My three year old has named her new baby doll “Eck,” and was running around the house with him protecting him from imaginary monsters who want to eat him. Good imagination, right?
She was just playing with an old toy now and said, “I don’t like this, it’s a baby toy - put it away.” I asked if Eck would like to play with it and she said, “No.” I asked why, and she told me, “Because he don’t has real hands that move.” Gotta love the segway to total rationality! (I think I might have to start calling her Newt.)
Oh, how sweet! WhyBaby’s main doll is named “Mei mei” (WhyBaby picked it herself, and it just happens to be Chinese for “little sister”. Kid’s a geeeeenius, I tell ya!).
Behind me, the two are sitting at the dining room table eating some leftover Thai food. WhyBaby (about 17 monthsish for the purposes of this story) just grabbed Mei mei around the middle and used her to sweep the bowl off the table. Then she threw Mei mei into the “Time out corner” and scolded her! (I don’t know what she said to her, it was in Babblespeak, but it sounded harsh!)
Oops, I’m now being informed that Mei mei is very sorry for throwing her food and ready to come out of Time Out and read a book with Mama and WhyBaby. It’s amazing how well they communicate before they can really talk, isn’t it?
When my niece was somewhere around 9 months, there came a morning when my Sister-in-law (her mother) decided that no, she didn’t really feel like fixing scrambled eggs that morning. It wouldn’t hurt my niece to eat cereal and yoghurt for breakfast. So she got out the yoghurt and the cereal and sat down next to my niece. Niece looked at her mother, looked at the yoghurt, and did not open her mouth. Then she looked at her mother, looked at the stove, and pointed imperiously.
Sis-in-law gave up. Fixed eggs for breakfast.
Niece is the type who will eat almost anything, so when she refuses, you know you are in for a battle of wills, or should try feeding her something else.
My youngest niece was all worried about having to start first grade this year. My older niece advised her thusly: “If you don’t want to go to first grade, just do a really bad job in kindergarten and then you’ll get to stay for another year.”
No, I meant that she got on her miniature gyro-controlled personal travel device right before she said that. Um, look over there! They’re letting highschoolers use leetspeak on tests, isn’t it horrible? (My formerly brilliant mind has turned to oatmeal since having a kid.)
I love the Time Out story! Chloe once put her toy cat in the naughty spot because it (allegedly) wouldn’t stop licking her.
Beadalin, the sage tone in your story reminds me of something I read in a magazine about an older child tutoring a younger in the ways of the world. While passing a cemetery, she said, “That’s where they bury the bodies when people die. (pause) I have no idea what they do with the heads.”
I saw an ad for a day care assistant where you had to work with kids and their beginning writing and invented spelling. Does that mean what I think it means, because if so I don’t think it’s the job for me.
At my kids’ school they are allowed to spell words phonetically (invented spelling) in their journals and so forth up through about 2nd grade. The idea is that you don’t want to frustrate them so much with looking up words that they give up on learning how to tell a story. At the same time, though, my first grader was having spelling tests every week last year, which seemed a bit early to me.
Nine months is the best age - they can hold themselves up and can use facial expressions and their personality really kicks in - it just gets better from there!!
The other day I was taking a quick shower after working out while my (2 year old) son was taking his nap. When I got out I heard that he was awake in his crib, so I threw on a fluffy yellow robe and went in to get him up. He had never seen that robe before and looked at me, confused. He paused, cocked his head to one side and said “Mommy is a duck?”
I laughed and said no, this is Mommy’s robe. He looked at me critically and said, “quack, quack.” He still quacks when he sees that robe on the hook now.
I was particularly proud of my then-4-year-old daughter (still 2 months away from turning 5) when she made the following observation…
We were eating breakfast and there was a bag of paper napkins on the counter, with the words “100 FREE!” on it, along with a listing for “400 Napkins” with the “400” crossed out and “500” written above it in red.
She was able to read the word “FREE” out loud, and asked me what it meant.
Me: “Free” means you don’t have to pay for something. Her: What does “100 FREE” on the napkins mean? Me: That you don’t have to pay for 100 of the napkins. Her: (Thinks for a bit) So if you don’t have any money, do they give you the napkins? Me: Well, no. It really means that if you buy the bag, it’s supposed to have 400 in it, and they give you another 100 napkins. Her: (Thinks about this for a bit…) That doesn’t sound like “free” to me.
And in the imitates-her-elders department, my other daughter once went over to a toy telephone when she was 1-1/2 years old, and in a very serious voice spoke into it: “Hello? No… No. OK. OK, bye!”, hung up, and ran out of the room.
Puzzled, I called out to her, “Who did you just talk to on the phone?”
