I've told this story to a few people with whom I felt I could share it without feeling too much embarrassment. It didn't work out so well for me, but my mom loves it, so I figured I'd share it here.
Guppy is now talking up a storm of fragmented two or three word phrases which is awesome, but a couple months ago (at about 21 months old) two word phrases beyond "bye... maMA" were fairly unheard of. He also wasn't much for speaking in a public setting, like stores, until he was very comfortable.
During that time, Guppy and Lim and I went to Barnes & Noble. A place where he is oddly comfortable. I think it's the stuffed animals they sell there as well as the shelves of books. Not necessarily a bad thing. Lim and I love books and want him to as well. So far so good.
Lim was in the kids section looking for books for Guppy and he decided it was a perfect time to take a jaunt all the way to the other side of the large book store. My job at that point is to follow him and make sure that he doesn't destroy anything on the way. We got as far away from Lim as we could without leaving the store and Guppy started trying to pull books off the shelf, and I tried to put them back before any damage was done.
I had some... digestive issues that day and so I let out some gas and it ended up being just barely audible. I don't know why gas is embarrassing or funny as it's a part of human nature -- truth be told, I giggle a lot at gaseous outburts. But only when it's appropriate to do so. Guppy hasn't learned the social norms surrounding this yet, so instantly pointed to my crotch and said very audibly, "Dada poop!" I was fairly certain that the whole store had heard him, so I said at about the same volume, "That's right! Lots of books!"
And then booked it (ha!) back to the kids section to see if we could leave.
Thursday, September 27, 2012
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Noises
Last week I was with some friends who do not have kids (the majority of my friends currently fall into this category). They asked if Guppy was making noises yet (at 17 months). What they were really asking was if he made "vroom" noises or any other make believe noises. So I thought about it and let them know.
A few weeks ago I was out of town and Lim was giving Guppy a bath. He has two boats, one with a hook on it, and one with a place to put a hook. She took the hook from the first, hooked it onto the second, and made some "vroom" noises. From then on Guppy will grab the boats, hook them together, and make a fairly high-pitched sound while pulling them around in circles. Of course, those sounds sound nothing like a "vroom" sound, but that's not very surprising since he can't talk yet. It is incredibly cute though.
He is also an expert at making a buzzing noise with his lips. As a trombone player, I very much encourage this. How did he learn that? I was trying to make him figure out how to blow bubbles in the bathtub. He couldn't figure out what I was doing to make them because blowing air out of my mouth doesn't really make a noise. Best solution is of course to make a buzzing noise. After about 3 days of demonstration, he got it! He's going to be an absolute pro come swim "lessons" this summer.
When it comes to lip buzzing, the next logical step was for me to play the trombone for him. This is the third time in his short life that I've played the trombone for him. The first time (at about 5 months), he was scared and cried. The second time at about a year, he smiled and crawled away happily. This time? He loved it! Not only that, he wanted to put his mouth where my mouth goes, which he made clear by putting his hand out towards it and making a pincer motion (it's amazing what can be communicated with that motion).
I would make a buzzing noise with my lips and then bring the trombone up and play something. He would look at the mouthpiece in the horn and make a buzzing noise with his lips. So I took out the mouthpiece and showed him a couple more times how I buzzed my lips and held it up to my mouth to make a sound. He kept making his pincer motion, so I started to bring the mouthpiece to his lips, part of me hoping very much that he would make a good noise on his first try and be a trombonist like his papa. It got within an inch of his mouth as he was buzzing his lips and just as he was about to buzz into it... he stuck out his tongue and licked the mouthpiece. So I guess we're still working on that... Damn.
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Guppy - Scariest Army of One
(This post was originally written about 3 weeks ago for those of you keeping track of Guppy's development)
Guppy is at a stage that's somewhere between an infant and a toddler. I have no idea where the actual line is between the two. Some people define a toddler as "a child who is learning to walk". However, the toddler stage apparently extends to about age 3. I know that there's a lot to walking, but does it really take two years more than when the child first starts learning to walk? Others define it as a child between ages 1 and 2.5 or between ages 1 and 3.
It seems that no one can agree on when exactly infancy ends and toddlery (is that a word?) begins. Doesn't really matter. At this point, at eleven months old, I'd put Guppy into an in between stage that I'll call infoddler. For the last three weeks or so, he's started to take steps walking (the most we'd counted was 7 at once and it was only a couple times a day that he'd do it). Is that considered a toddler? Nope, again, I'm sticking to my guns and calling him an infoddler.
