The Boy Speaks

Behold! The cypher for understanding what The Boy says.

bee = book
bah bah = bottle  (can sign milk)
wah = wall
pone = phone
cooda = Scooter
nananana = banana
wahwah = water
mo = more   (can sign more)
baa = bath tub (sounds like a sheep)
cah = car
gogo = walk / push wagon
poo = Pooh Bear
dun = done / down
meee = meow / kitty / Sorsha
haa = hat
kookah = cookie  (can sign cookie)
ee eh = E says ee and eh (fridge toy)
Bobah = Boba Fett
Gahr = Guard (Imperial Guard)
Jeesaa = Jesus
Anmom = Grandmom
Pahpah = Grandpa
ooh
wow
pee = pea
peese = please (usage has temporarily stopped)

2011
03/22
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The Fett

I’m going to let my geek hang out a bit and share with you a couple of my obsessions.  I have had these for a very long time and despite many attempts on others’ parts to mock or shame me, I resolutely continue to cling them like a baby monkey on its mother.

I love LEGO.  Note that the usage is correct.  Sheep is the plural of sheep. LEGO is the plural of LEGO.  I did spend a great many years calling them Legos, but have seen the error of my ways.  Beginning when I was 5 or 6, upon receiving my first Classic System Space set, I embarked upon a lifelong addiction love affair with those plastic bricks.  My wife doesn’t really understand, but she is kind enough and accepting enough to allow my neurosis to continue.  I really don’t think she could stop it if she wanted to.  It would be like trying to stop a mile-long freight train.  So the collection grows annually. Mostly at birthday and Christmas, but from time to time I will pick up sets that are on a special sale.

I also love Star Wars, but to a lesser degree now than I did a few years ago.  I was not fortunate enough in my youth to have any of the Star Wars toys.  I was given a choice between my many interests and LEGO typically won out.  That did not stop me from watching all three movies every weekend once we got copies of them on VHS.  Nor did it stop me from standing up and cheering in the theater when I heard about the theatrical re-issue of the original trilogy in 1997.   I have a life-sized cardboard stand-up of Darth Vader.   I have a 30 inch vinyl decal of Vader’s helmet on the back window of my car.  I own and regularly listen to the complete soundtracks as composed by John Williams.  As to the lesser degree I mentioned earlier, I fell out of “the faith” when Episodes I, II, and III hit the screens.  I won’t go into detail here. Many others have ripped those movies apart, and rightly so.  Suffice to say I saw each of them once and then promptly disavowed of their existence.  When I discuss Star Wars I am only ever talking about Episodes IV, V, and VI.

Imagine my delight, though, when in 1999 LEGO and Lucas Arts partnered together to bring the world the greatest licensing deal ever.  They were going to make official Star Wars LEGO sets.  Glee!  The first run of sets wasn’t fantastic, but there was promise and I eagerly snatched up what I could where I could.

So I have told you all of that to tell you this.  I have a LEGO Boba Fett mini-figure magnet on my fridge.
http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItemPic.asp?G=852552
He’s the one on the left.  I have the other two also.  They came as a set.  Yes, that is a LEGO Slave Leia.  Yes, I think it’s hysterical.  Why is this important?  Why would you care what is on my fridge?  You care because The Boy cares.

One night while eating his dinner in his high chair in the kitchen, The Boy pointed in the general direction of the fridge.   Not knowing at exactly what he was pointing since his little arm kind of waves around a bit, I started to point to various items on the fridge myself.  I eventually ended up with LEGO Boba Fett.  That caught his attention.  I removed it from the fridge and held it in front of The Boy.  This greatly interested him.  So I explained who the character was.
“Boba Fett,” I said and waved it in front of The Boy’s face while deftly avoiding his banana covered fingers.   I repeated it a few more times and then returned Boba to his place on the fridge.  It didn’t take The Boy 5 minutes to figure out how to say “Boba?”  I must say, the first time I heard it I think I cried a little from pride.

That was last week.  This week The Boy has decided that he won’t eat unless he has a look at “Boba?” every other bite.  I still won’t let his sticky fingers touch it though.  Some decorum must be preserved.  “Boba?” once or twice was cute, however 15 times in a row makes it lose some magic. It gets him to eat, though, so what are ya gonna do?

I think I just need to teach The Boy something else.

2011
03/09
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The Un-sleepening

The Boy does not like to go to sleep.  He never has and most likely never will.  He has gotten better over the past few months and has surprised us recently with sleeping all the way through the night.  For the most part he just fights his way into slumber every time he hits the mattress.

I do like sleep. I like it a lot. I do have trouble making myself go to bed, though.  Maybe The Boy gets that from me.  It’s not like he’s ever awake when it’s time for me to go to bed and can see me resist and stall and putter around so I’m not sure how he picked up that behavior.

His first couple of months home from the hospital were pretty brutal on everyone involved, especially his Mom.  He would wake up every two hours or so to eat and then not go back to sleep.  He would only sleep if he was swaddled tight enough to cut off circulation in any other creature.  Also he had to be held by his head and his rump and bounced endlessly.  We also figured out early on that he slept best in his bouncer seat with the vibration turned on.  So. Many. Batteries.

