The Girl is communicating with us now. Her vocabulary is limited, however. There's "mama", which counterintuitively does not refer to her mother, but instead acts as the possesive, "mine". This does not please mom.There is the ubiquitous (at least for toddlers) "gen" meaning "again", utilized when she desires you to repeat whatever it is you have just done... over and over.
And there is now the absolutely obsessive fascination with "beh buh" (belly button) - hers, yours, anyone's. To be quietly reading and have your 1 year old daughter suddenly lift your shirt and violently stab her little dagger finger into your navel while delightedly yelling "BEH BUH" is not something one deems enjoyable.
3 comments:
The more I learn, the scarier the thought of parenting becomes. Bigger cars, bruised belly buttons, Gitmo-style cold water pouring and mistaken assumptions re: (grand)parentage all make me nervous. Outside of the possibility that said child will grow up to be a teen sensation who can bring in millions of dollars for the parental units to mismanage, are there any positives to this parenting thing?
@Steve:
And we're not even discussing the costs, the lack of sleep, the worry, the destruction of your most beloved objects (your new Zune would never survive), the endless diapers, the on-a-dime mood changes, the illnesses, the lack of regard for personal space, or the general upheaval of your entire life. Any one of those things would be intolerable in someone you met on the street, and yet... we do tolerate them, laugh about them, even enjoy them in our kids, so there must be something there.
I had no idea until my son was born how much you could love another person unconditionally. As I said shortly after his delivery, "You suddenly forgive your parents every slight you thought you experienced - every mis-step - because you realize that this is the way they must have felt about you and there's no way they could ever have wanted anything but the best for you. If they loved you this much there could never be any indifference, let alone malice, in their actions."
Kids are their own reward and in my (grampa-length) 47 years I have never felt more satisfaction or joy than that which I derive from my children.
But they still drive me nuts.
Well played, sir!
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