Author: Alex

Father’s Day, Sambo-Wan

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

At the city carnival just over a week ago, I took Nem-nem on a ferris wheel and held her tight.

I didn’t know it was going to go around fast. She was terrified for her life, screaming, sobbing, squirming, and inconsolable. I felt terrible. I’d have never taken Mago on a ferris wheel when he was an infant – I was too protective. Maybe I’ve swung too far the other way.

(Although usually I’m.. very protective.)

Driving home from dinner at my dad’s this past Sunday (Father’s Day), I played favorites in the CD player that lulled Nemmy off to sleep. One of them was Time After Time as it appears on the album for STRICTLY BALLROOM (probably Tia’s favorite film – or she showed it to everyone in High School). I reached back and held Mago’s hand and sang to him in between treacherously brief glances back to the road (I can’t believe that either considering the last paragraph I wrote) and he lovingly smiled back at me. In a while he asked:

Daddy, does this song teach you to pick me up if I fall down?

That night around 10, about an hour and a half after I finally got him in bed (Tia was off late in another city taking someone’s family photograph), he came to the bathroom as I cleaned out his toilet. He held up a folded paper card he’d colored – I guess from Nursery at church – and said:

Daddy, I forgot to give this to you. This is yours.

It was a line drawing of a father holding up his kid, a boy about Mago’s size/age, the card colored with blue marker scribbles solidly clumped together roughly inside every shape. Inside was a note scrawled with a nursery worker’s help:

Daddy I love you too.

A simple thing like that from any little kid cuts any parent down into a burbling lump much smaller than the kid.

The other day I was holding Nem-nem and making her “jump” on a bed with Mago, and other general riotous fun, including making silly babbling monster sounds for her and chasing Mago around the room, all of which she laughed uproariously at and squealed and giggled. Then Mago said:

Let’s play Sambo-Wan.
Okay, how do you play that?
You go like this.

He stood, bending down to touch his foot with one arm, thrusting the other arm up in the air behind him, making a fist. Another way to play Sambo-Wan apparently is to “Do tricks and stuff”, including jumping off a bed and getting as many little kicks as you can in, midair and crouching before you land.

Doggies, dada

Alex / / Alex, Nem Nem Niamh

I’d have written last entry, if I remembered, that Nem-nem also said “dog” when shown images of piggies, and also an elephant, to which she said “doggy” (with a light “d”).

Yesterday when she met me at one point Nem-nem looked at me and said “Da-da”.

This morning I woke up late and came into the main room where Tia was playing with Mago and Nem-nem. Nem-nem was off by herself with toys, and when she saw me she started babbling, crawled over near me, picked up a rattle, held it up to show it to me and rattled it, put it down, crawled in front of me, looked up at me and signed “Dada” (extend your thumb and tap it twice on your forehead), then reached up for me to pick her up.

Duck, bird, dog, work, a need

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

Nem-nem is really coming alive with babble. Also starting English (if her babble isn’t strictly English) words beyond “Ma-ma” and “Da-da”. When she sees a duck she’s sometimes said, several times in a row, “duck” with a kind of guttural scraping – German? – g sound, and signs “bird” as she says it. She also says “bird” (“bii”) and, starting yesterday at the pet store, “dog”, which she repeated later when shown pictures of dogs.

The other night Mago came from his bed a while after bed time and said to Tia:

Mom, I have a very important job to do. I have to feed you, and dad, and Nem-nem, and me.

And headed for upstairs, Tia then learned from him, to get cookies.

Mago sometimes talks in his sleep. It can be quite funny when he mumbles indecipherable things with great meaning (the babyhood exhibited in Nem-nem so well has never and will never escape him, I hope.) Last night he came and slept on a mattress in our room because Nem-nem was keeping him up. This morning he was stirring in his sleep and said

Mommy, I need..

She rushed to him and put the blanket back over him:

A blanket?

He went back into deeper sleep. Maybe fifteen minutes later when I was up, I put the blanket back on him again and put Dermitt (his plush dog toy named after a character in P.B. Bear) back in his arms, and I suppose he finished his sentence, whispering importantly, with a kind of awe:

.. treasure.

“Jumping dandelion” picture, names, fishes, blather, standing

Alex / / Uncategorized

The Great Elf William as The Jumping Dandelion

This beyond fabulous photograph of Mago on a trampoline was taken by my dad on his cell phone camera while we were at.. a.. multi-birthday party?.. at my sister’s. (No, I don’t mean by that link that we were having a party at her blog. You can’t really do that. Well, maybe you can, but even blogs aren’t good enough for real parties.) It scales up to a large resolution pretty well, which I have done and you can grab that image if you click the thumbnail to open it. On my work computer as a “desktop” or “wallpaper” (which is it already – a desk or a wall?) this one has gotten a lot of notice.

Mago is very interested in water lately. Yesterday he placed a plastic bag in a sink and emptied a quarter of a large bottle of body wash in with running water. Fun experiment – but Tia was exasperated. He makes up words and names many things, including pretend fishes, which can be any object at all – toys, a frisbee, branches, rocks – which he collects and puts in a large plastic bin (“aquarium”) full of water (in the front yard). One example among so many I’d forget is that yesterday he named a rock a “rockfish” with a name of Thotha (“th-aw-tha”), which Tia thought I should write down for a character name in some fantasy story, which is why I’m writing it.

