It’s Not All Mary Poppins

Yesterday’s post, and particularly Z’s comment, got me to thinking with great fondness of long-gone turns of phrase in my children’s lives.

At the age of three, Haley had the most lyrical imagination. I wish that I’d thought to write her creative phrases and delicious adjectives down at the time, because I know that hundreds have been lost forever. (Can you hear my heartfelt sigh?) Two stay with me.

Upon encountering a lawn sprinkler for the first time, the sort that is a plastic doughnut that sits on the grass and sends out a sort of half-torus of radiating arcs of water, she exclaimed,

“Look, mummy! It’s a droopy-up!”

Isn’t that just so sweeeet?

We were driving home after dark one winter evening. She must have been outside after dark before. Even sleep-hardass Mary wouldn’t have had her children in bed by four p.m., which is when it gets dark in January in these parts, but for whatever reason, she noticed the streetlights for the first time.

“Oooooh.” Her voice was awestruck. “Mummy! See the crystal trees?”

When Adam was just shy of two, we lived a few blocks from a fire station. Imagine the excitement when a firetruck burst onto the street, the deep blast of the horn, the shrill call of the siren. Imagine a little boy in footed pajamas, standing up in his crib and pointing at the window, bouncing to the noise, and calling out,

“Vider-fucks! Vider-fucks!”

There was also “own-der-eye-gle”, which was almost as exciting. Too bad those things don’t have sirens.

Emma, for reasons known only to herself, called socks “gookums” for a solid year. (No, of course I didn’t correct her. She was my third. By now I’d learned how fleeting and precious these things are; I’d also learned that she’d get this sort of thing right without my help…)

Gookums. It’s still a puzzlement!

She was also the one who called her paternal grandparents “Gamma and Gamma”, which was cute right there, but even funnier was her indignation when the WRONG “Gamma” answered.

“Not you, Gamma! GAMMA!” Well, that clears it right up.

It’s probably just as well we didn’t know which was which, because she played favourites. “Gamma is NICER than Gamma.” Okay, then. (And you know, to this day I have no idea which Gamma was the “nicer” one. They were both pretty-near perfect grandparents, far as I could make out.)

Okay. Those are some of my fond remembrances. Thank you to Haley for giving me a couple of these! Note to all you young mothers out there: WRITE THESE THINGS DOWN! You think you could never possibly forget — but you will. And it will cause you deep regret, and many a wistful sigh.

So. Let’s write some of them down, right now! What are your children’s cute sayings, mispronounciations, malapropisms … How do your kids mangle the language in a totally ADORABLE way? Tell us in the comments.

Share, share, share!

Mother and son sit on my front hall floor, engrossed in the business of putting on his shoes, curly blond head nestled against graying blond head. It’s a cute tableau, and I smile even as I look down on inch-long gray roots. Time for a touch-up, mom.

“Push little foot!” Mommy’s voice is sing-song and cheerful. My smile becomes a teeny bit fixed. I am not a huge fan of babytalk, but they’ll be gone soon. I can gag in private in a few minutes.

The child grunts a bit, but makes no discernable pushing motion of his foot into his shoe. Mom’s being had here. This child can put his own shoes on. Takes him two minutes, tops. Oddly, I know mom knows this. Some days she has him do it. But today is a gooey day.

“Push! Push little foot!”
More push-less grunting.
“No? Can’t? Okay, I will help little boy. Oh, look! Little shoe!” She’s so happy.
Mommy slides the shoe on.
“There! All done! Shoe on little foot!”

He hops off her lap, and, happy child that he is, hops around the front hall. Bounce, bounce, bounce.
The mother smiles. “Oh, happy boi-oy!”

He laughs. He is a happy boy. He is also three years old. It has been close to a year and a half since he’s spoken the way his mother has been speaking to him for the past five minutes. Interestingly, this normally chatterbox boy hasn’t yet spoken a word in response. Perhaps he doesn’t understand Baby?

“Okay, now. Say ‘bye-bye’ to Wee-wee.”

Ugh.

