the widdle, weeny whiney voice

Charlie:  "Ders a voice in my bones, Mama, a widdle tiny weeny whiney voice that says, [in a high squeaky voice] “I need juice!"”

Mama:  "Is there?”

Charlie:  "Ders a map on my shirt dat tells me da way to treasure. It goes into my tummy.  You open your mouth and ders a way to my stomach from my mouth and my bones needs  some juice.  So dey are saying,  (in a high squeaky voice) “Follow duh map!””

Mama:  "That’s what the map says?”

Charlie:  "Yes!  It says you go dis way and den dat way(pointing with his finger).  You put the juice in yow mouth and swallow it down your foat (throat).  Yow fowt is long and it goes stwaight to yow tummy.  You dwink it down and den it’s stwaight in your tummy and it goes along yow skin and right to your bones!! An the bones are so ‘cited ‘bout getting some juice!  Dey just gobble it up!” (putting both hands out to the side and bouncing them up and down to emphasize each word)  “Isn’t dat GWEAT?!”

Mama:  “Uh…”

Charlie: “So, mama, can I have some juice?” (sensing my dumfounded silence to be some form of hesitance, and trying to cement the deal) “Fow to make my bones be happy?”

She Argues!

I had my first conversation, I mean, argument, with Wendy tonight as she was finishing up dinner .  

Wendy:  rubbing her fists up and down in opposite directions on on her chest, “Baaah”

Mama: “You want a bath?”

Wendy: more fist rubbing with an excited expression, “Baaah!  Bee-Bee, baaah!”

Mama: “Wendy wants a bath?    No, we are not going to have a bath tonight.  We can wash your hands?”

Wendy: crying, Baaah!!  Baaah, Bee-bee baaah!!!!! 

Mamma:  “No, Wendy, you already had a bath today.  But we can wash your hands!”

Wendy:  more fussing, throwing back head against chair, “Baaah, baaah!    Baaah!!!”  (pause)   Looking up at me, measuring my face, now in a high pitched voice, hitting palms against her chest, “Pee?”

Mama:  “Please?  Bath, please?   Sorry honey, no bath tonight.”   trying to change the subject “Are you all done?  Do you want to get down?”

Wendy:  cheerfully flapping hands, then pointing down,  “Ahh-daa, ahh-daa!”

Mama:  pretending to be enthusiastic, hoping she is distracted,  “Ok then, let’s get you down and go wash your hands!”

Wendy: rubbing her fists up and down in opposite directions on on her chest, “Baaah!”

Mama: […]

I am more stubborn than you, that’s what I am!

Memorial Day Water Fun

What fun it is to wake up and go on a little drive to a park, see our family, swim, picnic, slide and then come home again all in the same day!
         
I wish close proximity with my family was the norm for all my life, but I can honestly say that having a brother and sister  four hour drive away is the closest I have ever lived to my family since 9th grade.   That’s a sad thought, so lets not linger there.    Instead let’s look at this! And this!And this!
    

And after all that looking and laughing, let’s just agree that holiday’s truly are for
sharing with your family!  What a blast!

A chair my own size…

      I’ve often thought --
here, where table tops fit clean over my head
and the door knobs are so very very much out of reach--

I’ve often thought,
and I’ve often wished for a chair.
A chair just my size:
right height for my legs,
right width for my girth. 

A place to eat snacks while swinging my feet
Ahh, to enjoy a good book
from my very own seat!

A place for my behind to rest while I’m writing,
so I wouldn’t be so late with my
first-birthday-thank-you-note-sending!

Yes, it would please me so,
I’ve often thought
to have a chair just like this,
in my very own spot!

And this one surely would fit,
if only I could stop ending up
with my rump on the floor when I sit!

Conversations with Charlie: Expletives in three-year-old style!

Charlie has a huge vocabulary and uses these words liberally.   I think he inherited my need to process out loud AND Jonathan’s need to carefully craft each utterance to be as accurate as it can be.   This particular combination in Charlie is one of the most frustrating and most charming things in my life.
                                
