Tag: William

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Pre-K Jargon File

About a year ago, my wife and I were in the midst of watching the classic Stephen Fry/Hugh Laurie-helmed Jeeves and Wooster and we were allowing our kids to watch it along with us. We had been watching episodes each evening and the kids were keeping up well, though one night my at-the-time 2-year-old daughter fell ill. We put her to bed and watched our normal episode or two with our eldest.
The next morning, our daughter arose and demanded she be shown “Jesus Monster”. We scratched our heads in puzzlement until we realized that she was, in fact, asking to see the episode she had missed out on the previous night. In the spirit of the ever-valuable, ever-geeky Jargon File, I decided to catalog the various amusing and/or endearing malapropisms that my children have churned out over the years.
What follows is by no means comprehensive, but merely a sampling of the ones I have been able to jot down, catalog or otherwise remember.
Continue reading “Pre-K Jargon File”

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Scenes From A Preschooler’s Bedtime

Beginners BibleDialog, almost verbatim, from last night’s bedtime ritual:
Me: [Having just read the story of Moses getting the Ten Commandments from God] What did God tell Moses to tell the people?
Will: …
Me: He said “Do not…”?
Will: Kill!
Me: And “Do not…”
Will: …
My Wife: [Suggesting helpfully] “Do not st…”
Will: Steve!
Me: [Covering my mouth so as to obscure the smile now plastered across it] No, son, God did not tell Moses to tell the people “Do not Steve”. He said “Do not steal.”
Will: …Oh. Yes, do not steal!

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Sabbath Day Toddler Observation


I’m once again in solid paraphrasing territory here, but

T. Rex, while known for his biting prowess, was also reputed to be diligent in studying his Bible.

The logistics of a sizable thunder lizard being able to use his puny hands to turn the pages of said Bible were left unvisited.

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Real Life Update

Just a quick update on the State of the State, as it were.
Will’s gash is healing quite nicely and he’s due to have the stitches out tomorrow morning, while Kate’s cough has largely subsided. The doc prescribed steroids for her (due to her earlier bout with RSV), thus her encounter with croup seems to have been mercifully short.
We’re due to head to TX this Saturday, so hopefully everyone will be on their best health footing, although I do feel a nasty cold coming on, myself.
Beggars can’t be choosers, and all that. At least the kids are okay.

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Pray For My Little Girl Again

We’ve been through this before, but I’m asking again: pray for my little girl. She woke up ~2:30am this morning with a fierce, barking cough. She was actually coughing so loudly and persistently that she caused Will to have nightmares about dogs chasing him which subsequently caused him to awaken and spend a good portion of the early morning quivering and quaking.
So, off to the pediatricians it was for my wife this afternoon.
Turns out Kate’s got croup, a malady I was sure had been consigned to the dustbin of history along with scarlet fever, goiters and TB. So pray for her hasty recovery, if you please.

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Do They Give Out “Toddler Purple Hearts”?

In what is sure to be a preview of things to come, Saturday ended up being a long, long day for the whole family.
We supped at friends’ in the early evening and as the night wore on, Will, as is his wont, began to go a little, well, “toddler nuts”, if I may coin a phrase. At once hyperactive and hyper-clumsy, he was practically bouncing off walls as The Wife and I began to wind our conversation down and prepare to leave. Literally 5 minutes before we were ready to go, Will decided to leap from the living room couch and upon landing stumbled directly into the marble-topped coffee table so helpfully placed within leaping distance, head-first, of course.
At the sound of the THUMP then shriek, I leapt up and ran to his side. He had given himself a very nice 1/4″ gash right in front of his left ear, so after a brief assessment and a gauze pad, it was off to the emergency room for the lot of us. We bid our adieus to our hosts and dashed to Abington Hospital.
Fortunately, the cut was in a place nigh devoid of arteries or major blood sources, so it hardly bled at all. The resident and “murse” thought at first that the wound was small enough to only need some Dermabond, but the attending stopped by, took a look and proclaimed it stitch-worthy due to its depth. So, after a thorough examination and a good bit of paperwork, the resident and nurse returned, held Will to the bed, Novacained the wound and stitched Will up good and proper. Through it all, he maintained a positive (if subdued) attitude and was actually more terrified of the blood pressure cuff than of the shots, stitches and restraints.
Here’s my little man:
A look upon his face…Will in ER.A smile?
My little guy was so brave. I’m just sorry he has my genetic propensity towards sheer klutzishness — this visit is likely to be the first of many if my experience is any guide.

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Space, Time And Mario: A Toddler’s Perspective

Super Mario — Oh no!
Ahh, toddler logic.
I received Super Mario Galaxy for my Wii as a birthday present from my in-laws and promised Will that I would sit down and play it with him as soon as time allowed. See, SMG is rated “E for Everyone” and, well, Will is definitely a part of “Everyone”, so I figured that he would be fine spectating.
I plunked the disc into the Wii and began playing and all was happy for the first five minutes. Mario cavorted through the Mushroom Kingdom, gobbling up Star Bits with all the little (Star Bit-intoxicated) Toadies and Will was enjoying himself heartily. Then came the war fleet.
Bowser and his crew descended in a hail of cannon fire and scooped up the Princess, laughing evilly the whole way. In response, Will shrieked in terror and began sobbing uncontrollably. It seems he was terrified, not by Bowser himself, but by the peril poor Princess Peach was placed in by her kidnapping. I hastily paused the game and spent about 5 minutes talking my son down from his precarious mental ledge. The Princess will be all right, I intoned in my Best Daddy Voice. We’re Big Boys. It’s our job to help Mario rescue the Princess. It’s our mission. And on I went until I was able to get him to start parroting “It’s our job to save the Princess” (or, “Us save princess!”, in toddler parlance). We played for a good 30 minutes following this incident and I came away convinced that all was right with the world again.
A few days later, my wife called me, and with no little amusement in her voice informed me that Will had firmly told her that Daddy needed to come home so that we could save the Princess. Apparently, he’s under the impression that while the Wii is powered down the game world continues to exist, which means that Princess’ jeopardy simply continues and Bowser slips further and further from our grasp. There was a sense of desperation in his toddler voice as he impressed upon her that we had to go after her.
So now, every few days, I “have” to go home and play Wii with my son in order to allow him to continue functioning. It’s a hard knock life, I know, being forced to play, but hey, I’m up to the challenge.
*grin*

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Wha? Who? Huh? Sooooo… Busy. Oh, Happy Second Birthday, Son!

Happy Birthday Will
No, no one died, nor was I injured in some catastrophic accident and yes, my fingers still work. My reason[s] for not posting in well-nigh a week (the longest stretch without a post in a long, long time)? My boy turned two last Wednesday and it has been Le Crazee ever since.
A shopping knight.
This week o’ nuttiness started last Wednesday night when my wife and I celebrated Will’s birthday quite simply by singing “Happy Birthday” (and no, we didn’t pay any copyright fees…) and giving him a couple of our gifts as well as gifts from my wife’s side of the family: a fire engine and Little Tykes cleaning set from her parents, a shopping cart, complete with play food from her grandmother and an Edmund (from The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe) costume from us.
Continue reading “Wha? Who? Huh? Sooooo… Busy. Oh, Happy Second Birthday, Son!”