In the grocery store the other day, Arden pointed to a bag of tea biscuit cookies with a very proud look on her face and said "F$&@!". That's right, the one that rhymes with stuck.
I take complete responsibility for this. I always encourage her to talk and try my darnedest to figure out what she's trying to say. It's so fun to communicate with her like this and I won't pretend the mispronunciations aren't hilarious.
The tea biscuit incident occurred because she thought they were crackers and f$&@ is how she says cracker. Please don't ask me why. A linguist would know... Too many hard sounds and f$&@ is the best she can do. It's pretty impressive how babies will try to say words even if there's no chance they'll be able to really say it. For instance: helicopter is "pop!", computer is "tuter" and avocado is just plain "cado".
One of Arden’s playmates has the exact same explicative way of saying fire truck. At least that's the right idea. Does anyone remember that scene from Backdraft... I mean, hot.
Being able to understand Arden is so important to me. I think all moms are able to understand about 95% of what their kids "say" to them even before they can speak. That's why I was so frustrated when I could not figure out a sign that Arden was doing. A little while back we were in the bath singing songs and she started to pump her fists together as if she was saying she wanted to fight me but that's not what she meant. She was trying to tell me a song that she wanted me to sing and I could not figure it out. She kept pumping her fists together shaking her head no, no to every song title I offered up. It drove me crazy! As time went by, she kept trying that sign to see if I'd figured it out. She is very persistent. Well, one day, while we were watching a bit of Aladdin together, she started to pump her fists together during the song "One Jump" which is a song where Aladdin is being chased by guards through the streets of Agrabah. It's a fight/chase scene that I now have the pleasure of singing and reenacting to her multiple times daily. Thank you Alan Menken.
As I wrote the first part of this posting about a week ago Arden’s ability to pronounce multi-syllable words has increased. So, if you come over for a visit and she calls you a f$&@er, you’ll know she’s just hungry.
I'd love to hear about your own trials of communication! Please feel free to comment and share.
Friday, April 22, 2011
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Mean People Suck
I just consumed my third shot of espresso for the day (in latte form) and a large piece of coconut flake covered chocolate cake for lunch. Yep, it’s one of those days. We are well into April and NYC has overcast skies as well as what feels like a high temperature of 2 degrees. I’m huddled on the couch, space heater blasting, trying to warm up my soul.
The baby is watching “Follow That Bird” for the 12,000th time. I’m not proud of that. At this point, I’m practicing zen and the art of the lesser-of-two-evils. Better to have her watch a movie than to have me scream at her.
You know what’s funny? I’ve been thinking about it and I cannot remember my mother yelling at me, not even once. She is a very strong woman but I still don’t know how she did it. Some days I feel like I’ve got my tongue in a never ending headlock.
I don’t want to yell at Arden. No one feels good about themselves when they are being yelled at. That doesn’t make someone feel loved. The look on her face when I yell at her says so much, “I let you down Mom..., I’m sorry Mom..., I feel worthless, I’m mad at you for yelling at me and I am going to hold it over you...” Her facial expression stops my yelling like a swift kick to the heart.
It’s so hard knowing that my lack of patience, creativity and selflessness cause her pain. I wonder if they have a 529 savings account for therapy...
The baby is watching “Follow That Bird” for the 12,000th time. I’m not proud of that. At this point, I’m practicing zen and the art of the lesser-of-two-evils. Better to have her watch a movie than to have me scream at her.
You know what’s funny? I’ve been thinking about it and I cannot remember my mother yelling at me, not even once. She is a very strong woman but I still don’t know how she did it. Some days I feel like I’ve got my tongue in a never ending headlock.
I don’t want to yell at Arden. No one feels good about themselves when they are being yelled at. That doesn’t make someone feel loved. The look on her face when I yell at her says so much, “I let you down Mom..., I’m sorry Mom..., I feel worthless, I’m mad at you for yelling at me and I am going to hold it over you...” Her facial expression stops my yelling like a swift kick to the heart.
It’s so hard knowing that my lack of patience, creativity and selflessness cause her pain. I wonder if they have a 529 savings account for therapy...
Friday, April 8, 2011
Confession #13: It Finally Happened
The trees in NYC have finally started to bloom! It may still be overcast, rainy, freezing winter coat and hat weather out there today but we have flowering trees so that gives me some hope. Ah, New York in spring..., but, that’s not the thing-that-finally-happened that I’m really here to talk about...
Arden jumped! It was so cute. Instead of just bending her legs and doing all the movements of a jump but not having her feet leave the ground like usual, her feet actually defied gravity. It’s so much fun to watch her do things I so take for granted for the first time. One of those joys of parenting that keeps us reproducing. But, that’s not the thing-that-finally-happened either...
Arden walked up and down stairs without crawling, scooting or holding on to anything! We were hanging out at Athens Square (Astoria, Queens is still home to the largest contingency of Greeks outside of Greece) and right in front of the statue of Aristotle, she just started marching up and down, back and forth. It was too funny because as soon as I pointed it out to her, she started crawling up and down the very same stairs. Sometimes analysis is paralysis. But that’s not the thing-that-finally-happened either... It must be obvious by now that I am stalling.