“Wee-wee?” It’s been close to two years since he’s used that annoying diminuitive of my name. It lasted about three weeks. I mean, does anyone really want their nick-name to be a bodily fluid? I haven’t heard it in two years (less three weeks). I had no idea it was ongoing at home. It’s a bit of a start to hear it at all, much less from the lips of someone pretty nearly my age. Isn’t forty-mrhph old enough to know better?

Thank goodness this verbal retrogression is only an occasional thing. On a daily basis, it would leave my fingers itching for a muzzle. Or the ever-handy duct tape. The return to ooey-gooey babytalk always has me scratching my head. Once you’ve left it behind, why go back? What need of her is it filling? What mood does it express? Or is she just privately assured that there too little Inane in the world?

“Wee-wee.” Yeesh.

I’m not here today because I’m over here, writing about daycare drop-offs…

I think the answer is “Taiwan”. Ooops! Wrong! It’s “Japan”!

Here we have group daycare, Japanese-style, sent to me courtesy of a friend (and loyal lurker) from Singapore. (Thanks, Mike!)

It has no belts nor brakes, that I can see. But, meh. How fast do you go with one of these things, anyway? The sides are easily high enough you’d have lots of notice if one of the crew were trying to make a break for it.

And look at it! It fits a minimum of four children, has great suspension, a grab-bar for a couple more to trundle along, and a lovely roomy storage bin. The kids can move around in there, getting a 360 view of the world around them. With fewer than four children, there’d be room for toys in there, room to have a picnic, and afterward? Toss in a blanket, and they can nap in capacious comfort.

AND it comes filled with little Asian babies, which, everyone knows, are mind-bogglingly cute! What more could you ask for?

Though, on second thoughts, I’d take mine without the tots. I have plenty here…

During an interview recently, a parent asked about my “curriculum”. When I launched into a description of play and activities, she sort of waved me off. She wasn’t interested in hearing about just play. She wanted to know what they were learning. She was, it became clear, interested in knowing about the books I read (which I do, of course!), how I teach them about letters, numbers, shapes, colours.

Hmmm. Unless I can make some headway into her educational priorities, I doubt we’d be a good match, this mother and I. Worksheets and drills? At one and two years old?

“Just play,” she says.

“You can be Wally, and I’ll be Fred.”
“Okay!”
“And this,” Nigel hands Malli a block, “is your hammer.”
“Okay. I will hammer here!”

“Play is a child’s work”. Whether you attribute this quote to Adler, Montessori, Weininger, or someone else, it remains true. Everything a small child needs to learn, he learns through play. Even when we become adults, for that matter, the most effortless learning happens when we’re playing with the ideas, making a game of it. For a smallchild, it’s never “just” playing.

“Hey, Wally. Wally? Bring that piece of wall over here, okay?”
“This piece?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m brinn-inn it.”
“Now you don’t have a bathroom any more. Now there is no wall, and there is no bathroom, so you’ll have to go live somewhere else, far, far away from your house.”

When they’re playing, they practice problem-solving, they rehearse social situations, they deal with emotions.

“I’m not living in my house?”
“No, you have to live in a new house, and Wally and Fred will fix your old house. You live in a new house, with a new bedroom and no garden and no playing soccer in the back yard.”

They confront anxieties.

“Why can’t I play soccer?”
“Because the new house has nice grass and too much chairs and tables and a big umbrella, and the soccer ball might break the grass and make the chairs dirty.”
“I have a hammer!”
“Yeah. Let’s build the wall. We can build the wall, and make the bathroom again.”
“I’m building a toilet!”
“A toilet to poo in!”
“Uh-huh. You build the bathtub.”

Sounds of industrious hammering, as they construct a toilet and tub out of blocks and blankets. In play, they sort out confusing aspects of their lives.

“Build, build, build!”
“Are we done, Nigel?”
“I’m not Nigel, I’m Fred.”
“Are we done, Fred?”
“Almost. The bathroom is almost done, and the new bedroom is almost done, and the big family room is almost done. The house is much bigger.”
“We are buildinn a new, big house.”
“Not a new house, just a bigger old house. It will be my old house, just with another bathroom and another bedroom and more playing room.”

They deal with stress. They practice reality.
Sounds of hammering. Block pounds into block. Towers clatter.