Nem-nem has started babbling many vowels and different consonants and blather. She’ll offer you perfect blather in perfect meaningfulness, as if it were just ordinary adult conversation, which I now recall thinking with Mago it may as well be for adults anyway. How much do we consciously remember? We might as well make it perfect blather – it’s more fun.

Nem-nem stood on her own for a good ten seconds the other day, balancing.

Nem-nem stands, scary kitty

Alex / / Alex, Mago Elf Liam, Tia

Yesterday Nem-nem stood on her own and balanced for a moment, according to Tia.

Mago’s snail died. Tia had taken him from the small trees on the north of the house, for Mago. We didn’t know how to feed him properly, I think – we put leaves and grass and water in the cage with him, but he eventually dried up and curled up inside his shell, and the lines on his shell and the snail himself turned sickly orange. Tia took the snail out and set it in a garden to see if it would move – nope. When she told Mago his snail was dead, he started to cry and animatedly talk about his pet scary kitty that ate the snail, and that he needs to go to the pet store to get a scary kitty, and I don’t remember what other things that don’t seem to me to connect up, but I know they make some sense to him I don’t understand. I asked him if he was sad his snail died and he said yes.

But he insists this scary kitty is real – and seems to think the scary kitty is responsible for the death of the snail. Maybe I’d want to think that too if deep inside I knew my parents didn’t give enough of a care about the snail to learn how to care for it themselves and teach me 🙁

(Which is something I’ve apologized to Mago about.)

I buried it in the front garden, and Mago has wanted to dig it up. Any time you bring up the snail he interjects the scary kitty. I’ve tried to persuade him to have a proper funeral for the snail, but he won’t have any of that.

“Stickers”, Abd

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

Tia sent me this IM on behalf of Mago:

Yesterday morning Nem-nem spotted a fat robin on the front lawn and pointed to it. (Tia notices birds too. We’ll be driving on the freeway and she’ll tell me there was a hawk or some other bird of prey – and it’s past too soon and I don’t see it.) I pointed to the bird also, said “Bird” and signed it to her, by moving my fingers like a bird’s beak. (I forgot the beak goes on your chin when you sign this.) Nem-nem tried to say the word:

Abd. AAbd. Aadb.

– and imitated the sign. A while later from downstairs she ventured upstairs (I stayed behind her to keep her safe) and to the front door, to go back outside. I picked her up and we waited in the front yard. She signed bird – she wants to see it again. In a long while the bird emerged from the bushes again, hunting for worms. “Aabd, aabd” she repeated and signed. We watched it listen to the ground and then peck – finally it tugged a really big worm with a lot of tugs out of the ground and chewed it apart in pecks until swallowing it whole and flying off to prevent an arriving bluejay from stealing it.

I hope those last grisly details really helped you appreciate this whole entry more.

Tia reports that Nem-nem picked a tissue up the other day, held it to her face and blew several times – just blowing, not any effective nose-blowing – just imitating.

From the Mouth of Babes, etc.

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

Mago tends to like old-style “chiptune” Nintendo music. This is pleasing to his father. I played for him my mp3 album ripped from the game Legacy of the Wizard – explaining to him that this title more or less means “remember the wizard” – whatever that is supposed to mean, ha! – and he liked it. Here’s an exemplary track to accompany your blog reading.

[audio:08 Shop.mp3]

(download .mp3, ~1.2 MB)

I also explained to Mago that this is from a game I played as a kid. On the same drive (this was all quite a while ago – but every now and then he’ll ask me to play it again) a song from my collection came on entitled ShadowFire –

[audio:02 ShadowFire – tr 02.mp3]

(download .mp3, ~2.2 MB)

– a Commodore 64 tune I found and burned. After he learned this was from a game I hadn’t played, Mago said:

I played ShadowFire! when I was a kid.

– which he reminds me every time the song is played.  On a different occasion while I was playing with him before bed, he said:

Daddy, I want to come live with you at work.

Whoops.

There’s a wall in the bathroom without an if-I-knew-the-name-of-it-it-would-probably-be-there thing that would keep water from spilling into the wall, and spiders from coming out of the wall – though we haven’t seen but very few spiders (as opposed to dozens) since politely asking them to find somewhere else to live – if you have faith, this works! – but by those spiders he has seen coming out from under that wall, he has dubbed it “The bug wall”.

Nem-nem has started waving “hello.”

Dress Rehearsal

Alex / / Mago Elf Liam, Tia

Tia reports that the other day she set out to make a bed time chart for Mago, of photographs of him at each step of the routine. He had skipped his nap that day so she was hoping to move through things quickly and early.   She led him through the routine – going potty, brushing teeth, reading a book, changing into pajamas, singing (he stood at the head of his bed and sang a single note for this step), praying, being tucked into bed – taking several photographs at each step.  Going through the motions was acceptable enough to him that he went to bed without a fuss.  We usually can’t get him to stay in bed until 8:45 or 9, but he was tucked in at 7:30 and stayed there!

