During our baby shower given us by our most wonderful friends and co-leagues for the little peanut in my belly in 2008, each one has written words of wisdom/advice and shared one or two of their own family traditions with us on a 3×5 index card. It was a wonderful and thoughtful baby shower ‘activity’ that I cherished so much.
During the course of the party, one of them, a kindergarten teacher until her retirement, quipped something like this: “You be careful what you say because kids will repeat them verbatim when they’re in school.”
Well, our then little peanut is now an energetic growing boy of two years and nine months. Everyday, he surprises us with the words that come out of his mouth!
“Holy macaroni!”
In the car this weekend, I caught myself saying, “Holy moly macarni!” I’m the guilty one on that.
This morning as he was in the bath with some squirt water toys – a dolphin, turtle, shark, octopus, crocodile, and a frog. He was having fun with the dolphin, dipping it in the water, coasting it forward then lifting it out of the water, making his own sound effects for the motions. Trying to make a teaching moment out of this, I declared that all these animals live in the water. He grabbed the turtle and said, “This turtle live on land, Mommy.” Ah…thank you, PBS!
Bath and squirt toys are just bound to be a war territory for parents…well, maybe not all but it was for me this morning. It’s so much fun for the little ones but I wasn’t so keen on water spray everywhere. Naturally, he squirted water in the direction of the wall nearest a basket full of bathroom necessities. I firmly told him that I understood how much fun it was for him to let the dolphin spit water out but he has to keep the squirts in the bathtub and not on the walls; if he squirts on the wall again, Mommy will take the toys away. He said, “Sorry Mommy, I not do that again.” I can tell he was trying his hardest to remember this because a few moments later he sprayed his school bus with the dolphin, looked at me with a smile that said, “Look, I’m spraying in the tub, not out of it.” It was a proud moment. But it’s hard for my little one to remember this rule for too long. Within minutes, he squirted on the wall again. As a consequence, I started to gather up his toys, much to his protestation, but he eventually helped me put them all back in the bucket, even letting go of the dolphin in his hand. I was washing down the squirt toys in the sink when I heard my little boy say, “Ah…this is the life.”
What did you say?
“This is the life!”
Painting a bluebird this morning. He said "It has long wings."
He was belly down, his head above the water and had this knowing smile at me that seemed to say, “I know I will surprise you with these words but you’ll like it, too.”
Oi!
Nice blog, and nice posts!
Will be visiting when as much as I can..:)