mathmom's blog

Ella feels that there aren't enough limericks yet in the world, and wants to contribute. A sensitive young man from Crete Was rather disturbed by the heat; He stood on his hands Upon the hot sands To keep from burning his feet.

Luke, bringing a box of kleenex: "Could you please wipe the tears out of my eyes so that I can talk not baby talk? ... Thank you, now I can talk not baby talk!"

Amanda has branched out in what she is learning to write. Unfortunately, she hasn't got spelling down, but since she spells it like it sounds, it's not too hard. "farm Amanda, to Joolyona" (from Amanda, to Juliana) "my marmad" (my mermaid) It's times like these I think of Mark Twain's " Plan for the Improvement of the English Language ." (This is posted at a government web site, which makes me want to see what else is posted there...)

Amanda looked over my shoulder as I checked something on my phone, saw my current "wallpaper" background choice, and said dismissively, "That's la-a-a-ame!" Kindergarten. It's where the cool kids are.

We have been taking Luke to speech therapy, where he gets to play all sorts of fun games while learning to speak more clearly---he doesn't even seem to notice that he is learning something. The therapist has a small plastic tote filled to the brim with wind-up toys: airplanes, cars, flipping ladybugs... The other day Luke was playing with the toys and he started winding one up and watching the wheels on the bottom turn. The toy (a submarine driven by a fox) would go forward and then turn suddenly. Luke explained to me how it changed direction and then he asked the therapist, "Open it, please!" She was confused (part of the reason Luke is hard to understand sometimes is that he says such unexpected things) but he finally made her understand that what he really wanted was to look inside and see how the whole thing was put together. He actually tried to get it apart, before she distracted him with something else. Better hide our screwdrivers, I think. =)

Amanda, holding two similar-sized balls: "This one is gravity-darker!" "You mean heavier?" "Yes!"

Luke's class at school made "stone soup" a few months ago. Luke was very impressed with making it, less impressed with how it tasted. At any rate, one of his beloved teachers apparently splashed some stone soup on Luke's nose and wiped it off with a kleenex . Luke came home and told us the story, and now whenever he has a runny nose he wants us to wipe, he says "I have stone soup on my nose! Wipe it off!" This comes in varying degrees of intensity, depending on his emotional state at the time. This would be the end of it, except of course that Luke's pronunciation is that of a 2 year old boy, and so when he says "stone soup" it comes out as "tone poop!" When trying to get him to say "soup", it often comes out as " sssss poop". I have finally started to understand what he is talking about, so I don't get one bodily function confused with another. But his older sister (Amanda, not Eleanor, who is too old to...

Luke has very interesting ways to use words these days. He talks a lot about a "car-bus", for example. My favorite habit is the following (I don't even know what to call it): popsicle-stick means popsicle, spider-web means spider, and pumpkin-seed means pumpkin. As in, "There's a hungry spider-web crawling up you, mama!" And, "I made this pumpkin-seed for you!" and "I'd like a popsicle-stick for dessert." No amount of correction seems to get through. By the time he's in college, I believe he'll have figured it out.

The other day Luke was having a temper tantrum about something (maybe me not giving him a lollipop for breakfast) and after he calmed down, he touched his face. "Water! In my eyes!" It was a revelation. The next day it started raining. "Water! From the sky!" I told him it was called rain. He got down off his chair and tried to lead me out the door. "Come on mama! Turn off the rain!" I wouldn't have done it if I could---we needed the rain. Soon after that we all went outside to play in the puddles. It went well except for the lightning and thunder, which sent Amanda and Eleanor screaming into the house for fun, and which seemed to actually scare poor Luke... When he asks for a book to be read, he says "read the book," but it comes out sounding like "eat the boot!" His favorite words these days are "I did it!" which are pronounced "I deed eet !" One thing I don't want to hear when he is doing som...

On the way to pick up Eleanor today, Luke started screaming something at the top of his lungs. Amanda complained, "My head hurts. My ears hurt." After listening for a minute or two, I thought I figured out what he was saying. "Luke, are you saying meat balls?" "Meat Balls!" he screamed happily. "Purple Meat Balls!" He continued for about 10 minutes, during which the question in my mind progressed from "What?" to "Why?" to "Would you please stop now!" If you understand, I'd appreciate a clue.

Luke is now tall enough to ring the doorbell. This helps when he lets himself outside and then wants to get back in. He rang, I came to the door, and he looked proudly at me and said, " ning ning ." In case any of you are wondering what Luke sounds like, he sounds an awful lot like Amanda. When he is talking to his stuffed animals ( Froggy , Hopper and Ribbity ) he sounds just like Blue from "Blue's Clues." I don't know where he gets that from---neither Eleanor or Amanda talk for their stuffed animals like that.

The other day I opened Luke's window for a little bit, noticed that the screen was out, and closed it. Luke was watching intently from his crib, so I explained that he should never stick anything out the window, he should be very careful near open windows or he could fall out and hurt himself. (We actually have a friend whose 2 year old child fell out a window. The child is fine now.) Today I sang "How much is that doggie in the window" for Luke. He liked the song, but the second time I came to the chorus he started yelling: "Stop! Doggie ! Stop! Window! Stop!"* I think he was afraid that the doggie was going to fall out the window. Tonight I sang "Jesus loves me" and he said "Stop! Jesus, doggie , stop! Window!" I can't wait until he can speak in sentences, it should be fun. Bonus Luke story: This morning I was trying to get a diaper on a very squirmy Luke. For fun, I asked if his froggy blanket needed a diaper change. ...

