Kids Say The Darndest @*#$%*&! Things

Today I awoke to hear NJ talking to her mom downstairs:

"You can kiss me on the butt!"

Turns out she'd injured her fanny and The Wife had offered to give her a kiss -- but on the head. NJ didn't understand why, in this case, the healing smooch wouldn't be applied to the point of injury, as per usual.

Looking forward to NJ saying the same thing, but with different intent and vocal inflections, when she's a teenager.

And The Student Becomes The Teacher

For months now I've been relentlessly quizzing NJ on virtually everything:

"What color is that?" (Typical answer: "Geen." Or, "Red." But no more "o-shon" for orange, which is good but kind of makes me and The Wife wistful for simpler times.)

"What is this?" (Typical answer: "A doggie." Sometimes, "A yellow doggie.")

"Who's that?" (Typical answer: "Mommy!" Also: "NJ!" when presented with a photo of herself. I've used that one so much that yesterday she said "NJ!" before I even turned my phone around to show her the pic.)

"What does this do?" (Typical answer, if we're talking about her Curious George jack-in-the-box: "Monkey comes out of the box.")

With all the questions, I should have been wearing this for the past several months.

So this morning, when we were both sitting on the couch bracing ourselves for the day ahead, the little dickens snatched the pebble from my hand.

"Who is Yo Gabba Gabba?" NJ asked me, beaming and pointing to the TV show, currently her favorite, that she was watching.

The host was on the screen, so I answered "DJ Lance?"

"Right!" she said triumphantly before turning back to the TV. And I swear I saw a little flash of pride in her eyes. She probably thinks I'm developing quite nicely (but could put out a little more effort).

BOOM! Consider the tables turned, Dad Solo!

This Kid, With The Talking And The Speaking

Some new favorite phrases around the house:

"I don't like that."

"I DON'T LIKE THAT!!!"

"My _____!"

"NJ's ____!" (Although "NJ's Daddy" has a nice ring to it.)

"No, Daddy."

"I want to watch Wiggles/Yo Gabba Gabba now."

Oh, my. It's going to be a looooong ... what, 16 years?

... As Easy To Learn As Your ABCs

Who doesn't love giggly, funny-voiced childishness?



The kid's good, too.

This El Emenopee character sounds a little sketchy. He was one of Don Quixote's arch-rivals, right?

Light And Dark

Not much posting here lately, I know. NJ has been busy, though -- she's been very affectionate lately, and on the flip side has been very tantrumy when something outrageous happens, like she doesn't get a second cookie or isn't lifted up onto the breakfast nook bench fast enough. Or get her shoes on her feet in a timely fashion. Or take her shoes off her feet in a timely fashion. Or ... well, you get the idea. She turns 21 months old today, but the Terrible Twos are alive and well at Casa de NJ.

It's been a back-and-forth week here weather-wise, and lots of light and dark because of what's going on at our house, and that theme is enough for me to hang this flimsy excuse of a blog post on. Today it's gray and rainy, but yesterday was a perfect Spring day that saw us heading to the playground at Green Lake to catch up with our PEPS friends. Of course, all the kids look adorable and in good health and cute as the cutest buttons ever buttoned. NJ particularly enjoyed her time on the swing.

Somebody's got a new favorite hat ...

The weekend before featured an equally nice day, so the fam headed to Gas Works Park for some fresh air and leisure time.

Every day should be like this. Every single one.

And on Mother's Day we went to the beach at Golden Gardens, where it was cool but still very nice.

Not pictured: NJ's experiment with a Hitler mustache made of damp sand.

The sunlight you see in these pics stands in stark contrast to today's winter-once-more gray skies, or the interior of our house this past week (up until Friday evening). We're getting the house painted, and all the windows -- all of them -- have been taped and papered up. It's been a little crazy-making for me, working at home; I've felt a bit like a terrorist in a safe house (minus the porn and Navy SEALs). The first day of blacked-out windows, NJ noticed right away and kept pointing to the windows and exclaiming, "Dark!" The second day she'd apparently had it explained to her by The Wife. When she said, "Dark!" I agreed heartily and then NJ looked at me with a serious look on her face, leaned forward and opined, "Paint the house. Paint the house."

The kids' picnic furniture I assembled yesterday is not seeing any action today, other than rain.

She's stringing together lots of words into phrases and sentences these days, but doesn't use them for long and resists Dad Solo's nostalgic "Hey, remember when you used to say "Paint the house," like a day ago?" attempts at recreating the very near past. Still, it's a lot of fun hearing what comes out of her yap. Yesterday she sat in my lap and watched an Elmo video on this computer, and at one point she looked up at me and, very seriously, issued two sentences of pure gibberish (except for "Elmo"). She arched an eyebrow and gave me a "Right?" look before turning back to the screen.

