Category: Mago Elf Liam

More stories, the Time out Guard

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

Mago has this word he’s come up with, which he will use as an exclamation meaning nothing other than that “I am exclaiming this word.” He seems to have transformed it into a noun though, or we just never knew it was. .. seems like it might be used as a verb too, though I’m foggy on that.

This word is “Paamp!”

I was teaching him to pray at bed time one night, kneeling with him at the head of his bed:

Me: What do you want to say thank you for?
Mago: Thank you far PAamp.. .. and thank you for kaank.
Me: .. Thank you for silly words?
Mago: And thank you for baamp.

Now probably many weeks ago I took him for a morning walk, carrying him wrapped up in blankets (I don’t believe it was yet very cold – just starting to get cold). I told him some story I made up and don’t remember, and asked him if he wanted to tell me a story. He did, and at each turn of it I prompted him with “Then what?” –

Mago: Once there was a little Paamp. And there was a big lion. And the lion ate the little Paamp. And the Paamp died. And the lion hung him up on a tree. And the lion hung him up on a hanger.

I’d forgotten all about this for a week or so until at bed time one evening he spontaneously relayed exactly the same story, without variation, to Tia. This called for a line from this Love and Logic audiobook series that I’ve learned.

Me: I noticed you like to tell stories.

This audiobook said that kids will light up when you notice they like doing something, because it brings awareness to themselves that in fact they do like something, and gives them a place to consciously choose whether to pursue that. Mago did light up – his eyes grew wide and his face almost frantic with eagerness. He quickly retold and elaborated on the story, listing everything he could see in the closet in his room.

Mago: Once there was a little Paamp. And there was a big lion. And the lion ate the little Paamp. And the Paamp died. And the lion hung him up on a tree. And the lion hung him up on a hanger. And the lion hung him up on a clothes. And the lion hung him up on a shelf. And the lion hung him up on a box..

I don’t remember everywhere he went with it.

A few weeks ago he climbed up on the table while I was getting him dinner alone (Tia was probably getting Nem-nem to sleep). I asked him to get down; he ignored me. I headed into the room to take him off the table and set him on a chair for time out, and let him know it’s sad – don’t warn, just set the limit once and then take action, this audiobook says (I want to emphasize, if this isn’t obvious by now, that I find the advice of this audiobook very useful – I think it is a must read and can save so many headaches and needless pain for parents and kids – I’m only starting to learn it.) He knew when he saw me coming that I wasn’t going to let him push this limit (he’s not always so compliant – I’m still figuring out how to lovingly enforce limits), so he hastily got down. I let off – he’s going to comply – and I went back into the kitchen to keep fixing his meal. I think he asked me if he was in time out, and I think I replied no, but maybe I should put him in time out for not listening when I first asked him to get off the table. He came in to the room with a very conscious, deliberate scowl, looking up at me.

Mago: But you can’t put me in time out. Because I’m angry.

At this I just laughed – what else can I do? This is hilarious. I told him maybe he needs a time out anyway if he’s angry at me, but by this time he was laughing too, and very deliberately scowling at me even though he no longer felt any trace of the only trace of anger he had been mostly mocking up anyway (though I think some of it was genuine) – so I figured he didn’t need any time out at all.

Nem-Nem Niamh (recordings)

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

Here are four recordings of Nem-nem, talking with us in her way, and laughing. If you listen only to one listen to the fourth – it is a scream in every sense.

[Audio:2007_Oct__Nem_Nem_Niamh_and_mommy__edited.mp3]

Nem-nem and mommy, Oct 2007 (1:19, 792K, download mp3)

[Audio:2007_Nov__Nem_Nem_Niamh_and_Mago_Elf_Liam__edited.mp3]

Nem-nem and Mago, Nov 2007 (1:53, 1.1MB, download mp3)

[Audio:2007_Nov_Nem_Nem_Niamh_and_daddy__edited.mp3]

Nem-nem and daddy, Nov 2007 (1:38, 1MB, download mp3)

[Audio:2007_Nov__Nem_Nem_Niamh_and_mommy__edited.mp3]

Nem-nem and mommy, Nov 2007 (3:17, 1.9MB, download mp3)

One day I thought I’d see what would happen if I brought her to hover over Mago, then pulled her away at a distance, than abruptly brought her close to hover again, etc. – while she is looking at him – a sort of form of “boo!” I guess. What happened was that she started emitting these greeting screams and squeals at him, to his entertainment, and this is going on in the second recording. She does it for other people too sometimes.

