Dinner Options

What do you want for dinner, mashed potatoes or tuna fish?
Uh, mashed potatoes.
Really?
Yes, I want mashed potatoes.
Are you sure?
Hmmm...I don't know. What's mashed potatoes?!

Lonesome bedtime last night because the mama is away on a business trip. The first half of the conversation is no uncommon:

I don't wanna go to sleep now, Tete!
You have to go to sleep, it's past your bed time.
But Mama's gonna say "Why I'm not over there?"
You don't have to be on the shoe rack, Baby! You have to be in bed.
No Mama's gonna say "Why I'm not over there?"
Oh! ( I realized she was referring to the front door, not the shoe rack. She uses entirely too many pronouns.) Mama's not coming home today, Baby.
But Mama say she just gonna go for a little bit. (getting upset)
She'll be back very soon, Baby, just not today. She's already sleeping today, I already said labanaktis to her.
Uh...(concerned) they have a bed in Finland?

Those anglo vs. franco nuances in English can be confusing

"I'm hungry."
"What do you want?"
"Pig."
"You mean pork?"
"No, I want pig, it's tasty!"

An hour later...

"Where you going?"
"To the kitchen to make some dinner."
"What're you gonna make, a pig?"
*I'm laughing out loud*
"Come on, Tete, I want you make a pig!"

Holy Goldenrod

Can she read?! My kid likes very much to watch me play Snood (she doesn't like the skulls). Today I got a new high score on the most difficult setting, Evil. I didn't point, I just said "I got the number one high score!" So first she points to the number one high score and says it's my score, no big deal, she knows her numbers, plus it was highlighted. But then she points to high score number six, which she got over a year ago and couldn't possibly remember, and says that it's hers. How'd she do that?

Eleventeen

Eleventeen is not a number, but how do you get that through a kid?

Kid: ...twelve, thirteen, fourteen, eleventeen....
I: No, there is eleventeen. After fourteen is fifteen.
Kid: Fifteen, eleventeen...
I: No, I said there is no eleventeen! After fifteen is sixteen: fifteen, sixteen, seventeen.
Kid: Eleventeen...
I: NO! There is NO eleventeen!
Kid: Fifteen, eleventeen...
I: NO! After fifteen is sixteen, there is NO eleventeen!
Kid: fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eleventeen...

I know she's not doing it on purpose, but it seems pretty weird to me. Did I do that when I was a kid?

I was so almost right

My special lady called me a "kuilys" just now, and when I denied it she accused me of not even having any idea what it even is. I guessed it's a castrated bull's penis, and she laughed at how wrong I was: it's a non-castrated male pig. Now come on, farm animal, something having to do with castration, was I just about as close as you can get without being right on the nose or what?!

Bilingual Bloopers

My special kid often helps me make dinner, or at least keeps me company in the kitchen. Tonight we were in there and I was chopping vegetables. She said, "Tėtė your knife is very spicy." I said "What! What are you talking about?!" And then I realized why she used that word: in Lithuanian, spicy and sharp are homonyms (aštrus).

Election 2008

After we came home from work/kindergarten:

My Special Child: We gonna watch Futurama?
I: No.
Child: Why?
I: I'm in a terrible mood.
Child: Why?
I: Because the Republican Party lost the presidency and much of Congress.
Child: Why?
I: I don't know. I think McCain's a wussy and 52% of American are stupid.
Child: Why?
I: Probably because they don't read enough intelligent newspapers.
Child: ...but they have to read!

We've got a child in the rearing who will never vote stupid.

Moans and Groans

My special girl has begun moaning and groaning. Whenever she's told to hurry up or do something she doesn't want to do she groans dramatically, and whenever she doesn't get something she wants or gets something she doesn't, she makes long wailing moans. Since when do kids make so many mouth noises???

GET LOST!

