Ussins

With this entry I’m posting at a (sub-domain of) a new domain. Previously this blog was at alexandtia.com/Ussins – now it is here at home.ussins.org – please update your bookmarks/feeds/what have you. I’ve been listing extended family blogs (for a blogroll) – I probably don’t have them all. (And many galleries and links here need fixing/updating.)

Again, I haven’t been doing justice to Nem-nem at this blog, and am guilty of 2nd Child Syndrome.

Last evening we hiked a little up Rock Canyon – at the Lake Bonnevile trail on the north – and passed a small cave off the trail. I made a monster sound, and Nem-nem looked toward the cave a bit fearfully and said “Ee-oo”. I’d never heard that, and Tia told me it means “Scary.”

Nem-nem rages when she doesn’t want to go to bed (which is most nights), stuck in her crib – screaming, blubbering, and calling after “Ma-ma” – or, if it’s been several hours and she’s past desperation, “Da-da”. (As second pick, I suppose I’m simultaneously flattered and jealous.)

She’s going to climb right over the rail any day (as Mago did around that age), and has climbed out several times by propping up on furniture just outside the bars (which furniture is no longer adjacent to the crib). When we’ve accidentally left the crib rail down, Nem-nem has slept on a mattress outside the crib, or on the recliner in the room. On a recent night at about two AM she opened our door, wandered across the room, and said simply and clearly, “Hi.” – and then climbed into our bed and quickly fell back asleep.

Several months ago – and I forgot to write it – I was lying on a couch reading, and Nem-nem decided I needed some company. She went and retrieved several plush toys and a doll, and arranged them around my head and put the doll in my arms.

Also, here’s a back-post (link) of a recording of Nem-nem and I which I’d made and readied, but hadn’t put up, in January.

The next two from Mago I’m slightly adapting from notes by Tia.

At his birthday party, before blowing out the candles on his cake, with all his neighborhood friends around him, Mago wished in a breathless voice: “I wish this day would last forever.”

A few nights ago at tucking in time, he asked Tia: “Is there too much cuddliness in the whole world?” He then talked about how he loved cuddly things.

This morning:

Mago: Did you know you can have as many pairs of arms as you want?
Me: How?
Mago: Ask Jesus! I want three pairs of arms!

This afternoon:

Me: I don’t want playing Pikmin to be the only thing I play with you today. I want to play something else.
Mago: We can play a game I made up.
Me: What’s that?
Mago: Bomb’s Up.
Me: How do you play that?
Mago: You put a bomb magnetic on a spring, and it goes up in a hole in the ceiling, and it devaporates into a food that you want.

(You can see how this is inspired by video games. Destroy something and it will turn into a reward.)

That’s a small sample. His imagination has explosively expanded. He’s become a big fan of Pokémon after Tia disclosed to him a Pokémon blanket I’d owned before we were married (yes, as an adult – you get the picture), which had been obscured by a heavy quilt covering. A poster of Pokémon I’d gotten from Electronic Gaming Monthly has also been adopted by him (now laminated, to prevent destruction by young children and toddlers). He learns their names, now watches Pokémon cartoons, plays Pokémon on my old Game Boy hand-held console (and begs both of us to find in-game stores etc. for him), has pretend battles, and does paper crafts (which means he compels his parents to create them).

About a year ago, maybe (or more), I first devised “Pirates and Wizards” as a game to play with him – which, though I had broader ambitions for the game, Mago strictly reduced to pretending to blast each other with pistols and/or fire and/or lighting. (And persisted at this over months and years until he forgot the origin, and would only pretend to blast you, often.) Now he plays it with Nem-nem, who does not necessarily know what guns, fire and lighting are – but if you point at her and make a blast sound, she’ll do a squealing scream, keeling over.

When Mago is very unruly or troublesome at bed-time, or in general if a standard “time out” isn’t really doing the job, he gets strapped into his baby seat in the car in the garage. He really hates it – but it does him no harm – so it works; I’m usually the only one who can pull it off because Tia hates the expense of wrestling him on the way. So when Nem-nem is in a bed-time fuss or rage Tia asks her if she wants the same. “Uh-huh”, always comes the eager reply – and out to the baby seat goes Nem – except that she likes it. Calms her right down and she goes to sleep. I guess she figures it’s what big brother does, so that’s her way to feel like a big girl.

(So rebellion is growing up. Well, that’s just great.)