Humming at her shadow, Eglor, more answers

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

Two evenings ago as I was holding Nem-nem she saw her shadow on a curtain in front of me, and was delighted – as if something alive were in front of her – and she started humming at it and waving her arm. I never capture the best of this stuff (by the time I get my recorder the best has passed), but I did get some of it:

[audio:2008-04-04_Nem-nem_hums_at_her_shadow.mp3]

(Download mp3, ~33KB)

A few days ago Mago explained to me about a movie he watched. Here is that:

[audio:2008-04_Mago_explains_Eglor.mp3]

(Download mp3, ~780KB)

[Note: it turns out these are at a MHz rate not always playable by the Adobe Flash player (I’m guessing older versions of the plugin). If these sound funny from the player here, you may download the mp3 and listen to it in any other player.]

Tia has clarified for me that “Eglor” is his way of saying what they called Bilbo – a burglar. She also said he absolutely loved it – this was the cartoon rendition of The Hobbit done I think in the 70’s (that rendition was awful – my opinion – but you can’t keep the magic of these stories out of any rendition – it’s the stuff of magic). He watched it twice.

“Eglor” sounds so much like a name for a character you would find in these series that as Mago related this to me I wondered if I’d simply forgotten about some character. I’ve heard it said that good writing is remembering things wrong – so here’s to the tale of Eglor.

This morning around 3 AM Tia nudged me to go to Mago, who came out of his room for some reason. I opened the door and he stood there, and seeing me, he started whining and throwing a tantrum – he wants to see mommy, not me. Sorry, friend. I took him back in his room and his tantrum mounted; finally I got out of him that he’s looking for Snowman (his plush toy). I searched around the house (I wouldn’t but he’d been searching and asked for help). I came back and found Snowman at the foot of his bed. I started putting Mago’s dinosaur blanket back on him to meet another tantrum from him; he insisted I have to be in the chair, like mom, not beside his bed, to put the blanket on. I’d indulge this if he weren’t throwing a tantrum, and I prompted him that I respond to a big boy voice. He kept his tantrum up so I simply put the blanket on, and he was relieved to see it can go properly on from beside the bed (as well as the chair). I thought I’d capitalize on the learning opportunity:

Did daddy put the blanket on you from beside the bed?
Yeah.
Did he put the blanket on right?
Yeah.
What did you learn from that?
Stop hitting.
Okay.

I gave him a hug.

Do you want another idea?
Yeah.
Did you learn that daddy can put the blanket on right from beside the bed?
Yeah.

I snuggled him for a while.

Did you look for mom?
Yeah?
Who came?
Daddy.
Did daddy help you?
Yeah.
What did you learn from that?
Loving Jesus.
Okay.

I can see as I’m writing this it’d be better to prompt him for details of events – he’d put it together more, he’d be doing more thinking. I’m doing better with this though.

Audio recordings Copyright 2008 Richard Alexander Hall all rights reserved.

Dream Interpretation

Alex / / Alex, Mago Elf Liam

Just after 6 AM Mago awoke loudly whining (almost howling) and I went into his room to learn what was the matter. He charged me like a linebacker to push me out of the room, crying:

No, I wanted mommy!

I know better than to argue with that, but at the same time Tia was still sleeping and I’m not going to leave and get her. I tried to hold him and tell him it made me sad he didn’t want me (how permanent that sounds – better to say I’m sad he doesn’t want my help – most mornings he’ll give me a long hug). He wouldn’t have any of it, and kept crying –

Mommy didn’t put on my shoes!

– and in some moments he went back to his bed. I paused, standing at his door trying to sort out where this complaint was coming from.

Did you have a dream?
Yeah.
What happened in the dream?
A picture frame fell.
Then what happened?

He didn’t have any further answer, so I went to his bed side. I didn’t know what to do with this. I wondered what connection this had with shoes in a dream or real life. Maybe I asked the wrong question next.

What did you learn from that?
Stop hitting.
.. I don’t know that that has anything to do with that, but okay.

How would I more carefully say I don’t see a connection while acklowledging he may? .. maybe just like that. Or is this just a default answer? It both tickles me and makes me sad. He’s reflecting to us our Old Testament treatment – do not, do not. Let’s turn that around to “Be gentle.” I guess “Don’t” is a good starting place.

So a picture frame fell – of what picture? – that could be sad symbolism in itself – and mom wouldn’t put on your shoes.. and maybe you want to hit people because of these things, but you don’t. That’s good. If I’m understanding this right.

It eased him, anyway, and he slept for another hour and a half.

Happy 3rd Birthday Mago!

Alex / / Alex, Mago Elf Liam

Conversation with him this morning as we “played” (switched on and listened to the demo music of) METROID PRIME on the Nintendo Game Cube:

I’m so glad that Heavenly Father sent you to me. You’ve been with me for three years now, and I’m glad.

What do I have?

What do you have? You have gifts, and talents, and you’re smart, but even better than all that, you’re good.

What do I have?

You have blessings.

No – no – I have toys. In the living room.