Recordings Copyright 2007 Richard Alexander Hall, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States (see). Attribute the recording to me in any public use.

Shleepy-shleepy-shleep, Bed-bed-bed, Doggies

Alex / / Alex, Mago Elf Liam, Tia

I’ve discovered yet another way to tickle Mago and/or make him laugh – at bed time I get close to his face and whisper in a low, I suppose strangely officious voice:

“Is it time for shleepy-shleepy-shleep?”

– And slowly try to nuzzle against his ear to whisper this over and over; I think the “sh” and “p” and breath tickle his ear. He becomes very amused, dodging his head back and forth, pushing my head back while I slowly try to advance on his ear, still repeating this. I’ll finally succeed at getting at his ear, he’ll laugh uncontrollably and finally push my head away as I give up, to which he then says:

“Do it again!”

I had forgotten this game after discovering it several days ago and at a recent bed time he requested:

“Say: shleepy-shleepy-shleep.”

He plays a game usually in the morning with Tia which he has dubbed (we don’t know why) “Bed-bed-bed”. Tia tells me now he would play it all day if he could. If she would let him.

The game is to have Tia (or me) sit in a chair with your legs straddled over air and the edge of his bed, with a gap between your legs which you hang a blanket on to make a sort of hammock; holding various stuffed animals in your lap which he requests you to make them talk. Mago crawls onto the hammock and “melts” so that he falls down between your legs with the blanket wrapping around him; he then has you put the blanket back over your legs and continue all of this over and over.

I don’t know how I haven’t written that – he’s been playing that game for many months.

Sometimes in the car (when Tia is driving) I reach my hands back from the front passenger seat to the rear and make them talk and sniff at Mago (another way to tickle), and bark and play like dogs (it entertains him very much).

Playing in his room this morning before dawn I asked him if I could play fort on his bed, putting blankets over us, which he rejected – he wants to play “Bed-bed-bed.” I said “Pleeease?” and put a blanket back over him. While he lay there I put my hands under the blanket to tickle his belly. He giggled in anticipation.

Wha.. how did the doggies get under here?

Of Late (Utterances)

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

Here are some things from the past while, that I’ve been writing down.

Tia: (to Nem-Nem, while they play peek-a-boo) You’re going to be Superwoman in just three years. You’ll be flying around doing mathematics.

Tia made a red cape and eye mask costume for Mago (just for play, she says, not Halloween). He stood on our bed one morning to show it off.

Mago: I’m a bad guy! .. wait, I have to put down my sipee cup.

..

(Attempting over and over to place a star shape in a wooden puzzle, *sighs*) Too work.

..

(At random during the day) This is my treasure-hunting thumb.

Tia says he made that last up partly from a Blue’s Clues episode.

He calls very thickly frosted [me: disgusting!] cookies “Cookies on each tuver” (Cookies on each other) because it looks to him like two stacked cookies.

Tia has introduced me to Love and Logic (this sentence may be taken out of context), an audio program delineating so much wisdom on child rearing. Incidentally, what I have tried of it is positive and works and I’ll be listening to the whole thing. She checks these out from the Parent Education Resource Center at the Orem Library. The cover of the set for early childhood has a cartoon of an exhausted, bedraggled woman with two infants in tow. The library case for it opened and spilled the CD case out one day, and Mago looked at it.

Mago: Mama, is that ‘care for me’?,

A few days ago:

Mago: Daddy?
Me: Yes.
Mago: Feed to me.
Me: Feed to you? Do you mean read to you?
Mago: Read to me. .. (smiles) Feed and read!

Nem-nem beams at us and at people all the time. When she first sees me in the morning or coming home from work and I smile at her broadly (as I can only help myself to do with a baby who is my daughter), she beams and coyly tucks her head down and her arms up to her chest. Things she says:

Ppphhhhbt! Pppbbbbhht! Heh-pubbbbbppt!

Gggh!

Hoo!

(Laughing) Heh.

Hii.

Eeh!

Eeeyoo!

Nem-nem is also frequently rolling from her back to her side and tummy, less often from her tummy to her back, and sometimes does a swimming motion on her tummy, trying to start to crawl.

