Taidhgin is smart, but he is also one of the laziest and most apathetic kids that I have ever met. I know this is very much thanks to me, so I am doing my best to get him to hold his own, especially when it comes to being responsible for his own actions and for paying attention when people are talking to him. However, he is ever ingenious despite his lethargy; the following is the kind of dialogue that occurs when he has no interest in what I am saying but knows he is supposed to be listening anyway.
As we were driving home from Target late this afternoon, I asked Taidhgin what he thought about my plans for the rest of the evening:
"How about we go home, I will make dinner while you guys draw and play, then after dinner we can think about going to the park...what do you think?"
*SILENCE*
"Taidhgin, did you hear me? Are you listening?"
"Oh, sorry, Mom, but I didn't hear you. It wasn't me, though."
"What do you mean it wasn't you?"
"I was listening, but my ears weren't."
Absolute genius. He has taken responsibility, agreed that he was at fault, and has still managed to provide an airtight alibi for appears to be HIS crime. Damn, he's good.
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Anyone who knows Eibhlin knows that there is a little mom in there; not in the coddling, play-baby-dolls way, but in the FT Mom/FT CEO "I Can Manage/Research/Defend Your Case While I am at My Child's Dance Recital" kind of way. This side of her has been right on top this week, and so I have gotten to see a lot of my "Little Mommy".
One night last week, Eibhlin and I went out to run some errands together. She brought her purse (filled with a Princess flashlight, an old cell phone, and a pen- all the basic necessities!) and her baby (I believe it was either Mariposa or Miss Gloria). Our first stop was Steve & Barry's where I proceeded to buy some pants that fit and some clothes for the kids...and where Eibhlin spent nearly 45 minutes pacing, humming, and patting in the hopes of "putting the baby to sleep". I was flipping through the racks of clothes looking for my size (it would be so much easier if I was a size 12 and TALL!) and out of the corner of my eye I was watching "Mommy" take care of her child...
The baby was up on her left shoulder, she had her clutch purse draped over her left forearm, and she was patting the baby's bum with her right hand. She never stopped moving, she never stopped humming, but she was able to do all this AND look for the 4T's on the hangers at the same time. I joked with her all night about how her crying baby was driving me nuts and how I was one "MiMi" glad to be done with infancy...
So this afternoon, another baby (Miss Stephanie this time- have I mentioned that many of her dolls are named after the women in her life?) was crying endlessly. Poor Eibhlin was walking and patting and pacing to no avail. She finally turned to me and told me that she was done, that is was time to bring her baby into her room to try to put her to bed..."So she doesn't drive you nuts anymore, Mom, okay?"
That girl is the best.Does she look out for her mom or what?
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No overview of life with my children would be complete without some horror story, I mean, tale of love and fun involving my youngest child.
I have made no bones about his language "skills", but he is getting better and he is pretty game to learn how to pronounce words and say new things. But oooh is he a ball buster! As with many young children, especially those at the front side of their language development, he has learned far more animal "sounds" than he has names of animals. Slowly but surely, though, he is learning to refer to the animals by their names, not by their sounds. There is one animal, however, that I honestly believe he refuses to name not because he can't, but rather because he knows it has become a hot button with me and he just loves to push and push.
"Nay." A rather benign word/ sound. And oh-so-cute when your child first uses it to refer to those big, beautiful, amazing creatures known to the rest of us as "horses". For months now I have been trying to get Connlaodh to say "horse" instead of "nay". For a long time the problem was truly his inability to come up with the right sounds; he would get the mouth shape correct but nothing would come out even vaguely similar to "horse". Now, however, the sounds are accessible and so I have been working diligently to get him to use them. Here is a typical conversation between me and the little turkey:
(Imagine us looking at a book filled with animal pictures...after running through several, I point at the horse)
"Connlaodh, what is this one?"
"Nay."
"That's what it SAYS...but it is a horse. Can you say horse?"
"Oss."
"Good try. Can you look at me while I say it? Horse. Can you say it now?"
"Hoss."
"Very good...(pointing back at the picture) now this is a horse, Connlaodh. What is this animal?"
"A Nay."
The bastard.
:-)
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