Introducing Hammy

I'm not sure about the exact chain of events, but it went something like this - G brought a ham home from work, S was thrilled, we took a family vote (I lost 2-1) and the baby (at least before it is born) is now called "Hammy". I'll admit, after a few days, it is starting to grow on me.

That's right, we're pregnant and due in June. S couldn't be more thrilled about being a big brother, he gets giddy when telling anyone about his "big secret" that "mommy has a baby in her belly." And he spends a lot of time talking about all he'll do with the baby when it's born, read, sing, the works. And he decided last night that he's going to learn how to hold the baby the "special way" so he can take care of it himself - later that night he decided that actually the whole family should take care of the baby.

Here are a few other things we've heard from S:



"It's going to come out head first right?"



"Can we call the baby Mickey Mouse? And then what if we called it Minnie by accident?" [followed by hysterical laughing]




S: Let's call the baby SAS.
Me: Won't that be confusing, if I call your name you won't know who I'm talking to. What if I say S, you need to sit in your listener chair (aka time out), who would I be talking to.
S: The baby.
Me: What if I say S, come get a special treat, who would I be talking to?
S: no words required - with a big grin, points to himself!



Me: You can call the baby whatever you want when it's in my belly. Then when the baby is born, you can give us ideas for names, but mommy and daddy will make the final decision.
S: How bout this. I can call the baby whatever I want when it's in your belly, and then when the baby is born, the whole family will decide what to call it.



S: Can I feel the baby?
Me: Sure.
S: [with hand on my belly] I think I just felt the baby's nose.




S: [after giving me a very sweet hug in the morning] I gave some of my hug to you and some of my hug to the baby.
[he now continues to give big hugs to me and Hammy]





S: I'm going to give you the biggest hug ever and the biggest high-5 ever after the baby is born if it doesn't hurt coming out.

Be specific please

A conversation S and I had in the car this morning on the way to school:

S: I love these pretty flowers.
Me: You mean the ones on your drink.
S: No, my drink is water.
Me: Oh, the ones on the cup your drink is in.
S: Yes on the top by where I drink from. If they were in my drink they would be floating in the water and that would just be silly.
Me: You're right.

Consequences

As parents, our words always sound different coming from our children.

S was playing with his barn last night, and built up a barn area and decided a pig wanted to go insde. He rammed the pig into the block that was the door which then fell inside what was the barn. Next:

[said in a voice that I think was supposed to be the pig] "Oh no, I didn't want my door inside there."
[as himself, and very nonchalant] "That's the consequence."

All I could do was laugh.

What fell on the Mall of America?

Here's the conversation S and I had in the car this morning:

S: Mama, what fell on the Mall of America?
Me: What fell on it?
S: Yes, what fell on the Mall of America?
Me: I don't know.
S: Yes you do. I heard you say it when there was no mail, what fell on the Mall of America.
Me: Oh, are you thinking about Columbus Day, when I said Christopher Columbus landed on the shores of America.
S: Yes, he fell on the Mall of America.
Me: No, he was on a boat and landed on the shores of the United States of America, not the Mall of America.
S: Oh. Why was he on a boat.

And the conversation went on from there.

A boy, a girl, and a playground

S: What's the boy in a wedding called?
Me: The groom.
S: Sophie invited me to her wedding. She was the girl and she wanted me to be the boy.
Pause
S: I told her no, I was playing a football tournament. Maybe I could play wedding with her the next day, I don't know.

Roar

What we know hear when we say something S doesn't like. For instance, when he got up this morning, Geoff walked with him into the bathroom and told him to use the potty - the response "Roar!"

He has also taken to saying, in a very calm rational voice, "It's not your choice what I do, it's my choice. You can't tell me what to do, it's my choice."

The blessing and curse of TV

Geoff thought I should post about this and since he rarely (or never) says that, I thought I should honor his request:

S has never been much for TV - mainly by design and partly by his personality, he would choose being outside and running around, or any other physical activity really, over TV any day - and we have done our best to encourage that. With that said, I recognize the need for some peace and quiet around the house every so often, if only for 15 minutes, and can certainly appreciate TVs ability to bring that on.

Part two of this story - S was sick last week and unable to go to daycare. He's rarely sick and when he has had to stay home, it hasn't been a problem to coordinate between Geoff and I - not so last week. Everything that could have gone wrong did, so I ended up staying home with S, but had a 3 hour meeting that I couldn't really miss - so yes, this meant a 3 hr phone meeting and a kid who doesn't sit and watch TV or even play by himself very well or very quietly. So for three hours S watched a video for 15 minutes or so, paused it (fortunately he has mastered this skill), did a puzzle or some other activity, then watched a few more minutes, etc. etc. He spent the morning running back and forth between rooms, often trying to get my attention. Because he wasn't feeling well, he was much more low key than usual.

