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KQ, I was thinking of your little one the other day when they did a special on baby signs on the Today Show.
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She said her first two-word "thought-chain almost-sentence" yesterday. I hadn't put away the non-perishables yet, and she kept going over to the bags of groceries and pulling out the baby cookies and hitting the box, indicating that she wanted some. After the third time I took them away and explained that she had already had enough cookies today, and offering her smoothie (which she refused), she looked at me and, very clearly and rather resentfully, said, "Abba cookie." Then she looked at the door. I'm not sure whether she was saying "Abba always lets me have cookies" or "Fine, I'll just wait until Abba gets home and he'll give me a cookie" or "Abba's nicer than you. He gives me cookies", but the intent was clear. Of course, Jeff got home and I told him the story, and what do you think he did?
That's right. He went over, picked her up, smiled when she exclaimed, "Abba!"-- and gave her a cookie.
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Yes, it is, beverly. She's just very, very strong-willed, but we kind of figured she would be when she, ah, repeatedly kicked out of the double swaddles the nurses put her in (they accused me of "not doing it right" until she repeatedly and before their eyes undid their own handiwork within seconds of being put down) and removed her ankle bracelet three times and her wrist bracelet four in the two days we were in the hospital. *sigh*
And, hey, it's apparently an 18 to 24 month old task, so at least we know nothing's wrong with her language development. *sigh again*
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I watch 6-year-old twin boys and they are hilarious.
Twin #1: Look, it's a Pizza Jones car. Kira: What? Twin #2: That green car is from Pizza Jones. Kira [looks at green car with Papa John's sign]: Oh, of course.
Twin #1: Me and Isaac are having a drinking contest. Kira: Are you going to drink him under the table? Twin #1: Huh? [The contest was to see who could finish his drink the fastest.]
Twin #1: When are you going to have kids? Twin #2: She can't have kids yet, she's just a teenager.
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KQ, your kids call their dad Abba? I'm just curious... where did they pick that up? "Aba" is dad in Hebrew, and my sister and I call our parents that. But we're Jewish!
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Thomas's new thing is making various items talk. Or rather, he makes them whisper. It's hilarious! He picked up his stuffed dinosaur the other day and, carefully moving the jaws, whispered 'hi thomas'. He does the same thing with his Grandmother's nutcrackers.
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Raia, I only have the one, and she chose her own word. See, we were trying to get her to say "Da-da", but she wasn't saying her "d"s yet. So she tried really hard and came out with "Ab-ba". Since we knew it meant "Dad" in several languages, we just went along with it. A week and a half later, she started saying her "d"s, but by that time, "Abba" was firmly established as Jeff's name. And you know, once one kid starts it, it spreads to the whole family, so yeah, he'll probably be Abba forever now.
When we met Rivka, it startled her, too. She did the most hilarious double-take I have ever seen when she heard it. Literally. It was wonderful.
And hey, unless we're living in a community with a high proportion of the population that are Hebrew-speakers or something, it will always be easy for Jeff to tell when he's being paged vs. every other "Dad" out there.
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Most babies say the same types of first sounds (names)for mother and father, throughout the world.
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Yeah, Elizabeth, rivka, Papa Moose and I had a good discussion when this came up about theories why the "ma" sound is used for mother in most cultures, and there are three basic sounds for father-- "pa", "ba", and "da"-- that are also almost universal.
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My best friend (Notorious Shira, on Hatrack, though she hasn't been here in about a year) calls my parents Aba and Ima. And I call her mom Ima too (her parents are divorced). It's great. Posts: 7877 | Registered: Feb 2003
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quote: Yes, it is, beverly. She's just very, very strong-willed, but we kind of figured she would be when she, ah, repeatedly kicked out of the double swaddles the nurses put her in (they accused me of "not doing it right" until she repeatedly and before their eyes undid their own handiwork within seconds of being put down) and removed her ankle bracelet three times and her wrist bracelet four in the two days we were in the hospital. *sigh*
kq, I think yours and mine are kindred spirits. Although, I must say that you need a Sara Sasse around. She wraps a mean swaddle, that woman! Even Sophie couldn't easily unswaddle herself from her swaddles. Sophie didn't undo her wrist bracelet, but she did kick off her ankle bracelet twice in the hospital.
