Where the Love is at!
apple=apple; booble=bubble; boog=bug; ha=hat; I yike=I like; cawww (with much shivering and jaw-clenching and fist-shaking)=cold; ha=hot; go! (with furious pointing of index fingers)=go; sad (with an impression of marcel marceau)=sad; hahahabbppy! (with fantastic waving of hands and grinning and laughing)=happy; wamawoo=kangaroo; gok=dog; gak=cat; gok=horse; guck=duck; ma=mommy; mommy=daddy; mook=milk; bod=bird; brrrr=bird; c’mon wi me=come on let’s go; now!=now; ook!=look; whassa?=what’s that?; bye!=bye.
On Sunday EJ and I went out so that Daddy could get his schoolwork done.
We went to the park where we started by saying hello to a dog and a bug (which she screamed and ran away from - to entertain me, I think). After saying hello to another dog (all dogs must be no higher than her knees), and watching a fisherman and calling to the ducks, we settled down at the waterside. There, EJ contented herself with poking a stick into the duckweed and poulling out lilypads for about an hour.
EJ decided she wanted to backtrack and play hide and seek in an old tree, so we did that for a half hour until she saw some people across the way high on a branch. We ran over to see if we could get up. No such luck - even without shoes on. A little boy was momentarily swept away by EJ’s high spirits but he realized he was too far away from his momma and ran back crying and clung to her legs.
We had somehow whiled away another hour and I thought it was time to go so we headed back, just stopping to say hello to a black poodle. Uh oh - the kind lady owner handed EJ the leash. So I followed amusedly as they skipped off along the lullwater. And another hour went by. EJ learned a lot about dog walking - how to lengthen and shorten the leash and how to say “Come on by me! Come along with me!” The nice lady and Smoky left us a bit lost, so we wandered up a hill to avoid some mud and found ourselves face to face with a rather sick-looking chicken that EJ decided to follow closely behind for a while. Then we crossed a bridge, threw crab apples down into the water and watched a man do some yoga.
Dusk was beginning so I took us back toward home. Then we heard drums! So we followed the sound and joined some African drummers and dancers. After some bubble-blowing with a little girl named Kiki, we finally dragged ourselves out of the park, happy and exhausted.
And there was Daddy at the gate of our apartment building to meet us!
The other day, while I was reading the news, or writing silly blog entries or doing something on my computer in general ( and really what else am I ever doing?) EJ was sitting on the floor- not because we don’t have any chairs, but because that’s the comfortable height for a 2 yr to sit) reading a book. She was reading it in her own special language, but when I sat down and began to read with her, we started learning things like counting, letters and Analytical Geometry.
When we got the section of words that dealt with opposites, we spent a good amount of time with HOT- COLD, HAPPY- SAD. And we made the appropriate ASL signs for these words. She got pretty good on that morning at making the right sign when I pointed to it. Now all we need to do is begin the memorization of all the standardized tests she’ll ever take!
Anyways, tonight she was reading Mommy’s magazine, when I decided to test her on the progress. She remembered COLD right away, and when she says “cold” and does the sign, she is also acting out the feeling too. When she does HOT, it’s pretty much a matter of fact statement- just like when I tell her the stove is hot. But HAPPY and SAD truly get the emotional commitment that is demanded of such important works.
Current incarnation of this couplet involves getting the audience to participate in the two act play. First ACt, pointing to one audience member (Mommy) the Little Bug is saddened while she says “Sad” and makes a sad face while waving the sign language word- Sad sad sad sad sad. This is repeated with the second Audience member (Daddy) Then as soon as these is completed, the show switchs gears and everything is bubbly, bouncy and brilliant. She beams, and brightly burst out loud, “HAPPY Happy Happy” while waving the sign about exuberantly. “Happy happy happy” Sometimes the play returns to the first act but occasionally it have shivers and chills as it finishes with “Coooolllldddd.” “Cooooolllllllddddd”.
NOTE: I am not going to attempt the phonetic spellings which mimic her pronunciations
but she is pretty close to enunciating these words correctly. I believe that the sign language also helps her further reinforce the learning.
Freakonomics gets to tee off on the game played yesterday against the Texas Rangers.While mentioning that its the first time in over one hundred years that a someone scored thirty runs in a professional baseball game- it has to be AGAINST the O’s! Boy do we hold some wonderful records, the longest losing streak at the beginning of the season and losing a game by 27 runs! Go Team!
One of the reasons I have removed the television from our household is to place a limit as to how many commercials our little girl can be exposed to as she grows up. Its pretty much an impossibility to prevent her from ever seeing a commercial the first X number of years. Another reason is that it annoys me when there are ’stories’ on the television which are just vehicles for product placement.
As a person who has worked in the Film/Television Industry for a number of years, I understand teh inherent cost to produce a segment/story/show/movie, in fact I still sit and watch movies by calculating how much it cost to make the scene, sequence and movie. It’s just something I do, it has basically ruined my ability to watch a bad movie; I get way too involved with the cost to pay that terrible actor flubbing his lines or the lighting that is showing unnaturally in the background.
Morning News Shows were the first thing to go out of my viewing diet. After a couple days of working on one here in New York, way back in the beginning of my career I realized just what they were doing was a more official infomercial. So when I read last night that CBS was having a segment about Fatherhood and the way that it was changing, I certainly did not get my hopes up enough to believe that the network had come to terms with a necessary shift in social attitudes about men and fatherhood.
Then Rebel Dad confirmed it for me today, CBS is as CBS is, the snake oil salesman is still working.
NOTE: I do not believe CBS is any worse that the other networks- I hold them all on equal ground, and that ground is as far away from my house as conceivably possible.
Nathan drops our EJ off with me at work sometimes, so he can do something in the city of an evening. She plays with everyone at work, they gush over her, she waves goodbye and we get on the subway. That’s when the horror starts.
She screams bloody murder, squirms out of the stroller straps, climbs over the back of it and into my lap where she throws herself around and grabs under my clothes until I agree to nurse her. (I am trying to wean her, but she is dead against it.)
The subway is crowded - it’s rush hour - I don’t always have a seat. If I have a seat, everyone in the train goes from looking horrified to pretending to be asleep. If I don’t have a seat, she just thrashes violently on the filthy floor and everyone pretends not to notice (no one gives me a seat but they tend to step back) in between giving me dirty looks or tut tutting to one another. Once, a woman offered to pick her up and of course, EJ stopped screaming immediately, especially as there was an iPod to look at.
Meanwhile, I sweat with embarrassment and over compensate with affection so no one thinks I am in the habit of torturing my beloved child!
sigh.
Copyright © 2010 House on Red Corner All rights reserved. Theme by Laptop Geek.