Category: Tia

The Magic Tree

Alex / / Alex, Mago Elf Liam, Tia

This morning we drove to a local elementary school to vote for our congressional district. (I voted for this guy – guess why? – I only know enough about him to know I don’t dislike him though).

Mago had been very unhappy deciding whether to come along and ultimately did. (It was very brief – most of the times I’ve gone to the polls nearly everyone there is from my neighborhood. You’d think my neighborhood has the only voting citizens in Utah.) I’d spent the morning doing other things and realized Mago needs some time with me, so I invited him to drive home with me and took him for a drive to see “where mommy used to go to school”. Showing him some of the BYU campus I remembered a site where Tia and I spent time and took him there, an area of apartments off campus.

I took him to a particular corner in residential Provo, explaining to him where I’d go:

Me: I’m going to show you what mom and I called the Magic Tree.

Mago: Does the magic tree disappear?

Me: No, we called it the Magic Tree because we fell in love under it, and love is magic.

After a bit of searching I spotted the corner to realize the large tree wasn’t there any more. All that was left was a dark patch of ground without much grass. I explained this to Mago:

Me: Oh – the tree isn’t there any more. Do you see that dark spot in the grass? That’s what’s left of the tree. They must have torn it down.

Mago: The Magic Tree did disappear.

Mago (a few moments later) … Did Jesus bring it back to life?

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.

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.

Fishes addendum, painting and coloring

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

I took these pictures yesterday, the last of which is Mago with his “aquarium”.

svgallery=2008_june_ussins

Last Friday I was working in the yard for maybe 4 hours, and finally came in and Mago had put on Clifford’s puppy days DVD all by himself. I rested in bed and when Clifford put painted paw marks all over his owner’s shirt, ‘painting’ her shirt giving her a great idea for her friend’s birthday party, Mago giggled delightedly. I then told him we could go buy shirts to paint. We’ve done that, and he painted with sparkly paint on a green shirt, using stencils: a crab, a seahorse, a fish, and waves and smears.

Alex’s addition: A week or so ago in church Tia showed crayon drawing to Nem-nem, with a large red crayon. I think that was Nem-nem’s first seeing crayon coloring? As she watched the crayon leave the first broad marks on a page, she smiled.

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.

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.

Smiley, Ma-ma, They won’t let us give up

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

Last night as I read a book to Mago for bed time he noticed a small smiley-face sticker I had put in the center of the face of my watch. I’d put that sticker there as a reminding device a week or so ago because it came as sudden inspiration to the question: how can I keep myself on track, on duty, and remember what I’m supposed to do? (I can be quite distracted, and even my very simple daily list gets neglected).

Mago: You have a smiley face on your watch.

Me: That’s to remind me to be nice to you, because when I’m nice to you, I’m really being nice to Heavenly Father, because he wants me to be nice to you.

Mago: And when it’s frowning, you’re mean.

Nem-nem started a few days ago to clearly say “Oomm-a, ma-ma, ma-ma, ma-ma, ma, ma-ma..”. And it refers to Tia. One evening Tia left Nem-nem in the crib to go to sleep, and left the room, but Nem-nem didn’t sleep, and pulled herself standing up beside the rail and called:

“Ma-ma, ma-ma, ma-ma, ma-ma, ma-ma..”

Reports Tia – I copy this from a web site for her siblings to keep in touch with Tia’s parents on a mission:

..the other day as [Mago] was giving me a hard time, I whined and crawled into his bed and complained,

“[Mago], I give up, I don’t want to be a mommy any more. I just want to be Tia and have friends, and go shopping, and do my own thing!”

And he said in a very sympathetic tone,

“Mommy, you can’t give up. You don’t have friends, you just have a boy and a girl!”

He helped me make biscuit dough and tasted it, and said “Ick, it tastes like grownup skin!”

A little bland and salty? And this is an apparent contrast with baby skin, which evidently does not have an unpleasant taste.

I didn’t want him to watch a video segment on insects because it was so gross I was afraid it would give him nightmares, and he said “Mom, put it on and don’t say ew!”

Tia’s sister Janae related having the same experience that same day:

…Just tonight I [said] i was about to give up being a mom.

“I have no more Mom energy…i think i’m just going to quit.”

[My boy] gave me a kiss on the cheek and said,

“Please keep trying…you have to be a mom …because you ARE a mom!”

He’s right; It’s a job you just can’t get out of. Hang in there, little Mommy… We’re all in it together!

Kids update, bad guys revisited

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

Tia reports that last night getting Nem-nem ready for bed, while Nem-nem was fussing and hungry she cried her own nickname (Nem-nem) – I guess again in self-pity as she had done when on an earlier day she cried her own first name. I thought I’d reported that last here, but it was in an email, so I’ll back-post that (link). I wish I’d heard it – I was putting Mago to bed.

Nem-nem is crawling quite a bit now. And still smiling a lot. I play a game with her and Mago where I hold her facing away, and slowly rotate her toward him, saying “Nem-nem-nem-nem-nem-nem-nem-nem..” until she fully faces him, at which point I brightly exclaim “Hallo!” – which makes them both smile and giggle.

Mago has learned from me to tickle Nem-nem’s belly by digging his forehead into it, which makes her squeal and laugh.

I’m fascinated by how Nem-nem explores objects with her hands – the other day she was weaving a ribbon through her fingers and tugging at it from either hand, and tugging at my necklace – and the whole time she does this she watches other things, such as Mago running back and forth setting the table.