NJ NSFW

It's fun watching as NJ picks up new words and phrases, even when she doesn't quite get it right. Orange, for example -- the fruit and crayon -- is "o-shon." And it's such a very confident, convincing "o-shon" that I've started saying it myself.

Not all of her misfires are as innocently adorable, if you've got a delicate constitution and get a case of the vapors whenever the occasional swear word hits your ears. Take her frog overalls, for example -- she knows that's a frog, but her rendition of "frog" sounds an awful like another four-letter word that starts with an F.

#$%&*!+=@(*#!^&! ... OK?

Similarly, NJ knows what a "clock" is, but she only gets four of those five letters correct when she says it. Which is why we don't ask her what time it is when we're out in public.

At least she's no "Landlord." (Cannot stress this enough: Do NOT click on that if you don't want to hear a foul-mouthed, adorable little girl in a funny comedy bit.)

Under The Radar

The Wife's been out of town since Thursday morning -- she had to leave America on business -- and she returns tomorrow (Sunday) morning. I haven't mentioned it yet because nothing extraordinary has happened with NJ and me, other than a full metric ton of adorable cute stuff that, if I listed in full, would go on and on and I'd end up looking like even more of a proud, hopelessly smitten daddy than I actually am.

The Wife was particularly worried about being gone for a weekend day, but NJ and I handled it just fine -- both slept until 8 a.m., took a long walk to a great bakery -- cheddar scone for me, small baked custard cake for NJ -- shopped Costco, napped, shopped the supermarket, ate, bathed (her), and partied. We've had a great time together, although we can't wait for The Wife to return.

Dad Solo misjudged Costco-vs.-naptime a little bit, but everything worked out OK.

Random notes:

• Other than a couple of expected tantrums -- food not coming fast enough, only one cookie proffered, the dreaded Shampoo Night -- NJ was the absolute picture of sweetness and light. I actually pinched myself once to make sure it all was actually occurring.
  
• For the first time in her life, I caught a whiff of bad breath on NJ. Stale, stinky morning breath. Now, if I smell it on her another 578 times, we'll be even.
• Her mastery of the English language continues to expand exponentially. The latest: She can say her name, and uses it instead of "bay-bee" when I show her a photo of herself.
  
• Couscous is her favorite food of the moment. She requested "coo-coos" for dinner last night and ate it with breakfast, lunch and dinner today.
• The buffalo-and-cheese patty melt I made her for dinner tonight? The dog loved it.
• When I took a box of Annie's Cheddar Bunnies off the supermarket shelf today and showed it to NJ, she exclaimed "Bunnies!" and pulled the box to her, hugging it and, I think, even kissing it. An elderly woman on the aisle almost fell over with a Cuteness Blackout.
  
• I think maybe my favorite thing ever is showing up to get NJ from day care and standing the big picture window, watching her play or read or sit, until she notices me. Then she kicks into action, heading first to the window with open arms and "Daddy!" on her lips, then to the door I'll be coming through. Once I pick her up, she beams and looks at her teachers and the other kids as if to say, "Yeah, I'm happy to see this big doofus because, gosh dang it, I love him." I hurt my face smiling every time it happens.

Daddy's got this single-parenting thing DOWN, suckas!

Princess Addendum

NJ's vocabulary is expanding daily, primarily based on things she sees in her many books. Other words she picks up from real life, and she's already learning that sometimes one word is not enough. She's figuring out what words go with other words. For example, one of her books has a picture of a pile of balls. Thanks to The Wife's reading and her day care playtime, NJ knows that "kick" (and a little kicking pantomime) goes with "ball."

Her best two-word phrases didn't come from a book, though. And while I don't mean this in a harsh way, they sort of expose her as a shallow, flippant, conniving little liar. Perhaps she has a future in southern politics.

Her new favorite word for the moment is COOKIE. (Yes, we have created a monster, with the help of the late Paul Newman, whose Fig Newmans are delicious.) In hopes of boosting her chances of being handed a Fig Newman, NJ now pipes up with ONE right after she asks for a cookie. She even holds up a pudgy little index finger to illustrate her point, which is that if she could have just one delicious fig cookie, all would be well. But here's the thing: She doesn't really mean it. Because once that cookie's been consumed, she's back at it: "Cookie! ... one" again, with finger extended. And when that second "one" cookie doesn't materialize, she instead chows down on the bitter snack of tears and heartache.