She's been vocalizing her opinion quite strongly this past week, especially when there is something she wants, or when I take away something -- like the toy nuts and bolts book I bought for her not realizing the pieces were just small enough to be a choking hazard (the girl's got a big mouth, I tell ya!).
I can see the challenges ahead and only hope that I can keep a steady guiding hand.
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Would you mind if I share something funny Liam did recently? He's five and a half and says the funniest things sometimes.
Like when he and his brother and our neighbor girl were playing on the playground at Chick fil A, there was this smaller kid following them, trying to play along. He was maybe three. Robert and the others were going around kind of fast, and Liam was trying to look out for the little guy. He shouted, "Wait for the baby!"
This really annoyed the younger boy. "I'm not a baby!"
Liam looked puzzled, no doubt surprised that he'd upset the little guy while trying to look out for his best interests. Sounding truly shocked and confused, Liam said, "But you're wearing a striped shirt!" That seemed to explain everything.
Now the kid is probably driving his parents batty and will never wear stripes again.
Oh, and while we were packing to go see my family, Ron looked down the stairs and saw Liam straddling the banister. It's a bit wabbly and Ron was upset. "Liam (insert full name here), get down from there right now! I don't ever want to see you doing that again!"
Liam got off the banister and said, " I didn't think you'd see me this time."
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KQ, I've got a couple of strong-willed ones myself. I have never seen a newborn rage like my oldest. He had a specific idea about how things were supposed to be, and if they didn't follow suit, he threw a fit so bad I feared he would hurt himself.
I remember when we were trying to teach him the colors. He thought blue was called red. We would tell him it was blue and he would rage, "Noooooo, it's red!!!!!" And when he had his third birthday, he was deeply offended when anyone told him he was three. "I AM TWOOOO!!!!" To him, it was an unchanging part of his identity.
Last night he did/said something that I found both funny and deeply touching at the same time. You see, he tells us he *never* wants to get married, and we've never really understood why. I was his substitute Sunday School teacher last Sunday and we were talking about prophets. We talked about some of the things that our modern-day-prophet tells us to do, like get married. He stood up, tear running down his cheeks, and said, "I never want to get married!" I said something placating and moved on with the lesson.
Last night I was talking to him about it and asked him about it. I told him that he didn't have to get married now, and not to worry about it because he actually might want to get married when he was older. He broke down in tears again, professing that he would never, never want to get married. I said, "Why not?" He responded, "Because giving birth can hurt really bad and I don't want my wife to hurt like that!" Then he burst into a heap of tears on my lap.
O_o
Dude, you just never know what is going to traumatize your kid.
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When my sister was born, she was born with an insane amount of hair. It was also much longer than average for a baby. When she was a year old, or so, she'd suddenly grab it, and pull as hard as she could... and then start screaming. She didn't make the association between what she was doing and what was hurting her. She had no idea that if she let go, it would stop hurting.
And wrenching her hand away from her head took some doing, I'll tell you... she had quite a grip!! And of course, while she was tormented, she would hang on for dear life.
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The funny thing was I then asked him if he wanted me to have another kid--'cause, you know, it hurts, right? And he's like, "But Mom, you're strong enough to handle it. What if my wife isn't?"
What do you say to that?
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You say that 1) there are medicines that can help make it better, and 2) God gives women the strength to deal with it, and 3) almost all women think it's worth the pain to have a sweet little baby. Then you thank him for saying you're strong.
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Yeah, he knew about the medication, but he is such a realist. He knows that it doesn't always work or that his wife might not want it. This implies that, in his lil' 5-yr-old brain, if his wife wanted to go natural, he would be royally freaked out.
I did go into a long explaination about how there are many girls in this world who really, really want to have babies. They want to get married and have families. And they want this bad enough that they are willing to go through any pain involved. They know it will hurt, but they want to do it anyway. This seemed to cause him to reflect, and something interrupted us and we didn't talk after that.