Lim went away for the weekend, crushing our record of being alone with each other, going from about 4 hours to 48 hours, and came back Sunday afternoon. Guppy seemed indifferent towards seeing her when she got home - something that I'm sure is a letdown for any parent. After a few hours, I started cooking dinner upstairs while Lim and Guppy went downstairs to play (we have a large finished basement that is perfect for someone just learning to roll/crawl/walk).
From upstairs, all I could hear were squeals of joy. Usually, this means that Guppy has accomplished something nefarius and wants us to know it. In this case though, I could also hear Lim saying, "Good job, Guppy!"
I went downstairs to investigate and found out that within an hour he had gone from a general ambivalence towards his mother and 7 steps at a time to a huge grin for Lim and as many steps as he could manage before hitting his equivalent of a land mine, attempting to traverse the room to his mom and then to elsewhere. The general steps he would follow would be:
*) Find vertical surface to pull self up
*) Walk forward, squealing, until tripping over something
*) Utter protest
*) Repeat steps 1 thorugh 3 until getting to Mom
*) Crawl/Walk to other side of room and begin again
Lim and I started talking about it and figured out one of the scariest scenarios possible. Imagine an army of infoddlers. Thousands of small creatures squealing their way towards you; arms held above their heads; hands holding toys in a death grip. And they're only in diapers decorated with Disney characters. How would you stop such a monstrosity? The only way would be with caltrops of toys. But no, that would just cause protests.
Don't believe me? Check the out the following video. The real scary part starts at around 20 second.
Guppy is at a stage that's somewhere between an infant and a toddler. I have no idea where the actual line is between the two. Some people define a toddler as "a child who is learning to walk". However, the toddler stage apparently extends to about age 3. I know that there's a lot to walking, but does it really take two years more than when the child first starts learning to walk? Others define it as a child between ages 1 and 2.5 or between ages 1 and 3.
It seems that no one can agree on when exactly infancy ends and toddlery (is that a word?) begins. Doesn't really matter. At this point, at eleven months old, I'd put Guppy into an in between stage that I'll call infoddler. For the last three weeks or so, he's started to take steps walking (the most we'd counted was 7 at once and it was only a couple times a day that he'd do it). Is that considered a toddler? Nope, again, I'm sticking to my guns and calling him an infoddler.
Lim went away for the weekend, crushing our record of being alone with each other, going from about 4 hours to 48 hours, and came back Sunday afternoon. Guppy seemed indifferent towards seeing her when she got home - something that I'm sure is a letdown for any parent. After a few hours, I started cooking dinner upstairs while Lim and Guppy went downstairs to play (we have a large finished basement that is perfect for someone just learning to roll/crawl/walk).
From upstairs, all I could hear were squeals of joy. Usually, this means that Guppy has accomplished something nefarius and wants us to know it. In this case though, I could also hear Lim saying, "Good job, Guppy!"
I went downstairs to investigate and found out that within an hour he had gone from a general ambivalence towards his mother and 7 steps at a time to a huge grin for Lim and as many steps as he could manage before hitting his equivalent of a land mine, attempting to traverse the room to his mom and then to elsewhere. The general steps he would follow would be:
*) Find vertical surface to pull self up
*) Walk forward, squealing, until tripping over something
*) Utter protest
*) Repeat steps 1 thorugh 3 until getting to Mom
*) Crawl/Walk to other side of room and begin again
Lim and I started talking about it and figured out one of the scariest scenarios possible. Imagine an army of infoddlers. Thousands of small creatures squealing their way towards you; arms held above their heads; hands holding toys in a death grip. And they're only in diapers decorated with Disney characters. How would you stop such a monstrosity? The only way would be with caltrops of toys. But no, that would just cause protests.
Don't believe me? Check the out the following video. The real scary part starts at around 20 second.
Monday, August 8, 2011
The Adventures of Guppy and the Animals on the Changing Table
A while back, I read a short article on what toddlers and infants are actually thinking when they do something that you don't think is a good idea and why the react the way they do. For example, they may have found an outlet and want to show it to you. We groan and think that the kid should not be near the outlet and take them away from it. They think it's an amazing thing. Where do those holes go? What happens if something goes in there? Do Mommy and Daddy know about this?
I can't find the link for the article now, but it was a good read and made a lot of sense.
