Tag Archives: parenting

We got the milk, now let’s tackle those cookies

Buster, our three-year-old,  struggles to pronounce certain consonant sounds. The most famous of these is the k or hard c sound. Buster has always compensated for this lack by substituting another sound where the k goes, usually a t. Hence, milk becomes milt and work becomes wort.

We’ve learned to recognize these hybrid words, allowing him to express himself. At the same time, I have been trying to train him how to pull his tongue back into his mouth in order to pronounce the elusive k.

where's that tongue?

Civil Defense workers searching mouths for the elusive k sound. Everyone did their part to help the war effort. (Image: Ann Rosener/U.S. War Information)

Our practice had yielded limited results. Then one day, he requested a bowl of cereal. When I asked if he wanted milk in it, his answer was non-committal. “Yes, milk or no, milk?” I asked again.

“Yes, milk,” he replied, clear as bell, whenever a bell perfectly pronounces the word milk.

I did a double take. “What? What did you just say?”

A smile of recognition stole over his face. “Yes, milk,” he belted out proudly.

I picked him up and hugged him. “You said, milk. What a brilliant boy! You did it!” I gushed as I spun circles with him in my arms. He beamed at me proud and happy at how proud and happy he’d made me.

When Mommy came home, he ran to her to show off the word milk like she’d never heard it before. More hugging and spinning ensued.

In the week since, he’s showed his mastery of milk to the next door neighbor and anyone else who happened by. When it’s eluded you for all your life, milk becomes powerful juice.

Even when I was a child, Mr. K stood in the shadows of Mr. M and Mr. T.

Even when I was a child, Mr. K stood in the shadows of Mr. M and Mr. T.

The other night, Buster, Mommy, and I were enunciating about milk. I happened to be about to eat a cookie that Buster had his eye on. “I’ll give you my cookie if you do two things,” I told him. “First, say cookie.”

Up until now, cookie has always be tootie. Buster thought hard. “Cootie,” he said, followed by “Tookie.” Getting two hard c sounds into one word is daunting work.

“Okay, that’s close enough. Now say candy.”

Buster focused. “Canny.”

“That’s so close. You got the c right but you left out the d.” D has never been a problem for him, but apparently there was no room for it in a word that already had a c.

“You’re very close. Try one more time.”

Buster looked longingly at my cookie. The pressure was too much. He couldn’t focus on the c and hit the d too.

“I know you can do it. One more try,” I pleaded .

Perhaps he saw the cookie drifting away from him. He looked at me hopefully, then shifted his gaze to the always compassionate Mommy. He took a deep breath and said with clarity and confidence:

“Milk.”

Sometimes it’s not the cards in your hand; it’s how you play them. He won two proud smiles and a cookie.

One day in Berlin

I have a new favorite author. So far, he only writes short stories, but that’s fine with me, as he has already established himself as a favorite visual artist of mine. The kid is multi-talented.

Here is one of his latest literary offerings.

Berlin

Since the original may be difficult to see, I’ll type it out:

One day in Berlin there where [sic] nine people playing football. Then uncle Bob acsadentliy [sic] therw [sic] the ball at a ponty [sic] fence and the ball went pop! They went to a store but the footballs were all gone. Then they went home to look for a pump and patch but the stuff was lost. They where[sic] in bad luck. Then they went to Jakes house and they played catch. the end

In honor of discovering this new talent, I will now hold an impromptu book club meeting regarding this work. Let’s dig deeper into the text.

There’s a surprising amount of mystery surrounding this episode. For example, why is it set in Berlin? Well, actually, that’s not so much a mystery if you have followed this artist and seen the pickelhaube and Prussian flag requests in his Christmas letters to Santa, like I have. Berlin is the capital of Germany. That says it all.

Were they playing American football or European football (soccer)? We can’t be sure, but the fact that uncle Bob threw the ball indicates that, unless he was goalie or was throwing the ball in from out of bounds, it was likely American football. Also, the fact that he threw it at D-fence, or in German, Die-Fence, indicates he probably owned a cardboard cutout of a picket border which he took to NFL games.

Also, all the footballs being gone from the store lends evidence to it being an American football, as the German sporting goods shops would less likely be out of soccer balls.

Who misplaced the pump and patch? This is the question a father asks every time something goes flat. No one ever takes responsibility, and no one ever will.

Did Jake have another ball at his house, or did they make the best of things and play catch with the flat ball? I like to think Jake demonstrated admirable character development by showing his eight comrades that inflation is just a state of mind. The world thinks you can’t play catch with a popped ball. You can submit to that kind of limited thinking, or you can change the world. Way to go, Jake! You are a true football hero.

Sometimes the answer to great problems (global strife, world hunger, playing sports with an uninflated ball) are all about shifting the perceptions of the major players.

This is an uplifting story of human triumph. It shows that you can do anything your mind allows you, like playing with a popped ball, or even hyphenating and splitting single-syllable words onto multiple lines.

I think I’m going to be a fan of this guy for a long time.

 

Poop your Butt!