There's this one girl in my special baby's kindergarten group that is a bad seed, a rotten apple if you will. If my girl brings a toy to kindergarten, the bad one breaks it. If my girl come home minus a barrette or something, the bad one borrowed it. If she comes home and says a bad word, guess who she picked it up from. Telling my girl not to play with her only resulted in her not mentioning it anymore. So I tried something more active than avoidance. I told my girl to tell the bad one to "get lost." Actually it's "eik švilpt," which means go whistle, but it's the same thing, a polite version of piss off. I told her this on Friday, and totally forgot about it.

On Tuesday we went to kindergarten after the long weekend, and as my girl sat down to change the bad one sat down next to her. Immediately my girl lashed out at her in an impressively angry tone, "eik švilpt!" Their teacher was right there and, though shocked by the terminology, was impressed that my girl would tell her friend "not to bother her while she's busy changing." That's how she put it to me, thinking I might not have understood the slang.

I'll have to ask the teacher when I pick up my girl if she repeat it hundreds of times through the day, ala when she got a watch. She said to whoever was around, approximately once a minute for the whole day, while shoving the watch in his face, "let's see what time it is!"

Water Colors

That's a nice picture, what is it?
Something is something is falling down.
A thing or a person?
A people.
A "person."
A person.
Then you have to say "somebody."
So somebody is falling down.
Why did you draw somebody falling down?
Because somebody was going and not being careful like this (swiveling head) and fall down!

Out of nowhere, just sitting around the living room

Special Baby: Do you wanna go peepee?
I: No.
Special Baby: Or poopy?
I: No.
Special Baby: So what you wanna go?!

Good Call

When we got in the car this morning, it was quite stinky; some gross food must have been left in there by accident. I said, "Yuck, what's that smell?"

My special baby said, "Ugh! It's farts. This is animal farts!"

Big Compliment

Regarding the second half of my special baby's peanut butter sandwich:

"I don't want anymore, but it's very tasty!"

Animal Names

Going through the barn yard book...

I: What's that?
Special Baby: Cow!

I: What's that?
Special Baby: Horse!

I: What's that?
Special Baby: Chicken!

I: What's that?
Special Baby: Ahhh...Goat?

I: What's that?
Special Baby: Duck!

I: What's that?
Special Baby: Goof!

Seinfeld dirty?

You'd think your child wouldn't hear any new words on Seinfeld, they use pronouns for things as harmless things as dog poop. However, there was a moment when George explained why he never carries a pen: he's afraid to puncture his scrotum.

I laugh.

Special baby laughs, "Hahahahahahahaha! What's scrotum?!"

Play Phone

"I'm going to the kitchen. When I get back your hair better be done."

...

"Why didn't you do your hair?"

"I can't find my brush."

"Where'd you leave it?"

"I don't know. I called Mama to ask her."

"So, where did she say it is?"

"Maybe...I don't know!"

Article of the Day

Gay War Hero Awarded Posthumous Dishonorable Discharge At White House Ceremony, by the Onion

Fight Club for Children

From time to time my special baby mentions that somebody hit her in kindergarten. I'm not sure if it's true, because she doesn't get any bruises or anything that aren't probably normal horse-play bruises. I've considered nonetheless teaching her to throw a punch (ironically, since I've never won a fight in my life, but I have won friendly boxing matches). I'm not sure how good an idea it is though. What do you think?

Shrooming

Went mushroom picking in the forests of Varena yesterday. Mushroom picking is my special lady's favorite out-doorsy activity, and one I enjoy too, though she's great at it and I suck. I found three chanterelles, two of which were very small. She found about forty of those, plus a couple dozen russula, and one giant boletus, which is the #1 prize of mushroom picking. Maybe I shouldn't feel that badly, since my special baby was helping her on her first mushroom outing, and I was by myself. Egle and Mindaugas each pulled in impressive hauls too, though.

The young one got the hang of it pretty quickly. Once you have an eye for it, you don't have to check every mushroom to see if it's good: you can tell from a distance if it is has been host to worms and just walk on. After this dawned on her, whenever mother would walk by without checking a mushroom, child would turn to the mushroom and make a derisive sound made by vibrating her extended tongue and lips!

Lazy Kid's Coloring Book

Coloring.com is a website where you can "color" picutres, but not by precise hand movements with a crayon or even a mouse, but rather by using a function akin to the paint bucket in MacPaint: click to fill a space with a color you choose.