Luke is definitely a toddler, and so one of his favorite words is "No!" He's recently learned to say "No way!" (learned from his sisters, most likely). It is actually less stressful for him to say "no way!" in his cute toddler voice than for him just to say "no!" since while he's being obstreperous and difficult, he's also being really funny. He's so grown up and so little at the same time. I'm toying with the idea of teaching him "No way, Jose!" but I haven't decided whether it would be funny or just annoying. The other words he is learning to say are causing some problems. It's really hard to refuse him anything when he makes the effort to say it. The other day he was talking about "bee bee baah ." He was quite insistent, and when I realized he was asking for a rice krispy bar, I gave in. He's so cute! He does the same thing with "Blue Juice" ( Powerade , usually reserved fo...

Luke loves to "cook" while I am cooking: he'll take pots and pans, bowls and cups, spoons and whisks, and generally scatter them all over the floor while preparing a masterpiece. He prefers to pour water from container to container, but he'll cook with whatever comes in handy. Today he found one of his stuffed dogs, put that in a pan and put the lid on. He came over to me, lifted the cover off to reveal the dog, and said, "hot." He was very confused when I asked if it was a "hot dog". I guess his language doesn't map that way.

About 2.5 feet... Luke continues to be one of the happiest, friendliest, most energetic people I've met. He loves to meet new people. A week or two ago we went to our favorite Greek restaurant, and as we left I asked him to say goodbye to our server. He said "bye" to her, then walked around to each table and waved and said "bye" to them as well. He's starting to talk in sentences---" Daa Too" means "got you", " dee dee way way" means "see you later," and so on. My favorite is when he is doing something he isn't supposed to, and I say "Mama says no!" He responds, "Mama, no! Mama, no!" Mostly what he is saying is clear from context, and intonation (which he gets exactly right) not from clarity of speech. Ah, he is saying one more important thing, " wuh doo ." That means "I love you." He'll say it whenever I ask him to, but it doesn't have any significance y...

I had a real conversation with Luke today. It was about his " froggy blanket", a little stuffed frog head attached to a small soft blanket. He started by putting it on his head. I am supposed to ask, "Is froggy a hat?" and he answers " Nooooo ." Here's how it went today. Me: Is froggy a hat? Luke: Yedh . (I think this is the first time he has answered a question "Yes".) Me: Are you sure? Luke: Dee. Dat . (" Froggy . Hat.") Me: Froggy makes a nice hat. Luke: (holding froggy out to me) Mama. Dat . Me: Froggy is a hat for Mama? (putting froggy on head). Luke: (Laughing) Mama. Dat ! Not, perhaps a movie script, but much more fun than the usual 1-way conversations we have.

I admit that earlier in December and November, I had started to be concerned with how many words Luke knew. He had a grasp on the important ones: Mama, Daddy, candy, TV, popcorn, and so on. He also clearly had things to say---he could hold his own in any conversation he thought worthwhile, expounding on various subjects at great length and with great emotion, although without using any actual English words. But he didn't know the requisite number of words you're supposed to know at 2, he would repeat words I said but not come up with them on his own, and he certainly wasn't using any sentences. How things change in a short time. Luke started asking " Wha dat ?" for everything he saw in books and in the world. He started putting together sentences ("telegraphic speech," according to the FNDP (friendly neighborhood developmental psychologist)) like "Mama beep!" In addition to making noises for animals, he says their names: cat, doggie , s...

Today Luke and Eleanor and Amanda were playing under our two oak trees in the front yard. I cam out to check on them, and Luke led me over to the oak tree. He said something unintelligible , pointed up at the tree, said something else, and put his hands on his head and ducked. He did this 3 or 4 times to make sure I understood. Given that the ground beneath the tree is thickly covered with acorns, can you figure out what he was trying to communicate? I think it shows that you don't need to know the language to tell someone a story.

Eleanor learns Spanish in school (a teeny tiny bit) and I think Amanda feels a bit left out. So she has been making up her own language. She calls it Spanish, although it is not related... often she'll say some nonsense syllables and then say, "That means I don't want any more chicken, in Spanish!" Sometimes she'll just say the nonsense and look at me as though I should understand, especially in the past few days when she's been listening to the Hispanic house painters. The only word that has any reliable meaning is Odé. It means "look at this!" or "here it is!" or something like that. If she asks it as a question, it means "is this right?" For example "Odé seloma " meant "Are these the right sleeves?" yesterday. I used it the other day and she looked up in surprise. "That's my word!" She was pretty pleased with herself. This does occasionally lead to ridiculousness , as it did a week or s...

Luke got his first haircut today. He was not impressed... He got what was called "the boy cut," I assume that this is a standard cut that all hairstylists learn to do. I held him in my arms while he alternately sucked on a lollipop (also his first, unless his sisters snuck one to him earlier) and screamed. This is why I need to take my children to have someone else cut their hair. She took of the slight curls and the parts that were coming over his ears. She used the little buzzer thing to go in front of his ears and on the back of his neck---he really hated that. And at the end, he looked like a little boy instead of a baby. His sisters, of course, also got their hair cut. They had much more hair cut off, but since it was a smaller proportion of their hair, it wasn't really noticeable . Well, the biggest change was that Eleanor got the beads she had been wearing since her last haircut cut off, and replaced with a strand of beads on the other side of her head i...