I wish three-year-olds devoted as much effort to learning their letters and numbers as they do to perfecting potty talk. If working poop into every conversation were a preschool subject, Buster would be at the top of his class. He’s not as much into the alphabet or counting, although he can count to 19, by 19s, but the numbers in between 0 and 19 are white noise.

Going potty at the appropriate time and place is a big deal in a preschooler’s world. As such, poop is an important word to know and use in the development of good hygiene routines. That’s where it ends for the grown-ups, but for the three-year-old, the word poop is an expressive cornucopia.

And in those rare circumstance when poop doesn’t quite fill the bill, butt usually works as a good substitute to bring the point home.

For instance, Buster might offer his impression of Mommy or Daddy giving an ultimatum this way: “If you don’t pick up these toys right now, Big Brother will poop in his pants!”

This is not the conventional ultimatum, in that it involves his brother providing the negative consequence, but even this third-party ultimatum meets the minimum requirements: there is a demanded action and a consequence for not acting. I certainly don’t want Big Brother to poop in his pants. I don’t want anybody in the house to poop in their pants. When it comes down to it, I don’t want anybody anywhere to poop in their pants, if that’s an option.

Where the threat fails is in the fact that Big Brother has not been consulted, and the method of enforcing  the threat is news to him. Big Brother will balk at his role in the proceedings, which may lead Buster to call him a butthead. This is tough on Big Brother as he is sensitive about what part of his body he carries atop his neck. Buster seems to have thicker skin than Big Brother. He is also more ruthless with the trash talk, which leaves him in better shape to endure the times when sibling rivalry goes verbal-nuclear.

Butts are not just a conversation piece. Sometimes they are real and can be a menace to society. One day, I came home to find Buster dressed in his Batman outfit, looking for bad guys to vanquish. He ran over to me and announced, “Your butt is the Joker.” Without giving my butt a chance to profess it’s innocence, he punched it in right in the proverbial nose. I was just happy I was facing the counter at the time because some villains can take a punch and some villains can’t.

Uh-oh! Looks like Batman stepped in something when he started accusing innocent butts of being arch-villains.

Uh-oh! Looks like Batman stepped in something when he started accusing innocent butts of being arch-villains.

I can stand a butt punch from a crime fighting three-year-old as well as the next guy, but that doesn’t mean I should have to. I sat Buster down to have a long talk with him. Within minutes, our heart-to-heart devolved into a discussion about . . .

                                                                                                                  you guessed it . . .

poop.

I’ll ask Santa if he’ll come back next year

Despite my many warnings to the boys about the borderline quality of their behavior leading up to Christmas, Santa came anyway. Nobody can be counted on to give 102nd chances like Santa.

We had a typical Christmas for us. It began with a mega-dose of childish excitement and glee. Then it slowly spiraled into the danger zone known as Too Much Christmas, when three boys, overstimulated and full of adrenalin, can’t process all the new things to play with and turn into Tasmanian Devils.

When Christmas is still fresh and new - before the abundance of toys overloads any synapses.

When Christmas is still fresh and new – before the abundance of toys overloads any synapses.

Just think how fun it will be out of the box!

Just think how fun it will be out of the box!

A small cooling off period sets things right again, or as near as they can be on this day of frenzy. Then it’s the battle to make them sit down long enough to eat some dinner. Fortunately, Big Brother has inherited his father’s unconditional love of the ham. He’d eat it in a box with a fox, or even during the excitement of Christmas Day. It’s only the little ones who can’t see the majesty of the glazed shank beyond the shine of new toys.

About mid-afternoon begins the parental strategizing about how to wear them down so they’ll go to bed at a decent hour, in spite of all the fun stuff calling them to wakefulness from the living room.

The day ends with a drink of Daddy’s new scotch, conveniently delivered by the UPS man on Christmas Eve. If there is a Santa, I’m now convinced his suit is brown rather than red.

And what a scotch it was. This new one is potent. It tried to put hair on my chest. It didn’t realize that my chest is a difficult place put hair. The most difficult place is my head, which retired from hair farming some years ago. At my age, that scotch would have been far more successful seeking fertile ground on my back, but liquor attempts only what it’s trained to do.

In the days following Christmas, things have settled down some. Some. We still have fights between Buster and Big Brother over the best use of certain toys. Big Man keeps everybody on their toes with his penchant for disassembling LEGO creations whenever one is left unattended and within his reach.  This causes much gnashing of teeth, yet never causes anyone to learn to keep their LEGOs up high.

There used to be a lazer turret here. But after Big Man tore that off, Jar Jar makes a good substitute.

There used to be a laser turret here. But after Big Man tore that off, Jar Jar makes a good substitute.

Pieces are broken or lost. This is the natural order of things. Instinctively, they are making room for the next Christmas.

On the third night after Christmas, Buster considered his built, then unbuilt, then half-built again LEGO toy. “Daddy, “ he said.

“Yes?”

“I want more Christmas.”

There’s a little Buster in me that always wants more Christmas too. But when the Daddy in me reflected upon the dizzying roller coaster that is Christmas with three boys, even my inner child shook his head. There’s not enough scotch in the world for that.

“Maybe we’ll have another one next year. I’ll ask Santa how he feels about it.”