Of Fast Pokes, Cupid, And True Love

The other day, I was walking the kids to school from our parking spot nearby when they accused me of making them late, insisting I was a "slow poke."  I pointed out this could not be true because I was, in fact, many strides ahead of them, at least a quarter of a block ahead, when they said it.  At this point, the girl, AKA Thing 2 (because she's the second born of twins), took off on a tear, zipping in front of me and gleefully shouting, "I'm a fast poke!"

I asked her where she'd heard that before.  "I just made it up," she said.  At which point, the boy, AKA Thing 1, tore past me, shouting, "I'm a fast poke too!"

I had to write it down because I'm afraid if I don't, I won't remember this stuff; it'll too easily get lost in the shuffle of filling out permission trips for field trips, making the 100th lunch of the school year, and tying yet another loose shoe lace.

When I picked them up from school the other day, I stopped the car at the corner and noticed the puffy clouds, covering a swath of sky in cotton-ball softness.  I pointed them out to the kids.  "I wish I could go up there and touch them," said Thing 2.  Thing 1 then commented, "I wish I could stay up there and meet Cupid.  Is Cupid real, mommy?" 

I think I'm in love.  So I guess the answer to that would be yes.

Of course, this was followed quickly by the same question about Zombies.  It's not all sweetness and light around here.

But I am trying to savor the moments that are ... and forgive my kids or myself for the moments that aren't.

The kids often put me in mind of those car commercials where the announcer brags that the car can go from 0 to 60 in X number of seconds.  Only in my kids' case, they go from adorable to impossible.  You'd think, by now, I'd react by not being impossible too.  After all, I've had this mom gig for six years.  But I can turn on a dime too.

Getting them to get dressed, eat breakfast, brush their teeth, get their shoes and jackets and backpacks on in the morning turns me into a drill sergeant, and I really don't want to be.  Neither does Late Blooming Dad.  But some mornings, it takes the two of us, barking at both kids, threatening to take toys and privileges away, to get them out the door in something approximating on time.  The other day, after Thing 1 had been dawdling and refusing to listen and preferring to take his sweet time with every task, or just plain refusing to do them, the parental haranguing escalated, with raised voices, and suddenly it was too much for the kid to take.  He burst into tears and declared, "I feel hated."  Late Blooming Dad responded by taking everything down and delivering a heartfelt hug.  I joined in briefly.  But I couldn't help feeling guilty for hours after.  All I'd been trying to do was get the kid ready for school on time, and he felt hated. 

Tomorrow morning, the sticker chart goes up and we try a new approach:  twenty on-time days -- a sticker for each -- will mean a new toy.  But the real change has to be in our attitudes as parents.  Yes, we need to get to work on time, and that means getting the kids to school at least close to on time.  But the haranguing only led to stress for all concerned, and a decidedly sad family moment.

I did feel better that afternoon, when I got to school and the door to Thing 1's classroom opened as the bell rang.  Thing 1 zoomed out of his classroom and into my arms, declared me his "true love," and gave me a kiss.  His quickness to forgive is another thing I don't want to ever forget.

"It was so yummy that I can hardly feel my eye."

You read it right.

That's what Thing 1 said the other day.

I can't remember what he ate that was so yummy, but I don't think I'm soon to forget his creative attempt to articulate what he was feeling in response to aforesaid yumminess.

I am sure I am dating myself now as a very Late Blooming Mom indeed when I say moments like this remind me of an ancient TV show with Art Linkletter, ART LINKLETTER'S HOUSE PARTY, which ran for something like 20 years and was later revived with Linkletter and Bill Cosby as KIDS SAY THE DARNEDEST THINGS. It can't be quite as obscure as I'm making it out to be, because WIKIPEDIA tells me it's been mentioned on FAMILY GUY, SOUTH PARK and THE SIMPSONS. The basic idea was that Linkletter (and later Cosby) would interview kids and, well, they would indeed say the darnedest things.

My kids oblige daily.

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Mommy, I Got Uh Ideah!

"Mommy, I got uh ideah!" he tells me at least six times a day. Sometimes it's actually, "Mommy, I got uh good ideah." These ideas usually involve what treat I should bring at afterschool pickup, what TV show we "haven't watched in a long time," some place "I never been," or "where we should go for out dinner."

