Ussins

OR MAGO UPDATE 15

Something I forgot to write last entry [and then a lot more new writing] -

At Eastertime he visited my mom with all his cousins. They were playing in the backyard and some of the older cousins (5 to 8 years older, and he’s just 2) found a pillbug, which they invited him to examine - it was rolled up in a ball to defend itself. I put it in his little hand,and as he looked down at it, it unrolled on its back and wiggled its many little legs. His eyes quickly grew wide, he trembled and yelped in horror and in a spasm threw the (poor) thing onto the ground, which very much amused his cousins, and shortly he began to cry but then laughed with his cousins, and I tried to comfort him but this apparently wasn’t necessary - he very excitedly babbled I don’t remember exactly but something like -

“And and I held the pillbug, and and it opened up and and and I got scared and and I threw it and and..” -

- which only amused his cousins further, and they had in short order retrieved the pillbug and one of them was holding it - and this I remember - Mago looked down at her hand, and reaching out said -

“..and I want to scare the pillbug.”
(more…)

I’ve heard him say twice that his left shoe came off, and both times he was correct! So I was talking to him about left and right, trying to find out if he really did know which was which. He doesn’t, but when I said, “No, that’s your left foot, and that’s your right foot,” he said, kick-stomping his left leg: “And that’s my bear foot.” I thought he had said ‘bare’ foot, until, after a pause, he kick-stomped his right leg, and said, “..and that’s my kitty foot.”

Moving his finger along the writing on our exercise ball, he slowly ‘read’, “It says you will bounce on the ball. Can you get me on the ball, Mom?”

He also called the ball “fuge” instead of “huge” and couldn’t correct it even after much tutoring.

He called dandelions “lion daddys”. I corrected him and now he calls them “daddy lions.”

He tried cutting his own pancake and said with much enthusiasm, “I did it! Is that so awesome, Mom?”

This morning he lay next to the subwoofer of our computer speakers and listened to the music, saying to the bass “dum dum dum..”

[Yes, this is the fifth conversation we have ever had in our marriage. The rest is an amazing combination of ASL and ESP. No, I just don’t know how else to label these entries.]

Tia is fixing a drawer in our Christmas-time obtained entertainment center which was a pain to get right in the first place (and my brother in law did it) and which I’ve been loth to repair. She says the hole that takes a screw suspending the drawer is stripped. She asks me to look up online how to fix it. The exchange:

“Stripped screw mount. You want me to Google that? You can Google that. I’m staying away from that one.”

“Huh?”

“Stripped screw mount.”

(Then she got it)

There would be far less need to be careful what you search for if this legislative proposal passed.

One of his favorite things is to be wrapped up in a blanket and carried around; he’ll ask me to wrap him up and take him upstairs, then downstairs, upstairs, downstairs like this. He’s gotten too old to play chase around the recliner chair in his room; he’s too fast.

He got a small plastic tricycle for his birthday (he’s 2!) and when he first tried riding it, he became very frustrated trying to reach his legs to the pedals, cried “I can do it!” (but with a hard n for can’t - and ran to be alone in his room with his grief. He took to reassurance that it’s okay he can’t, and enjoyed riding it with help. Sometimes I’ll tell him to sit but just wiggle his legs when we need queit, and I’ll show him this, and several times I’ve done this he’s gotten on the couch to do the same, then become frustrated that his feet don’t reach and hit the floor with kicking like mine, and cried “I’m too little!”

Recently on a visit to his grandparents, they’d had the lawn aerated, so that little columns of dirt were lifted out and left all over the lawn. He stepped gingerly around them, pausing in his speech to observe them.. Arriving inside the door, he looked up at his grandfather and said:

“Did you have a new dog?”

More recently he was riding in his car seat as Tia drove. He made a book with his hands.

Mago: “I’m reading a story.”
Tia: “What happened in the story?”
“An elephant came out of the book.”
“What did the elephant do?”
“He ate soup.”

If Tia doesn’t put her seatbelt on right away when she gets in the car he shouts, “Mama, put on your stripe!”

He now avoids ending pleasant activities by saying: “One last more time”, or “Last more book, kay?”