Her other common phrase favorite of late comes after she's slugged me in the chin, a new hobby she's picked up. Prompted by her manners-minded mother, NJ belts out a SORRY ("saw-wee!"), and then a beat or two later adds an OK for good measure -- it'll have to do until she learns "We're good, right?" But here's the thing: She doesn't really mean it. I tend to take her apologies at something less than face value because 1) She has to be prompted by The Wife, as well as my own chin-rubbing exclamation of "Ow!", and 2) her declaration of "Sorry ... OK?" is punctuated by uproarious giggling, and usually is followed by another smack to my face.

These are rapidly approaching the top of NJ's catch phrase list, but this is still the favorite. A few evenings ago we heard her stirring on the baby monitor. The noise escalated quickly, and suddenly she blurted out a rather desperate "No way!" and started bawling. It was the cutest nightmare ever.

A Partial Treasury Of Beloved Catch Phrases

"That's what she said!"

"Please pack your knives and go."

"I've made a huge mistake."

"Make it so."

"We're not in Kansas anymore."

"That's what she said!" (redux)

"No soup for you!"

"Whatchoo talkin' 'bout, Willis?"

"You cannot be serious!"


"Heeeeeeeeeeeeee're's Johnny!"

"No way!"

Phases And Stages

And no, don't be confused -- it's not not this Phases And Stages. (And shame on you -- especially if you're a Texan -- if you didn't know about that classic Willie Nelson album.) I'm talking about NJ's ever-changing personality and the sounds, facial expressions and hand signals that come with that.

Early on, it was "Ma." Then, there was "Pa." Soon thereafter came "Ba." That was a while ago. Then there was a big-smile-and-vigorous-head shake phase, which was captured (oh so briefly) here:

Shot in the wild, the subject in the midst of a maniacal laughing fit. You'd expect her to morph into Vincent Price at this point, but she never does.

The head-shake phase lasted about a week. Then, NJ decided it was back to sound-it-out syllables -- she hit the "Ah" really hard, and for a long time.

Meanwhile, she's mixed in some pretty impressive raspberries. Dad Solo is a big fan of the Bronx cheer, and NJ has taken it to heart and can fire off some very loud, spittle-flecked raspberries that can last ten seconds or longer. She often drenches the front of her shirt trading raspberries with her old man. Her hands flit and bounce in front of her collar as if she's shooing flies away.

So now we've got the "Ah!" and the raspberry, and to that combo NJ has very recently added the most adorable clicking sound you've ever heard. She mashes the tip of her tongue into the roof of her mouth and drags it down sharply with a chlock that is cute enough on its own, but here's the thing: She can't seem to do it more than once without breaking out in a gigantic all-lips-and-no-teeth-because-I-don't-have-any-yet smile that will positively slay you four ways to Sunday. She and I have had conversations in which we've traded chlocks for a good minute or two; with each chlock, her smile gets a teeny bit wider. It's a good way to cleanse your mental palate -- particularly if you've been doing something unpleasant, like paying bills.

Over the past couple of days, NJ's thrown another aural delight into the mix: the all-purpose scream. It's fun, too, and you can have a good screaming conversation with her, even if it annoys the hell out of the dogs. It looks like this:

"Oy, mate, step off or I'll clock you right in the kisser. Bloody 'ell!"

So, to recap: Lots of conversations. All screams -- accompanied by flailing hands -- and "Ah!"s and chlocks. Eventually, of course, she'll be talking. For now, I like to think she's screaming "I love you, Daddy!" and the "Ah!"s are shorthand for "Great pureed carrots, Dad, thanks!" And perhaps the tongue-clucking chlocks are Na'vi for "You, Dad Solo, could not be parenting me better even if you wanted to, so remember that when I'm 14 and I act as though I hate and resent you, it will be a mere facade and deep down I will still love and respect you dearly."

Yeah, that's it. Music to my ears.

Call and Response

The Baby Shriek gets more popular by the day around here. In fact, it's pretty much replaced laughing as the top indicator that NJ is having a good time. It's definitely been established as the bridge to NJ's not having any speaking skills at all and her uttering her first words. She's now using her shriek to respond to us verbally ("verbally" being used loosely here).

Today, as Dad Solo went through the laborious process of making his fabled Pork and Black-Eyed Pea Chili -- it takes a long time, but Son of a Bee Sting! is it worth it -- he often ducked into the living room and called out to NJ, who was goofing around on the couch with The Wife. Once I got NJ's attention I'd scream some nonsense sounds and the Smile That Slays Me would spread across her face, then she'd let loose with a good 20-second shriek of her own.

