Tia, Mago Elf Liam, Nem-nem Niamh, Lil' Bug, and I. (kid names are aliases)
//Here is an ultrasound photograph of the newest one three months in the womb. The ultrasound found she is a girl. I was working up a video including the ultrasound video footage, but have kept putting it off (there are half a dozen such pending things), so – here she is. Click the image for a larger image.
You can see her little nose, lips, and eyes. This image stuns me.
//Tia was working at the computer, getting a new online photography portfolio together (at this writing, there were still problems with an old section we were revamping; it’s redirecting to a finished “Fine Art Photography” section). Mago, wanting his mother’s attentions and affections, began banging hard with a magnifying glass on the computer case which is inconveniently on the floor. Tia said: “Mago, don’t be mean to the computer!” and he replied “No mommy, I want to be mean.” and banged harder. Out went the computer. The power supply is apparently dead. Or something else. It’s fortunate Tia had the new part of her portfolio uploaded to our site before this. I’m typing this entry after work from my work.
[Update 01-20] The computer seems fine – either the power cable was loose, or – I think the motherboard has a detector that auto-shuts-off past a disturbance threshold. Disconnected and then reconnected to power, it’s booting and running normally.
//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!
//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.”
//With many visitors and folks I haven’t been in contact with wandering to this entry, likely, because of a link sent out, it’s a good time to say.. Tia is pregnant 🙂
The baby will be born sometime in early summer. That’s as specific as I’ll get – “due dates” are seldom accurate; and Tia doesn’t want folks asking her when it will be born because it makes the wait seem longer.
Apart from the lesser question of what the new baby’s alias will be here alongside Mago Elf Liam, niether of us have much idea what we’d like for his/her real name. Back to the lists..
//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!”
//Today I confessed to Tia for the umpteenth time that my sleep habits are insane. She replied: “I think it goes back to my theory that for anything really out of balance in your life, you start with scripture study and prayer.” As soon as she had said this, Mago, sleeping in his crib and heard through the baby monitor, emitted a sudden, brief, intense gale of laughter, joyful almost to crying, over as soon as it started.
I think he likes that theory. And his laughter in sleep has recommended prayer and the like before. It’s like that. As a biased parent I’ll say that If the kid won’t sell that, no one and nothing will.
My wife is very good. This is of course always a contrasting statement, if you are a Mormon, meaning that I am very bad. But seriously, that she should recommend this while I.. need to go to bed this second! I will! Anyway, that she should recommend this to I, who am supposed to Lead (TM) puts me to shame. But this is good. She has a good idea there.
//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.