I found this site to be really good for my special baby to spend time on with me at work. She's on summer vacation: you might think she'd spend that with her mother who's also on summer vacation, but alas, her mother has relaxing and shopping to do, so she spends much of her days on my colleague's computer. Luckily my colleagues on vacation too.

The reason it's so good is its simplicity. She's never used a computer independently before, and we had some anxiety yesterday trying to get the handle of games as simple as Grab It, which uses only the left and right arrow keys. It was too frustrating for her to learn at three years old and me to explain over and over again at 27: frustrating because she understood the concept of the game completely, just couldn't master the use of the arrow keys. The only problem she has now is getting even lazier and painting everything the same color. I like it enough that I signed her up for an account so that she can save her pictures.

Boobies

Special Baby: Močiutė doesn't let me drive her car, because I'm a little girl.
Special Lady: Oh yeah?
Special Baby: Yes, I'm still a little girl, but when I'm big with boobies then I'll be able to drive.
Special Lady: What!?
Special Baby: I'm going to be a big girl with boobies, then I'll be a mother.
Special Lady: You don't say?
Special Baby: Yes, I'll be big with boobies and wear lipstick and mascara.
Special Lady: (!!!)

And it begins...

Yesterday my special baby got in big trouble for calling calling her mother a bad name, twice. Her explaination? "But my friends at kindergarten say that!" I suppose I scheduled to hear that about a bujillion more times over the next twenty years....

WHAT!

That's what I wrote back to my special lady after I received this from her on skype:

"man nepatinka ... lygybes zenklai"
("i don't like equals signs")

anybody ever heard that one before??

Gravity

It's good that babies don't understand the gravity of certain things.

"Tete, I wanna to on a airplane to America!"

"Alright, we're going to go on Tuesday, but only if you clean your room."

"Okay, I'll clean my room!"

Father's Day 2008

Well, I thought this post was relevant enough to food and good times I posted it on my main blog. Read it there, or die!

How to explain?

My special baby, pointing to litter on the way to kindergarten this morning: "What's that?"
I: "Trash."
"Why's it there?"
Not wanting to just say because people are stupid, I said, "Because some people in Klaipeda don't respect themselves or the city they live in."
"Why??"
"...because they're stupid."

Come on! How am I gonna explain to a three year old why people don't respect themselves or their city? They're disenchanted with life? They spent so much time living in the Soviet Union? They're too lazy? I don't see any end to the string of whys that would follow any answer I can think of.

ABCs

At age three years and three months, my special baby knows her ABCs in English. I'm very impressed because as of a month ago she still couldn't get past G, and didn't seem to be making any improvement. That was with my help. This is the result of a half hour Sesame Street called "Do Be Alphabet" according to her, a video I bought that she watches about eight times a month (every day we're in Vilnius, cause it's VHS).

Cake

A couple times a week I will take my special baby to the corner grocery store on the way home for a lolly pop or a popsicle, if she has been cooperative leaving kindergarten. She always asks, just as today:

I wanna go to grocery store.
We're not going to the grocery store today for two reasons. Want to know them?
Yeah.
First of all, see how loaded my bag is? I want to get home as fast as we can.
Okay.
The second reason is we still have lots of cake and ice cream, and you can have some after dinner. Another piece of good news is we're going to have a delicious dinner. Can you guess what it is?
What?
Dinner.
Dinner?
Yeah, guess what's for dinner.
Guess.
No, you have to say something you think might be for dinner.
Yes.
...
What's something you think we might be having for dinner?
Mmm...uhhh...mmmm....eehhhh...cake?
No, I said cake will be for dessert!
I want cake for dinner.
You can't have cake for dinner, capiche?
Capiche.
So try and guess what we might have for dinner.
I don't know what's for dinner.
I know, but just say anything you can think of that we have for dinner.
Okay...cake?

