Ussins

Yesterday morning I put a baseball cap on him backwards and said “Hey dude!” - shaking my head to the side and snapping it back. He thought this was very funny and laughed every time I did it (like in this recording, noted this entry - sheesh, listening to that again I was almost torturing him and not tickling). He picked up the word right away and started doing the same thing, saying “Dude!” clearly with a jerk of his head to the side, waiting for me to either do it in turn or laugh.

Tia said he was doing it again later that day, but when she did it back the novelty had worn for him (as with other new amusements).

You are Mago Elf Liam
And you are your father’s son
You are Liam Elf Mago
And you have your father’s toe

(This is sung to an epic-y Gaelic-y sounding and very nice melody that was featured in the final episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It would be good to add more to it..)

[We have not had an amusing conversation for 10 months. No - I just haven’t written any down.]

Me: (at the tail of a self-exploring monologue) .. I’m sane, except for [x, y, and z].
Tia: And the obsession with Nintendo music.

[Oh yeah, and there’s v and w. And here’s a demonstration of some Nintendo music.]

He has really been enjoying playing in water - at various swimming pools we’ve taken him to recently.

At the Veteran’s Memorial pool in Provo he kicked and moved his arms around wildly while we held him in the pool. He got very cold and shivered, and we took him out of the pool and wrapped him in a towel. He was all in one elated for the experience, crying for cold, and crying for wanting to go back into the water, indicating the pool and reaching for it again and again and struggling to squirm free so he could go back.

The Scera pool in Orem is warmer (and more expensive to get into) - and he kicks and wiggles his arms if you put him under a water spray.

You can’t set him down outside the pool because he’ll just run back for the pool.

I lost my anniversary/birthday bracelet at that pool I thought I took it off - maybe I did and it was snatched out of a locker.

We got him a little inflatable pool for the front yard which he loves splashing and playing in.

He’s gotten pretty good at imitating words he hears and tries any word, and is still amused with silly sounds when he hears them for the first time. He knows more words now than we can list.

Also, he loves playing a chase and peek-a-boo game with me running circles around the recliner at bed time. He laughs at every peek-a-boo.

This was more than a week ago and I haven’t written it -

He choked on a bagel chip bite that got caught in his throught, blocking his airway off a great deal and it was hard for him to breathe. We used rescue techniques to get it out of him, and saved him. It was very sobering for me, and for him very frightening. We used a mix of techniques - if you’ve got an infant or kid, learn them. Here’s a page detailing some rescue techniques for choking, and breathing and heart arrest. He’s I suppose small for his age (percentile - funny, he used to be large for his age), and while he’s more than a year old I think the techniques for infants worked better for him; it’s not just age to factor but size also. The back blows face down with the head lower I think are what worked best - but it’s probably different each situation. I struck between his shoulder blades a little lower. He was having a vomit reflex to get the thing moved up his throught which didn’t seem to do it, but the back blows brought it all up with vomit. Apparently you’re supposed to mix this with turning the infant face-up and using small thrusts at the mid-sternum if back blows alone don’t do it.

We’d have been wiser to call for an ambulance at the same time we tried to get him out of it ourselves. I think it’s very lucky we knew how to handle it just from what minimal memory we had of infant first aid.

Last night I put on his pajama pants and said “Schloop!”, with a low tone that slid sharply up as I did so. Now, this is a fairly timid confession for a father to make, that he has said something silly to his son. I’m aware this breaks convention with the stoic and stern father who sometimes restrains tears of shame when SON appears interested in dollies. Wait a minute, what was I saying? ..

So anyway, when I said “Schloop!”, he giggled intensely. I love this giggle. It is my favorite sound in the whole world. He’s my most favorite first SON I’ve ever had. Fortunately, I am not a polygamist, so this is not a comparative statement that will make some other son hang his head in sorrow over not being a favorite.

Double anyway, a large part of why he giggled was because he was wired. He was wired because his cousins (Tia’s nieces and nephews) are visiting for a family reunion, and he seldom sees so many other babies (FATHER hangs his head in shame - we need to get him out to see other kids - and we need to get out to see family and old friends more often).

Triple anyway, he was wired because he had been very happily playing with other babies and kids all evening, and stayed up late to do so, and was in the too excited to succumb to sleep mode. I knew this word was one of those things I’d found that was a one-time amusement charm, a magic discovery that could be employed repeatedly for a while because of the novelty; perhaps he has never encountered the “sch” sound, and actually for myself I’ve never said or heard said “Schloop!” that way, though I might be wrong. Whatever the cause, this was very novel to him, and I said it repeatedly and each time he giggled. He sat up and focused a great deal of amused attention on my lips and repeatedly tried to say the word in just the same way himself, struggling to find the opening consonant - “Bl.. dd.. pp.. dd!” but never quite getting it. I’m sure he got closer and it will come out of him eventually, but meanwhile I greatly enjoyed his amusement with the word as I repeated it, which amusement slowly faded.

The novelty’s gone. This has happened with various other sounds, gestures, and words, but there are always more. It’s just a matter of finding them. A while ago he was very amused with my sharply turning my head away when he applied only just a bit of force with his hand to the side of my head, or bopping my head down on his rattle for no reason at all.