It stayed in the back of my mind and any time that Guppy makes an excited sound and looks expectantly at me as he holds up a box with a lid that he's just put on top of another box, I act excited back so that he knows that I'm supportive of his odd happiness. It also makes him think it's a good thing and he goes right back to doing it some more, allowing me to continue what I was doing before.
Last night it came to my mind that I was a total douche-hat to Guppy. We put him down for bed at about 8:30. At 8:45 he started screaming as if he was in pain or afraid. I went into his room, found his pacifier and gave it to him (9 times out of 10, that's what he's upset about). He responded by shoving the pacifer into his mouth and scurrying accross the crib mattress to the adjoined changing table, picking up two of his soothies on the way (a soothy if you don't know is a stuff animal head that's attached to a blanket - in this case, a bear and an elephant). He then stood up and put his elephant on the changing table, then took it off, put it on, took it off, etc.
I watched for about a minute and then began the struggle to get him to sleep. In my mind we had three options. I could pick him up and cuddle him until he fell asleep (this would probably take 30+ minutes as he see it as an opportunity to play). I could leave him to do his thing (he would probably start crying within 5 minutes and we would start all over again). Or I could try to lay him down and stop him from crawling/standing. I chose the third option.
I picked him up gently and laid him on his side. He scuttled over to the changing table and tried to stand up. I repeated laying him on his side. He started to crawl back to the changing table, so I put my hand on his legs and he could no longer move them, but he continue to struggle to get to the changing table. We continued this dance for about 5 minutes until I gave up. I said, "Good night Guppy." and left his room, closing the door behind me.
He cried out and continued screaming for about a minute as I went into my bedroom and told my wife I was going to give him a couple minutes to see if he'd calm down or I'd go in and try to rock him. Thankfully, he put himself to sleep. After lying in bed about 15 minutes or so, I rolled over and told my wife that I was a douchebag. She asked why and I related the story from his point of view:
Guppy at 8:20 - Oh good, boob juice. I was getting tired and this is just what I need to relax after a long day of cruising, picking things up, crawling, riding in a car -- mmmmm...
8:30 - Oh, Mom is leaving. I'm not tired NOW. I'll just lay here.
8:35 - Hey wait a second. Okay, I have this elephant and this bear. TAGS! (Guppy loves tags on things - blankets, stuffed animals, you name it...)
8:37 - Wait. Ho-lee shit. I am onto something here. That thing they put me on to change my diaper. I love it up there. ... Maybe elephant and bear will go up there too!
8:38 - Okay. So if I put this up there, it.. stays? That can't be right. Hold on. Let me try this again. I put this up there and it stays. My God. I'm a freaking genius. Who else knows about this? I can share this with the world. I'm going to do this just 20 more times to be sure I'm right.
8:42 Guppy crawls across the mattress to the side of the crib near the door, losing his pacifier on the way - Mom? Dad? [we hear the whining beginning from our room]. Hey guys? I don't mean to alarm you, but I just found out something that is fucking fantastic. Guys? Hellooooo?
8:45 - MOMMY!!! DADDY!!! ANIMALS!!! CHANGING TABLE!!! HEY! HEY! COME ON!!!
8:46 - Oh good! Daddy's here! I'm going to stand here for the pacifier ritual where he gives it back to me so I can put it in my mouth. Okay, now... where did I put those animals? Here we go. Dad! Look. At. This. (Guppy places elephant onto changing table). Take it in. Wait, let me show you again. (Guppy places elephant onto changing table again). Do you see this!? This is A-MAY-ZING. I don't know that you understand. This shit is crazy.
8:47 - Dad is laying me down on my side. He obviously didn't see what I just showed him. I'll just crawl-- wait, no, don't hold me down you silly man. Look at these animals. Ha! I got free! I'll just stand here-- He's putting me down again? Can't he see what these animals are doing when I put them on this table?
8:50 - (Dad says good night in his best "authoritative" voice) Wait. Did YOU just tell ME goodnight? YOU CAN'T DO THIS TO ME!!! THESE ARE FREAKING ANIMALS I'M PUTTING ON THE CHANGING TABLE OLD MAN!!! YOU CAN'T CONTROL ME!!! I'M JUST GOING TO DO IT *yawn* AGAIN! I WILL Put these animals onto *yawn* the tab--
I hope he dreamt of it all night. And I really hope I'm not just stunting his creativity. I mean... Animals on a changing table? Who woulda thunk it?
I can't find the link for the article now, but it was a good read and made a lot of sense.
