Category: Mago Elf Liam

We got him a small rocking-horse for Christmas – we brought him to Toys-R-Us a few weeks ago to look for toys and came across it. Among toys he liked, that especially he didn’t want put back on the shelf – he didn’t even want it out of reach of his arms. I’m now wondering how we got it out of his sight when we came home to hide it until Christmas. On first seeing it again Christmas morning, he remembered that you can squeeze the ears and it says things or sings a song, with its jaws mechanically moving, and he went straight to do that while rocking on it. Tia tells me that today he looked closely at its nose, asking “Boogers?” – looking for the boogers that he knows there are on real horses such as at the pasture adjoining my work building. He also fed it some chips, and when he squeezed its ears and it talked and sang, crumbling chips fell out of its mouth.

He understands the most important thing about Santa. I talked to him about Santa on Christmas Eve (don’t worry, stalwart Christians, we’ve been talking to him about baby Jesus the whole season), and he said “Brings presents.” He also pointed to the Christmas tree and said “Puts them, under there.”

We played Hide and Seek. After a few rounds, when we told him to close his eyes and count, he covered his eyes and said: “Heven-y Fa-ver..”

When he hid with mom, me counting, there wasn’t any chance not finding him because he’d giggle when I said “Where’s the baby? ..”

When I hid one round, telling him to count to ten, he counted: “One, Two, here I come!”

I know there are some things I’m forgetting. But I took down some notes to expand on and I do here.
Continue reading “Mago Update 11”

He loves snowmen. His favorite movie – animated cartoon – right now is THE SNOWMAN in which a snowman comes to life and has adventures with a young boy. He has a little fuzzy snowman plush toy he loves.

This morning we awoke to the first heavy snow and went out to play with him. I had to head off for work but Tia made a little snowman with him, with a small tin bucket for a hat. After the snowman was completed, he stood back and stared at the snowman. Waiting for the snowman to come to life.

Recently (a week or so before his utterance of “I’m happy“), on a morning when I took a nap, as I got out of bed to close the bedroom door, he was standing there at the other side of the door, and he said “Lighs-out. Go bed. Night-night.” – and he closed the door. Later when I went to open the door he was still standing near it outside the room, and he said “No, no, night-night” and came and closed it again.

I take it back. Sports are generally lame. No, no! Okay. I’ll just put this into the “extended entry” field.
Continue reading “BYU vs UTAH game”

Trying to put him back to sleep after he woke too early this morning, I placed him in his crib and caressed his face with my hand, down over his forehead that fits in my palm. He blathered a bunch of nonsense words for a while, then gently tugged at and grabbed my finger, dragging it around his face and exploring, making gentle scratches and prods all over his face with my fingernail. He did this for some time. As he grew sleepy, he mildly exclaimed –

“Ha-ppy! .. I’m.. ha-ppy. I’m happy.”

I said “I’m happy too. I’m glad you are.” and left him in his crib as he dozed off back to sleep.

I couldn’t ask for anything more to be grateful for today.

[I actually wrote this to a brother on a mission but this is world-broadcastable, slightly revised and expanded.]

Mago laughs at me—and naturally I should enjoy this—when I am silly with him on purpose. (No. He doesn’t laugh on purpose. He’s far too genuine to need courtesy laughs.* I’ll teach him false laughter on his 7th birthday, in preparation for his 8th, when such awful sins may become part of his repertoire. He’s going to do it anyway. I may as well give him a head-start. We’ll have a Family Home Evening lesson on it. Anyway, I’m silly on purpose). This is what a child does to people. Some things that continue to make him laugh are any nonsense word said in some unexpected or emphatic way, or a sudden gesture, or anything. We took him to fly a kite and Tia ran with the kite in vain in dead wind while it didn’t go anywhere, and he laughed and said “Mommy funny.” One morning Tia opened the garage door so I could drive out, and I was holding him in front of it and raised my arm and said “OPEN SESAME.” He laughed and said “Daddy funny.” He tells us this often.

He loves playing peek-a-boo/chase/monster in circles around the recliner chair in his room before bed.

He recently first confessed – no, not sins! He’s too young! But I will make sure he confesses when he starts using false laughter – he confessed and used the word “love” as to a little neighbor girl. He said “love” – then her name. This is a girl several years older who adores him (and is very sweet to him) and they play. He frequently requests to visit her and Tia obliges. He has since confessed the same for us.

