April 17 - May 5
In This New AND Exciting Blog:
Baby-Naming Contest Begins
Christian’s Linguistic Forays
Henry Potter and the Torturer’s Chamber
So as many of you know (I am speaking to our loyal readers here), we are expecting a new addition (that kind of makes me sound like a house: I’m not quite that big yet, just for the record) to our little family. We would like to announce that we are looking forward to adding a healthy little BOY to our already man-heavy household on or around September 12th. We are both very excited and happy about this great news, albeit for different reasons. Rich is happy because as a Republican, he spends most of his time making sure the world is a better place for men, and Amy is happy because after living with six brothers, a husband, and soon-to-be three boys, she is all about the male psyche. Not that men are that hard to figure out, but figuring them out and then learning how to manipulate them to get whatever you want is truly something to be proud of.
In lieu of this exciting news, we are starting an official baby-naming contest. Rich and I have a few ideas, but we haven’t really settled on anything yet. We are therefore enlisting the help of our friends and family in the search for the perfect name. The rules are as follows:
1. It has to go with Bangerter. This is HARD!
2. It cannot be easily made fun of. We had originally liked the name Taggart, call him Tag, but I’m sure at least all you males out there can see why this is no longer a feasible option.
3. It has to be fairly unique. Not something so unique that it sounds like one of Gwyneth Paltrow’s ill-named children, but not something really, really common either.
4. You can enter as many names as you want, as long as each entry is different from the others.
5. You CANNOT enter your own name. We know what your names are, and if we liked one of them that much, we would have already chosen it.
6. There WILL be an unspecified award for the winner inasmuch as this is a bona fide contest. However, if none of you can cough up the winning name, then you all owe us a new camcorder. Just kidding.
Good luck to all the participants out there. Contest ends the day the baby is born.
I wanted to get one more blog off before the children and I fly home to visit family in the States in case I kill one or both of them on one of the three horrifically long flights there. While I can’t imagine it will be any more enjoyable for the children to be trapped on an airplane for 18 hours with a woman who is 5 ½ months pregnant than it will be for a 5 ½ month pregnant woman to be trapped with two small children, I may be more cognizant of my own misery and therefore a bit more dangerous. Therefore, this blog will consist mostly of amusing, cute anecdotes about the children which I will then print out and take with me: my reading this blog during Henry’s rage against the car seat and Christian’s fascination with the airplane lavatory may just save a life.
Christian has reached that age where his language acquisition is both a source of amazement and amusement. He makes up new words all the time for everyday objects. The other day, in all seriousness he came up to me, held out a jar of lip balm, and told me in an excited voice that he had just found his “commensation” which I guess is a cross between his common sense and his condensation. I just call it Blistex. He has also created a whole new language which he decides to employ at strategic times like bedtime or mealtime. He’s already caught on to speaking in tongues as a stalling tactic, and he doesn’t even know about the Tower of Babel yet. (As a side note, one of his other tactics for stalling at bedtime is to hold up four fingers and say “only two-once more (we think this means only two more minutes) and then I’ll go to bed.” Since he has no concept of time, this strategy isn’t really working for him, but fortunately for us the books say he won’t discover that for at least another year.) Unfortunately for us, Christian’s new language only consists of one word, repeated over and over using various accents or voice fluctuations. The word is wegu (pronounced weigh-goo), and while it appears innocent enough, if you say it more than three times in a row, you begin to understand the annoying nature of this word/language that is wegu.
Speaking of dinner time, Christian hates to eat almost as much as he hates going to bed, and we have had to resort to way sneaky tactics to get him to eat anything. Even chicken nuggets and French fries, when we allow him to eat them, are a struggle. The one thing he doesn’t seem to have trouble downing is soda pop. That seems to slide on down the old esophagus just fine. So we used to tell him that if he ate his food, he would become strong like Batman, but he’s already on to that one. So then we had to pretend like his mouth was the bat-cave and feed him unsuspecting food which was lured into the cave only to suffer a horrible and ignominious death. Oh yes, it sheds a whole new light on the concept of “dinner theater.” That worked for awhile, but ever since we read a story about a monster who liked to eat kids – on toast – our problems seem but a distant memory. As long as we serve him whatever we are eating on top of toast and pretend like the substance is kids, he will eat it. The strategy really only breaks down when all we are having is toast. . .