When Thing 1 mispronounces words, they're so adorably mangled I don't want to correct them (e.g., Wahoo's, a chain of Baja-style Mexican food joints, is invariably pronounced "Woo-Ha's"). And even when he pronounces a new word correctly, it somehow sounds way cuter than it should.

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You Must "Member" This ...

The fractured English continues, and I can't help but enjoy it.

Every time Thing 1 wants me to recall something we've done together, he says, "Mommy, you member when we ..."

He's lobbying heavily for walkie-talkies, so he piped up with this the other day: "You member Attitcus had walkie-talkines? Kin we get walkie-talkies?" (Atticus, btw, is a little boy, not the character in TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, though very possibly named for him.)

His other frequently used mangled English expressions: "I never know that" for "I didn't know that," and "we hadn't done that in long time" for something that's been awhile.

Yesterday he informed me he made Hamentashen -- the traditional Jewish pastry that's made to celebrate Purim -- at school and loved it -- so much so that he gave up his chance at playing ball that day to do so. "Kin we make Hamentashen at home?" he asked. The word "can" never crosses his lips, but "kin" prefaces many a request.

Thing 2 chimed in that she did not eat the Hamentashen. "It was too jammy," she said. "And too strawberry." And though it's not fractured English, she overuses this one: "You're not supposed to." As in, whatever her brother is doing that she doesn't want him to do.

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The Almost-Fours

They will be four on Tuesday.

They can't wait -- for ice cream birthday cake (Lightning McQueen for him, Ariel the Little Mermaid for her) and for their party.

I am getting the sense this is going to be a very fun age. Mostly, I like eavesdropping on them when they play without my immediate supervision. Yesterday I overheard this: "Where are my boots? Oh, there they are! I will go take a walk with them." "Where will you go?" "California.

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She Can Smell Chocolate On My Breath. It's Just One Of My Favorite Things.

Thing 2 found some money on my desk the other day, a bunch of coins. She said, "Can I have these monies, monmy?" I said yes. She did that little jump she does when she's gleeful, a kind of full body bounce, and said, "I love monies!" Then she gave some coins to Thing 1, who said, "How many monies do you have? I have five monies!"

On the ride home from preschool, Thing 2 tries to convince me to let him watch certain shows or movies by prefacing his request this way: "You know what we hadn't watched in a long time?" He means "haven't" but it comes out "hadn't." Anything we "hadn't done in a long time" is the thing he most wants to do this minute.

He also interrupts frequently with this query: "Kin I tall you someping, mommy?" And when he wants a television show recorded on our Tivo, he asks, "Kin you recorder it, Mommy?" Perhaps because he also sometimes plays the recorder, or at least blows into it, and after all, "recorder" isn't much different from "record."

She asks for two pony tails rather than calling them pigtails.

He gets upset if she doesn't wear the pajamas or socks or underwear he wants her to wear. He may be just shy of four years old, but he might as well be a professional wardrobe consultant.

She could spend all day trying to draw hearts and flowers, or getting me to draw them for her so she can color them in.

He could eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches or mac n' cheese for every meal of the day.
He even eats peanut butter and jelly on his Vans mini waffles.

He falls asleep faster if I lie on the floor beneath his bed and hold his hand.

She holds two small stuffed yellow ducks, one in each hand, while sleeping, and sometimes touches each duck's soft beak to her cheeks, as if the ducks are kissing her.

She calls his favorite character "Light McQueen," always leaving out the "ning" part. And when she counts to twenty, she always skips from fifteen to eighteen.

He carries his cars around with him in a soft Cars-the-movie themed lunchbox. He insists on bringing the same car to Share Day every week.

She sucks the juice from the hard middle of the mango.

She can smell chocolate on my breath every time.

With no prodding, at totally random moments, he'll lean his head into my body and say, "I love you, mommy."

I write these down so I don't forget them. At this moment of motherhood, they're my favorite things the kids do or say. Like raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens, they're worth more than all my monies.

Once Upon A Time

Once upon a time -- actually more like late July -- Thing 2 began to make up stories for the first time.

In the car while we were driving home from preschool, she told some tales. They all began, "Once upon a time," and some of them went kinda like this: "There was a boy named XXX (the name of her brother) and a girl named XXX (her name), and they were inside a belly and an egg, and when they came out, they were butterflies!" Sometimes there is a girl with her brother's name, and a boy with her name. Sometimes there is a store they go to and sometimes they go to the beach. But whatever the story, it ends in about three sentences with "The End!"