Around 4 months old he surprised us by sleeping through the night.  As new parents, when we woke we had a moment of terror, but after a quick check discovered he was, in fact, not dead.  Then at month 5 he decided sleeping through the night wasn’t cool or hip or whatever the kids are calling it these days.  He went back to waking up every couple of hours to feed.  This was not a welcome change.  We endured sleepless nights for 4 more months before we finally manned up and let him cry it out one evening.   Within three nights he was back to sleeping almost all the way through the night.  He would wake up about 5am have a bite and head back off to sleep and then wake up again at 8ish.  Mostly acceptable.

Daytime naps are something altogether different.  I don’t usually have to deal with those as I am at work, but I do hear about them every day.  “Your child wouldn’t nap today.”   Why is he “my” child when he doesn’t sleep.  As if ownership can be changed at any point. Sheesh.

So The Boy doesn’t like to go to sleep.  Some babies can be driven to sleep.  I was one of those babies.  In fact that was one of the many tools in my parents’ arsenal.  They would put me in the car, drive around the block 3 times and, as if by magic, I would be asleep.  This does not work for The Boy.   At least not at sub-interstate feeds.  He used to fall asleep once we hit 70 mph.  He also used to be reclined in a rear facing “bucket” seat.  Once he turned one year old, we switched to the “big boy” seat that faces forward.  Well now there’s just so much to look at that he may not ever sleep in the car ever again.

We took a trip to Great-Grandmother’s house which is about an hour and a half away.  It was late evening so the sky was dark, but there was a fair amount of light from cars and highway lighting.   We expected him to fall asleep.  He always fell asleep on this trip before, but this was the first time facing forward.   He kept himself awake the entire time.  As we were making  the last few turns I glanced back and the poor little kid had his head resting on the side of the car seat, his eyes wide and staring like he had seen some  kind of war atrocity.  He had worked himself into a sweat and his hair was plastered to his head and his jammies were soaked.  He never cried though.  He just didn’t want to miss anything I guess.

Maybe the next kid will be a sleeper.  I can dream.

2011
02/19
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What does a Wookie say?

I once read that of a little girl’s vocalizations, 90% were linguistic based.  Meaning most of the sounds a little girl makes are words.  Little boys, on the other hand, are only 40% linguistic.  The other 60% is comprised of  car motors, gun sounds, explosions, animal noises and any other type of descriptive audio.  I consider myself above average in that department. I’m not a Michael Winslow (Police Academy movies), but I’m pretty good.  So, naturally, I want The Boy to be good too.

My wife and I have been trying to impart the knowledge of animal noises to The Boy. We’ve been at it for quite a while now.  His room is done up in a jungle baby theme; his mother thought the animals were so cute. Well, they are, but I had originally hoped for a rocket baby theme, because retro rockets are awesome.  I was thwarted by lack of supply.  Curse you waning trends!

Back to jungle baby.  Elephants, tigers, monkeys, and giraffes dominate the bedroom set. Every time he wakes up we go around the room and point at various animals and ask him what they say.  “What does the elephant say? What does the monkey say? What does the Tiger say?”  Surprisingly he got elephants first.

Now I need to mention that we don’t do anything halfway.  So when I say that we make elephant noises I mean that we compress our lips together and blow like a trumpet and it sounds pretty close to what an elephant would sound like were he only 10 or so inches tall.  The Boy hasn’t quite got the pitch yet, but he’s definitely enthusiastic about the lip vibrations.  The monkey was the next to be mastered.  This one is pretty simple with ooo-ooo’s and aaah-aaah’s, which is why were were surprised he got the elephant first.

Only recently did he growl like a tiger.  We’re not sure why he would never reproduce on command a sound we knew for a fact he could make.  He would just stare at the cartoon tiger as if daring it do anything other than be silent.

We don’t bother with the giraffes because, honestly, when was the last time you heard a giraffe make any noise?  I know they have a call of sorts, but have you ever seen a giraffe on a See ‘n Say?  Yeah, me neither.  They do make a llama kind of sound when they’re little, but just grow out of talking.  Maybe they all take a vow of silence during adolescence like some kind of twelve foot tall monk on stilts. On second thought, maybe I should teach The Boy that a giraffe is practically silent so when he’s being obnoxious I can surreptitiously quiet him by asking him what noise a giraffe makes. Note to self.

So that completes the animal decorations in his room, and we’ve been adding other animals here and there.  Dogs, pigs, cats.  Then, I thought, what kind of geek father would I be if I didn’t teach him how to talk like a Wookie?  My Wookie is really good.  I could probably converse with Chewbacca and not insult his mother more than a few times.  For those who don’t know what one sounds like, please reference this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQIwEZlOzp4 .  I must teach this useless skill to my son.

