Category: Mago Elf Liam

I had forgot to mention that Mago had said during our recent vacation (for which I still mean to post some video – of Mago doing a food dance at SeaWorld and a walrus floating against my back through glass – possibly meaning to ask me if I has a bucket, or perhaps in concerted appreciation for my person knowing that he loves to fly), outside our hotel room at a swimming pool which he eagerly wished to swim in each morning: “Let’s get swimmed.”

Two nights ago he put a plastic grasshopper on Tia and asked “Is a grasshopper on you?” Tia replied “Yes – if it was a real grasshopper I’d probably scream and throw him off me. Grasshoppers are scary.” Mago replied: “Don’t throw him. He’s your friend.”

Yester-morning I awoke thinking that I’d like to make a painting of Darth Maul, Luke Skywalker, and C3P0 sitting on a church bench taking the sacrament, captioned: “The Sun Shineth and the Rain Falleth on the Good, the Evil, and the Robot.” (I’ll do this just as soon as my skills are up to it – only I’d change it to “Droid” and possibly mix in Darth Vader, with “Deathbed Penitent Good/Evil Robot/Person). This was probably unconsciously inspired by “Nobody wants to play Sega with Harrison Ford“. This led to me thinking about Jedi in general and the poor writers who are lassoed into writing any of the unending literary expansions to the Star Wars universe but who cannot have anything significant happen such as a Jedi falling in love, and little Jedi children running around (although, rather horridly, Han and Leia have become married in this expanded literary universe, to give birth to Jedi twins, whom they have most unfortunately named something like.. Jayden and Jaycen). And that kewl character Mara Jade, a Jedi unrqueited “love interest” for Luke, whom Timothy Zahn created (and the only writer to add anything of real substance and resonance to that literary universe, so far as I know) – Luke simply cannot ever marry her [nope! – corrected! – looksie here at the second picture. But what a horrible costume and portrayal in that first picture on the right. Okay, so this is significant. But I’m wary. “A close Force bond?” – oh, brother.  How about a trauma Force bond?  That would be compelling..] This further led to a strange muse overtaking me wherein I stared at myself in the bathroom mirror, making an oddly monstrous, loathing and disgusted face, and muttering loudly in a low lisping voice worse than Emperor Palpatine’s (and with the improper plural):

“Jedis are sworn to be celibate. Salivate.”

Caught. Tia opened the door and with a mingled bemused, amused, and disgusted expression said “What!?”

I repeated myself. She laughed but replied “If you’re going to talk that way, you’re welcome to remain celibate.”

Later that day I thought I would repeat this utterance to Mago. He replied: “Don’t be a monster.”

Tia says that the other day Mago was in a sour mood, and came upstairs fussing and grumbling. Great-grandpa came to him and pouted, condescendingly, “What’s the matter? You’re always happy! you’re always happy!” Mago sourly insisted “No I’m not!” as Tia swooped him away from this awful scene and took him somewhere else to say “Don’t listen to grandpa. It’s okay to be sad. You can be sad.” At this his restraint unshackled and he burst into tears.

The statement “You’re always happy!” Is many kinds of wrong. First, it’s factually untrue. No human is completely devoid of sorrow. Second, it’s an absurd and injurious proposal which sends a message that it’s not okay to ever be sad. It’s an inhuman expectation. And to pour this expectation on a grandson of two years!? I’m grateful Tia has the good sense she showed to counter it. And how very revelatory of grandpa – maybe he feels that he can’t or shoulnd’t ever be sad himself. Well, how sad for him.

Several days ago Mago called his cousin and spoke endlessly about dad’s birthday cake (and my lack of post on my recent birthday and Tia’s last is only negligence) and lighting and blowing the candles. He did this for many minutes until Tia decided to end the call, which made Mago very sad. He went and got the phone again, announced that he was calling his cousin, punched random numbers into it, then held the phone up to Tia and said “Is this her number?”

Last evening we went for a walk and came across a lone young deer (see the last entry) foraging in a scrubby and wild field. It seemed remarkably tame as it remained calm at a mere twenty or so yards from us even while we approached. Mago had first spotted it, and as we watched it he commented: “..and we [the deer and I] love each other.. it wagged it’s tail! .. it needs a diaper change from its mommy.”