Most of the time Thing 2 is trying to tell these stories, Thing 1 is interrupting her and trying to get my attention while I'm driving. Lately he does this by saying, "Mooooooom! Kin I tell you sompthing? I wanna tell you sompthing!"

Then one or the other drops their water or snack and demands help and I either have to pull over or risk the consequences of making them tough it out till we get home.

But those first few minutes of the preschool car ride pickup are pretty sweet.

As a writer, I am touched and thrilled that my daughter is starting to make up her own stories. And the fact that they make no sense (to me) makes them even sweeter.

Sometimes I'm so busy managing my kids I forget to notice how they've changed, and in the space of mere months, grown verbally adept ("sompthing" not withstanding) and gregarious.

For a long, long time I longed for this time, when I would be able to have real conversations, and send them into convulsions of laughter with a pun or a little wordplay. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed a lot of aspects of having babies and one and two-year-olds, but verbally, they're, um, developmentally challenged. Once that language bomb explodes inside their brains, though, there's apparently no holding them back. At three-and-a-half, I've got two extremely chatty preschoolers, both of whom insist they must be heard.

Thing 1, who is immersed in a CARS -- the Pixar movie -- phase, is liable to tell you that when he grows up he will be Lightning McQueen, only he can't quite say "lightning," so he says, "LightMcQueen," as if it's one word. When asked to make up a name for a toy or a character in a story I'm telling, he'll always choose "LightMcQueen." Meanwhile, Thing 2 will make up nonsense words to songs she knows and crack herself up. Sometimes the song is "Twinkle , Twinkle, Little Star," with "Peanut Butter Jelly" replacing key words in the song. Sometimes she knowingly drops in the word "penis," mostly because she realizes she's not supposed to say this word except in reference to Thing 1's anatomy (e.g., "My brother has a penis. I don't have a penis") and because she knows it sounds funny.

I'm hardly the first nor will be the last in the never-ending line of parents to be amazed and delighted and to crack up at the unintentionally cute things coming out of their children's mouths. But I gotta say this: back when it was all about burping and changing diapers and hoping that was an actual smile I witnessed, not just gas, this once upon a time seemed an eternity away.

Now that "once upon a time" time is finally here, I sit back behind the wheel and giggle along with the kids, and hope I can slow down time just enough to capture their joy in the discovery of having fun with something that costs nothing, but can mean so much: words.

Potty Mouth Has Made Its First Appearance

Thing 1 misbehaved at preschool.

Apparently, while on the potty, he dropped the f-bomb.

We know this because one of his teachers pulled Daddy aside at drop-off to let us know, and to request that maybe we teach him to say something inoffensive like "fudge." She added that she, too, has uttered the same word in front of her own kid while she burned herself on the stove, prompting her son to repeat it.

Clearly she attempted to make us feel better by including this anecdote about herself.

But suddenly all those times Late Blooming Mom or Daddy have uttered bad words in front of our kids are coming back to haunt us. And we can't help but feel like bad parents, wondering what the teacher and everyone else within earshot and above toddler age thinks of us.

I knew my kids had learned "Goddammit!" from my own lips, utttered in exhaustion and exasperation. But I've already tried to persuade them to substitute the silly "Goshdarnit!" Thing 2 asked me what it means and I told her, "It means 'oh bother,' just like in WINNIE THE POOH." Since she's already fond of "oh bother," this was the perfect explanation, and she has, indeed, been happily using the new compound word I created to replace the swear word.

But the f-bomb, I honestly can't recall saying in front of them. Daddy thinks he may have been to blame. I certainly could have. It's not that I don't watch my language around the kids 95% of the time. But goshdarnit, sometimes the lack of sleep and stress over trying to balance work and family life make me much less patient, and much more apt to explode in a string of epithets. Often the bad words are prompted by bad behavior on the kids' part -- refusing to listen, say, when asked to stop jumping off their beds onto the floor; refusing to go to bed; refusing to stop saying ... well, bad words.

I'm embarrassed about my son saying the f-bomb. But what's worse is, when I try to point out to him that this isn't a nice word, and I suggest using another, he just laughs and keeps repeating it. If only he'd misheard, the way he did with "damn it," which accounts for him heartily proclaiming "Bam it!" several times a day, just for the thrill of it.

