So, I’ve been traveling again, work’s been crazy, and the boys are cutting their two year molars. The most accurate term to describe the last few weeks is blast radius. Unfortunately, I’m starting to get the sense that it’s going to be like this until 2025 or I get a lobotomy. I always found my friends with children funny when they tried to use kids as their explanation/excuse for everything they didn’t get to. I mean, it’s not like no one else has ever had children. People have had children for thousands of years, they just didn’t have lives at the same time. Now I know.
[The following is a subliminal message to my friend Shy who claims to read the blog: send me a recent photo, I have a new coworker out here that could be a good match for you. She’s from Atlanta, so my plot to bring you home continues. Hair boy.]
That was my way of explaining why we haven’t had any new posts. Tiffany’s way of explaining is that it “takes too long.” Which is her way of saying that she hasn’t yet managed to sandwich it in between managing the boys and… well she really doesn’t need any more than that, but there is a long list. They are sleeping through the night again, mostly, and have gotten into a routine of falling asleep fairly reliably, except for last night. More about that in a minute. Three quick (I think) stories:
ONE – Who’s your digga?Current fascinations include airplanes (still), cranes (new), and “diggers” (FAVORITE). Driving around Singapore we’ve now gone from yelling “BUS!!” and “DECKA BUS!!!” that’s a double decker bus to you and me, to digger hunting. Now, I’m under the impression that the “digger” is actually called a backhoe (The one time I said this Tiffany slapped me, so I’m not sure what she thought I meant. I think she knows less about excavation than I do.), but the boys call it a digger and I’ve learned not to push their vocabulary since the “parliamentary procedure” incident.
Now Singapore is a city under construction EVERYWHERE, so it’s a digger rich environment. We drive from place to place with the boys digger hunting. It sounds something like this.
Liam, “Where’s a digger, where’s a digger.” It’s Liam. Nothing can be said once.
Graeme, spotting his quarry, exclaims “DIGGA” and waves a fist pointing.
Shouts of “digger/digga” continue until we lose sight.
Liam, “Mo, more digger? Mo more digger?” Wait a decent interval and switch to the other question.
TWO – Or lose it!Context is a powerful thing. When your children go from just saying words to saying them at the right time based on external events, it’s a bit shocking. When they use your wife’s diction and inflection, it’s hilarious. This is another driving story.
Graeme hates for the car to be stopped. He’s two. He points through the front windshield and whines, “gooooooooowwwww…” as though he were the last man out of Abu Ghraib. Under most circumstances we can accommodate him, but red lights are a pesky thing. Tiffany has taught him that we have to stop when we see the red lights and although he doesn’t like it he has accepted it. Through the weeks, he’s taken to yelling “Geen” at them and more recently “Geen go.” To which I usually reply, “Senor, I am not a gringo.”
The funniest though was a couple of weeks ago when we were pulling away as a light turned green. A car on a side street pulled out in front of me to which prompted me to ask, “What are you doing?” I don’t know if it was the frustration in my voice or the fact that we slowed down, but Graeme chimed right in behind me, “Come on, buddy. You move it!” We about died.
THREE – Let me count the ways
So we found these Duplo Diggers at Toys R Us and we had to buy them. They were expensive, but since certain grandmothers have purchased every other toy ever made I figured why deprive them of this one. I put them together Wednesday night, but Tiffany waited until I got home Thursday to give them to the boys. They loved them. We video taped.
An hour later when dinner time came you would have thought we were amputating their hands and feet from all the screaming and crying. It took forever to get Liam upstairs to wash his hands. He had a complete melt down that didn’t stop until he realized that someone had put a bowl full of spaghetti in front of him (there are odd parallels between our former dog Zoe and my sons). The rest of dinner, bath time and bed preparation went without incident and I thought we had escaped any further digger fall out.
Once the boys were in bed, I realized this was going to be an unusual night. Graeme was not settling down and falling asleep quickly like he usually does. Liam wasn’t getting out of bed as usual, but he did start his verbal inventory. I kept one ear on him for humor and I repeatedly settled Graeme back down. Liam didn’t disappoint.
Tiffany has been teaching them to say “I love you.” I love you mommy. I love you daddy. I love you Graeme (said by Liam). I love you Liam (said by Graeme). I love, " I love you Elmo".
That was not the one I heard at bed time though, well, not the last one. I put Graeme back on the bed, and looked up in time to see Liam with Elmo across his head and hear, “I love Elmo.” And then, “love the digger.” He fell asleep seconds later in record time. Graeme was up for another half hour.
