Learning Is Fun

My little man is experimenting with first names. This means that just as often as he calls me “momma” he calls me “faith”. Actually, what he does is call me “faif”. Like yesterday when we were about to leave the house he called, “do you have the keys, faif?” There are certain phrases that my BoBeans has learned really well because he hears them over and over. Anytime someone leaves the house without him they are admonished to “drive safe”.

I have always wondered why Harper Lee choose to have the children in the literature classic To Kill A Mockingbird refer to their father by his first name. For whatever reason, she did and my husband has taken to calling my son “Jem” when the little guy addresses him by his first name because that is the name of the little boy in the book. My husband congratulated himself on how clever that was.

Another word BoBeans is trying out is the word “no”; he always answers a question that way, even when he means to say yes; it’s really kind of frustrating. If he is offered a chocolate cookie he responds in the negative, but as soon as the cookie is taken away he screams frantically to have it back. Really, what is that? Ugh! Use of that word has also made him capable of being bossy. I have been instructed not to nibble on his toes, not to move his cars, not to sing, and also not to kiss Daddy.

My son seems to be making an attempt to figure out what his role in the family is. He is a little mommy to the baby when it comes to phrases like “no touch!” and “no shouting!” (There’s that word again!) I would love to say that his primary focus is the baby’s health and well-being, but most of the time he is telling her not to touch his cars and trucks, or to stop crying when she is waiting to be fed. Yesterday he informed me that he was checking the baby’s diaper for any yuckies; he also tries to help her with her shoes when we are preparing to go somewhere.

Considering the fact that he is two-and-a-half I thought now would be a good time to learn some life skills other than making sure one has the keys before locking the front door. I also thought that it would give us more one-on-one time. For some reason I decided that having him help with the dishes would be a good idea. By help I mean that he plays in the water and makes his immediate area generally soggy. But it’s fun and it is something that we can do together that still enables me to get my housework done.