Baby Sister (and Music)
A couple quick ones before I catch up on the older posts I have half-composed from the fall.
Last weekend we visited my aunt and uncle and some of my cousins in Cardinal. It was a long overdue visit -- they'd never even met Daniel yet -- but this year has been absolutely crazy for us and my aunt is incredibly busy for a septuagenarian. Actually, incredibly busy for tricenarian, too, for that matter. Also, she can't visit because of Brazen. That's a story I don't even know, just that Reta cannot stand cats and she's passed that particular foible on to her children.
Coordination is a challenge, to say the least.
Well, we finally managed to make it happen and we even went to dinner across the border in a very nice sports bar called Busters, I think. I didn't realize it at the time, but now I know. Next time I'm there I'm not even ordering off the menu, the salad bar is awesome and that'd definitely satisfy.
Now the point of the story: Baby Sister.
No, this isn't anything like an announcement.
We were at my aunt and uncle's place and Christine was out of the room for a bit, leaving myself, James, Daniel, my aunt and uncle and one of my cousins in the living room. James was getting pretty hyper so he was running down the hall, turning around running through the room, into the kitchen, then back again. Since nobody else seemed fussed about it, I let him go. The only time I step in when he's running in our house is if I know he's got non-grippy socks on or if he's carrying something.
After he'd done a few laps he announced "Baby sister" on his way through the living room. All of us adults stopped talking and looked at each other. "Baby ... sitter?" my aunt asked. "I heard 'Baby sister'," my cousin said. I agreed. On the next pass he said it again and laughed. On the next pass I asked him, "What're you talking about, buddy? Whose baby sister?" Nothing. "Is that from one of your stories, buddy?" Nothing. Another pass, another "Baby sister" announcement and a laugh. "James, buddy? What're you thinking about?" Nothing. And then we were done, he didn't say it again.
Okay, whatever, kind of forgot about it.
Until we were on the highway home after dinner and he announced from the back-seat -- apropos nothing, as far as I could tell -- "Baby sister." Christine started and I realized then that I hadn't even told her about the weirdness in at the house.
Still got nothing on that. I'm pretty sure he doesn't know anything we don't know on that front.
Second story.
We read a lot of books here. James loves them. He will actually freak out if he doesn't get to read his books right in the store. My friend Paul said once that ideally he wouldn't freak out at all, but if he's going to, it's probably better to be doing it over books than food or toys or something. I completely agree.
I've been reading a book to Daniel on-and-off (more off than on now) that Paul also loaned me entitled: Words Fail Us. It's hilarious if you're of a particular (off-kilter) mindset. Why would I read my infant son a book about railing against the fading light of English as a language and caring enough to try to use it correctly? I don't know, there's probably something wrong with me.
Last weekend we visited my aunt and uncle and some of my cousins in Cardinal. It was a long overdue visit -- they'd never even met Daniel yet -- but this year has been absolutely crazy for us and my aunt is incredibly busy for a septuagenarian. Actually, incredibly busy for tricenarian, too, for that matter. Also, she can't visit because of Brazen. That's a story I don't even know, just that Reta cannot stand cats and she's passed that particular foible on to her children.
Coordination is a challenge, to say the least.
Well, we finally managed to make it happen and we even went to dinner across the border in a very nice sports bar called Busters, I think. I didn't realize it at the time, but now I know. Next time I'm there I'm not even ordering off the menu, the salad bar is awesome and that'd definitely satisfy.
Now the point of the story: Baby Sister.
No, this isn't anything like an announcement.
We were at my aunt and uncle's place and Christine was out of the room for a bit, leaving myself, James, Daniel, my aunt and uncle and one of my cousins in the living room. James was getting pretty hyper so he was running down the hall, turning around running through the room, into the kitchen, then back again. Since nobody else seemed fussed about it, I let him go. The only time I step in when he's running in our house is if I know he's got non-grippy socks on or if he's carrying something.
After he'd done a few laps he announced "Baby sister" on his way through the living room. All of us adults stopped talking and looked at each other. "Baby ... sitter?" my aunt asked. "I heard 'Baby sister'," my cousin said. I agreed. On the next pass he said it again and laughed. On the next pass I asked him, "What're you talking about, buddy? Whose baby sister?" Nothing. "Is that from one of your stories, buddy?" Nothing. Another pass, another "Baby sister" announcement and a laugh. "James, buddy? What're you thinking about?" Nothing. And then we were done, he didn't say it again.
Okay, whatever, kind of forgot about it.
Until we were on the highway home after dinner and he announced from the back-seat -- apropos nothing, as far as I could tell -- "Baby sister." Christine started and I realized then that I hadn't even told her about the weirdness in at the house.
Still got nothing on that. I'm pretty sure he doesn't know anything we don't know on that front.
Second story.
We read a lot of books here. James loves them. He will actually freak out if he doesn't get to read his books right in the store. My friend Paul said once that ideally he wouldn't freak out at all, but if he's going to, it's probably better to be doing it over books than food or toys or something. I completely agree.
I've been reading a book to Daniel on-and-off (more off than on now) that Paul also loaned me entitled: Words Fail Us. It's hilarious if you're of a particular (off-kilter) mindset. Why would I read my infant son a book about railing against the fading light of English as a language and caring enough to try to use it correctly? I don't know, there's probably something wrong with me.
That's Daniel, though. Back to James and his books. For a period of several weeks -- less so now, but still occasionally -- he would periodically stop me mid-sentence in a book, point to punctuation marks, usually double-quotes, commas or apostrophes, though sometimes to fancier-looking stops like a question mark, and say "Daddy! It's music! There's music, Daddy." He was referring to, of course, the way musical notes are depicted in the pictures in his books, and for a little while I was replying something like, "no, not really, those are quotation marks" but after a while I thought more about it, and now I nod and say, "yeah, it's a kind of music." Because it is. And I think it'd make Bob Blackburn smile just a little if he were still with us to think that a two-and-a-half year old was equating punctuation with musical notes.
Next time I think I'll talk about Charlie Brown.
Kids can say the darndest thing. "Baby Sister!" Maybe he was expressing his desire for one based on a book? Franklins baby sister?
ReplyDeleteI don't know. I wracked my brain for a while trying to think of stories or shows he might've picked it up from but nothing. Then he stopped saying it until yesterday, when we were having lunch. "Baby sister," followed by a laugh. He's thinking about something, but I've got no idea what.
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