Tia, Mago Elf Liam, Nem-nem Niamh, Lil' Bug, and I. (kid names are aliases)
//A few days ago Nem-nem was sitting and removed a sock from her foot. Looking at her mother, she held the sock and waved it up and down, saying affirmatively and instructively with each wave:
“Bop. Bop. Bop.”
[I actually did make preparations toward exporting and posting video of Nem-nem and Mago when I said I’d post video – I just didn’t actually export and post. Technical difficulties – I’ll get there..]
//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!
//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 flyI 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.
//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
//Tia says that Nem-nem just cried her own name. She thinks she said it because she felt sorry for herself, being alone on the floor and hungry and tired. Nem-nem broke into a crawl yesterday – she’s been scooting increasingly for a few weeks.
//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.
//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.
//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.
//Tia recently related this to me; they had just left a store and, as too often happens, Mago let go of a floating balloon they got in the store and it flew up and away in the sky. Mago commented afterward while they were in the car, and he and Tia talked:
I’m sad.
Tia said she would be sad too, and it would also be sad if any wild animal choked on the balloon. Mago latched on to this thought and began listing any of a number of wild animals that could choke on plastic if they ate it: deer, birds, whales etc, then ended with:
.. or a Truck. (pause, smiles) No, not a truck.
This morning I took him into our bedroom to say hello to mommy and Nem-nem. Nem-nem smiled at Mago and I set him down. He lay his head on her belly and they smiled at each other and she put her hands on his face. Cutest thing I ever did saw.
//At a family Halloween party Mago got a little bag of various Haloween-themed toys, which we were playing with the other day. One of them was a blank notepad with a skull on it, which I turned the pages of, prompting Mago to pretend to write a story in it.
Me: What is the story about?
Mago: A little boy.
Me: What did the little boy do?
Mago: He was playing with a toy.
Me: Then what happened?
Mago: His daddy came and took it away.
Me: Then what happened?
Mago: He cried.
Me: The little boy cried?
Mago: Yeah.
Me: Then what happened?
Mago: His daddy gave it back. And they lived happy ever.
Tia sent me an Instant Message with this one from Mago – the monitor he mentions rests on a counter above a hard floor:
Mom, I could hear you through the monitor. And I kept turning it on and off. But then the kitchen floor turned it off… so I couldn’t hear you anymore.
//[EDIT 07/21/2015: I made clarifying edits to the text, and I also add this introduction. This is my record of a dream I had one morning (I assume the date of this entry) involving late Grandpa Riley Clark, the youthful man who approaches in the dream. For background, he often kindly barked this very statement to people, including me. My relationship with him had regrettable sore friction at times, so I took this dream as a merciful (and very amusing) statement from above.]
It is Judgment Day. I stand before the pleading bar of the Almighty, to state my cause for entering the Kingdom. The Savior asks the countless throng of God’s children:
“Is there anyone who has ought against this man, or reason he should not enter my Kingdom?”
A man comes forward, youthful and bright, with a sparkle in his eye. He holds a cane, for what reason is not apparent, as he has a healthy and strong frame. The cane has so many stamped coin souvenirs plastered onto it, from his travels. He approaches me, stops, looks at me, and barks:
“Get something to eat!”
He winks. He steps back down with nothing more to say. Neither does my Savior have any more to say.
I am set down for the feast of entrance. There in the abundance are the grapes, even the grapes of the wine press of the wrath of Almighty God, restored to the vine, never to be trampled again.
I eat the grapes.
//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?
//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.