It stayed in the back of my mind and any time that Guppy makes an excited sound and looks expectantly at me as he holds up a box with a lid that he's just put on top of another box, I act excited back so that he knows that I'm supportive of his odd happiness. It also makes him think it's a good thing and he goes right back to doing it some more, allowing me to continue what I was doing before.
Last night it came to my mind that I was a total douche-hat to Guppy. We put him down for bed at about 8:30. At 8:45 he started screaming as if he was in pain or afraid. I went into his room, found his pacifier and gave it to him (9 times out of 10, that's what he's upset about). He responded by shoving the pacifer into his mouth and scurrying accross the crib mattress to the adjoined changing table, picking up two of his soothies on the way (a soothy if you don't know is a stuff animal head that's attached to a blanket - in this case, a bear and an elephant). He then stood up and put his elephant on the changing table, then took it off, put it on, took it off, etc.
I watched for about a minute and then began the struggle to get him to sleep. In my mind we had three options. I could pick him up and cuddle him until he fell asleep (this would probably take 30+ minutes as he see it as an opportunity to play). I could leave him to do his thing (he would probably start crying within 5 minutes and we would start all over again). Or I could try to lay him down and stop him from crawling/standing. I chose the third option.
I picked him up gently and laid him on his side. He scuttled over to the changing table and tried to stand up. I repeated laying him on his side. He started to crawl back to the changing table, so I put my hand on his legs and he could no longer move them, but he continue to struggle to get to the changing table. We continued this dance for about 5 minutes until I gave up. I said, "Good night Guppy." and left his room, closing the door behind me.
He cried out and continued screaming for about a minute as I went into my bedroom and told my wife I was going to give him a couple minutes to see if he'd calm down or I'd go in and try to rock him. Thankfully, he put himself to sleep. After lying in bed about 15 minutes or so, I rolled over and told my wife that I was a douchebag. She asked why and I related the story from his point of view:
Guppy at 8:20 - Oh good, boob juice. I was getting tired and this is just what I need to relax after a long day of cruising, picking things up, crawling, riding in a car -- mmmmm...
8:30 - Oh, Mom is leaving. I'm not tired NOW. I'll just lay here.
8:35 - Hey wait a second. Okay, I have this elephant and this bear. TAGS! (Guppy loves tags on things - blankets, stuffed animals, you name it...)
8:37 - Wait. Ho-lee shit. I am onto something here. That thing they put me on to change my diaper. I love it up there. ... Maybe elephant and bear will go up there too!
8:38 - Okay. So if I put this up there, it.. stays? That can't be right. Hold on. Let me try this again. I put this up there and it stays. My God. I'm a freaking genius. Who else knows about this? I can share this with the world. I'm going to do this just 20 more times to be sure I'm right.
8:42 Guppy crawls across the mattress to the side of the crib near the door, losing his pacifier on the way - Mom? Dad? [we hear the whining beginning from our room]. Hey guys? I don't mean to alarm you, but I just found out something that is fucking fantastic. Guys? Hellooooo?
8:45 - MOMMY!!! DADDY!!! ANIMALS!!! CHANGING TABLE!!! HEY! HEY! COME ON!!!
8:46 - Oh good! Daddy's here! I'm going to stand here for the pacifier ritual where he gives it back to me so I can put it in my mouth. Okay, now... where did I put those animals? Here we go. Dad! Look. At. This. (Guppy places elephant onto changing table). Take it in. Wait, let me show you again. (Guppy places elephant onto changing table again). Do you see this!? This is A-MAY-ZING. I don't know that you understand. This shit is crazy.
8:47 - Dad is laying me down on my side. He obviously didn't see what I just showed him. I'll just crawl-- wait, no, don't hold me down you silly man. Look at these animals. Ha! I got free! I'll just stand here-- He's putting me down again? Can't he see what these animals are doing when I put them on this table?
8:50 - (Dad says good night in his best "authoritative" voice) Wait. Did YOU just tell ME goodnight? YOU CAN'T DO THIS TO ME!!! THESE ARE FREAKING ANIMALS I'M PUTTING ON THE CHANGING TABLE OLD MAN!!! YOU CAN'T CONTROL ME!!! I'M JUST GOING TO DO IT *yawn* AGAIN! I WILL Put these animals onto *yawn* the tab--
I hope he dreamt of it all night. And I really hope I'm not just stunting his creativity. I mean... Animals on a changing table? Who woulda thunk it?
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