The Hills are Alive

Alex / / Alex, Mago Elf Liam

I took Mago for a hike up to the mouth of a canyon with surrounding high, spectacular, otherworldly surreal cliff walls early yesterday morning. On the way back down the canyon mouth as he heard some echoes in the canyon I realized I could show him how to echo his voice through the canyon walls – so I bellowed some two-tones and shouted “Echo!” etc., all of which we could hear bouncing back this way and up the other way, back and forth along canyon walls, quite loudly and clearly (especially lower pitches). I explained how the mountain bounces the sound back, and I think I may have said something to the effect that the mountain “says” the same thing back – an idea Mago picked up on and elaborated on, as it implies the mountain has a voice, and things that give you a voice.. He tried making an echo himself, and got it to work sometimes, after which he’d exclaim:

“I made the Daddy Mountain talk!”

He spoke of trying to get the Mommy Mountain to talk, too – which I explained we couldn’t make happen without Mommy here.

I realized we’d taken a long detour that had to be longer, as I had left the stroller at one fork of the path and accidentally came down another – and had to lead Mago through so many brambles and trees to get back to it – through which he made exaggerated imitations of my huffing and puffing. Getting the stroller again and traveling back down further, Mago tried to make an echo with the canyon walls increasingly out of range for it, and my explanations that they were too far away didn’t deter him. That same day in the evening I took him outside to look at the magnificent cliff wall facade (in magnificent yellow and blue-gray light/dark contrasts from light coming across the other end of the valley), he bellowed at it – mistaking echoes off nearby houses for the mountain’s speaking back – and wouldn’t be deterred that this was no mountain echo – again exclaiming he’d made the Daddy Mountain talk.

Powers

Alex / / Alex, Mago Elf Liam

I took him for a walk late two nights ago (no, not anywhere near as late as I’m writing this entry). We’re up on a bench, or in the foothills under mountains. Obscured by houses in front of us but down in the valley to the far south there were four strobe lights swirling about in tandem, spreading their beams of light high up and across the sky in a swoop far outward, then around again and joining in to one brighter beam for an instant, then spreading again, and so on. Mago liked these, and I thought I’d explain them to him.

Me: “Way back behind those houses and down in the valley, there are four robot arms shining those lights. The arms swoop around like this” (swooping my arm) “.. and it makes the lights shine around the sky. They spread out and then come back together. They’re saying ‘come here, we have something to sell’ – or that’s what the people who are shining the lights would say if we went there.”

This seemed to satisfy his curiosity about them, and he blathered about other things and I joined him until suddenly he was talking about “powers”, and I wasn’t quite following him. I said “What?” and he pointed to the strobe lights in the sky over on our left –

Mago: “You can see their powers. Those are the robot powers.”

I was beside myself when he said this – I don’t think he’s never seen Strong Bad*, I don’t know where he picked up the idea of power as light, but it works alright – however, he wouldn’t be dissuaded that these were simply lights in the sky – in between laughing I tried several times to clarify to him that they are just lights – but he corrected me, no, those are robot powers, and you can see the robot powers.

Some while later I gave him the noun for it – strobe lights [whoops!  That should be search lights]. That seemed to change his mind on the matter (not that I would necessarily want his mind changed!) – he began using that term. Apparently you’ve got to give him the most solid noun possible – “light” is still too abstract; “robot powers” is, uh, more accessible.

*..and if so, are you some kind of robot? And if so, what kind of powers do you have? Do you use them for good, or for awesome?

..

Her name is Yoshimi
she’s a black belt in karate
working for the city
she has to discipline her body

..

‘Cause she knows that
it’d be tragic
if those evil robots win
I know she can beat them..

Garden, Snake.. Butcher?

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

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)

Silly Christmas Toy, Scarecrow, Rabbit, Owl

Alex / / Alex, Mago Elf Liam

Mago pretends he’s a “Silly Christmas toy.” I don’t know what that necessarily means, but it involves walking around and somewhat robotically waving your arms up and down or around. I asked him if he is a toy soldier and he said “No”.