The Boy thought it was hysterical the first time, but he learns fast and pretty much already has it down.  He has yet to do it on cue, but almost always does it after I do it first.  It works best when he’s laying back and can get a little extra drool in the back of his throat.  I don’t yet have a picture or stuffed wookie to use a visual reference, but that doesn’t seem to matter in the teaching process.  I’m curious to see how he reacts the first time he watches Star Wars and hears a noise he’s been making since he was a year old.

I think next year for Halloween we’re going to have to get one of those toddler Wookie costumes.

2011
02/13
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Head Trauma

There was an incident this evening at small group. The boy was playing and crawling around and generally having a good time. He crawled over to where Mom was sitting and pulled up on her leg. Then he proceeded to fall over and crack the side of his head on a decorative element of the chair leg. There was screaming. Well, there was screaming after he was able to take in a breath. This was perhaps the worst head injury he’s sustained to date and frankly scared us a bit.
Head injuries always scare me the most. Cuts, scrapes, broken bones, I am prepared to handle any of them. The thought of damage to his little brain, however, paralyzes me with fear. I want him to grow up and be smart and capable like his daddy. I want to be able to pass on all the useless trivia I’ve accumulated, to watch and discuss movies together, to eventually be beaten by him in strategic board games.
So when I saw the lump forming on the side of his head I, of course, played all of the worst possible case scenarios out in my head while simultaneously trying to comfort him and pretend that the bump on his head wasn’t a big deal. He did settle down after a few minutes and resumed playing on the floor. We kept a close eye on him, though, to watch for sinister signs of deeper injury. All appears to be well for the time being.

2011
01/30
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Pucker up and blow

On the way back to the car from Wally-World I heard The Boy blowing what sounded like a whistle.  I asked him if he was trying to whistle and produced a two note whistle myself.  You would think sunlight had just come out of my mouth.  His face lit up and instead of furthering his attempts at blowing a whistle, he began to emit a soft high pitched squeal.  Ok so not quite a whistle, but he doesn’t have a full set of teeth yet anyway so I’m pretty sure he won’t be able to do it just yet.  He did “whistle” for the whole car ride home though.  Mom was very impressed.

2011
01/30
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Same thing happens every night

Bill Cosby has a bit in “Himself” where he describes the mayhem that happened every evening in his house. The children are sent up to take their baths and one by one come back downstairs each complaining about the others. This of course is far funnier when related by Mr Cosby.

I only have one child thus far and he isn’t big enough to come back downstairs on his own yet. He’s not even really able to string together a sentence. Just baby words. He does get a bath every night though. This is my responsibility. I’m not even sure how it became my responsibility. I know my wife’s justification for it, as it allows her to finish up her “Work from home” work each day and gives her a brief reprieve from his incessant “go-ing.”

So here’s how it goes down. I come home from work and the boy usually shows excitement and rapidly crawls over to me and climbs up my leg. I dump my stuff and pick him up and hug him and squeeze him then spend the next hour or so playing with him in the living room. Usually this is a good time.

Then it’s time for dinner.  This could go one of two ways.  Either he really enjoys what he’s eating and does so with gusto, or whatever is being put in his mouth is most likely a poison that will kill him if he has a second taste.  His defenses of lip lock, a tightness that only a crowbar might penetrate, and gravity mouth, an agape stance where the offending items simply ooze back out, are most formidable.

Finally it is bath time.  I have mixed emotions about this, because while it is my responsibility, and therefore a chore which I resist passive aggressively, it is also an opportunity for the boy to surprise me with moments of pure entertainment.

Bath goes like this.  We go upstairs.  I assemble all the paraphernalia that I will need for his bath and after it is over: jammies, towel, washcloth, diaper, Desitin.  I fill up his tub with warm soapy water while he stands and jumps next to the tub; for whatever reason he finds this exciting.  I strip him bare and unceremoniously dump him in the tub.  Again this whole process could go one of two ways depending on the position of the stars and the relative quantity of carbon in a 2B pencil.  It’s really that random.  Some nights we have a great time and he laughs and plays and splashes until he has obliterated all bubbles in the tub.  Then there are the nights where touching him in any way with the washcloth elicits a response from him you would only expect if you were peeling his skin off.  I of course prefer the former.

One night in particular he pointed his finger at my face as I bent over him washing his toes.  I took the opportunity to “eat” his finger, and then devour his whole tiny fist.  Finding the taste of baby soap to be less than pleasing, I “bleched” his hand back out and then made little spitty noises to spit the soap out.  Apparently this was the funniest thing I have ever done.  He laughed like a redneck in the front row of the Blue Collar Comedy tour and naturally once was not enough.  I believe I ended up eating 30 or so fists, each one tasting much like the first, and each, upon regurgitation, elicited the hysterical laughter of my son.

Sometimes I’m tired and worn out after getting home from work, and doing anything at all seems like too much.  Getting to hear that laugh, though, is worth the effort.   I know someday I won’t be funny to him anymore, so while I am I eat baby fists.  Even if it means doing the same thing every night.

2011
01/18
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First post!

Woot!

 

I’m retarded.

2011
01/16
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