“Are we done, Fred?”
“We are done! It is a beautiful new old house! Now I can come back!”
“Yay!”
“Yeah! I will have a beautiful new old house, and I will go back soon.”

“Just” play? I don’t think so.

From Florinda, my reliable source of fun and easy memes for those brain-dead days… All you do is answer the questions with one word. Can’t get simpler than that. You’re supposed to tag four people. but I don’t tag. If you want to do it, just leave a note in the comments — and link back to here as your souce, as I linked to Florinda!

1. Where is your cell phone? Charger
2. Your significant other? Stephen
3. Your hair? Brown
4. Your mother? Slim!
5. Your father? deceased
6. Your favorite thing? Stephen
7. Your dream last night? zzzzzzz
8. Your favorite drink? Chiller
9. Your dream/goal? Writing
10. The room you’re in? Livingroom
11.Your hobby? Blogging
12. Your fear? Dependency
13. Where do you want to be in 6 years? Retired (HA!)
14. What you’re not? Patient (surprise!)
15. Muffins? ummm…
16. One of your wish list items? pillow
17. Where you grew up? Angus
18. The last thing you did? sushi
19. What are you wearing? dress
20. Favorite gadget? laptop
21. Your pets? deceased
22. Your computer? compaq
23. Your mood? stable
24. Missing someone? Yes
25. Your car? none
26. Something you’re not wearing? Socks
27. Favorite store? Dilemme (but it’s gone out of business! Boooo…)
28. Like someone? Yes
29. Your favorite color? Green
30. When is the last time you laughed? 5 minutes ago
31. Last time you cried? Friday

“It’s okay, Timmy.” Little Emily is patting Timmy’s shoulder, peering into his face, speaking with gentle reassurance. “You don’t need to cry. I was not hurting you, I was hurting Anna.”
…

Anna bellows out in ’song’.
“OLD MACDONALD HAD A FARM!
E- I - E - I - YORE!

…

“Don’t touch those rocks! Those are dog-pee rocks!”
(He’s right: they are.)

….

We spy one of our favourite neighbourhood attractions, the large metal toad in a neighbour’s garden. We stop and visit with friend toad for a while, then must move on.

“Bye, toad!”
“Bye, toad!”
“Bye, toad!”
“Have a good weekend!”

….

“Why does Emily not got a penis?”
“You know why. Because she’s a girl. She has a vulva instead.”
“When she grows up, she will have a hairy penis.”
“No, she won’t. When she grows up, she will have hair there, but no penis.”
“Yes, she will. My mummy has a penis.”
(I can hardly wait to tell mummy this one…)
“No, lovie, she doesn’t. Daddy has a penis, mummy has a vulva and a vagina.”
“Mummy does, too, have a penis! It’s just hiding in the hair.”
(Oh, I think I’ll just let mummy take it from here…)

I like messing about with stuff, making one thing from another, putting this with that and seeing what happens. Creativity is something we’re all blessed with, though some, undoubtedly, are particularly gifted. At its heart, creativity is play. Unselfconscious experimentations, curiosity, and a willingness to mess about with stuff.

Creativity does not mean that you can paint a canvas that will one day hang in the National Gallery, nor compose a sonata played by orchestras around the world. Creativity just means messing about with stuff. Putting this with that, attaching this to that, seeing if we can make this from that. Mess about enough, and something fun, interesting — creative — will emerge. Because you’ve let it. Because you haven’t seen anything you did as a “mistake”.

An “uncreative” person sees her little craft disintegrate. “It’s fallen apart! God, I’m so hopeless at this crap. I’m so uncreative!” And she walks away, confirmed in her uncreativity.

The creative person, instead, sees the disintegration as part of the process. “Hmm. That glue won’t hold fabric. Maybe if I used a twist-tie?” The glue wasn’t a mistake. It just didn’t get you where you wanted to be. And the more messing about you do, the better you get at it.

The difference between the creative and the ‘uncreative’ person in my made-up example is primarily one of mindset, not ability.

When it comes to crafts, I mostly make it up as I go along. However, I’m not about to dismiss a great craft resource when it pokes me in the eye, or shows up in my inbox once a week.

Isn’t this cute? A pig! Made from a sock and a lid, some stuffing and a few clothespegs and bulk clips. Love it!

