This morning, sitting on the front porch after he asked if the sun was hiding behind the mountain and I answered him no and showed him where it was hiding behind a tree, he asked:
Mago: “Daddy?”
Me: “Yes.”
Mago: “Are we in the sun’s garden?”
Me: (I don’t know where he got this, or maybe he made it up, but I think it’s a great idea, so I expanded on it) “Yes, the whole world is the sun’s garden. You’re in the sun’s garden, and I am, and mommy is, and sister is, and our neighbors are, and our family is.”
(It’s the Son’s garden, too).
At a cousin’s house Mago was playing with a wooden toy snake – the fairly large kind with a lot of interconnecting spine pieces or hinges, which make it slither back and forth when you bend it up or down – and Nem-nem was on her back on the floor, wiggling and cooing. None of us watched exactly what Mago did, but he was near Nem-nem when she gave out a howl and cry of alarm, so Tia went over and comforted her. As we speculated what might have happened, referring to Mago as we spoke, he approached a couch where several talking about this were sitting, and removing the wooden snake’s head where he had put it in his mouth, exclaimed:
“But I like a snake in my mouth!”
(So why doesn’t she? It’s a perfectly fun thing to do – what’s wrong with it?)
After we had taken him to the Chuck-E-Cheeze kid’s restaurant one evening (replete with a singing animal robot band on stage), the next morning I asked Mago how his time at Chuck-E-Cheeze was, and what he did. In his answers, he talked about the “butcher” on the stage – holding up his hands in the way a drummer would, working the drums.. er.. knives.
(Tia later clarified to me that he has a baker toy he often mistakes for a butcher – and I learned his birthday cousin does the same thing sometimes – so he probably thought the robot that was baking a pizza was a “butcher”. If so, I still think my mistake of his mistake is a very funny image)
Thanks for sharing the magic in Mago’s conversations–children
make the whole world new for us adults, inviting us all to enjoy
the sun’s garden.
Love, Aunt Sherlene
Here’s a story that made a BIG impact on my instruction to my
children regarding babies and WHAT THEY CAN HAVE IN THEIR MOUTHS or what they can eat.
A woman in our ward had a large family with more than a few young children. To be on the safe side, she took her infant into the bathroom with her in an infant seat while she showered. She heard the door open and by the time she got the water turned off she heard gagging sounds from her baby. In fact, by the time she got to the baby he was clearly choking and having difficulty breathing. In her naked state she did everything she could do quickly to try to help the baby breathe. No luck. She threw on an overcoat, screamed for the children to come get in the car, and got in the car with her phone. She called the hospital (nearby) and said she was coming. She could hear the baby gagging and choking for breath all the way to the hospital. He was quite blue when they pulled into the emergency circle. A nurse who was waiting in the circle for the baby’s arrival scooped it out of the car seat, turned him upside down and whacked him on the back. Guess what popped out? A large jawbreaker.
One of the very young children had very kindly shared his candy with the baby.
I very early began to instruct all my children that the baby could not have anything at all except food that mother or dad provided or they would get very sick. I point out NO TEETH to chew, and then gave them examples of what babies could not eat–gum, candy, food from the table, snacks, etc. etc. etc.
I’m sure that Mago would never “share” his jawbreaker with little Nem-Nem just as I’m sure there are probably no jawbreakers around your house for him to share. None-the-less, a good little FHE lesson about such things is always a good idea.
When Nathan was born he had to be evaluated for some potential surgery for a hernia. We went to Children’s Hospital in D.C. to see a surgeon. He had posted on a large mural in his waiting room some of the things he had pulled out of children’s lungs, stomachs and intestines. It was absolutely amazing! I sat there looking at that mural and wondered how on earth ANYBODY (let alone a child) could have swallowed some of those items.
We do love reading your posts. I absolutely love the language development stages in young children’s lives. Their observations are so fresh and enlightening.
Aunt Ginger
Ginger,
Thanks for the warning. And oy!
I recently told Mago he can’t put anything near or on Nem-nem, either – he could have choked her sharing the necklace they made for him in Nursery at church. He’s always in her face, cuddling and adoring her and touching her face – sometimes he’s rough and she’s distressed, but he’s learning pretty well how to be gentle. If he’s back enough she can see his face (which is rarely) she smiles at him.