This is arguably the most famous example of Call and Response in modern music (starting at the 2.26 mark, although if you skip ahead and don't listen to the entire thing, well then ... no offense, but I really have to wonder if you're a patriotic American). It literally makes me feel good just to hear it. Of course, blues -- and, by extension, its offspring, rock and roll -- is based on chord repetition and call and response. If you've ever seen the Stones play live, you know how good Mick is at leading a call-and-response during "Brown Sugar" and "You Can't Always Get What You Want," among others. So maybe NJ has it in her bones and blood already: After all, she naps to lullaby renditions of Zeppelin, Stones and U2 songs.

Still, as charming and life-affirming as the Raylettes are, I'll take NJ's call-and-response shrieking any day. Now, she loves it when I sing to her -- honestly! -- and that's doubled the number of people who enjoy my dulcet tones (I'm the other fan). And lately both me and The Wife have been doing our best to talk to her using short, easily understandable words so she can, you know, eventually learn to talk. But it's a hell of a lot of fun to give her a little scream, then sit back and wait for the smile and the response.

What'd I say, indeed.

The House Is Alive With the Sound of Jibberish

The house has been ringing lately with NJ's vocalization practice. It's like having Pavarotti wandering around the house intoning "me me me me me me," but wearing a pajama onesie with a smear of pureed carrot on the leg instead of a tuxedo. (Maybe he wore pajama onesies, but Pavarotti eating carrots? As if!) Two things in particular:

The Baby Shriek is used to express delight at, for example, the jumperoo contraption that still enthralls the kid on an almost daily basis. Once NJ's sitting in the thing and has made it around the control panel once, she'll let out a shriek to emphasize her joy at having completed the circle, then another to warn us that she's going around again. NJ also deploys the Baby Shriek when she's having fun with me or The Wife and wants us to keep it up. Yes, the shriek says, continue to tickle my belly and simultaneously make fart noises, Dad Solo. I heartily approve of these actions and would like to continue participating in this brand of merriment. Thirdly, the Baby Shriek serves as an all-purpose exclamation for a seven-month-old who has not yet learned to say "Wow" or "Whew" or "Oy vey."

The most common sound around the abode these days, though, is The Lamb. NJ enjoys going on a nice, long run of "ba ba ba ba ba ba ba" every now and again. After the first "ba" or two, she'll change the inflection of, or raise or lower, her voice. She sometimes ends up flapping her gums rhythmically by the end, as though she's making fun of herself. I've managed to engage her in a few "ba" conversations, and when she realizes we're ba-ing at each other it makes her smile. The Lamb isn't the first sound she's become intrigued by in her Quest for Speech -- she also had "ma" and "pa" phases. But "ba" has staying power, apparently. Maybe one day soon she'll string the three together in the appropriate order so The Wife and I can declare that her first word and book a trip to Venice to celebrate.

Change for a Fiver

NJ hit the five-month mark on Friday, and she and I hit our (approximate) one-month mark as a daughter-homedaddy duo. The biggest thing I've noticed in the past month is the incredible ramping up of her personality. She's all smiles lately, and is very interested in whatever's going on. Mostly, though, she's 'talking' all the time. Up until recently she would jabber randomly and occasionally. Now she's jibbering constantly, and at us. Directly at us. She has things to say, orders to give, pleas to make, points to emphasize. It's fun watching her figure out how to use her mouth and vocalize; the tongue makes regular appearances now, and The Wife was delighted when NJ blew her first true raspberry a couple of days ago.

We're also getting solid food into the mix, and NJ is digging that, too. I was a little nervous about it because we had a tiny bit of trouble getting her to eat from a bottle. She loved her milk-and-rice-cereal concoction, though -- leaning forward toward the spoon, opening wide, and eating more of it than she didn't eat. And there was your standard-issue adorable baby-food-on-the-chin mess, of course. I was thrilled to be able to break out the ridiculously cool Rolling Stones bib, too. A friend commented that it's probably the same one Mick and Keith are using these days.

Tonight The Wife and I are going out to dinner. We've done it once before, when my parents were in town, when we sat down to eat at 5 (two margaritas each AND dessert!) and were home by 6:30. Tonight will be an early-bird special, too. We're dropping her off with a couple who has a son who's two weeks older than NJ, and will be returning the babysitting favor this coming weekend. The Wife has been nervous about leaving NJ with others, parents or friends or whoever, but our first outing went off without a hitch and that put her at ease, so hopefully there won't be any hiccups tonight.