Procrastinet

Charliespeak

filed under: Dadditudes

We noticed the other day that there was very little record of Charlie's language adventures, compared to the extensive chronicling of Max's. So here is a glossary and translation guide to Charlie's most interesting expressions.

Words:

"Ba" - brother. His name for Max.
"Mela-melman" - watermelon.
"Uppa-coppa" - helicopter.
"Hippo-ponymous" - hippopotamus.
"Uf-whufs" - waffles. The whole family now uses this.
"Gun'g-gun'g" - downstairs. One of his first words.
"Ama-canos" - avocados.
"Hi-lo?"- hello. When answering the play phone.
"Cyclebike" - Sometimes any bike, but mostly motorcycles. My favorite.
"Bun'g" - blue. It's hard to describe how he says "ng", it's got a little extra on it.
"On-gen" - orange.
"Ba-'oong" - balloon.
"Browm" - brown.
"Browm Browm" - Mr. Brown Can Moo.
"Back" - There's a Wocket In My Pocket (because the wocket is in the boy's back pocket).
"Counten" - the kitchen counter.

Go, Diego, Go Episodes:

"Dago Mama" - Diego Llama
"Dago 'Mingo" - Diego Flamingo
"Dago Huppa Whale" - Diego Humpback Whale

Phrases:

"...like it." - I don't like it. The "I don't" is silent.
"No like it" - When just "...like it" won't get the job done.
"Daddy a-stay" - Daddy stay home. Displaying his tendency to cartoon-Italianize his verbs.
"Charlie a-work" - Charlie come to work.
"A-Daddy a-read?" - Will Daddy read it to me. The Italian thing again.
"I helpin' it, Daddy!" - Said when wriggling between me and any project, grabbing the power tool I'm holding.
"No! I do it a-self!" - On due consideration, I have decided I would rather do it myself.
"No hittin' a-Mommy" - What he says while hitting Mommy. See also: No hittin' a-Daddy, No hittin' a-Ba.
"No kickin' a-Mommy" - see "No hittin' a-Mommy," above.
"No run a-street, Mommy says" - So he's getting the message, at least.
"Charlie ride a girwaffe?" - His hopes for our trip to the zoo. Followed by:
"Charlie ride a lion? Nooo. Lion eat a-Charlie. Charlie a-snack!"

Charlie helpin' it.

This is Why

filed under: Dadditudes

The caption to this photo, when Lisa messaged it to me: "C carried this all the way home from school."

Which is a trip of 4 blocks. Not epic, but not minor for a 2-year-old carrying a giant freezer basket.

Why? You ask. Why is he carrying a freezer basket?

Because he loves it.

I mean look at that face. He's SO. HAPPY. He just loves that thing, which he found out front of the pizza place by school.

"Mommy," he said, "I bringin' it HOME."

And so he did. Carried it the whole way himself, pausing to say "Mommy it HEAVY" a couple times. He didn't ask her to carry it until they got to our corner, and when she said no, Buddy, you're doing great, you carry it yourself, he shrugged and carried it the rest of the way himself.

In a nutshell, that's what I love about having these kids. Because every once in a while there's a pure little glimpse into the weird, wild world of the insides of their heads. And there is such a thing, in there, as unalloyed happiness. And it can be triggered by something as random as an abandoned freezer basket.

It's like when we surprised Max with a trip to the new Lego store in North Carolina on our way home from my folks' place last month. He knew we were going somewhere special as a surprise, and was all keyed up to find out where (he made himself a right pain in the tush about it, to be honest).

When we finally told him, he raised his face to the heavens with a look of pure exultation. "HA!" he shouted. "HA HA hahaha HA!" It was a meth-pure hit of absolute joy.

You never know what's going to trigger it. I tried to interest Max in a visit to the Staten Island Ferry this weekend. Charlie was all for it, because he's a nut for boats, but Max was unimpressed.

Until I told him we'd go to the South Ferry subway station, which he has read about but has never seen.

"The new shiny one?" he asked.

"Yessir," I said.

He was up, dressed and in his shoes faster than I've ever seen.

Once we were on the Ferry, Charlie refused to go inside. He didn't want to lose sight of the "lake" (all large bodies of water are lakes to Charlie). He was dedicated to seeing a "fiss," a "sark" or a "whay-uh." (Fish, shark or whale).

Max liked the boat, but he treated South Ferry Station like church.

"Whoa," he said, hushed. "This is FANCY."

Some day, they'll be Brooklyn adolescents, with a jadedness that I hope is at least mostly feigned. But for now, the right random little thing still has the power to crack them wide open. In the whole wide world, it's my favorite thing to see.

What the Kids are Into These Days

filed under: Dadditudes

A long overdue update about the boys:

First of all, look at these likely lookin' fellas...

Max has formally decided to grow his hair out. Miyu gave it a trim (first big-boy haircut at Mudhoney, with no lesser personality than Sebastian Bach at the next chair) but he's getting good and shaggy. Charlie has yet to go under the scissors, because Procrastiwife can't part with his little curls yet, no matter how much they start to look like peyis.

Charlie's two month affair with Elmo is over and he's back to Yo Gabba Gabba - so much so that we bought exorbitantly priced tickets to the YGG live show at the Beacon in November. All for an event that he won't remember. They'd better let us take good pictures...

Charlie's vocabulary is growing but he still uses the word "Ba-ba" for about a dozen different meanings, differentiating between them all with subtle changes of inflection. It's like Mandarin. For instance:

Ba-bah - "Bo Bo", binkie, pacifier

Ba-buwh - bubbles, specifically the hippo bubble dispenser

BAH-ba - his brother, Max; also shortened to "Ba"

Bahbah - Yo Gabba Gabba; see above

Max is into marine biology, specifically sharks and whales. He has recently become enthralled with YouTube videos of prehistoric sea animals, taken from the "Walking with Dinosaurs" series. Here's one we watch a lot, which I have come to find strangely compelling:

It's kind of amazing to watch him watch this - not only does he rock out to the Drowning Pool song that underscores it, but he shouts the names of all the creatures like they're sports heros. "Dunkleosteus!" he'll shout. "Daddy! Stethocanthus!!! MEGALODON!!!"

It also amazes me that people out there collect these random things into video compilations and post them on YouTube - and they find an audience, to the tune of tens of thousands of views! Here's another of his favorites (although he strenuously contests the order of the listings):

And, finally, an obsession both boys share - subway cars. Specifically, the Red Bird subway cars. Specifically, the Red Bird subway cars being decommissioned and thrown into the ocean to make an artificial reef (at which Charlie gets very excited and shouts "WA-WA! WA-WA!"):