In the end, the kid I don't want to sit and watch TV, did what we wanted, only this time I really wanted him to watch TV and was just wishing he could get engrossed in a movie for an hour or two - ironic and our fault, I know.

What if....

Although we haven't moved beyond the "why?" stage we have also been in the "what if" stage - no one told me about this one.

This means we hear things like:

--What if you were walking down the street and you saw a shark and Batman walking down the street too?
--What if your ears were on your belly? How could you hear if your ears were covered with your shirt?
--What if your feet were on your head, you'd have to walk on your head.
--What if we went to Como Town and they said we had a million points to ride the bumper cars? [his favorite activity, he would ride the bumper cars all day if we let him]

And sometimes it's followed up with - "could you imagine that?!"

S informed me yesterday that our minds don't work the same - and I wholeheartedly agreed, explaining we're all unique there's no other S out there in the world and that's what makes us all special, and it's okay (even good) to have a different take on the world.
That's one of the great things about all the questions he comes up with - it gives me a new perspective on the world and forces me to think about small things in different ways. Although not a why or what if question, we also get a lot of questions about what words mean - what does sneaky mean or failed, try being a child's dictionary for a few hours to really clarify your own thinking and biases....

Cool!

I am going to try being better at posting some of the funny things S says, so here's a couple:

We're in the car and he's trying on Geoff's hard hat, he puts it on backwards and says,

"This is how cool kids wear their hats. Are you a cool adult?"


In preparation for my camping trip this year he had some good advice on keeping the bears away,
"You could try throwing a cookie at it." or
"You should go find the mama bear and tell her so she can tell the baby bear not to take your food."

A truly amazing librarian

Every two weeks, we have the privilege of visiting the bookmobile (bookmeal as S says). It parks in the church parking lot down the street from our house and is filled with kids books. We have been going for about two years now and the librarian knows us well - she's really great with kids, even gave S his own library card. She recommends books and orders whatever S asks for, even when it's Clifford's Christmas and it happens to be June.

Here's the routine - we pick out books, S pulls the stool over to the desk hands her his books and library card then asks if he can have a sticker. She pulls out a little box and he can pick a sticker. Then S says, "do you have any tattoos?" When we first started going to the bookmobile there were stickers and tattoos in the box. The tattoos were pathetic, I don't think we ever had one that actually stuck to S's arm. But still, week after week he asked for a tattoo. Eventually they ran out of tattoos and never replenished the supply. They probably ran out a year ago, maybe longer, but still S asks if she has any tattoos.

Two weeks ago we visit the bookmobile, S asks for a sticker and a tattoo and the librarian says she doesn't have any tattoos but she'll look into getting some. She then says, if I'm going to be getting tattoos, I should get what you want, what kind of tattoos would you like. S declares "dogs." She then looks at us and asks where to get tattoos, we have no great insight, I suggest the dollar store but say we usually just get them at give aways. She says she'll try to find some dog tattoos.

Two weeks later we arrive at the bookmobile, excited to pick up all the books S has ordered, and there is a different librarian there. S asks if she has any books for him, she asks his name, he tells her, and she hands him a little envelope. We open it and find a note that reads:

S-
Sorry I can't be here tonight. Here are some tattoos I found for you. See you in two weeks.

And inside the envelope were some dog tattoos. S was beyond excited and it warmed my heart.
In two weeks we'll have to be sure to say thank you. What a truly special woman - who makes visiting the library an adventure we never want to miss.

Pig Pig

S has taken to snorting, and of course thinks it's hysterical. We have been trying to discourage him. Yesterday I explained that it's not a very nice noise and other people don't want to have to listen to it. The conversation ended up with, "if I'm alone in my room can I snort."
Me: Yes
Flash forward a couple of hours. S is attempting to get out of taking his nap. I tell him that he can choose not to sleep but he needs to rest quietly in his bed - he can look at books, sing to himself, whatever he wants, he just needs to rest [and stop screaming for us]. As I'm walking out of his room he says, "can I snort?"
Me: Yes
S: Lots of giggling, then "okay."
A couple minutes later we hear him start snorting then hysterical laughing. This doesn't last long. Five minutes later same thing, snort, snort, snort, laughing, snort, snort.
Good thing he couldn't see us because we were laughing hysterically also as S put himself to sleep by snorting like a pig.

