Scarred for life

In July 2006, I posted about the songs I own of which I am ashamed. I refused then to be ashamed of my occasional indulgence of ABBA, and still refuse to be ashamed. However, I am corrupting another generation, and it is causing me concern. With the new Mama Mia movie, commercials are playing snippets of ABBA songs (that one in particular) all the time. I find myself humming and singing Mama Mia. Clownfish asked me to sing the whole song, so about two weeks ago, we played it several times from Youtube.

Tonight, before I put him to bed, he says

Mama Mia
Here I go again
My my how could i Ah-zist you
Mama Mia
Here I go again
Just because I missed you.

He really got it close, huh?

Great, yet another reason Clownfish will need extensive therapy.

Yay!

Clownfish is home. We played lots of board games tonight.

T-shirt

Clownfish playing with dragons at a children's museum, telling a long tale about them . . . anyone who has ever been around an almost-four-year old knows exactly what I mean. . .

Clownfish: . . . and the dragon is wearing a t-shirt . . .

Bullshark: What kind of t-shirt? Solid? Striped? What color?

Butterflyfish: He's wearing one of those black t-shirts with an ironic saying.

Bullshark: What would a dragon's t-shirt say?

Butterflyfish: "I didn't start the fire."

* * *

Edited to add the conversation that ensued after I posted this:

Bullshark: No one is going to get that.

Butterflyfish: Regular readers know I am a Billy Joel fan.

Bullshark: (A) You have a lot of faith in these so-called regular readers, assuming they exist and (B) It's still not that funny.

At least "cog" is a word

Clownfish: Why do I have to go to school?
Me: So you can learn and be smart and not an uneducated couch potato.
Clownfish: Why do I have to learn?
Me: So you can . . . spell things. Like you can spell your name, but you can't spell important things like dog and cat and chicken.
Clownfish: I can spell cat! And dog! I can! D-A-T! Cat!
Me: mmmm. . . that's not quite right.
Clownfish: *sighs* Ok, I'll go to school.

Getting too cute around here

Overheard at my house:

"Papa you're not paying attention. You're a mountain and mountains don't talk."

"Mommy you're the best. I love you."

"I'm not a treasure. Do you see any gold on me?"

"Not right now, I am busy working on my computer."

Context ruins everything:

Bullshark tried to engage in conversation with me while serving as a jungle gym for Clownfish.

I had just given him a cookie.

Talking about pirate treasure puzzle, when Bullshark got sentimental and called Clownfish his treasure.

Methinks he has learned a bad lesson here. Oh, and its a Thomas the Tank Engine "computer."

Oh the horrors

My friend's status message on AIM: Caillou's a pansy (Butterflyfish will understand).

Oh, I do, friend. I do.

As Tranny Head pointed out, the Sprout Channel's parade of horribles can leave a mother scratching her tranny head. But apparently it has not yet driven her to drink. She mentioned the atrocity that is the Teletubbies.

But she did not mention the crime against humanity that is Boobah.

The characters don't even make the semi-intelligble speech of a Teletubby. And there is no narrator. They just squee. Children blow presents into a vortex of light and dance in cirlces on video loop. Then they play the video slow and fast and in reverse. Don't even get me started on the story time people. *shudder*

I thought I had seen the worst children's programming had to offer.

Then my son discovered Yo Gabba Gabba.

I don't have words. I just don't have them.

Fortunately, Youtube can talk for me: Party in my tummy. Watch an animated chicken nugget swim in purple juice while a monster with overlong arms sings "So yummy! So yummy!" Most everything else on Youtube is a mashup so I can't give you anything with the dude who hosts the show. He's frightening in a way that the dude who temporarily replaced Nina Sprout Goodnight Show can only aspire to be.

*shudder*
______________________________
I seriously underestimated the creepiness factor.

Tee-ball monster

Today was Clownfish's first tee-ball game (as opposed to practice):

• Player #9 tackling anyone trying to field the ball because he wanted to field it.
• Player #11 travelling from second to third stopped running to chase a ball that miraculously made it out of the infield.
• Player #8 hit the ball and ran toward third.
• Player #12 (Clownfish) bending down and playing with the infield dirt instead of watching where the hit ball went. . . and Player #1, who had just hit a nice shot up the third base line, left the baseline to join him instead of taking first.
• Player #9 moved to first base so he could be involved in every play without hurting others.
• Freaked out by the cheering for a decent hit, Player #13 running past first base screaming MOMMY, and right into his mother's knees.
• Player #9 chasing kids down the first base line and throwing balls at their heads while coaches scream "Just tag the bag!!"
• Player #9's mother pushing me out of the way so she could take a photo of her darling . . . just as he almost knocked over my kid.
• Player #12 (my boy) took to the plate for the third time, and the coach yelled "big hitter, look alive."
• Player #9's mother swearing at the coach for making her kid cry because he spoke to him sternly.
• Player #12's mother hip-checking Player #9's mother off the bleachers.
• Ok, no I didn't. I just thought about it.

