At Hugh's most recent well child check, the pediatrician asked me how many words he knew...I didn't even know I had the ability to blush (the bloom is OFF the rose, bay-bee!) but as I desperately tried to count, I realized that a) he hardly knew ANY and b) the few he knew probably didn't count as words, per se. Lucy, at this age knew over 100 words. I actually stopped taking a running record at 120, figuring that we had exceeded the 20-50 the pediatricians are looking for. Hugh? What running record? I am so busy simply delighting in him that I'm actually not keeping track. This is a lovely change for me (and for my daughter, I'm sure) but in a world where parenting is a bloodsport, I am sweating in the pediatrician's office.
Does "HOLLA!" count? Are "WOW!" and "WHOA!" different words? Can I count his expression "lookatthat!" as three words, instead of one? Does the fact that he calls EVERYBODY "dada" make him special? You know, like, short bus material? So, I flub the interview with the pediatrician, telling her that Hugh is "getting there," and "knows a few words" but looking like a meth addict mother, I'm sure.
Fast forward to our trip to Lucy's swim lesson in the car yesterday...Lucy's favorite new thing is to tell knock knock jokes. Bad ones. So bad, they're not only not funny, but make no sense, and then screech, "GET IT?!" (it's adorable) Halfway to swim, my short bus son, who STILL doesn't call me "mama" starts saying, "not not" and I start laughing. He can learn "knock knock" but he still doesn't know my name? Can't say words we use all day, every day in our home, like DOG?! So I have Lucy screeching "GET IT?!" after telling a knock knock joke about tooting (and singing a song about mom and tooting...don't ask) and hugh chiming in "not not!" and I throw back my head and laugh and laugh and laugh, wishing to God I had a tape recorder, knowing that I'll already have forgotten the nuances of it by the time I get home. Surely, the good the bad, the ugly, these are the days...
And as my friend Pauline often says, life is good.
Oh, yes. it is.
not not TOOT TOOT GET IT?!
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you're so adorably funny and real Annie. Natalie Merchant wasn't singing about the 90s when she wrote that song - she was singing to US RIGHT NOW! we are blessed and lucky :)
ReplyDelete"not not" - i'll never be able to say "knock knock" again... i tell ya they learn everything from their older siblings and nothing from mommy no matter how many times you sit there with the flash cards.... it don't make you no ghetto momma (and hey what's wrong with a little meth in the morning to get the old system going?)