What I'm learning

I'm learning a lot about myself as a parent and a lot about the world in general, here's some of the "wisdom":


1. When a kid makes up words you end up hearing things like so and so "is a hooker" or "fucker" and then need to try not to laugh


2. Kindness and respect are really important to me - not a major revelation - but the way it warms my heart when he spontaneously says things like "you're welcome over to our house any time" to his friend across the street or "welcome back we missed you" to a teacher who was gone for a week. I only hope this is a sign of what's to come.


3. At 3, my kid knows more than me about many things and he's happy to explain them - why there are rainbows, how you can tell that the dinosaur is a parasophalophus, the hand motion the officials do in a basketball game when a player is called for traveling (no idea where he learned that) and the list goes on.

4. When you whine about something it's called "acting like a toddler."

5. We happen to have a kid who is generally a rule follower - he knows the rules and is happy to tell you when you're not following them (like telling strangers it's not safe to ride your bike without a helmet or it's not kind to splash people by jumping in a puddle). He also gets the concept of "school" - i.e. listening to a teacher, following the rules, sitting quietly and waiting your turn, etc. Not all kids know this or behave this way and it's okay for S to be around that - it's a hard but important lesson to learn that just because someone else is doing something doesn't mean you should too.

6. I am trying to live more by the motto - Don't be so quick to judge. This hit me a couple of times recently. First when there was a news story about a mom ignoring her son because she was on a cell phone or iTouch or something and eventually the kid bit her to get her attention. The assumption of the story was "bad parenting". What if we stepped back to see an overworked exhausted parent, a kid who talks nonstop all day and is learning patience, is it so horrible to make him wait a minute (without biting of course) for a parent's attention? The second was at swim class. Two boys in the class were totally not paying attention, doing their own thing, and running around splashing all the other kids. The parents were 10 feet away and did nothing. My initial reaction was, who let's their kids act like that. If that was S I would pull him out of the pool and explain he needs to listen to the teacher, it ruins the class for the other kids, it's not safe, etc. etc. Then I see a very pregnant mother who is parent to one of the boys, okay she's tired, this is probably what she deals with all the time, she may be out of energy for the moment to deal with it. My explanation goes in many other directions as well, most not as understanding, but I'm trying to go with, don't be so quick to judge - we all do the best can with the cards we're dealt at the moment, a different time and place and the scene would play out very differently.

7. It's really hard not to laugh at times - conversation between S and dad in the car:
S: (adjusting his car seat belt) is this okay so it's not cutting into my neck?
Dad: Yes. (then to me) Did you tell him that?
Me: Yes, he's been moving the chest strap up to his neck and down to his belly so I was telling him where to keep it for safety.
Dad: (to S) Remember when you asked mom about your nipples?
S: Yes.
Dad: Do you remember where they are?
S: Yes.
Dad: Point to them.
S: (points to his nipples)
Dad: The buckle goes right across your nipples.

[Flash back a week or two, S standing in the bathroom with no shirt, pointing to both nipples. What are these momma? Your nipples. What are these squishy things under your nipples? Now really how am I supposed to answer these questions without a chuckle?]

When I'm 16....

I know I'm the worst blogger ever, but that isn't going to stop me from a few more posts.

Here's the conversation S and I had in the car yesterday:

S: Why am I too young to drive?
It's the law, you have to be 16 to drive.
S: When will I be 16?
In 13 years, how old are you now?
S: 3
13 plus 3 equals 16.
S: What else can I do when I'm 16?
[Note: it feels like we've been talking a lot lately about what you can do when you're older so I'm trying to make all the things he can do now sound cool and all the things he can do later sound less interesting.]
Go to high school. Cross the street without holding a hand.
S: Maybe walk away from the house by myself without a grownup.
Yep.
S: Chew gum while I'm walking around [since the Grand Old Day parade where he received lots of gum he's been fascinated so we gave him piece to try, two chews and he was done but was very proud, but it came with rules like you need to be sitting down and with a grown up]
Umm, stay up late and sleep late. Play football.
S: (Lots of giggling with excitement, just anticipating all the fun things he can do.) What else?
Ummmm.......

What I overheard....

in the curling club locker room.

Parent: "She said, you love that kid, but I love him more."

The rest is a recap of the discussion that followed, but not direct quotes.

Parent: I thought how could you love him more, I'm his mother. She said it very lovingly, it wasn't meant to be hurtful, and I could tell she really meant it and believed it.

Grandparent: It's true, grandparents love their grandkids more than their parents love them. It's different because they're not yours, and they're not a given, and you could lose them at any time. It's a really special relationship.

What else is there to say?