Christian is also learning about how mommy and daddy communicate with each other. At dinner every evening (ah, that glorious, peaceful, angelic event), Rich and I like to TRY to talk to each other about our work that day. Like all children (I am assuming, and don’t tell me if I’m wrong because sometimes the only thing that stands between Christian and imminent death is the reasoning that all the other kids in the world are acting off in the same way, and since their parents have managed to control themselves, we should be able to as well), Christian continually interrupts us by asking very loudly, “What are you guys talking about?” So we tell him to raise his hand and wait for his turn, so he raises his hand, and in an even louder voice, announces to us that his hand is raised and he is ready to make a comment. So one day when Christian and I were alone eating lunch in the kitchen, Christian turns to me and says, “Let’s talk about work: I’ll be daddy.” So we had a nice discussion about the work that he had done that day which of course didn’t last long since he doesn’t really do any work except throw his dirty clothes in the dirty clothes hamper, open and close the garage door, and ensure that Henry doesn’t even breathe on any of his toys. Come to think of it, that last one is a pretty big job.
And finally, Christian has become acquainted with the concept of “umm” as a linguistic filler: at least he hasn’t discovered the word “like” yet. However, instead of employing “umm” when he doesn’t know what to say next, he uses the word “is.” So you hear great sentences like, “I want this because . . . is . . . I like it,” or “I want some . . . is . . . soda pop.” Hours of entertainment, I tell you what. And people wonder why we don’t watch more television.
Henry is making linguistic breakthroughs of his own. He can now say da-da, and he uses it to refer to either dad or mom. He can also sing the e-i-e-i-o part of the Old MacDonald song, but his favorite song by far is the Hokey Pokey song. We have this precious song on CD, and every time we walk past the living room where the radio is located, Henry starts to sing the “Oh, do the hokey pokey part of the song,” except he can only say the “Oh” part, and he finishes up with a rousing “ba ba ba” for the “that’s what it’s all about, bout, bout” part. He also knows how to do some of the steps of this dance, and he is getting really good at doing the chicken dance as well. Henry is most happy when he can be doing something with his body: thus, you see my impending doom on the airplane soon. He really likes dancing, throwing, running, waddling, chasing Christian, tormenting Christian, biting Christian, pulling Christian’s hair, and mocking Christian. We count to three with Christian so much as part of his pre-time-out routine, that Henry now speaks a version of it (un, du, da!), and says it when we are disciplining Christian which drives Christian right into the time-out chair more often than not. I’d like to find all those people who told me having two kids close in age was a brilliant idea and slap their silly little faces. Hopefully, the kids will become friends eventually, but until Henry stops taking a perverse pleasure in Christian’s pain (and boy has he got the mischievous smile to go with it), I don’t think there’s much even the U.N. can do for their relations.
Well, that’s about it for us. Rich is going to continue to work hard until he can join us in the States in June, and since I have finished teaching this semester, I am a free woman. I actually had a student email me and ask me if they could drop the class after they didn’t show up for the final. Since the class was by then officially over and my grades were turned in, I asked them what exactly it was they were trying to drop. Genius, I tell you. We love everyone, and really appreciate you all keeping us informed about your lives as well. Please keep it up.
By the way, if you like what you read here, check out more of Amy's writing on www.31mag.com.
Movie Quote: “Momma says he’s bona fide.”
“I am the only daddy you got: I’m the damn pater familius.”
“But you ain’t bona fide.” "Oh, Brother, Where Art Thou?"