Tia, Mago Elf Liam, Nem-nem Niamh, Lil' Bug, and I. (kid names are aliases)
//I’m thankful for the bugs
I’m thankful for the animals
I’m thankful for the world
And please bless my cold to die.
Uttered a hundred times on a hundred nights from his bed or bedside.
Incidentally, bug hunting is probably among his most favorite activities. I found a fat pillbug for him today. He found his own smaller one too. His comment later: “Dad, I think my pillbugs have made friends!”
//Me, revealing to Mago details about a toy he got from his friend for his birthday:
Oh, I think this helicopter is the main bad guy’s. See it has a cobra logo on it. The main bad guy in G.I. Joe is named Cobra.
What does he do?
I don’t really remember. Probably try to take over the world, which is kind of funny.
Why is it funny?
Oh.. there’s this cartoon called Animaniacs, with two mice that scientists do experiments with; these mice live in a science lab. One of them is an evil genius, and the other is an innocent goofball.
What’s an innocent goofball?
That means he’s wacky and he doesn’t know what’s going on. But every episode, the evil genius mouse does something to try to take over the world, to control the whole world, and it never works, something always goes wrong.
Later, Mago, already a fan of a cartoon he’s never seen (whoops! – on my part), relays this to Tia (who of course already knows all this, but is indulging Mago):
.. and one of them is an evil genius! – and the other is a hideous pitball!
//[This is Alex, transcribing a choice entry from a hand-written journal Tia has been keeping about Mago.]
Mago’s 5 now!
Mago – “I got a dinosaur toy from [a friend]!”
Nem-nem – “You got teddy bear cookies for your party!”
Mago – “I got an alien sleeping bag! I had a transformer birthday party!”
I’m trying to get him to talk about his cake, but he’s blowing a paper towel across the table and making Nem-nem laugh. “Chaotic”, he says. Now he’s making monkey noises and climbing on the table.
//Dad, why didn’t you buy a toy?
Do you have an idea that we buy a toy every time we go to a restaurant?
.. No.
Well, this is one of the times we didn’t.
Mago mopes and kneels face down on the bench.
Do you want this sandwich?
He shakes his head, sullen. After a few minutes and a few more invitations, he’s still sullen. Time for Harmless Distracting Untruth.
I happen to know you wouldn’t like the toys here.
He sits up and looks at me, slightly wide-eyed.
Yes I would! I’ve never had any toy I don’t like!
Hm. .. I think you wouldn’t like this sandwich either.
Mago is mildly alarmed, and his eyes grow wider.
How do you know?
Mm.. I just don’t think you would.
But maybe I would!
No, I don’t think so.
Why?
Because it has turkey, bacon, lettuce, cheese, and whole wheat bread.
Well maybe I would like it!
Mm, I still don’t think so.
I haven’t decided!
You don’t have long.
A minute or so passes, and I continue the reverse-pitch. Next I know, Mago is wolfing down the sandwich.
Cha-ching!
//Nem-nem comes running to me.
Nem: Dad, [Mago] took a flashlight from me.
I pick her up.
Me: What did you do?
Nem: I did something mean. I said [scowls and yells] I! WANT! THAT! FLASHLIGHT!
Me: How are you going to fix that?
Nem: Um, hug.
She lowers herself out of my arms and runs off, calling her brother’s name.
//Nem-nem stands on top of a two-foot tall bureau. Mago is on the floor. Nem switches the light for the room off, and squeals. Mago crouches down in a ball and starts shaking his head, or wiggling around on the floor.
Mago (squealing and whimpering): WATER! I’M UNDERWATER! I’M UNDERWATER! AHH! HELP! I’M UNDERWATER!
Nem (brightly): Oh, I sorry!
Nem switches the light on. Mago stands up and starts waving his arms, twirling or running around.
Mago (still squealing and whimpering): FIRE! FIRE! I’M ON FIRE! HELP! I’M ON FIRE!
Nem (again, brightly): Oh, I sorry!
Nem switches the light off and squeals. Mago crouches down in a ball, and the whole cycle repeats again, a dozen times, or two dozen, or more..
//1. About a week ago while Tia was out on an errand with the kids (I was home alone), I crossed the hall into the kitchen, and when I arrived, I heard a small, high, but loud “EEEK!”, and in the same instant a smallish brown blob (for all I could see) darted from the wall above the stairs very fastly past my boots and made a BANG sound thumping into the folding door in front of the dryer – but that was the last I could see of the mouse.
When I told Tia, she made sure the traps were still set (they needed resetting). We caught the mouse a few days later, and released him the same as the first. I was going to bring the video camera for this but discovered its battery needed recharging, so I couldn’t capture the event. However, it wasn’t as exciting – the mouse was larger, dark brown, and moved more like a squirrel – again past my boots on escape, only much more slowly. Since it was slow I wonder if it was the same mouse I heard shriek ..
//Mago’s grandma Helen caught a garden snake in her garage, and donated it to him (after seeing his interest when she donated another captured friend to other grandchildren). It’s home is a big plastic ice cream tub.
Mago left it in his room with the lid too loose some time earlier today.
Loose enough for the snake to push up.
It has escaped.
In a great big old house that is a small creature’s hide-and-seek dream. Or nightmare. Current theories are that it must be trapped in a heat ventilation duct – it could easily fit down one, but back up and out, I don’t know. I believe it may die – unless it’s much cleverer and agile than I think (it’s around 20 inches long, I’d guess) – in which case it will simply find its way into the wild.
I do not believe it will turn up, but we may try buying a live mouse (re last post, ironically) to put in a snake trap to lure it, on the chance it is still around.