He pretends he’s a scarecrow. Doing this he stood on the frame at the head of his car bed and said:

(arms raised) The Scarecrow is blessin’.
(lowers arms extended in front of him, palms down) Blessss. (falls down on his bed)

Last evening he said to me while we sat outside:

“A rabbit comes to my window tonight. And he comes down the window. And he raises up on his legs (Mago stands from sitting). And he wiggles his nose. And he wiggles his eyes. And he wiggles his ears. And he wiggles his belly button. And he wiggles his back. And he wiggles his feet. And he wiggles his furry tail. And he goes back up the window. And he goes away.”

This morning he said to me as I put him in his stroller for a walk:

“A owl comes to my window tonight.”

Totoro, Training, Building, Other Utterances..

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

Mago loves My Neighbor Totoro. I watched it with him. This film is one of my favorites. It cracks me up when Totoro roars, and I’m wowed by the magic he uses to grow forests. The music is also fantastic – listening to it again, I realize it’s actually New Age – but, forgive me, New Age with soul, even the most infamous music styles can have that! – and I don’t mean as in “soul music”, just.. not rambling fluff.. however it can get a bit weird. Mago mistakes the little girl in the film for a boy (I think for wanting to identify).

Mago: “He followed him into the forest. Now the hole where he went is gone. There’s no Totoro now.” .. (whispers, when Totoro and the children are sitting on top of the giant tree playing flutes at night) “I saw Totoro!” .. “Totoro is a bear, and he has a littler bear and a littler, and he has big eyes, and a little tiny mouth.” (puckers his lips small).

These are some other things he said recently –

After I ran up a ladder and down a slide with him many times at his cousins’ house in Arizona:

Me: “I’m pooped.”
Mago: “Are you trained?”

At bed time as Mago built a fort out of pillows and Tia sat on his bed reading to Nem-nem:

Mago: (to Tia) “Say: look, big brother is building a house!”
Tia: “Look, big brother is building a house!”
Mago: “Is that brilliant?”

He talks to Tia’s feet like little friends when she relaxes with them raised. She named one of them footy-foot. Recently when she was relaxing he came to one of her feet.

Mago: (to her left foot, hugging it) “I love you, footy-foot.”
(then to her right foot, hugging it) “I love you, friend.”
(takes both feet and hugs them) “I love you, friends.”
(lets go of both feet) “Did you see that, mama? It was a team hug.”

Yesterday, with me:

Mago: “Say, ‘what is it?'”
Me: “What is it?”
Mago: (flaps his lips)
Me (I laugh)
Mago: “Say, ‘what is it?'”
Me: “What is it?”
Mago: (flaps his lips..)

We decided Nem-nem looks like a little marsupial or possum. A few days after we did her aunt decided the same thing – dubbing her “Meinschen” (sp? Correct word?), little mouse.

Seven days ago Nem-nem rolled over from her tummy onto her back. Now she does this at tummy-time: she doesn’t enjoy being on her tummy, and grunts, lifts her head up high, pushes and wrestles with her arms until she flops over onto her back.

Cuteness, Divine Excursion

Alex / / Alex, Mago Elf Liam, Pictures, Religion, Songs, Tia

A week or so ago Mago said, despondently:

“I’m not cute anymore, because I’m not a baby.”

I think this is jealousy of the attentions his new little sister is getting? But he’s how old, and saying this? (Two and a half years). And besides in my fatherly opinion this isn’t true, but besides all that, it doesn’t matter.. I hoped this wouldn’t happen. It’s bolstered by so many people he meets (especially old ladies) so emphatically saying in his company “He’s so cute!” There’s a place for it, I’d just hope not to excess. It can become (quite unintended – nobody wishes for this), the token of affection, status. No, you gotta love any kid just because they’re a kid. I’m pretty confident he’s confident enough of himself that having to be cute (to meet that demand) won’t need to be a focus, but.. how do you counter this? A few times since hearing this I’ve tried to tell him – a two-and-a-half year old! – that cuteness doesn’t matter, all that matters is trying to be good, and you are good (but, even though it doesn’t matter, you are cute to me).. it doesn’t seem to get across. Maybe a matter of time.

The affection of old ladies must be a lot more persuasive.

Tonight I went in to say goodnight to him after Tia put him to bed (and I had been watching Nem-nem), and when I walked in he said in tones speaking of a smile I couldn’t see in the dark:

“I need a hug and a hug.”