These small hours

This weekend, Clownfish, Bullshark, and I went to one of those Japanese steak houses where they cook the food right in front of you. It was my first time and I enjoyed the show -- spinning eggs, flying cutlery, volcanic onions and all. It was neat and the food was good. But Clownfish was awed. He used the words "amazing" "exciting" "excellent" "fabulous" and "scrumptious" all in one night. Pretty good for a three year old.

Today he learned a new word as I gave the little rascal a new new nickname -- he likes sneaking into the bathroom to switch off the lights when I am in the shower, closing the front door on me, hiding his shoes, and other "tricks" on mommy.

Today when I came home I asked him to tell Bullshark about his little tricks.

"Papa, I've been mischievous."

Clownfish has decided he hatched an invisible egg. Inside the invisible egg was a baby kangaroo, called Kang-ee. Kang-ee the imaginary baby kangaroo sleeps in the living room now because Clownfish bumped his head in bed twice last night because "Kang-ee was jumping on the bed." Tonight when I put him to bed, he reminded me to keep the television low so as not to disturb the invisible imaginary kangaroo.

Parenthood causes one to have the most amazing conversations sometimes.

Like this one:

Clownfish and Bullshark were playing recently with Bullshark's old Lincoln logs mixed with the ones Clownfish received for his third birthday.

CF: "Look Mommy! Papa is letting me use his Link-in longs!"
Me: "That's great! Did you know Papa was your age when he played with these?"
CF: "And that was when I was not here yet I was in your tummy right?"
Me: "Ummm . . . no, Papa was very young, so you weren't even in my tummy yet."
CF: "Oh, that's because God was still making me."

Mother's day

What I am doing:

Slept late.

Chatted with my mom on the phone.

Called my sister, who recently announced she is pregnant with her second child. Talked about nausea and crackers.

Colored in a dinosaur coloring book, played with dinosaurs, and did a dinosaur puzzle with Clownfish.

Planning to play mini-golf this afternoon. At the place with dinosaurs.

What I am not doing:

Thinking about exams.

Thinking about law school.

Working on anything legally substative.

That can all wait til tomorrow, when I go to finish out my externship next week.

Problem solving, 3-year-old style

Background: Bullshark is gone doing Navy stuff this week. I'm back to single-Mommy-law student.

CF: Papa is allergic to dogs? And cats?
Me: Yes.
CF: But Papa is gone for a few days?
Me: Yes.
CF: So we can get a puppy! Or a kitten! Because Papa is not here to be allergic!
Me: What will we do when Papa comes home?
CF: We'll get the puppy or kitty a NEW home. But we can have one now, right?

I really do love the way he thinks.

Resurrection

On Friday morning we had a mini-life-and-death-crisis. As Clownfish and I descended the front steps, we saw two birdies on the ground on the driveway. One was on its back, its legs up, not moving. The other was right side up but unable to move other than feeble twitches. By their position and status, I could only assume they had flown into the driver side window of my car and . . . thud. They were small grey birds -- titmouse, I thought, and then incongruously titmice? -- when Clownfish started moving toward them.

"Stay back, honey."
"But I want to touch them."
"They're wild birds, not like Ben the Bird [my sister's parrot], we can't touch them."
"Why aren't they flying away?"
"I think they're hurt."
"I want to help them. Can we get bandages?"

(Walking him around to his side of the car and buckling him in, steeling myself for the death conversation. He had learned the word kill at pre-school, robots will kill you, so we had talked about it a little before. But in his short life so far he has not seen death, and I have yet to inflict Charlotte's Web or the like on him yet, so he didn't have the vocabulary.)

"No honey, I don't think bandages will work."

We talked a little about death and dying as I strapped him in. I remember thinking "I am doing this badly." He seemed to understand somewhat but was very sad that Mommy could not make the birds better. Meanwhile, I was thinking that I had to be careful when pulling out the car not to run the poor things over, and to tell Bullshark to get home ahead of us to remove the corpses from the driveway -- if the neighborhood cats didn't get them first -- before Clownfish and I got home. We'd talk more that night maybe. Maybe get a book?

I walked back around to my side of the car.

The bird on its back was now upright.

It was moving.

