Author: Alex

Nem’s vocabulary

Alex / / Nem Nem Niamh

Some of Nem’s words:

“Did-an”: Her big brother.

“Ee-oop”: Pillow.

“Ee-o”: Cheerios.

“Hep”: Help.

“Ded”: Any toy that stops moving (because of dead batteries), or doesn’t move at all.

“Bbbt”: Poop.

“Dop”: Stop.

“Hite”: Light.

“Doll.”

“Hop”: Rabbit.

“Bo-ul”: Bottle.

“Mo”: More.

“Nope.”

“Uh-huh.”

She has a sound that means “brushing teeth”, which is something like an American Indian war cry, a sustained tone stopped in gaps by moving her tongue back and forth across her lips.

She will say my name (“Da-da”) many times over, affectionately, as I say her name (“Baby”) back to her.

Mago, watching PBS Kids morning shows,

Alex / / Mago Elf Liam

speaking slowly and coughing as he battles the flu:

Mom, did you know books with wild stuff in them.. lets your imagination run wild?

I have frequently thought I want to post about Nem so I don’t fall guilty to 2nd-child-forgotten-syndrome, but I always run up against the problem that there’s so much to remember and I don’t have it all perfectly composed in my mind.  (Yeah, that’s my insane expectation.  Actually not so unrealistic, because much of the time a post composes itself in my mind before I post it.  I’m only glad I’m not always mentally narrating my life in the third person. I think it also shows that Nem’s cuteness defies narration.)

One more thing from Mago before I write some things about Nem (next post):

I got a one-dollar sheet of star stickers at Macy’s and gave Nem and Mago a sticker each.  Nem’s sticker I just put on her pajamas.  Mago I let him decide where to put it.  Later he came to me after speaking with Tia, and asked:

Dad, why did you give me a sticker?

Me: No reason.  Just because I like you.

He ran back to where he was speaking with mom and shouted:

Mom, you’re wrong!

– and blathered something I don’t remember to her, apparently correcting her interpetation of the sticker.  (I’m imagining him now, an archaeologist debating the meanings of hyrogliphs among peers.  He recently asked me why hyrogliphics mean what they do.  My answer: the people who made them decided they do.)  He came back to me and showed me that the sticker was high on his chest under the top of the zipper of his pajamas.

Dad, I put the sticker here, see?

Me: Oh, I see.

Because it’s a secret.  So no one will know you like me.

The good life

Alex / / Alex, Mago Elf Liam

Recently one late evening we took the children to McDonald’s, and after Mago ate his dinner he was rewarded with an ice cream cone (the bargain bait – our children are very picky eaters).  He burrowed his tongue deep into the half-eaten cone and stayed there, savoring it with a dazed expression.

Me: “Have you had a good day?”

Long pause, no answer. I teased him:

Me: “Disengage sugar. Answer question.”

Another long pause, then:

Mago: “This… sugar… is… tasty.”

Video: Nemmy and Mago, September 2008

Alex / / Alex, Mago Elf Liam, Nem Nem Niamh, Tia, Video

Despite wanting to post so many other videos and never getting around to it, I couldn’t hold this back from the web.  Maybe the first four minutes are slow (I like them, obviously, and that is correct – that thar is a Commodore 64 my family is playing), but you won’t regret watching this to the end, to see Nemmy.

Also, regarding the previous entry, Tia told me she had meant to mention the pictures of Mago in his pumpkin t-shirt – those photos are by me.

Click the small link below that says “Play in popup” (because the video frame is too large to be in the blog layout inline – and I haven’t come up with another solution yet).  If you have trouble you may need the Flash player (link).

2nd

Alex / / Alex, Nem Nem Niamh, Tia

Late last night I made too much sound in the hallway closing a door and I think it woke up Nem-nem.  Maybe that isn’t what woke her up, I don’t know.

Her distress cry didn’t die down; it got worse.  We let her cry for a very long time and finally thought we’d try calming her.  I changed her diaper and it calmed her, and I realized half way through that it didn’t need changing.  It didn’t calm her for very long.  We tried to soothe her and help her get back to sleep and she got angrier.  Eventually she was in angry hysterics and we tried addressing many possibilities – hunger? – wanting to sleep in our bed? – rocking? – thirst? – wanting her blanket and doll? – needing a massage? – just leaving her alone again in her crib for a long time? – nothing worked.

Finally I decided to try to take her on a car drive and play lullabies from my iPod.  No change – still angrier.  After maybe half an hour driving she began settling down, after she’d fussed and fidgeted with her blanket for a long time, and apparently got it the way she wanted.  Her anger settled to fatigued, heartbreaking whimpers.  Then she was quiet for a good five minutes.  Until she started mildly whimpering again.  I thought she had finally fallen asleep; apparently not.

I thought she might want help spreading her blanket over herself, because with all her fussing with it she’d managed to get it fairly well spread out (after first kicking it off and rejecting it several times).  So I pulled to the side of the road and went to her car seat to help her with that, but when I spread the blanket further over her, she got very angry again.

