Sunday, January 05, 2003
Maddie News.
OR
Parents Bragging About Their Brilliant Child.
"How refreshing," says the reader.
"Suffer," says the blogging father. Actually, I can sympathize--having seen other parents brag about their kids, I know it's sometimes bunk:
Crazed, sleep-deprived, doting parent: "Did you hear that? Theodora said 'Mendelssohn!' She's going to be a musical prodigy!"
Me: "Yeah, that was great!" [To myself: "Good Lord. The kid's got all of two teeth. It sounded like 'mulf' to me. And to anyone else who's gotten more than three hours sleep in the past two days. In fact, the only intelligible word she's said in the past three hours has been 'da-da,' and she said that to their Siamese."]
Proceeding onward:
Maddie's verbal development continues at a staggering pace. New two-syllable words (all G-rated so far) are issuing forth daily: "Slipper" and "apple" would pass the sane, rested individual hearing test with flying colors. More intriguing is "Shup," which we have discovered means "Shut up." The only time she hears this phrase is when Da-da is addressing Puh-pee at 80 decibels, specifically in regard to Puh-pee's barking. Fortunately, she hasn't picked up on daddy's other common phrase yelled at the dog, "craphound." [You really, really, really don't want to know how the dog acquired that nickname.]
Anyway, what Heather noticed was that she would let the mutt outside, and the dog would immediately start her Incessant Barking At Evil. Believe me, Evil gets a thorough tongue-lashing from our Beagle-Brittany mix. Shortly afterwards, Madeleine would start saying "shup." The dog would continue barking, and Maddie would say "shup." This is true, as I first heard it Saturday. She is her father's daughter.
Then there's "ohnu." This is probably going into crazed-parent territory: we think it means "I love you." She says it repeatedly, and only when she's hugging one of us, or one of her beloved stuffed animals. Unfortunately, she also said it to a roll of paper towels she was cuddling, so that's why it's a little on the hypothetical side at this point.
She's also developing different expectations of us as individual parents. This is seen in her reaction to one of us crying. We have a book called "Busy Babies." Madeleine loves this book. It consists of pictures of babies and toddlers in various activities, including laughing and crying. Heather read it to her, and did some crying noises when she reached this page. Maddie looked at her mom with great concern and developing confusion. She then leaned in to comfort mama.
Daddy read the same book today. When he got to that page, at Mommy's prompting, he did the same thing. Response? Maddie wailed. I was stunned. I guess she doesn't want to see Daddy cry, ever. It wasn't a fluke either, as Daddy did the same thing when Maddie smacked him with a spoon at the dinner table tonight. I'd forgotten about the earlier incident, and was trying to do it for comic effect. Same wail. Very interesting.
Moreover, she's showing her Catholic bona-fides, too. Heather and I purchased some wood carvings from a group of Palestinian Catholics who visited our parish a few months ago. One has a cast pewter icon of the Virgin Mary holding a toddler-age Jesus. She pointed to it, and I picked it up and gave it to her. She gazed at the icon, pointed to the Blessed Virgin, and said: "Mama." She did the same thing after carrying it over to her own Mama.
Finally, her suspicion of men continues. But, as a reader whose own daughter had a similar reaction to his dad pointed out, with respect to other men, he kind of hoped it would have lasted until she turned 35 or so. I understand perfectly.
OR
Parents Bragging About Their Brilliant Child.
"How refreshing," says the reader.
"Suffer," says the blogging father. Actually, I can sympathize--having seen other parents brag about their kids, I know it's sometimes bunk:
Crazed, sleep-deprived, doting parent: "Did you hear that? Theodora said 'Mendelssohn!' She's going to be a musical prodigy!"
Me: "Yeah, that was great!" [To myself: "Good Lord. The kid's got all of two teeth. It sounded like 'mulf' to me. And to anyone else who's gotten more than three hours sleep in the past two days. In fact, the only intelligible word she's said in the past three hours has been 'da-da,' and she said that to their Siamese."]
Proceeding onward:
Maddie's verbal development continues at a staggering pace. New two-syllable words (all G-rated so far) are issuing forth daily: "Slipper" and "apple" would pass the sane, rested individual hearing test with flying colors. More intriguing is "Shup," which we have discovered means "Shut up." The only time she hears this phrase is when Da-da is addressing Puh-pee at 80 decibels, specifically in regard to Puh-pee's barking. Fortunately, she hasn't picked up on daddy's other common phrase yelled at the dog, "craphound." [You really, really, really don't want to know how the dog acquired that nickname.]
Anyway, what Heather noticed was that she would let the mutt outside, and the dog would immediately start her Incessant Barking At Evil. Believe me, Evil gets a thorough tongue-lashing from our Beagle-Brittany mix. Shortly afterwards, Madeleine would start saying "shup." The dog would continue barking, and Maddie would say "shup." This is true, as I first heard it Saturday. She is her father's daughter.
Then there's "ohnu." This is probably going into crazed-parent territory: we think it means "I love you." She says it repeatedly, and only when she's hugging one of us, or one of her beloved stuffed animals. Unfortunately, she also said it to a roll of paper towels she was cuddling, so that's why it's a little on the hypothetical side at this point.
She's also developing different expectations of us as individual parents. This is seen in her reaction to one of us crying. We have a book called "Busy Babies." Madeleine loves this book. It consists of pictures of babies and toddlers in various activities, including laughing and crying. Heather read it to her, and did some crying noises when she reached this page. Maddie looked at her mom with great concern and developing confusion. She then leaned in to comfort mama.
Daddy read the same book today. When he got to that page, at Mommy's prompting, he did the same thing. Response? Maddie wailed. I was stunned. I guess she doesn't want to see Daddy cry, ever. It wasn't a fluke either, as Daddy did the same thing when Maddie smacked him with a spoon at the dinner table tonight. I'd forgotten about the earlier incident, and was trying to do it for comic effect. Same wail. Very interesting.
Moreover, she's showing her Catholic bona-fides, too. Heather and I purchased some wood carvings from a group of Palestinian Catholics who visited our parish a few months ago. One has a cast pewter icon of the Virgin Mary holding a toddler-age Jesus. She pointed to it, and I picked it up and gave it to her. She gazed at the icon, pointed to the Blessed Virgin, and said: "Mama." She did the same thing after carrying it over to her own Mama.
Finally, her suspicion of men continues. But, as a reader whose own daughter had a similar reaction to his dad pointed out, with respect to other men, he kind of hoped it would have lasted until she turned 35 or so. I understand perfectly.