I ran back to unstrap Clownfish, to explain that Mommy was wrong, the birdies were just hurt not dead, and they were getting better on their own.

By the time he got out, he saw one bird fly away, and the other do a short-hop flight to the garage roof.

I hadn't planned on explaining Easter to him this year, but maybe he's got the vocabulary now.


___________________________
No I am not actually going to explain the Crucifixion and Resurrection to my child this year.

"Mommy I want a baby"

CF: "Can you get me one?"

Excerpts from the first "where babies come from" conversation we've ever had with our son:

BS: Do you think we can get one at WalMart?
CF: No Papa! They don't have babies there. We have to go to the baby store.

* Bullshark was summarily banished from the conversation for bringing up storks. *

* After an explanation involving how Mommies grow babies in their tummies and Papas help put the baby there, and finally understanding it takes a long time to grow a baby and that Mommy doesn't have a baby yet but when she does, she'll let you know. *

CF: I will dream about babies tonight and I want a girl like baby [female cousin] or like my friend Jeremy who has a girl baby. I will call her.... I will call her.... you will tell me her name and I will call her that.

CF: I want you to have a baby. I want all the teachers at my pre-school to carry babies. I want everyone to have babies. I will be so nice to the babies.

CF: So girls carry babies and boys don't?
BFF: Right
CF: So I can't grow up and carry a baby? I want to carry a baby.
BFF: No honey, but you will help when you're big.
CF: So can I help the girls in my pre-school class have babies?

Bullshark's response to the whole thing: This is more pressure than from four grandparents combined.

As for me:

I am trying to decide whether or not to give the pre-school teacher a heads-up, or just wait to see how this conversation gets translated tomorrow . . .

Temporary mortification?

I started this blog post on March 4:

I had one of those moments today -- you know the ones -- where I was publicly mortified and just wanted to crawl into a black hole and disappear in such a way that no one would ever remember I was born.

It's March 10 now. I have no idea what I was talking about. Clearly, it was short-lived.

Spent the weekend, just me and Clownfish. Went to a children's museum for about 5 hours.

F-i-v-e hours in a museum filled with gloppy messy loud yelling crying mewling running crashing rude other people's children and my angellic good-tempered kind sharing friendly upbeat fabulous pre-schooler who missed his nap.

Maybe that was such a healing experience it caused me to forget why I was so embarassed last Tuesday.

Literal humor

Clownfish is getting to the point that he can make original jokes on his own, not just the garden variety funny things that kids say accidentally. And he is so proud of himself too.

Recent example:

BS: We have to wrap you up warm today -- don't want you to freeze and turn into a little ice cube.

CF: Yeah, don't want you to be a Papa... a Papa-sickle... you're a Popsicle!!! Mommy, I called Papa a Papa-sickle Popsicle if he gets cold!!!

Pre-schooler Skills

Things a Clownfish can do at 3 and a half:

• Cuts with safety scissors, uses glue, and prefers blue paper to all other colors.
• Identifies all his letters, both upper case and lower case.
• Gets mad at me when I refer to lower case letters as "little" because his teacher said they were "lower case."
• Writes "upper case" A, B, N, W, M, H, O, Q, Y, P and R and occasionally D; lower case r, n, o, i, l, d (but only d, and not b, p, or q). Maybe a few others. Definitely not e. He has an aversion to e.
• Happily substitutes upper case when he can't do a lower case to create most of his name, Papa and Mommy.
• Like to "couple up" his letters -- which is a term he got from Thomas the Tank Engine meaning "join together." This process quickly makes his writing illegible when he does it.
• Counts to his mid-20s. Has the number/word/quantity concept up to 10 at least.
• Counts items with one-to-one correspondence (not sure what else to call it... like if you have a picture of 10 gumdrops, he counts each one only one time. In my teaching days, I knew first graders who couldn't do that.)
• Learns the words to songs pretty quickly and does a mean impression of Billy Joel singing the Piano Man chorus, complete with totally out of tune harmonica playing.
• Prefers broccoli to french fries.
• Given the option, he'll put A-1 steak sauce on any meat . . . including Chinese food.
• Go down the "scary tunnel slide" at the park.
• When the mood strikes, carry on a short phone conversation.
• Pick out his clothes and put on underwear, sweat pants, socks, and shoes. (I still do shirts).
• Put on and take off / throw away his bedtime pull-up diaper.
• Reads all individual letters, but sight-reads only his name consistently, and often Mommy and Papa.