Then it clicked for me.  If we try to feed her at meal time she gets upset.  She wants to use the spoon herself, or use her hands, without our help.  With the blanket now this was the same thing.  She’s not getting enough recognition for her independent learning, not getting enough sense of accomplishment and admiration from us for all that she does and learns by herself.  Mago got plenty of that – every new milestone was a marvel for us, because we were witnessing the growth of our own baby for the first time.  Even being aware that parents tend to not do this with their second or subsequent children, and making sure she’ll have plenty of video tape and photos of herself as a baby (as second children often don’t), I’ve overlooked the marvels of her progress, of what she learns and does.

Realizing all that at that moment, I told her I’m sorry; she can arrange the blanket herself, and told her she’d done a good job.  I started talking to her about how mom and dad are proud of how much she’s learning and doing, that she’s a big girl, that she does so many things by herself and is learning so much, and that we’re so happy to have her and watch her learn and grow – and with this kind of talk she calmed right down.  She knew exactly what I was saying.

When I got back home she got angry when I picked her up out of her car seat and wrapped the blanket around her.  I said she can wrap the blanket around herself, and I’ll put her in her crib and she can go to bed by herself.  Again she calmed right down.

When we got to her crib she was still wide awake, but I told her she can put herself to sleep, and she went back into her crib and let me leave the room without any complaint, and there was no further complaint the rest of the night – she was probably back to sleep within minutes.

There are several entries Tia and I have wanted to write, about Mago and Nem-nem – I fear the memories may be leaving 🙁

Nem-nem still babbles delightfully, and the babble is becoming more nuanced and expressive.  It often seems there is some clear meaning I’m missing if I only knew the language.  She’ll often mix in, when she’s upset, our names: “Ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma!” or “Da-duh-da-da-da-da-da-deh-da-da!..”

Sign language signs she knows, or things she has words for:

Bear, cougar, lion, tiger (a low, nasal grunt)

Cat

Flower (exhales in imitation of sniffing)

Dog (pants and sticks out tongue like a dog)

Water

Elephant (she makes the same sign for a giraffe)

Frog

Bird/Duck

Light

Tree

Horse (does a lip-flapping noise)

Cow (moos)

Baby

Insect/Fly (Makes a buzzing sound)

Probably others I’m forgetting.. I owe it to her to keep a list going for a while 🙂

Walking and utterances, sleep talking

Alex / / Alex, Mago Elf Liam, Nem Nem Niamh, Tia

Nem-nem for a while has been learning to walk, and has abandoned crawling and walks pretty well by now.

I took her for a walk recently down the same place where Mago used to visit the deer lawn ornaments (we still do sometimes) which I swear I’ve written about but can’t seem to find the entry.. hope it’s still there.. anyway I took her for a walk. On the walk she pointed to a tree and signed “bird”, and when we passed flowers, she scrunched her lips and nose together and exhaled sharply, to imitate sniffing: this is her own sign for “flower”. I set her on the sidewalk to examine some purple daisies in someone’s yard, and she batted them, and when they bounced on their stem she laughed. Then she noticed some ants and stooped down to examine them, and she did this short low sort of raspy grunt. It’s her word for “creature”: she does this for bugs, dogs, animals she sees on TV etc.

The other day she looked at me from her car seat while I was outside the car, and she called: “Dada”. I pointed at her and said “Baby”. She smiled and did the sign for baby: holding one hand on the other elbow and cradling her arms back and forth.

Tia tells me the other day when they went to a playground, Nem-nem said “play”, and the other day she said “doll” when handed a doll. This morning we read a muppet babies book, and seeing baby Kermit she made the sign for frog: hold the back of your hand on your chin and curl three fingers down and up several times.

Mago has amused us with more things he says in his sleep. Tia heard these ones:

In the way a child declares small facts like having visited Denver, importantly:

I’m someone’s brutha!..

Then in a sing-song sort of way going up on the second word, he continued:

Whatch’your name?

Recently I put his blanket back on him at night and he said:

You’re the nice fishy.

Another night I put his blanket back on him and he stirred and urgently whined in alarm:

You’re underwater!

The other night I just went and held him while he was asleep. In his sleep he instinctively tried to put his arm around my neck, but it just kind of flopped up to the side of my neck and he couldn’t get it far around. After I stayed there for a while he whined in his sleep:

I can’t reach you!

So I let his arm drop and I put his plush monkey (Millie) in his arms.

Howard Tracy Hall (my grandpa)

Alex / / Uncategorized

Losing Tia’s grandpa several weeks ago and then more recently my own grandfather, I’ve been in kind of a state of shock and not known what to write or post. My cousin Daniel puts it briefly and well, though, in his post, linking also to another cousin’s (his sister’s) great post.

(There are many cousins’ and relatives’ blogs I don’t have in my blogroll yet, and some I’ve known about for some time but haven’t added. I’ll get them there.)