//About a week ago Tia saw, late at night, a mouse run around the corner of the bed and toward a wall. We turned over everything we reasonably could at a late hour (in our tiredness) but didn’t find the mouse.
So the next day she bought some humane mousetraps, a type that merely shuts a door on its prisoner instead of smashing its brains out.
(I shudder – never mind such traps are far easier and less disgusting to manage.)
Over the next few days the kids eagerly awaited the capturing of mice (Nem: “More mouses, please”). One morning Tia found a trap set off, but it seemed so light, and the traps had previously been set off without capturing anything, so she opened the trap door to reset it – and a mouse scurried out and ran and hid in a corner, behind and under some things. She managed then to trap the mouse in a shoebox, which she taped shut.
We set off to Rock Canyon, the kids very eager to see the mouse as we would release it into the wild.
I videotaped this release, which (edited) footage follows, with some walking and playing with the kids afterward. After the mouse’s escape Tia asked me if I’d captured footage of something particular (and very remarkable) about it on tape. I hadn’t noticed, and thought I hadn’t captured it. But it certainly showed in the lens and on the camera’s video display. I only noticed by playing it back frame by frame, and for only six frames (at the frames per second rate multiplied by 5, and to put it more technically, that something like the “blink of an eye“).
You may also miss it on the first pass – this render will repeat the surprise in slow motion. Here is a still – please only show this after watching the video. [spoiler](Link to image file)[/spoiler]
(It also starts off with a relevant silly clip from a video game I played when I was a kid – exported from an emulator.)
For a higher quality video click the link that says “play in new window” after “(hifi)”.
//Says Nem at various times:
Opies. [Oopses.]
Getting dollies out of a bin in grandma’s basement:
Dollies now, please.
Singing and twirling around in her older brother’s batman shirt hand-me-down:
Princess, princess, princess..
In a rage of denial, most every morning:
Candy now! Candy now! Candy now! Candy now!..
After sneaking out of her room late at night and meeting me as I come to the top of the stairs; whispering, and imploringly nodding her head repeatedly:
Juice—Juice—Juice, Please—Juice—Juice, Please—Juice—Juice—Juice, Please—Juice, Please—Juice…
This evening Mago played at shooting
Everything in the whole world and fireballs!
out of his hand, as an attack (as always, towards yours truly, his dad, who amuses him with violent reactions). Nem joined in, issuing attacks at me the same way:
Moon, nose!
//At potty time, Nem-nem, making a situational comparison, declares of her absent brother, simply:
Nin-an. Poop. Big.
I tell Nem I’ll be right back, go to her brother’s room where he is settling in for bed time, and only repeat this as it was spoken; it is immediately understood. Mago bursts into fits of giggles, Tia laughs.
As Nem is later getting ready for bed, she babbles, and Mago, trying for Nem’s attention but failing, recites “facts” rather like the exaggerated ones we hear about fish..
Ah, these are the things that get at a father’s heart, stirring imaginations of a child’s future accomplishments..
Meanwhile, back at the church..
This afternoon as we drove home from church (I was at the wheel), Tia asked the kids about their Sunday School lessons. She asked Nem (who is 2 years old at this writing) what her lesson in Nursury was about. In reply Nem babbled something that sounded to me as if it had the words “hands” and “pencil” in it – drawing? – but Tia and I don’t understand. Tia runs a check:
Tia: Did you talk about Jesus?
Nem: Yes.
Tia: Did you talk about families?
Nem: Yes.
Tia: Did you talk about hippopotumuses?
Nem: (a bit incredulously) No.
//This hour 2 years ago Nem-nem came into the world. I’m up early to catch up with some schoolwork (erm, and write a blog entry?) and won’t be home today while she’s awake, so we celebrated yesterday.
Mago discovered these great toys, BAKUGAN, by following some older kids around who were playing with some in a thrift store. (And in turn he discovers these toys to me. These things are so cool. Yu-Gi-Yo meets Transformers meets Pokémon.) He bought his own 3-pack with his own cash saved from extra work, and he and Nem-nem have been fighting over them. She either innately loves them, or she wants to be a part of his world, or both (I think both). He’s reluctantly let her play with them, as when she does (and even when she doesn’t), she says “mine”, which upsets Mago as of course he can’t persuade his 2-year-old sister otherwise, and it’s simply factually untrue. (I think he’s learning to let that go). She’s particularly fond of a cyan one which has now been lost in the deep tangles of backyard bushes after Mago threw it off the trampoline (hopes of finding it are slim).
Anyway, since she loves these toys and I won’t be at home today while she’s awake, yesterday evening I bought her two starter-packs of three (you’s abouts Provo – these are on sale near 2-for-1 at Shopko!) and we wrapped them, sang happy birthday to her, and let her open the packages. Her first words were those she often says before stealthily grabbing the cyan toy away from Mago:
Ball! .. Blue! Ball!
(Until now – since she has her own BAKUGAN – after you’d hear Nem-nem say this, you’d hear an unhappy yell from Mago, whose toy has been taken.)
To try to get a BAKUGAN to open (although you only have to roll one onto a metal card, and the magnetically-activated mechanism opens the Bakugan ball – or as Mago says, the ball “magnetics” open), Nem-nem whacks the ball against the table like a hard-boiled egg, then places it on the metal card and sees if it will open – until she happens to place it on the side that opens it.
She’s happy to have her own. And I’m happy to have a growing collection by reference 🙂
//08/21/2015 09:03:18 PM: This is back-posted to a guessed date from when Mago was 4. Tia dug this drawing out of a junk bin (where it doesn’t belong), showed it to Mago, and said: “You made this for me when you were little. It’s sweet and innocent.” I’ve scanned it and given it a home here.