Two bits of luncheon conversation in town

So what do you want to be when you grow up?
What you mean?
Well when you grow up, do you wanna be a teacher like Mama?
Yeah.
Or a professor, like Tete?
Yeah.
Or a psychologist, like Teta Liepa?
Yeah.
Or a writer, like Tetukas?
Yeah.
Or a 3rd level secretary at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, like Gedas?
WHAT?!
...
We were sitting outside because it was so nice out, so there were ashtrays on the table:
What's this?
An ashtray.
What you have to do with ashtray?
You knock ashes into it off of cigarettes.
Yeah?
Yeah, but smoking is a very bad habit, that's why Mama and Tete don't smoke.
And I?
What?
I too don't smoke?
No, you don't smoke!
No?
No.

Bad Words

You know what's hard with a kid? Dancing and singing at the same time. It's hard enough without having to censor the lyrics. You don't even realize it when you just dance by yourself, but red hot chili peppers and sublime are both full of fuckings and shits and whores and other inappropriate words. You got to get used to replacing them fast enough with freakins and craps and moms...

Dinner Misunderstanding

On the way home from kindergarten we stopped at the store for ice cream because my special baby asked nicely, and was behaving well up until that point. Fish sticks were for dinner, because my special lady was out getting some exercise, and when it's just the two of us I'm not motivated to make anything special, except for buffalo wings from time to time, but only on a weekend. This being a Tuesday, it was fish sticks. Because I'm on a weight loss kick, I baked them instead of frying them, which took a while. Because I was already quite hungry, we had a plate of cheese and olives as an appetizer. When that was finished we had a conversation:

Baby: I want ice cream and Family Guy!
Tete: I told we'll have the ice-cream after dinner, and then we'll watch the Simpsons, okay? (I'm all Family Guyed out lately)
Baby: This [the empty cheese plate] is dinner, so now I want ice cream please and the Simpsons watch!
Tete: No no, Baby, this wasn't dinner, this was just an appetizer, this was sort of a snack before dinner.
Baby: moaaaaaaaaaaan............

Busted Bed

How many times should you be able to sleep in a bread before it breaks? When I first mentioned it was breaking, my father recommended less vigorous sex.

I estimate that in the ten months since we built our bed in Vilnius we've slept in it up to 75 times. Last night we finally broke it. It was a wooden mattress on nine steal legs that we just screwed onto it. Is 75 nights a good lifespan for a bed? To be fair, sometimes we slept at other times of day too.

More Precocious Than I Was?

I assume many three year old girls pretend their baby-dolls are their own babies, by imitating their mothers. Lately mine has been witness to my friend Juste nursing her four month old. This morning we saw her pretending to...feed...her doll...in a similar fashion.

Normal?!

My daughter picked up this number three sideways and said...

Looks like Family Guy!

A Three Year Old Has Good Taste

Tete: What do you want for breakfast, yoghurt?
Child: No...
Tete: A sandwich?
Child: No...
Tete: So, what do you want for breakfast, then?
Child: Pizza!
Mama: She's your daughter!

Unfortunately, we didn't have any left over pizza...

What's up with the hell of cleaning?

When I was single, I would clean only before having company, and when I did, it was a quick intense effort that I didn't have time to moan about because it would get cut off when the guests arrived.

How come now, with my special lady around, cleaning up the place has to happen at least twice a week, it's a long arduous process, and she's in a terrible mood throughout, even if I help? If it's such hell, can't we skip it, at least half the time? No! It's apparently unskippable.

Concept of Constipations

This morning after sitting frustrated on the toilet my special baby said "Mano kakutis neklauso!" (My poopy's not cooperating!)

Spam Family Blog

Hilariously, after one post this blog was suspended due to spam suspicion:

Dear Blogger user,

This is a message from the Blogger team.

Your blog, at http://slasbam.blogspot.com/, has been identified as a potential spam blog. For an explanation of what spam blogs are, please see Blogger Help: http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?answer=42577

You will not be able to publish posts to your blog until we review your site and confirm that it is not a spam blog. To request a review, please fill out the form found here: http://www.blogger.com/unlock-blog.g?lockedBlogID=601171361736407683

Flowers

Is bimonthly too seldom to buy your wife flowers for no reason?