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I have no kids of my own being a senior in highschool and all but I have a sister ten years younger than me and she's currently eight. I can almost see all of you doing the math right now to figure out I'm 18. But she's a diehard gymnast and I went to help at her gymnastics meet where I saw an amazing cute little kid stunt. This kid, about 6, was running full bore down a ramp leading into the building suddenly he tripped and I thought "this is going to be bad." but no the kid turned his fall into a full summersault, flipped up, and kept running without batting an eye. Only at a gymnatics meet. Posts: 832 | Registered: Jan 2005
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Oh, beverly, that's a beautiful story! Maybe it's because my oldest is a boy too that it really, really touched me your son would think of his future wife so tenderly.
When I was pre-adolescent, I could not figure out why my mother would have children. She said it hurt. So I just couldn't figure out why she'd want to have me, let alone my younger brother (did it once, sure, but why put yourself through it *again*?). I puzzled over this and finally decided not to have kids because they didn't seem worth the pain. So I grew up, and surprise! You're pregnant, Mrs. Downs. And I discovered that while it does hurt, it is the sweetest kind of pain there is, because at the end, you've been integral to the creation of another person. Right after having my son, I had the strongest sense of pity/sorrow for men who could never have the experience, except vicariously. The old platitude is, I think, true: nothing truly worthwhile comes without some pain.
Does your son like to do anything that requires some real effort and sometimes pain, like sports? Does he ride a bike? I might explain it to my son like: You remember how you fell on your bike a lot when you were first learning? And how that hurt, but you still did it because you wanted to learn and get better at it? In a way, that's kind of like having a baby. It hurts for a little while, but it's well worth the effort. Posts: 5948 | Registered: Jun 2001
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jeniwren, that is a good idea if I can relate it to something that he does where he puts up with hard things in order to acheive a goal. Unfortunately, while he is extremely goal oriented, he gets very impatient with things that make that goal difficult. I hope that with time his desire to acheive something will outweigh his discouragement when things get tough.
When I was a child, I was terrified of the pain of giving birth. It hung over me like a dark, menacing cloud. (This from the child who, when realizing that after my school vaccinations I would have to get boosters at 15, let that seriously freak me out. I never wanted to turn 15! Yet I knew I had little choice in the matter.) Especially since I had every intention of getting married and having kids. I couldn't imagine my future without those things.
It wasn't until the end of my first pregnancy that I began understanding that a woman at that point is willing to do almost anything to GET THE BABY OUT!! Posts: 7050 | Registered: Feb 2004
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Most of the posts have been about things kids have said. This one is not.
Yesterday I drove my parents' van instead of mine. It needs to be driven occasionally while they're away, and so it was my car for the day. I didn't have the kids in the morning. So when I noticed that all the seats in the back were folded down, I figured no problem, I'd deal with that before I picked them up in the afternoon.
That afternoon, I parked at my son's school, and spent 10 minutes trying to figure out how to open the seats. I managed to figure out how to remove the seats from the vehicle, but could not open them.
Went to get son. Asked him if he knows where the mechanism is. He says no. Oy.
Ok, worst case, he'll sit in the front, and we'll switch cars at home before we go to get the girls.
He got in the back. Less than 10 seconds later, he had the first seat opened.
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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Liam wasn't even two yet when he opened a window, popped the little latches that holdthe screen in, and climbed out. All this in the time it took me to transfer browned ground beef from a skillet to a pot of sauce. Oy.
THe window was open a couple of inches atthe bottom, but Ron had closed the wood blinds so he wouldn't notice. HA! Liam is all-seeing! Never , ever count on Liam not noticing something.
Luckily, the window was six inches off the ground, and I noticed his disappearance very quickly.
What can I say? He was my second, and my first had always stayed close to me and played on the kitchen or living room floor while I cooked. Not Liam. Once he was mobile, he was constantly TRYING to get away from me. Posts: 1664 | Registered: Apr 2004
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That's one smart cookie. Our oldest was quite an escape artist as well. We lived in a basement apartment with a large fenced in yard. The gate's self-closing latches were too high for a little toddler to reach--yet again and again he found a way to sneak out. It was embarrassing having neighbors bring him back home before I'd even realized he was missing!
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The second time Liam tried the window trick (I didn't even know Ron had opened the window-- he'd shut the blinds) someone working on the water line across the street saw him climb out, snatched him and rang my doorbell.
I was putting away the laundry upstairs. I felt like a slug. Just before that my next door neighbor's youngest had squeaked out through the doggie door while she was changing shirts before taking them to dance class. Another neighbor caught her running down the street.