Things I have learned from him:

• If you pretend your hand is a lobster trying to take his snackie, two hand-shaped orcas will exact their vengence. Beware the orcas, they look like dolphins but are black and white and have teeth that will eat you.
• Told me today he wants to be like Austin from Backyardigans and have a pack filled with all the things he needs to race around the world, including a water bottle and band-aids. "But first mommy, we have to find a desert."
• A-1 steak sauce does NOT taste good on Chinese food.
• Apparently, in those first few seconds of peeing, it is really hard for boys to not to hit the wall, floor, or the back of the seat.

________________

This may not have been the most interesting blog post of the year, but this blog has become my baby-book in a way. I am terrible at keeping up with the scrapbook, so I'll probably eventually just print a bunch of these posts and stick them in there.

It'll provide plenty of ammunition for his therapist.

Damn

Pats got spanked.

Clownfish was saying all day the Giants were gonna win, but then quickly followed up with "Go Patriots" whenever his father gave him "the look."

Guess he had the last laugh. Too bad he's sleeping.

SH -- hope you're happy!!

Football according to Clownfish

I like football because you need to run and see who catches.
And they can't catch it and they run and run and they tackle.
They need to tackle the person who got the football.
(demonstrates running around fast)

Touchdown!!!!!!

Yep, that's about how I understand it.

Today his pre-school is having a Superbowl Party. They have huge posters of action shots of Patriot and Giant players with their heads replaced by kids from the infant and toddler rooms. Its too cute.

Now I have to get Clownfish into his NFL-licensed gear so he can go eat football snacks and color football helmets and do a football histogram and read football books and whatever else they're doing with the theme today.

Go Pats!

Ninja lessons

Things said by Clownfish:

• I'm a ninja. Hiya! Hiya! (followed by elaborate quasi-karate-style kicks and jumps)
• When a ninja falls down he says "I meant to do that."
• Ninjas are sneaky. Unless they are jumping and they yell Hiya! Hiya!
• Ninjas try to steal pie from the Samurai.
• I think Pablo is a good ninja.
• And they wear all black and I want to wear all black tomorrow because I am going to be a ninja all week!
• But mommy, ninjas don't HAVE bedtime!

Things said by Mommy:

• Please don't jump off the couch.
• Please stop kicking me.
• Ow.
• Ok, take off your socks if you're going to jump around like that on the hardwood floor. Its slippery.
• You know ninjas tiptoe very quietly, right?
• If you see the ninja, he is not a ninja. Think about it.
• Seriously, no more Backyardigans before bed time.

What's going on?

Paragraphs of randomness:

My externship is going very well so far. The work is challenging, the people are nice, and I am being exposed to many new and different things. 1L Summer Job did not expose me to broad areas of law and procedure, so this has been excellent, and a needed addition to my education.

I do hate paying for parking at externship site. Its a budget buster. Looking into other options. (No, its not on-site, and no its not reimbursable by the placement).

We signed Clownfish up for T-Ball. Its a league for boys and girls aged 3-4. He's looking forward to it, as are we.

My afternoon class was cancelled so I joined "my boys" in a little pick-up soccer game at the park. Clownfish has good footwork and passing skills . . . and he only tripped over the ball a few times.

Have yet to receive any feedback on the latest draft of my Note, and I am perfectly fine with that . . . feedback would mean work, and I am loath to do more work right now.

I am no one to talk, but that was a large woman on American Idol last night. I usually like the pre-season audition episodes, but the freak show nature of it far far FAR outweighed the entertainment value of marginal singers trying to bust out a Whitney Houston ballad. I may have to forgo this season.

Clownfish's football picks, Part Dos

I didn't know about the Packers game until we turned it on and the Packers were down by 14. He picked Green Bay today anyway. Packers win.

As to last week's predictions that made it onto the blog in advance:

Jaguars (over the Patriots! *I know!*) -- well, we knew he was gonna be wrong there. It was the Patriots after all. During the game, he rooted for the Pats, if that counts for anything, Dicta.

Colts over the Chargers -- Nope. Chargers took it. And he changed his mind before the game, but I'm calling it a miss because I posted it on the blog.

He took the Giants though, and I'll give him that one.

Clownfish's record: 6 out of 8.

I'll post Clownfish's picks for next weekend later in the week.

Funny moment:

Visiting my folks this weekend, Bullshark away, so Clownfish was watching football with Granddad and my brother. My brother leaves for a few minutes and then calls in to my dad, "Hey, how the Chargers doing?" Clownfish, who seems more engrossed in his toy cars than the game on TV looks up and says...

Its the San Diego Chargers, and they're winning. They have 14.

Ummm, my kid can read a box score? Or did he hear it? I still don't know.