Charlie often phrases and re-phrases the beginning of a sentence or paragraph until I am almost ready to shake the rest of it out of him.  He will not move on, or do any other task, until it satisfies him and he can finish his idea entirely.  If you try to hurry him by finishing his sentence or jumping in to help, he will inform you that you just “ ‘toowupted” (interrupted) him.  THEN he will start over from the very beginning.    Only very patient souls persevere to the end of one of Charlie’s thorough explanations, but by then they have fallen in love with him and his creative tongue.
Exclamations, on the other hand, have started flying out of Charlie’s mouth without deliberation.  We feel no need to correct his errors since they bring us such amusement.  And, his mistakes make his utterances age-appropriate, right? (Please tell me I’m right on this one! ) Here are a few goodies:  

• The tip-off to this new phase of language and his first  imitated ‘adult’ exclamation, was a high-pitched “WHAaaaaT?!!!?” as he threw out his hands in surprise when I told him that Batman cannot fly.
• Then, he dropped his basket of cars and they spilled all over the floor: “Tao-nay-shun!” (Tarnation!) Too much Looney Toons, perhaps?
• After spending three minutes trying to pick-up a soccer ball, three tennis balls, a golf ball and a football all at once: “Goodness gwasus my oh me! Dis is twiky!”

{Apparently, after some experimentation, he decided his preferred genre of expletives are statements which begin with “what the…”  He got quite creative.  There is a whole family of them} 

• When Wendy knocks the jar of markers off the art table:  “What duh oawth(earth) did you do?”
• As we merge onto the freeway, and he looks out his window on the left side:  “What duh hoe-wee (holy) cow!  Doze caws ow suwr fwyin past us! Day aw dwivin’ cwazy!”
• This one is for the little things like missing a ball when hitting it with a paper tube:  "What the whack?"
• This one is powerfully, doubly and expletively effective: “What duh WHhaaaat !?!”
• And our personal favorite:   “What duh hick !?!!”

{bonus quote}
Last week Charlie explained to Jonathan and I, in a serious tone (about the two very dead dandelions languishing in a little tea cup on the dinner table):  “Doze fwowers are a ‘pecial tweat for you guys.  But I don’t give dem to you evwee day, (sagely nodding his head) yeah, cuz dey are a ‘pecial tweat. . .”

Hope this was a treat too!   Thanks for stopping by!

Charlie’s Finale Ballet Performance

Charlie and Alaythia had their ballet recital last Wednesday night.   Both sets of parents have decided that this recital also marks the end of their (short-lived) ballet careers.  For me the decisive moment came about 30 second into their performance, when I had begun laughing so hard I couldn’t see through the tears filling my eyes.  I glanced over to see Jonathan laughing and blushing a beet red.  In every direction were the convulsing shoulders of parents trying their hardest to keep from guffawing out loud.   Charlie?  He was totally oblivious, dancing a solo in head-banging style--wiggling his hips to the music and once, even falling down in his enthusiasm. 

Oh, and he and topped it all off by jumping off the stage rather than walking down the steps at the end. Yes, I think the ballet world will be better off without Charlie’s arabesque…and his parents certainly don’t have the guts to sit through more performances like that! After admitting this, there is not really much space left for saying we are proud of him, but we are.  He certainly enjoyed himself immensely.  (That counts for quite a lot at this age.)  And no one will forget his performance easily.
Here’s the video:   No extra charge for its anti-depressant effects!

Study Break

It is that time of year again, when finals begin and Jonathan dissapears into the back room/office and we don’t seem him for many days while he studies and writes himself to exhaustion.  We’ve been keeping ourselves pretty occupied, without him, but occasionally the kids still break through my barricades and try to engage Jonathan in some play time. You may or may not remember my summary of Charlie’s complicated attempts to ‘distract’ Dada from work and study.  Wendy has been developing her own strategy for claiming Dada’s attention. 

Who me?It goes like this:  She walks in, puts a hand on his arm, looks up at him, babbles a few baby syllables and then he turns into mush….

It works every time.  Here they are working on their sword fighting skills, when he is trying to cram for an exam less than two hours away.  But that’s how it is with girls and their Dada’s!