We are guilty of the error of parents who more take for granted (ignore) the marvels of life and growing that they first discharged on, well, their firstborn. I’ve read about second children who grow up to resent that there are virtually no early photographs or videos of them in family albums. I’m proud that we’re at least resisting that error (I may want to say travesty) to a degree, and writing some things from her down, and so far she has some photographs of herself from birth to her current age of –

I’m sorry, she’s almost three-fourths of a year old? And Mago is 3 years old in two months? It just isn’t right. Stages of Eden should crawl longer. Except for the days when Tia feels stuck at home with nothing to do but care for wild children who rob her of sleep at night and whose day time naps very seldom synchronize (to allow her a nap).

I plan to get photos of the kids back-posted here and will send links when I do (if you’re signed up for notices, that is). There are several recent videos of them playing with each other or me or Tia (and many other videos we’ve never posted), and I’d describe them but I’m planning tommorrow morning to work at least toward getting the most recent few ready to post 🙂

And now for something completely different..

The Lord Commanded Nephi to cut off Laban’s head
Nephi didn’t want to, ‘cuz Laban would be dead
Laman and Lemuel said go ahead and try
The sword was lifted high and blood began to fly

I will go, I will do the things the Lord commands
I know the Lord provides a way: He wants me to obey
I will go, I will do the things the Lord commands
I know the Lord provides a way: He wants me to obey

My siblings wrote this verse revision or addition to the song “Nephi’s Courage” from the LDS Children’s songbook when I was a kid. I particularly appreciate its emphatic goriness and stupid glibness. Yes, Laban would be dead, indeed. And Laman and Lemeul are urging Nephi to kill Laban. That isn’t in the scripture – they were very cowardly when it came to Laban (or anything) and weren’t with him then, but it works in a stupidly funny way, so beyond that I digress.

Among the variety of music I’m constantly collecting I’ve ripped some CDs we have of the LDS Children’s songbook rendered by a small orchestral and singing children ensemble. (They also have recordings without singing and I prefer it either way depending.) Recently I came accross this one, Nephi’s Courage, while working, and as the familiar music began I fully expected to hear children start singing the above verse. I had to shake myself from it. No, that’s not a real verse. They aren’t going to sing that. It still happens any time I play the song again.

Mago will appreciate the revelation of this verse (as he does the relation from the very scripture) when he’s old enough to memorize and sing music. He’ll sometimes bellow and babble along to music – this is fun with musical theatre – and he can match a pitch.

Bad guys, More greetings, The Love of God revisited

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

Yesterday Tia reported that, while listening to a kid’s tape (recorded by and featuring my brother-in-law Marvin) dramatizing principles etc. from the Book of Mormon, Mago asked her about Nephi and what the name of the bad guys was again. Laman and Lemuel, she repeated to him. Referring to a thick foam fencing sword he got for Christmas (which he had begged for some time before Christmas to have), he said:

“When they come to our house, I’m going to whack them with my sword!”

As Tia explained last night to Mago that Nephi didn’t kill Laman and Lemeul (and Mago raised the sad point that these mean men were Nephi’s brothers), but Nephi did kill Laban by cutting off his head (and Mago understood the reasons offered for all of this) , Mago then said of Laban, speaking as pretending (he knows these people aren’t around), he said –

“And I’ll whack off his head!”

I believe the Lord placed these stories at the front of the Book of Mormon because they make for the most dramatic and interesting family discussions (let alone entertaining).

On a recent morning Mago came into the bedroom where Tia and Nem-nem had just awakened for the morning, and Mago climbed into the bed to greet Nemmy. In chorus, at the very same time, Mago and Nemmy gave each other friendly greetings:

“Hiiiiiiiii.”

A week or so ago I picked up Nem-nem from the bed where, with Tia, she was asleep, to put Nem-nem in her crib. I cradled and rocked her in my arms while she slept, and lingered a long while – it is very rare that I get to hold her while she sleeps, because she is much harder to soothe than Mago was (and Tia has more of a gift for soothing Nemmy – I had more of a gift for soothing Mago). I looked at this little girl and thought of my family, these ties that are the Kingdom. I thought of my slacking in tending to my family – though I have improved a lot since Mago was a baby – and heartbroken for the wants of this little one I began praying for the charity to tend more to them. As soon as I had begun this prayer, she momentarily gave a great smile in her sleep. My prayer was in her dream, I knew it, and in an instant I was back to just a brief year ago holding Mago in his sleep, praying for charity, and in the moment I prayed for this he laughed, my prayer in his dream.

And he shall plant in the hearts of the children the promises made to the fathers, and the hearts of the children shall turn to their fathers. – D&C 2:2

Greetings, Rewrites

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

This morning I was at our main computer transferring stuff to set up my new writer’s validation toy, and I hear from behind me and to the left –

“Hiiiiii.”

– in a small but confident voice so mild and sweet it is disarming, and doubly so because as I turn to see the source of the sound, there is Nem-nem, sitting up on the bed with Tia’s assistance, smiling affectionately at me.

She will slay the young men when she is a young woman.

Mago did the same thing as an infant. He also did her greeting yell of sorts. I wish I remembered the sound now, but I’m glad I wrote down that he made it – at that entry he was a month and a half old. He was about 4 months old when I wrote down he’d said “Hiiii.” I’m still in denial of the little tiny baby not being around, and maybe I always will be, but how I enjoy his company now, and I’m sure that will continue. Nem-nem a.k.a. Nemmy a.k.a. Milkbarf a.k.a. McCuddles is about 5 months now. I also wrote down Mago saying “Hiiii” to mama and dada by their proper names at 1 year.

Mago woke up twice early in the morning to go to the bathroom and I put him back to bed both times, informing him it was still “sleepy time”. Shortly after Nem-nem’s greeting this morning, we heard Mago in his room through our monitor, revising one of these encounters:

“No, it’s night time.”
“No it isn’t, it’s morning time.”
“Oh, okay.”

Gotta have the happy ending.

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.