Goodbyes Always Sound Existential

The other night Grasshopper, the member of our household struggling most with control of prepositions and personal pronouns, had so much fun with her Chuck Uncle, Hank Uncle, and Melanie Auntie that she could hardly believe it when they had to go.



"There goes my play for you," she said, forlornly, but resolutely, as they pulled away in Hank's white pickup.










 

Don't Tell Woody

Grasshopper and I were singing, "This Land is Your Land, This Land is My Land" in the car. We end the song,

"This land belongs to you and me," I say.

"No. To Grasshopper and Mommy."

"Okay, to Grasshopper and Mommy."

"And Daddy," she adds. "Akshay, Asha, Dada, Dadi. And Nina."

"And Percy cat?" I ask, and she laughs.

"And Percy cat. And Grandma. And the telephone."

Vegetarianism and Candy

We're gearing into getting back to the blog.  There is just SO MUCH to write about that the thought of starting again is obliterating.  But today at the hospital we were compiling the tri-yearly newsletter and I came across these poems, perhaps the funniest in the world.  

Vegetarianism
by Micah, 9 years old

A chili dog is a dog.
Not meat.
So I eat that.
No hamburgers.
I'll eat a little bit of fried chicken.
I like sausage.
I hate bacon.
No pork at all.
I like ham. Not roast beef.
I stopped eating meat.
I don't eat meat at all.
But hot dogs, ham, and sausage.
Tacos ain't meat.

I get my special powers
by being a vegetarian.


Nine Ways of Looking at Candy

I.
I like to give away my candy
because I'm a giver.
Give! Give! Give!
That's all I do.
Don't ask why.

II.
Just eat it.
You just better be happy.
I got this candy for you
because I rode on an ambulance last night.

III.
The reason I don't eat candy
or chips or stuff like that
is that it gets stuck in your teeth.
The more you eat
the more it gets stuck.

IV.
On Halloween my cousin Tracie
laid all my candy on the table
and took all the Whoppers.
My dad like's Robin's eggs.
He likes Easter egg candy.

IV.
My mom buys all the candy
and I stay home
watching television.

V.
If you eat too much licorice
you're going to grow tall.
Not red, but tall.
Tall with a red head.
If you eat too much chocolate
you turn into a blueberry.

VI.
I'll tell you who likes candy:
Brian.
He stole some from Armani.
A long time ago.
It's true.

VII.
I don't care
who eats it.

VIII.
a mixing of
chocolate and fruit
a mixing of
vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry
crunchy

IX.
I'm going to pass the candy
around.

What blog?

October has been ghoulish, schedule wise -- a good thing for us, as we're having a bit of fun, but not so good for our lives in blogville.  We had Grasshopper's Dada and Dadi visiting, threw a barbeque for our friend Martha, will go to DC this weekend for GreenDaddy's friend Mike's wedding, and then Grasshopper's Grandma from Myton will arrive.  And, oh, yeah, we're trying to get work done, as well.

So we're not giving up on the blog...but say adieu until the end of the month, I'm guessing.

Toddler Talking Trash

I know I've been heavy on mommy posts, lately. But I'm thinking Grasshopper's interst in this blog, if she ever reads it, will be these sorts of posts.  Don't worry, though: I'm in the midst of a post on feeding a vegetarian baby. Okay. That's a lie. In order to justify another post about my wee one I hustled some synapses, which reminded me of the Quorn taste in my mouth, and how I once considered writing a post on the topic of raising a healthy vegetarian child. I am still at the dawn of thinking about writing that post however.

This post, by the way, is unabashedly about my adorable toddler whose requisite pronounciation mistakes have a distinctly crass bent.

For instance, although she has always referred to her breastfeeding as, "NiiighNigh!" she ran up to me and started demanding boobies last week. Boobies?? Grasshopper is all but weaned and neither of us could remember the last time we'd uttered the "b-o-o" word. The next morning, though, she asked again. I said no, outright, which sent her into tears, but she quieted down and gazed at me intently as I started making her morning seven grain cereal. When I opened the freezer, as usual, and dumped a handful of frozen blueberries into the pot she let out a victorious gurgle of sorts and started laughing/chanting like an insane baby: boobies! boobies! boobies!

And just tonight she crassified another of her favorite foods. I was teaching her that all liquids aren't, actually, called agua or water. On the table in front of us: bilburry juice (jugo), milk, water, and ketchup. After a protracted conversation in which I had to assure her that my name was still "mommy" even if all the liquids were not "agua," she decided I wasn't pulling her leg. Then she pointed and named everything on the table: aqua, jugo, milk, cow poop.

And last but not least: after she sits on her potty GreenDaddy chirps: "Good job, Grasshopper! Let's go put the pee pee in the toilet." Grasshopper falls into a full tilt run towards the bathroom yelling, "Twat! Twat! Twat!"

We're trying not to encourage her in these mispronunciations, since I don't want to be one of the YouTube parents who thinks it's funny to teach their children to swear worse than sailors and put it on the web for the world to see. But, like my father always swore he was doing for me, I am saving these stories to tell her first dates (though by the time she's thirty-five, she'll probably just think they're funny too...heh heh).

Of course, my favorite of her words is not an uncouth mispronunciation at all: it's an extraordinary invention. A mix between the spanish and english words for shoe -- "zapato," and, well, "shoe." A shoepato.