I can't help but find it ironic, though, that Thing 1's potty mouth incident occurred WHILE he was using the potty. I gotta give the kid some credit. If you can't drop an f-bomb into your speech while sitting on the toilet, then when CAN you use the f---ing word?

To anyone who claims they've never said a bad word in front of their kids -- who must've learned such things somewhere, I say -- what the hell. We're not going there for saying those words, and neither are our kids. But I realize I may be getting more than my share of notes from teachers in the year ahead. Bam it.

Pronoun Trouble

It's not just Daffy Duck who has "pronoun trouble."

My three-year-olds sometimes say things so wrong, yet so adorable, that I hesitate to correct them.

My son refers to his sister as "he."
He says "Monica Book" instead of "Chanukah Book."
He mispronounces new words in such cute ways I can't stand to correct them.
My daughter confuses tenses constantly.
Both kids say, "I carry you" when they want ME to carry THEM.

It reminds me of that old Steve Martin routine, the one in which he admonishes the audience to say the wrong things in front of kids just for the fun of messing them up.

They're also incessantly curious. When I say "It's raining," they ask, "Why?"

They want to know where every new thing was purchased. Thing 1's constant refrain is, "Where you bought this?" Often followed by, "Who bought this?"

My daughter is already delighting in language play, especially adding the words "poopy" or "underwear" to her favorite songs, then dissolving into incontrollable giggles. "Do Re Mi" from the SOUND OF MUSIC is her latest victim, but pretty much any phrase can be made into a great joke by the addition or substitution of "poopy." "Pee pee" is also popular. Since my husband is the household connoisseur of bathroom humor, he's especially pleased.

I'm already missing the early days when they mangled words like "popsicle," when a banana was a "nana," and a strawberry was a "strawbear." I kick myself I haven't made more digital voice recordings because I know they'll be outgrowing their delightful inability to speak correctly.

Of course, they've already learned a few words I wish they hadn't, mostly from overhearing me when I get exasperated. I've been campaigning to replace the "Goddammit!" they heard me utter, and insisted on repeating, with the much more harmless-sounding "Goshdarnit." But it's a losing battle.

I'm no expert on early language acquisition, but I have learned this: toddler English is irresistibly cute.

Just try this with your toddler, like the Bunnies sing on the TV show, BUNNYTOWN:

TWINKLE, TWINKLE LITTLE STAR. HOW I WONDER WHAT YOU ...UNDERWEAR!!!!!

I wish I could laugh that easily. It's nice to be reminded that I probably once did.

At Least We Know She Won't Break Under Torture

Wrestling my recalcitrant daughter into her car seat is NOT what I had in mind when I was just aspiring to later-in-life momhood, still in the throes of a long campaign against infertility, and bucking myself up with visions of sweet babies dancing in my head. But as Hillary Clinton's lately been saying, "You campaign in poetry, you govern in prose."

Or in my case, curses muttered in furious frustration that come back to haunt me seconds later when my son, in the adjacent car seat, gleefully repeats them.

"Goddamit!" my son blurts, with a delighted look on his face as he tries out this new, clearly naughty, and therefore deliciously fun to utter, turn of phrase. Meanwhile, I continue a desperate struggle to secure Thing 2 into her car seat for her own safety, a point that is entirely lost on her. As she has on other, similar occasions, Thing 2 proves as expert at arching her back as a Santa Monica yoga instructor. She screams with the lung power of a Wagnerian opera heroine.

But what's really, truly, astonishing in a creature of less than thirty pounds, is the size of her will.

My girl does not give in.

Writhing, kicking, twisting and contorting, she keeps it up as she wears me down.

Other late-blooming-moms I know -- admirable, steadfast, capable women who know a thing or two about what it takes to be a wife, mom, and working woman in this world -- assure me that my daughter's having a strong will is a quality that will stand her in good stead later in life. But in the midst of the great car seat battle of '07, the way I put it -- to my neighbor, who happened to be passing by in our shared condo garage -- was this: "At least we know she won't break under torture."

My friends are right: persistence and determination are going to make my daughter a force with whom to be reckoned some day.

I just hope it's day she's in her garage, wrestling her own daughter into her car seat.