I am about to find out who actually reads my blog because I don’t think there is anyway you can read this and not have something to say about it. Okay, here it goes.
I’ve been dreading this since Arden was a baby. It’s a hazard of living in NYC and a hazard of living in an apartment building. It seemed like it was only a matter of time before it happened. I think it was more likely to happen now since she is a bit older but still puts so many things in her mouth. We had just come home from the store and entered the foyer (if you can call it that) of our building. In the 1.5 seconds it takes me to fold up our stroller Arden found a dead roach on the stairs, picked it up and took a bite. Although her back was to me, as soon as she turned around, I knew what happened...mostly from the “OMG, Mom what did I do” look on her face and the roach legs on her bottom lip. I went a little nuts.
“ARDEN! That’s why I'm always telling you not to pick up stuff off the floor and eat it!!! UGH! BLECH! Why did you bite it? Did you think it was a piece of chocolate?” To which she responded, “Yes.”
I wiped the body parts off her face as fast as humanly possible and made her stick out her tongue so I could wipe that clean as well. Honestly, we got lucky. She hadn’t swallowed anything and the roach was dead, after all.
Friday, April 1, 2011
Suffering Succotash
One of the questions that plagues me daily is how much should I let Arden suffer? Whether we like it or not, suffering is a huge part of life. And I wonder, should I shelter her from as much suffering as possible or allow her to build up a tolerance?
When Arden was three days old we took her for the required visit to her pediatrician. He told us a lot of things and one of the things he said was that we can let her cry. The whole (warning, here I go with the over-hyphenating again) if-you-pick-up-your-baby-every-time-she-cries-you-will-spoil-her thing. So, against what every bone in my body and all my intuition was telling me, we let her cry in her crib at 2am and I went to take a shower. It was awful. As soon as I got out of the shower I ran in and picked her up knowing that it was way too soon for that kind of suffering.
Of course, now at 21 months, letting her cry in her crib is sometimes an option since she's no longer a newborn. Even though I hate to see her cry and I empathize with her, I don’t think it’s a good idea for her to go through her childhood without learning the ropes.
In America’s Women by Gail Collins (NY Times Op Ed writer), Ms. Collins writes about the fascinating lives of women throughout our history in America. When I want to feel smart, I dive in to read a bit. One thing she discusses in the book is how prior to the Civil War, mothers allowed their young daughters to travel, carry on chaste love affairs (ah, those were the days) and return home from dances at 2am. Mothers shielded their daughters from the truth that once they were married, they would basically become home-bound slaves that were expected to keep house and were not allowed to walk the streets alone. But then, the young women would marry and overnight become nothing more than cloistered housewives without any preparation or forewarning. They often struggled to perform all the chores necessary in the 1800s (way beyond Swiffering) since they hadn’t been taught how to do it and they had to figure it all out in isolation. (pp. 137-138)
I don’t want something comparable to happen to Arden. I know that life only gets more difficult as you get older. I want Arden to have a fun and carefree childhood but there has to be a middle ground. I don’t want her to lead a sheltered life as much as I hate to see her suffer. It’s likely better for her to learn how to handle difficulties at home first before having to handle them out in the world. Just surviving me should give her enough experience to prepare her for the world of hard knocks.
When Arden was three days old we took her for the required visit to her pediatrician. He told us a lot of things and one of the things he said was that we can let her cry. The whole (warning, here I go with the over-hyphenating again) if-you-pick-up-your-baby-every-time-she-cries-you-will-spoil-her thing. So, against what every bone in my body and all my intuition was telling me, we let her cry in her crib at 2am and I went to take a shower. It was awful. As soon as I got out of the shower I ran in and picked her up knowing that it was way too soon for that kind of suffering.
Of course, now at 21 months, letting her cry in her crib is sometimes an option since she's no longer a newborn. Even though I hate to see her cry and I empathize with her, I don’t think it’s a good idea for her to go through her childhood without learning the ropes.
In America’s Women by Gail Collins (NY Times Op Ed writer), Ms. Collins writes about the fascinating lives of women throughout our history in America. When I want to feel smart, I dive in to read a bit. One thing she discusses in the book is how prior to the Civil War, mothers allowed their young daughters to travel, carry on chaste love affairs (ah, those were the days) and return home from dances at 2am. Mothers shielded their daughters from the truth that once they were married, they would basically become home-bound slaves that were expected to keep house and were not allowed to walk the streets alone. But then, the young women would marry and overnight become nothing more than cloistered housewives without any preparation or forewarning. They often struggled to perform all the chores necessary in the 1800s (way beyond Swiffering) since they hadn’t been taught how to do it and they had to figure it all out in isolation. (pp. 137-138)
I don’t want something comparable to happen to Arden. I know that life only gets more difficult as you get older. I want Arden to have a fun and carefree childhood but there has to be a middle ground. I don’t want her to lead a sheltered life as much as I hate to see her suffer. It’s likely better for her to learn how to handle difficulties at home first before having to handle them out in the world. Just surviving me should give her enough experience to prepare her for the world of hard knocks.
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