Through the Veil

Alex / / Religion

Grandpa Clark (Riley Garner) has died, in the hospital, of old age (99) and pneumonia; he’s passed on to the next life.

My history with him is mostly withdrawn, sometimes affectionate, and often very cantankerous or even worse. I had a very similar experience with his passing as I did with his daughter, my mother-in-law Joan (with whom I have a similar history): circumstance taught him, exceedingly stubborn as he was, to accept help. For all the following, I would be boasting if the point was only that I helped him. The last day he was home, the morning of the day we later realized his oxygen supply was low (he had a breath mask and cable with oxygen tank) and he needed to go to the hospital, I was called by him to get help to head on his walker to the bathroom, and a while after he let himself into the bathroom he called urgently for me, and I came to see that he’d only just made it, but leaving a terrible mess anyway. In my weak first attempts to help it became obvious I wasn’t doing enough, and he was too winded, weak and agitated (and I didn’t know it at the time, but too short on oxygen) to help himself. “HELP! HELP!” he cried, trying to raise himself up. After cleaning up, after the long slow journey back to the living room he thanked me for the help, and this wasn’t the grandiose, over-the top thank you I’ve received when I finally get around to doing something like mowing the lawn. (As heroic as that actually is for me.) It was just a humble, dignified thank you.

All the time I’ve lived here in his basement, it’s been like there’s a dark cloud upstairs, and only a bearable light downstairs, for my shame that I have to live in his basement, for all my history of unhappiness with him, for how little he’s let me in, and I don’t think he’s even known how to, and for the futility of my largely unknowledgable attempts to connect and repair my damage with him. But the morning that he didn’t know he was saying goodbye to his home for the final time, Grandpa learned that he could trust me with the worst of messes, and that it was no mar on his dignity at all, and that I’m glad and able to help him. But it wasn’t just Grandpa that learned that.

Was it a day or so later? – I visited him in the hospital, after the doctors had said he could only have about a week to live. They didn’t know they were dealing with a Clark. A whole day of mortal battle to a person of average constitution is just breakfast for a Clark – he hung on for several weeks and the sickness cleared despite everyone’s expectations meanwhile. But I thought I wouldn’t see him again – and I only saw him briefly once again after that, while he was only coherent enough to know I was there – but I made a video recording of him holding his great-grandson, my son’s hand in farewell, and then I took his hand and looked at him in farewell. Through the full breath mask latched over his entire face, he looked at me in clear awareness, and the words came easily for him, spoken by him as a revelation to himself as much as to me:

“I love you! I love you!”

The words were easy to return, and true. It had been later in the day after I’d helped with his mess at home, after they took him to the hospital, that I came home to the house after work and the cloud was lifted. It wasn’t just a physical mess I had cleaned, and not just his mess either. It was my mess too. It took a lot of water and soap, many towels and washcloths, and a lot of straining and lifting to clean up thoroughly. I changed him into new undergarments and new clothes, before he was ushered through doors into rooms where he waited to pass the final curtain, reaching to meet his maker, who forgets every mess, who fills the house with light, top to bottom.

Nem-nem’s first..

Alex / / Uncategorized

Nem-nem took many steps yesterday on different occasions. She’s continuing today.  Video footage (get it? footage, har, har) pending..

Here’s a short test clip from my new camcorder shooting in lower-quality DV (as opposed to higher-quality HD) mode, compressed with Xvid and LAME mp3, then recompressed by YouTube into Flash (.swf) format. I am aware you may not have needed to know any of that, but at least a tiny bit of my geekiness needs to bleed into this blog. I’m looking for an attractive way to host and embed video here – meanwhile, what does some lower quality video of a high quality child hurt? 🙂

The Magic Tree

Alex / / Alex, Mago Elf Liam, Tia

This morning we drove to a local elementary school to vote for our congressional district. (I voted for this guy – guess why? – I only know enough about him to know I don’t dislike him though).

Mago had been very unhappy deciding whether to come along and ultimately did. (It was very brief – most of the times I’ve gone to the polls nearly everyone there is from my neighborhood. You’d think my neighborhood has the only voting citizens in Utah.) I’d spent the morning doing other things and realized Mago needs some time with me, so I invited him to drive home with me and took him for a drive to see “where mommy used to go to school”. Showing him some of the BYU campus I remembered a site where Tia and I spent time and took him there, an area of apartments off campus.

I took him to a particular corner in residential Provo, explaining to him where I’d go:

Me: I’m going to show you what mom and I called the Magic Tree.

Mago: Does the magic tree disappear?

Me: No, we called it the Magic Tree because we fell in love under it, and love is magic.

After a bit of searching I spotted the corner to realize the large tree wasn’t there any more. All that was left was a dark patch of ground without much grass. I explained this to Mago:

Me: Oh – the tree isn’t there any more. Do you see that dark spot in the grass? That’s what’s left of the tree. They must have torn it down.

Mago: The Magic Tree did disappear.

Mago (a few moments later) … Did Jesus bring it back to life?