Maybe a month or two ago – and I’d kept meaning to write it down, and I think I haven’t – he was pretending to be an order-taker at a restaurant. Tia commented that she’s sad his knowledge of “restaurant” is equated with a fast food drive-through. Anyway, playing this after his bath, he stood outside the bathroom door as Tia was still inside, and opening the door he said:

“Do you want some chicken?” (this last word he said in a very chipper, bright, quick way)
Tia replied “No, I don’t want any chicken, thank you.”
“Pleeeeeeaaase?”
“Oh, okay, I would like some chicken.”
Mago pretended to hand her some chicken, Tia said “Thank you!” and then Mago said “Thank you for the restaurant!” and quickly closed the door.

OR MAGO UPDATE 15

Something I forgot to write last entry [and then a lot more new writing] –

At Eastertime he visited my mom with all his cousins. They were playing in the backyard and some of the older cousins (5 to 8 years older, and he’s just 2) found a pillbug, which they invited him to examine – it was rolled up in a ball to defend itself. I put it in his little hand,and as he looked down at it, it unrolled on its back and wiggled its many little legs. His eyes quickly grew wide, he trembled and yelped in horror and in a spasm threw the (poor) thing onto the ground, which very much amused his cousins, and shortly he began to cry but then laughed with his cousins, and I tried to comfort him but this apparently wasn’t necessary – he very excitedly babbled I don’t remember exactly but something like –

“And and I held the pillbug, and and it opened up and and and I got scared and and I threw it and and..” –

– which only amused his cousins further, and they had in short order retrieved the pillbug and one of them was holding it – and this I remember – Mago looked down at her hand, and reaching out said –

“..and I want to scare the pillbug.”
Continue reading “CREEPY, DEER, CREEPY, WRONG TROUSERS”

I’ve heard him say twice that his left shoe came off, and both times he was correct! So I was talking to him about left and right, trying to find out if he really did know which was which. He doesn’t, but when I said, “No, that’s your left foot, and that’s your right foot,” he said, kick-stomping his left leg: “And that’s my bear foot.” I thought he had said ‘bare’ foot, until, after a pause, he kick-stomped his right leg, and said, “..and that’s my kitty foot.”

Moving his finger along the writing on our exercise ball, he slowly ‘read’, “It says you will bounce on the ball. Can you get me on the ball, Mom?”

He also called the ball “fuge” instead of “huge” and couldn’t correct it even after much tutoring.

He called dandelions “lion daddys”. I corrected him and now he calls them “daddy lions.”

He tried cutting his own pancake and said with much enthusiasm, “I did it! Is that so awesome, Mom?”

This morning he lay next to the subwoofer of our computer speakers and listened to the music, saying to the bass “dum dum dum..”

One of his favorite things is to be wrapped up in a blanket and carried around; he’ll ask me to wrap him up and take him upstairs, then downstairs, upstairs, downstairs like this. He’s gotten too old to play chase around the recliner chair in his room; he’s too fast.

He got a small plastic tricycle for his birthday (he’s 2!) and when he first tried riding it, he became very frustrated trying to reach his legs to the pedals, cried “I can do it!” (but with a hard n for can’t – and ran to be alone in his room with his grief. He took to reassurance that it’s okay he can’t, and enjoyed riding it with help. Sometimes I’ll tell him to sit but just wiggle his legs when we need queit, and I’ll show him this, and several times I’ve done this he’s gotten on the couch to do the same, then become frustrated that his feet don’t reach and hit the floor with kicking like mine, and cried “I’m too little!”

Recently on a visit to his grandparents, they’d had the lawn aerated, so that little columns of dirt were lifted out and left all over the lawn. He stepped gingerly around them, pausing in his speech to observe them.. Arriving inside the door, he looked up at his grandfather and said:

“Did you have a new dog?”

More recently he was riding in his car seat as Tia drove. He made a book with his hands.

Mago: “I’m reading a story.”
Tia: “What happened in the story?”
“An elephant came out of the book.”
“What did the elephant do?”
“He ate soup.”

If Tia doesn’t put her seatbelt on right away when she gets in the car he shouts, “Mama, put on your stripe!”

He now avoids ending pleasant activities by saying: “One last more time”, or “Last more book, kay?”

Here are some of his recent utterances and activities that stand out in my memory – more recent first (the rest becomes a blur and these would too if I didn’t write it down). He’ll be two years old in a week and a half.

This morning he wandered off down the hall babbling; we didn’t know where he went. After a while I went and saw him descending back down the stair he had gone up; he had gone up and accross the dining room and into the kitchen, and reached high onto the counter to fetch the big tupperware tub of cookies he was now holding in his arms. When he saw me he explained: “I’m bringing a present to mommy.” I went and told Tia this before he arrived. When he gave it to her he said “I’m Santa Claus.”