If you’d like a little more craftiness in your life, but aren’t so good at making it up as you go along, you might consider subscribing to this site. We’ve had fun with it!

We have had a lot of rain this summer. A LOT, lot, lot of rain. Days and days of drizzle, downpour, and damp. We discovered last week that there’s a leak in the attic. The roof repair that we’d hoped to put off till next year has probably become this year’s project.

Ugh.

Since it’s inevitable that there is at least one child in the crew who is not appropriately attired for puddle-jumping, we end up spending a lot of time indoors on deluge days. Indoor time means more circle time, more organized play, and more crafts.

I do not generally ‘do’ organized play. To my mind, ‘organized’ and ‘play’ are, when in the control of an adult, antonyms. Opposites. Child-directed play has, I assume, some sort of inner order, an organic flow that makes sense to its participants. It may confuse/amuse the heck out of any adult watching, but then, it’s not for/about the adults, is it?

Children play. Adults play, too, but not like children. And I will be entirely honest with you, here. Those of you who imagine Mary’s day to be one long happy round of skipping, playing, dancing, playing, laughing, playing, singing, playing, holding hands, playing …

Nope.

The kids play. I laugh, sing, feed, clean, change, organize, nurture, discipline, negotiate, explain, guide, direct, scold, smile, redirect, tease (kindly), observe, analyze, strategize … lather, rinse, repeat.

I do not play, because (brace yourselves) … Playing? All day every day? I’d go out of my mind with boredom. Out of my mind.

But on rainy days, on continuous long streams of rainy days, I do organize the play. This is sheerest self-defense. Toddlers caged indoor for hours at a stretch, never mind entire days, become restive. Their endless, boundless, ceaseless, ever-ready energy is constrained, restrained, oppressed by the four walls, by the furniture, by the other bodies in the same space.

Quick! Must defuse the five ticking time-bombs in my home!

So, that odd, adult oxymoron, “organized play”.

I have games that involve lots of physical movement. We jump, we slither, we fly like birds and like butterflies and like planes. We are popcorn, we are fire engines, we are sleeping bunnies and roaring tigers. We make obstacle courses, under the bench, along the bench, jump off the padded footstool. We crank the music and dance.

This is, of course, the Royal We. Mary does not do this stuff. Mary is no longer 24. Nor even 34. Nor even … well, you take my point. Suffice it to say: Mary organizes and facilitates. The children do the leaping and crawling and slithering. Mary does dance and sing, though.

The thing about playing with children (this most particularly if you have more than one) is that they play together. Me? I only have to do the bits I enjoy. I like dancing, I like singing, so I dance and sing. Jumping? Not so much. The tots have never seen Mary jump, and this is a Good Thing. (If Mary did not write such a family-friendly blog, Mary would be making decidedly earthy comments about the relationship between jumping, gravity, larger-cup bras and certain body parts.)

Problem with all these lively games is that they are also LOUD. Though we have negotiated this drizzly season with the walls of the house still upright and no broken furniture or even children, my ears, they are not so happy. The children get clautrophobic because of the lack of open space for running. I get claustrophobic because of the omnipresent, oppressive, inescapable noise, noise, noise, noise.

Bring on the sun!

It’s not a holiday here, of course. Ours was on Tuesday.

However.

Two of the tots are travelling this week.
That brings me to three.
One is staying home with her dad.
Two.
And one phoned THIS MORNING to let me know they’re heading off for the weekend.
I have only one child coming today.
One.

I sweep the kitchen floor and hope…
I pop a load of laundry with my fingers crossed…
I put together a snack that could, if need be, be used on Monday instead…
I glance at the phone, praying for the call…

Until I hear their footsteps on the porch.

DAMN.

I greeted him with the warmest of smiles, of course. He is a sweetie, I love him from his pigeon-toes to his goofy little face, and, hey, it is my job!

But,

DAMN.
.
.
.

UPDATE:
Parent entered, took in the preternaturally quiet home.

???

I explain.

Parent said, “Gee. I feel guilty now. I’m taking the day off to get those things done at home that you just can’t get done with a two-year-old underfoot.”

Parent hugged child and left.

Guilty, but not quite guilty enough…

Damn.