Beware of Harmless Questions

There is a spot in my chest that trills with fear whenever someone asks my son, “how are you?” When he was a little younger he would reply something like, “I’m two,” and I could totally deal with the cuteness. Now I just haven’t a clue what his response is going to be, and I’m the type of person who is generally not fond of surprises.

Last week at the doctor’s office when the nurse inquired after his health, “Gloppity-glop,” was his response. Had I not known that he picked up this phrase (and many others) from Dr. Seuss, I may have been a bit concerned as gloppity-glop sounds like it might be catching. I do a lot of smiling and patting him on the head when we’re out in public. Thankfully he hasn’t said anything bad or inappropriate. Yet.

Quirky phrases and odd quotes I can live with. However, some of his responses make me yearn for the days when he would hide behind my legs if a stranger addressed him. “Miff muffered moof” doesn’t sound so rude, but I could definitely live without his desire to wow the world with his facial muscle contortion control.

There have been times when a polite greeting has been returned with a roll of the eyes into the back of the head and a fantastical tongue lolling instead of a sweet blue-eyed toddler smile. I frequently find myself hoping that the recipient whose benign question elicited such a response has raised boys, or at least some sort of child who was once three-years-old.

As if these things aren’t enough to make a mother ill at ease, there is another charming habit he’s picked up that should really be exercised only at home. After a few minutes of watching Daddy play some Zelda video games, the little man became magically adept at reproducing the sounds of the main character, Link, attacking his foes and jumping off of high places in a single bound. The child now trots about (literally trots) whilst shouting a guttural “heeeeyyy-hey!” and whacking the furniture with a plastic golf club.

Aside from the furniture beating, the whole act is really rather cute. Inside. When taken outside I’m sure the entire block thinks he’s being forced to do something against his rather strong will, or he’s just being very rude and angry with mommy. It’s even better when he takes up his attack stance in a physician’s office or grocery store. This type of behavior tends to startle people. Perhaps I should set aside five minutes every day to indoctrinate about the proper way to greet people; especially people we don’t know.

Pumpkin the Knight

Much to the chagrin of my husband, our daughter has taken possession of one of her brother’s PlayMobil knights. She hugs him and pets him and calls him “Pumpkin”. Previously, her Bubby had named the black knight “Link” (from the Zelda video games), but she has totally disregarded this and persists in calling the little stiff plastic axe-wielder Pumpkin.

I think it’s cute. She points to his molded plastic toushy and declares his diaper clean; she sings “Rock-a-bye Baby” to him. Daddy finds this whole routine appalling. He seems concerned about what it will do to Pumpkin’s self-esteem. I’m betting Pumpkin’s self-esteem is about as immovable as his tiny plastic ankles.

Cows on the Brain

Ever since the birthday party at the farm, my daughter has been more than usually obsessed with cows. If the family is out for one of our weekend rambling drives in the nearby almost-country, she sits in her car seat, which is still rear-facing because she’s such a peanut, points toward things she can’t even see and says “look at the COWS!”

One of our local zoos gives mommies free admission on Mother’s Day and we have made it a tradition to spend a few hours there watching the animals laze around in the sun or walk circles around the little outbuildings in their enclosure. This year everything was proclaimed a cow, from the zebra to the camel. A gentle correction of “no, honey, that’s an ibex” would elicit an “it’s an ibex” and a pointed index finger from the sweetie pie; but as we walked away “bye cows!” was the inevitable refrain. I believe the peacock escaped this label due to his bright blue and green feathers.

In the evenings after Daddy comes home from work it is common practice for him to enquire after our doings during the day. My answer generally follows along the lines of dishes, laundry, errands, and random other mundane household type chores, with a bit of sewing/designing and some fun playtime with the kids thrown in. Pretty predictable.

When my son’s turn comes he gets animated, stammers a lot, and tends to tell exciting stories from the previous week that are still fresh in his memory. Unless of course we happened to go to the post office or grocery store: then he tells dear old dad all about the great fun we had buying milk and bread. I’m a stay-at-home mom in the truest sense of the word, so the kiddos get pretty amped up for the weekly trip to buy fruit and veggies; even a visit to the doctor’s office is met with enthusiasm as long as no shots are involved. Not that we stay home all the time, I’m just not an on-the-go kind of person.

Usually the little girl takes cues from her brother and repeats snippets of his dialogue, shows off her baby doll, or starts in with patty-cake. However, the other night when her turn rolled around, our daughter managed a remarkably articulate response when the question was put to her. When asked, “what did you do today?” she replied in a very cool and collected tone, “I looked for cows.”

Stackable Babies

We're wondering how a to fit a third sweet-cheeked little baby into our home. Perhaps if we can only get the existing children to sleep like this we may be able to conserve some space...

Say Hello, Optimus

Getting new underwear is exciting. In recent weeks I've begun to wonder if buying plain old boring white underpants for little people isn't better than the fun Spider-Man and Transformers underwear.

With a certain young man continuing to get bigger around here there arose a need for some larger underpants. When the old ones started to leave nasty looking elastic marks around my son's entire midsection I decided that it had been put off long enough; trying to force your child to stay little and stop growing doesn't work, it just leaves marks. During one of my few and far between trips to Walmart I grabbed a package of cool looking Transformers undies. The little man approved my selection with fervor and asked to wear them every five minutes until I managed to wash them in preparation for his tiny heiney.

Shortly after Optimus Prime made the trek from dryer to top drawer Nana got a surprise unveiling when the child removed his pants in order to show her his new prized possession. Woohoo! Really, that's not so bad and we got a good laugh out of it. I mean, what nana wouldn't want to see Bumblebee plastered across her grandson's rear end?

Last week he picked out Spider-Man underwear at the store. The same excitement went along with this purchase, and there was no peace in this house until Peter Parker and his spidey suit went through a wash and dry cycle. Thankfully no inappropriate strip tease followed the donning of these underpants. We did, however, find ourselves telling the checkout lady at Target all about them yesterday.

She was a sweet soul and seemed just as thrilled about the underwear as my son was. It's been so long since I've had new underwear that when I finally do get some I might feel compelled to tell complete strangers about them too.

Play-Doh with Dad

Notice the rather big hat that the little man is wearing... then try to find the little hat the rather big man is wearing...















Play-Doh with Mom consists of making coil pots, and squishing it through special Play-Doh presses that mold the stuff into fun shapes. When Dad plays there is born an army of sea creatures- sharks, whales, puffer fish, etc.- and there are the hats .

This is the Phrase that is Heard Day and Night...

There is a mantra my son repeats often throughout any given day. He says it in the morning, repeats it in the afternoon, and asks it adamantly during the evening: “Daddy be home soon?” If he does not get the desired answer he will sometimes replace “daddy” with other members of the family, most frequently “nana”.

I suppose he gets bored what with mommy tending to the dishes and the laundry and the cooking. An occasional game of memory with dinosaur cards and an afternoon romp in the yard isn’t quite enough attention for a person. One can only ride a bike around the dining room table so many times, and fight over toys with a little sister for so many hours a day.

Yesterday, however, time was found with which to have a little snuggle on the couch. The little man rested his head on my ever-growing baby belly and looked up at me with those bright blue eyes and edible cheeks. “Momma, the baby gonna be home soon?” Well, now, as if he wasn’t quite cute enough already.