Yesterday he kept laughing very hard when I imitated the sound of a bird in our backyard – a high sqeaking/squaking “Phichiieeeew!” – and he took this up as a word for the bird, which he insisted I keep taking him on short journeys to search for.

Today Tia was making a hippopotomus puppet request items of food (actually pieces of a wood puzzle of foods) in a low voice, chew them for a bit when Mago handed them into the puppet’s mouth, then spit them out emphatically (phhhht!), which he was very amused with.

There’s a neighbor boy he sometimes plays with, a few years older, who has his same first real name (Mago is our son’s alias here on the web). Tia refers to our son as Mago when they play to avoid confusion – and now somehow they’ve both ended up calling the other Mago and niether using their real name when they are together. Go figure. Today behind curtains in the church foyer they were wrestling and hugging and occasionally Mago would bonk and cry, then get over it and go back to it.

*No, actually he does sometimes courtesy laugh – he did so when he saw this and this movie of me.. no the second was a real laugh – incidentally watching them when I put them up at that new film blog.

Tia reports that one recent day he came to her, stared intently into her eyes, and said his own name, emphatically. Twice.

At another time (another day?), he came to her doe-eyed, looked into her eyes dreamily, and wistfully said “Mommy.” And then took her face in his hands. And clawed. Into her cheeks. Fiercly.

He used to bite affectionately as a small infant. Now approaching toddler size, and with many more teeth (including molars, but that doesn’t factor into what I’m relating), he still does this. He bites HARD with those little perfect incisors. Unlearning that, and to simply kiss, has been very hard but he’s doing it well.

He’s kinda a little actor. He does two faces on purpose at least, happy and angry; for the latter he squints his face and curls his lips into an angry face, and holds out his arms and clenches his fists and shakes both – well his whole body really. He does this on command. This busted up his aunt when she saw it. For the former he does a cheesy little deliberate squinted face and grin and says “happy.”

Oh man, I really should get videos of those.

This evening he took a red marker and drew stigmata on the top of his hands and inside of his palms (yes, both sides of both), and also mine. Of course he doesn’t know that’s what they are. But it made me think.

I’m somewhat embarrased to mention to people, who ask, that he really knows and says A LOT of words. Unusually very many much. More than 170. Tia wrote a list. She keeps adding to it. Apparently 20 words is a lot for kids his age. So that’s like, more than eight times more. I think it’s signing and reading a lot that does it.

And he’ll understand most of any basic request or communication you make. Where did my infant go? – but he is still WILD. Today Tia was playing tug-of-war with him, with a yarn (I played this a few weeks ago in the backyard with him myself). He has a rollicking belly laugh if you play that he pulled you down. And he just babbles and tumbles and giggles and dances and is WILD. He is just as free and boundless with his enthusiasms as he was with the gods, nothing was filtered out. That’s the only way I can think of it.

He imitates phrases and words he doesn’t know the meaning of, very well, all the time. But often, when he isn’t just babbling either real or apparent nonsense – and by “apparent” I mean it could have some other than purely phonetic meaning which we simply don’t know (maybe all baby talk has such meanings?) – often he does know what he’s saying.

The other day he was holding some Barbie dolls together, and said “Help? Hug?”

He’ll say very briskly, in transition, “Okay” – and with the same briskness if he’s hurt or has a spill he’ll say “Oops – sorry”.

Sometimes he’ll withhold objects from mommy and coach her to say “Please?” if she forgets to.

He remembers objects in places he has seldom or only once been, and calls for them before he sees them on returning.

He also recently came to me sleeping in, and from the side of the bed tugged at my sleeve and said “Pull? Pull?” – then trying to push me up – “Up? Up?” – and I got up and he took my finger in his hand and said “Hand? Hand?” – and led me out of the room to play.

And best of all if you ask me, he often exlaims, often when running to me -“Dad-dy dad-dy dad-dee-dee-dee-dee-dee!”

When I stopped at the nursery after church to pick up Mago, he had me pick him up, and after a while I handed him to Tia, when he suddenly puled “Daddy hold mee!” I think this may have meant, no keep holding me, but then he was so clingy he wouldn’t let go of Tia so I could meet his request.

I’m pretty happy about that – on top of his first sentence being “Hii da-da.”

He’s often joined together three words into utterances like “hat off dog” and the like, or signing “cold, you, hat” (outside you go, and put a hat on me).