or goes behind the curtain. He absolute favourite, if we are at home, is to go into his bedroom and shut the door. If you try to come in and check he's OK, he'll chase you out shouting 'Back! Back!' and 'No yours! No yours!'.
xelA is quite obsessed by Czech films, even though he doesn't [other than possibly 'a' and 'wa', and the word Yes, which he always says in Czech] seem to speak any. His concentration span is extraordinary. He'll watch an entire 90 minute or 2 hour movie, absolutely rapt.
Although he wanted to watch 'Mrazik'* [Czech dubbed version of the Russian film Morozko]* last weekend, and had to abandon half-way through, clinging to me, telling me it was too scary. Which, to be honest, it is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOdXsaWfzkk&t=2m40s
Specifically that bit, where Nastenka puts the bucket on his head, and the mushroom guy turns the guy's head into a bear's head.
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Frost_%281964_film%29
** amazing cinematography, btw.
I do need to transcribe the monologue the two year old went on a couple weeks ago about something that happened to her at school (which apparently has no basis in reality.) I have a video of it too, I might post it.
Her default answer when you ask a question and she doesn't understand/doesn't know is "yeah." Even if it's not a yes/no question. "Who's your friend?" "Yeah."
Wrong link above:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOdXsaWfzkk&t=24m00s
My son has decided that the height of wit is to respond with the following MP3 file from dictionary.com, whenever he's on his Ipad and asked or told to do anything else.
http://static.sfdict.com/staticrep/dictaudio/M06/M0631500.mp3
58: This is what O did when he shit in diapers -- hiding behind doors and shrieking "Don't look at me!" Now that he does it in the toilet it's a command performance with audience required -- and long, nattering updates about how it's going.
My friend's daughter has taken to retreating to a play tent in the living room to poop, and moved all her stuffed animals in there so they ring the edges, making it sort of a poop star chamber.
57.penultimate & 59.1 He's just a late bloomer. I eagerly await xelA's forthcoming monograph on the Czech New Wave. Has he seen any Němec, Chytilová or Forman yet?
re: 64
Yeah, xelA has a play tent in his bedroom, which he also sometimes uses for the same purpose.
xelA is quite obsessed by Czech films
Jan Svankmajer! He'll probably only have nightmares for a few years.
Feeling blessed right now that my kids have been non-neurotic about poop.
Iris said yesterday to AB, "I think that people who are born in a season have a particular affinity for that season."
re: 65
His speech is pretty normal, I think, for a (just) 2 year old. He was a late starter, but has mostly caught up, I think. He's definitely behind where my niece was at the same age, and some of the babysplosion prodigies, though.
re: 65.2
No, in fact, I think the only New Wave film we have in the house is Ucho. Although we do have lots of fairly avant-garde looking cartoons.
Let's see, one has been asking not just our friends but new acquaintances if they'll help take care of her if I die, another gives me an update on the state of the bags under my eyes every morning, and the third has learned to call me a fucking bitch from one of her daycare classmates. They are also wonderful and I adore them.
xelA is quite obsessed by Czech films
I think I went through that phase in the 90s.
Um, it's a joke about porn. There, I explained that.
Newt may be dating -- that is, he's being cagy about doing stuff with a 'friend', name not offered, but he also keeps talking about it. And has been taking pictures of a stuffed penguin posed cutely near things, also to be sent to the same friend. (Who he's actually dropped enough information to identify, despite failed attempts at caginess. Big tall sardonic girl who gives him a hard time, from when I've seen them together. I approve. Her parents, who are immigrants and seem to keep a tightish leash in terms of letting her socialize much, may not.)
Big tall sardonic girl who gives him a hard time
Doesn't he get enough of that at home?
74: Yeah, I think he's built up some non-standard norms of femininity, what with me and Sally.
some non-standard norms of femininity
Can be very appealing even when you haven't grown up with it. My daughter was saying a few days ago how often guys tell her that not being like the girls they grew up with, that is not instinctively deferring but speaking up, arguing, breaking into his talking is precisely what attracts them.
At the Decagon some friend of Stanley's repeatedly asked LB to chastise him. (She didn't (in public).)
For Newt, particularly, while he's a sweet, helpful, lovable kid, he's also a bombastic loudmouth (I know. How did that happen?), so I like seeing him choose to hang around with people who he's not going to run over.
But I am attempting not to be nosy -- I should really be respecting his (hilariously failed) attempts not to talk about it.
(Sally, if she's dating or thinking about it, does the caginess much better. Several very close male friends, but nothing that's sounding particularly romantic.)
79: Oh, geez, that guy. I did not understand that conversation.
When Pokey was about two, he was taking a bath, and he said exitedly, "Daddy! There's a HOLE in my bottom!" That is one of my favorite quotes of his. He stood up and bent over and was like, "See? See? It's right there!"
One of Hawaii's new earrings adorably fell out over the past day at some point and adorably got lost. This morning sort of sucked. I blame Claire's Boutique - the backs were alledgedly "locking" and we weren't supposed to touch or tighten them.
Iris said yesterday to AB, "I think that people who are born in a season have a particular affinity for that season."
I was born in December.
I fucking hate December.
And has been taking pictures of a stuffed penguin posed cutely near things
WAIT. OMG I know who Newt is! Very well spoken for his age, although rather too world weary, I think.
I was born at the end of November and (at least in North Carolina for a person as heat-averse as I am) the weather is seldom better.
85: Actually, a very similar looking penguin, assuming you're talking about Flip's FB pictures. But I'm fairly sure Flip is not Newt.
Kid A: what's that thing that Catholics say to each other in church?
Kid B: don't have an abortion?
(Made me laugh anyway.)
Kid D has to kiss someone in a play (Gormenghast. She is Titus. In that act anyway) and is aghast at the prospect. She also keeps showing me pictures of Thomas Brodie Sangster that she has as backgrounds on various devices.
Kid C just grunts.
70.1: you know, a few months back you reported something incredibly impressive about xelA's language acquisition, while Teapot, three months older, was still tootling along with "dat" and "buh". Seems to go in fits and starts.
I still remember how great it was realizing the real time commentary poop phase was OVER. Aaaah.
Now we are in this transition phase where comments that even a few months or weeks ago would have gotten a satisfyingly outraged response are instead treated as perfectly reasonable. For example, earlier this week the kid was in bed lamenting that his post dance class shower left his hair wet and once he'd slept on it it would be funky. I offered to help him out with some "product", anticipating a good "gross! NO WAY!" but instead he said thanks and he'd touch base in the morning if needed. :-(
On the up side, what he's lost in amusing gullibility he's gained in self deprecating and/or ironic charm, so that's nice!
NOW SEE, THAT'S CARGO...
I hope your child didn't actually say "touch base".
It's part of the new emphasis on making education prepare kids for corporate careers.
Nope! He probably said something in a language I don't understand but I got the point.
97! So damn true. I started to say "reach out," and I hate myself for doing it.
He'll circle back around and see if he can leverage that when it is an actionable item.
Just now... "Are you kidding me? You're excited because we're going to play caterpillar patrol!"
Sadly, now they're playing some kind of labor/management game. I really need to better educate Noser. He's not raging against the machine nearly enough.