The other day he sat with Tia and had her read through five children’s books in a row – he devours them.

We give him a sticker (right now they are little smily faces) and place it on the side of his book shelf every time he sleeps through the night without us tending to him. For his nap this past Saturday he wasn’t staying in his bed, so I told him he’d have to go to bed himself, and I left the room. He wasn’t sad about this, and was playing with the stickers on the bookshelf beside his bed. I never heard anything after this, and came back after a while to find him curled up on the arm of the armchair, his arm over the side, fast asleep without any blanket. I put blankets on him and he slept that way for an hour or so.

When he woke up we noticed after a while that he’d taken the smily face stickers off the bookshelf and stuck them all over the chest of his shirt.

We went to Cabella’s in Lehi because they have a lot of large trophy wildlife which he loves to see – deer, bears, foxes, wolves, moose, marsupials and birds of all kinds. In a display in a north room they also had an odd animatronic wildlife expert/sportsman extrapolating on the wildlife in an appropriate mountain man hick voice. Mago watched this for a while and then gave a short laugh, saying: “Huh, that’s kinda funny.”

He loves sunglasses, and mangled a pair into ruin though we fix it again and again (although he seems to be taking much better care of three newer ones he has). Tia doesn’t know how he ended up doing this, and thinks she must have shown him – he’ll put the sunglasses on, then raise them to his forehead and say:

‘Sup?

We went to the Thanksgiving Point Museum of Ancient Life (he loved this and talked about it for days – note: the Supersaurus hip they found and the approximation of the full animal’s indicated size, rendered with a full diplodocus skeleton – is overwhelming. I am glad dinoasaurs are not alive anymore). I read and told Mago the names of many things (and apparently so did Tia). When we drove away from the museum he looked at the very large Tyrannosaurus Rex painted relief on the side of the building and said “Goodbye, Ty-rann-a-saurus-ruckus!”

Tia doesn’t want me to grow a beard (I am and it’s not much), and on a recent night she consulted Mago in the evening while I was holding him. “Do you want daddy to grow a beard?” He stroked the hairs on my chin, looked me in the eyes, nodded, and said “Santa.”

Yesterday Mago took off his own diaper and wandered around. In the bathroom, he stood and peed right onto the tile floor. It was too late to stop him, But I said “No – !” – he turned to see my rebuke, and then frightened, he turned back on his heel and ran, slipped on his own pee, and fell flat down on his side. Fortunately he landed on the carpet just outside the bathroom, not on the tile.

When Alex goes to work, Mago repeats several times, “You lose your daddy!” in a small whimper, and thereby convinces himself that this is something to be very sad about indeed. I identify it with the way I used to make up songs that would make me cry.

He often says, “I’m a going to work, Mama.” and “Daddy’s going a work.”

I decided to show him some of “The Incredibles” which he liked a lot. When it got intense, he said “This is scary, Mama.” I said “Do you want me to turn it off?” and he said “Uh-huh.” Later in the day he said, “Mama? Watch the scary movie?” I said “Do you really want to watch it?” He nodded.

He loves to touch his belly button with one finger or pinch it as a self-comforting technique.

The other day he had his shirt off and said (stuttering for a while, searching for the right words), “I have a fat belly.” he threw his arms above his head and stretched, sucking his belly flat. He repeated this a few times before I decided I better convince him his belly is just fine.

Last night he woke up crying, “I’m ready, Mama! I’m ready to go!” Earlier that day I had promised him we’d go somewhere in the car, but we never made it out the door – now at night he still wanted to venture out. After refusing to go back to sleep at 1 a.m. he climbed over the crib rail and opened his bedroom door! He isn’t even two yet! I thought that wasn’t supposed to happen until kids are between two and three. He did it again after his nap today – we heard a thump and whimper through the baby monitor, but he was fine – so we got him to show us how he did it, me kneeling to catch him. It was really something to watch, he was quite the gymnast. He hoisted himself up the rail, levering off the corner of the crib, over the top, turned around and dropped straight down, catching himself with his hands on the rail, hanging a foot above the floor on the side of the crib. So we got out the toddler bed I bought at a garage sale last summer for $25. A blue car shaped plastic form. He is now happily in his new bed (for the night, I hope) at 6:45 p.m!