The older Liam gets, the more amazed I become that anyone lives to adulthood.
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Olivetta, when my sister was about a year old, maybe less, she climbed out of her crib... the kind that it's supposed to be impossible to climb out of. She fell on the ground with a huge THUD.
She was the only person in the entire house who was completely unphased by this. Everyone else was crying. Posts: 7877 | Registered: Feb 2003
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I have no children, but this thread reminded me of something cute I saw in the grocery store a while ago. We were going down an aisle, and there was another cart with a boy of maybe 2 (not sure, I'm not good at guessing kids' ages) in the child seat. It was stopped sideways in the aisle, which left the kid facing the juices while his mom picked out canned vegetables. He looked around in front of him for a few seconds, then said in this really quiet little astonished/overwhelmed voice, "Mommy...juice everywhere!"
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I dunno why, but that makes me think of a scene in an episode of "Malcom in the Middle" where the little boy (I don't know names) lifts the couch cushion to see what is under there. The camera then shows us a rosie-fog, glistening image of treats and treasures--supposedly the little boy's impression of what he sees. He grabs some random crumb and pops it in his mouth as though it were a delectable truffle.
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quote:He looked around in front of him for a few seconds, then said in this really quiet little astonished/overwhelmed voice, "Mommy...juice everywhere!"
Thomas is like that in Home Depot. "oooooooh...tools! Drivers!"
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I know that episode, Beverly! And he (Dewey) wants a toy he saw on TV. He asks his mom and she says no. But what he hears is, "Ask me again in five seconds." So he does.
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I wish I had read this thread earlier... If anyone is still interested, on my Dad's side of the family, the oldest male becomes Pipo, and oldest female becomes Mima. It's Spanish, and I think they are variations of mother and father. I don't remember exaclty. We're Cuban. Posts: 1401 | Registered: Jun 2004
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My older brother has the cutest, smarted children I have ever seen. The other day, I called their house to talk to my mom. What follows is a trasncript of what happened.
::sound of phone being picked up, fumbled for, caught, fumbled for again, and finally held to mouth, where nothing but heavy breathing ensues from for a couple seconds:
Me: (hesitantly)hello? nephew: (very perky)It's me, Javan! Me:Oh, well hello Javan. Is Grandma home? nephew: No... I'm playing Dora. Me: You are? nephew: Yeah. I'm really good. Me: Thats cool, sweetie. Are you having fun? Nephew: Yeah. I'm really good. Kate is too(his baby sister), but she wants to play. But I'm better. Me: Do you know who this is? nephew: Yeah... Me: Really? Who? nephew: Yeah... Me: It's your auntie. ::He then then proceeds to interupt me, telling me all about his day and how can turn the computer on, and how much he loves his baby sister (who trys to climb up on the chair he's on while we are talking, and who he immediately pushes off, then climbs down and apologizes to and kisses.) and about the plane he saw that he is going to fly. Then his mom comes in the room, asks him who he is talking to him, and he tells her my name (which I never told him, and he has 3 aunties, and has only seen me once, 1 1/2 years ago).::
So stinkin cute.
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My sister Maya was good friends with our three year old neighbor, in the US... she'd half-babysit her sometimes, or just go over to play. Elizabeth loved it.
One afternoon, I had to ask her mom a question... so I knocked on the door. Elizabeth showed up and peeked through the glass panes on either side of the door... then I saw her run back into the rest of the house, and I heard her yell "Mommy!!! It's Maya's mommy!"
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I only had one 6-year-old twin yesterday (other one is still sick) and he was telling me that he learned about Utah in school.
Kira: That's neat. What did you learn about it? Twin: The people who live there are called Mormons. Kira: Well, not all of the people who live there are Mormons, but a lot of them are. Do you know what Mormons are? Twin: Well, they're not Jewish.
Little_Doctor, my cousins and I called our grandmother Meemaw and our grandfather Papi when we were little. We later switched to the oh-so-sophisticated Granny and Pop-Pop.
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Thanks for the welcomes. It is good to be here.
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All this in the time it took me to transfer browned ground beef from a skillet to a pot of sauce. Oy.![[Grumble]](graemlins/grumble.gif)
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