Okay. I’ll comply. As I did, he looked up in the very dim light to a picture of Jesus on the wall: (this one – link – incidentally, that one affected me more as a kid than any other painting of Jesus)

Mago: And Jesus loves them, and he’s treating them kindly. And he’s here.. and he’s showing them.. a dinosaur museum.

Me: Yes, that sounds like something Jesus would do, doesn’t it? [reader: please don’t think I don’t mean this. I do. [07/20/2015 EDIT: That link is outdated. This is a link to the intended image.] Okay, maybe not necessarily like that link..]

Mago: And.. he’s showing them a museum and it has T-Rexes.

Tia just told me they sang “Jesus said love everyone, treat them kindly too..” for bed time.

[07/20/2015 Amendment: fearing that image may ever vanish, I told the Wayback Machine about it, so here is a link to a (hopefully) permanent archive image.]

Playing with Water, Brownie

Alex / / Alex, Mago Elf Liam, Tia

Mago loves running through sprinklers on stops to grassy areas during car drives. “Running through” is usually more like timidly approaching the edge where the water stops, getting sprinkled a bit in the face, and running away shouting.

Two evenings ago as it was nearing time for bed, after driving in the car in the heat, Tia asked him if instead of bathing or showering he wanted to be hosed down, which he did. So we stripped him and sprayed him with the hose. He was amused but couldn’t take it for very long, and then I think Tia suggested spraying me. I refused. Mago cried. I couldn’t stand this – he wants to play with water with daddy, why should I refuse? – so I said I’d spray my own face and did (which was refreshing, but it got on my shorts anyway) and it amused him. Afterward Mago said “Did you spray your face, daddy?” I replied “Yes, because I broke your heart, so I decided to.” He said “Yeah. You broke my heart. In my chest.”

Yesterday Tia reports she made him a brownie which was far too big. When she served it to him, he looked down at it, paused for a moment to appreciate it, then looked up at her, paused again, and said “I like you. You’re a pretty mommy.”

Gazing at the portrait, Drill

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

A week or so ago Tia reported that Nem-nem was gazing at a photographic portrait on the kitchen wall of her family, all the new step-siblings and everyone’s children. Tia said to her “That’s your family!” and Nem-nem smiled. Tia thought this was coincidence but later when Nem-nem was looking at it again, she repeated to her “That’s your family!” and again Nem-nem smiled.

Last evening Mago went down for bed while playing with a toy drill as an evasion tactic, Tia persuading him that play time was over and he has to put the drill away, which he resisted.

Tia: “Say bye-bye to the drill.”
Mago: (Crying) “Goodbye, drill! I love you!”
Tia: (Laughs) “That’s kinda funny.”
Mago: (Cries harder)

Tia then tickled him with the drill and he laughed and felt better.

The latest thing I’ve found that makes Mago laugh, and which he’s usually been requesting the moment I come home from work, is to murmur in an almost whispering, sort of high nerdy voice in his ear “Ba-duba-da buh? Be-de-bee-da-baa-duh? Is it-a-my-baby? Is it-a-ma-baby?” Or again to murmur in a low growl while approaching his tummy with my head saying: “Wha’d da baby do? .. wha’d da baby doo? ..wha’d da baby doooo? HE GOT TICKLED!” – and burrow my head hard into his tummy.

Dazed Contentment (Nem-nem), I’m Sorry Game (Mago)

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

Tia, the other day, talking about Nem-nem:

(alarm) “Whooooooooa! Her eyes are going up and in different directions. .. now she’s smiling. .. now she’s drooling milk.”

Today I was holding her and saying “Aaaaah?” while she did her darndest to imitate it and mostly grunted, smiling between attempts, and at one point she got her lips into the same shape for the sound, and uttered a short “Aaah”. I said “Yeah!” and she appeared pleased. She did the same thing for “Oh”, only never managing the sound.

I discovered a game with Mago recently, where if I make him laugh, I squeeze him hard in a panicked way, and in a desperate voice say “No I’m sorry!” – as if to say “I didn’t mean to make you laugh!” or “I said I’m sorry, please stop laughing!” – that kind of thing – which makes him laugh harder, which is a prompt for me to say it again, which makes him laugh again..

The hilarity lasted several days for him. Seems to have worn off some now, but he still tells me: “Say I’m sorry.”

Still meaning to post video of her at birth, and we’ve taken no new pictures of her because Tia’s camera has been in the shop; they said they’d call by now and haven’t 🙁