My kids and notes from Year 6.9
October 26, 2021
Jokes are hard
JB has been on a real joke telling kick but they have zero idea of what makes a joke funny or how to replicate joke patterns.
Why do quesadillas need so much water?
Because they hate water!
Why do sandwiches need to work so much?
So they can get killed!
Knock knock
Who’s there?
Apple.
Apple who?
Apple head!
That’s not really a joke, you’re just calling someone a name.
It is for a six year old.
Reading jokes from a book:
Why did Cinderella get kicked off the softball team?
JB: because she cheated!?
JB revels in being Smol’s favorite person
They rub it in actually. Reasons they are the favorite: Where mom and dad bat Smol’s hands away from computers, JB helps Smol touch the touchscreen. JB makes the most ridiculous faces. JB will shadowbox Smol and they will laugh so hard at this they fall on their face. And keep laughing.
A hero’s heartbreak. Smol was going through a bout of sickness AND teething. Normally JB swoops in whenever Smol is sobbing their baby heart out and two seconds of Big Sibling cuddles, rocking and soothing, produces a gummy smile and chortles. They usually sing a variation on “everyone is here, everyone loves you, Big Sib is here and I love you, momma is here and she loves you, daddy is here and he loves you, you’re safe and loved…”
This time, Smol paused for breath… Looked at me…and their face absolutely collapsed. JB was both horrified and betrayed. “I’m the Magic Person!! I make everything better! WHAT HAPPENED?!?” said their appalled face.
They brushed their hands off and gave me the baby back, singing, “Mama can handle youuuuu”.
Later we talked about how that was a sign of just how uncomfortable Smol just have been and a good lesson / reminder that we can’t make anyone feel anything different from what they’re feeling. We can’t take away their pain or their experience and we shouldn’t try. We should be there for them. We should support them and show our love, to help them get through, but they’ll ultimately have to get through on their own.
Life with Smol Acrobat
Smol has added all kinds of sounds to their repertoire: additional squeaks, consonants, vowels, combined sounds, high tones, low tones, in between tones. They used to just have Loud Shriek and Louder Excited Shriek.
They have 2 teeth, working on that third one. They enthusiastically gum solids. All kinds. Food. Not food. Shoes. Markers. Paper. Toes.
They crawl like a manic robot, thump thump thumpity thump up and down the halls, sometimes the arms and legs pistons go slightly out of sync and they go rolling across the room. Our favorite game is attack dino! I’ll face them, put my head down in fake-aggression and they immediately take that as a signal to charge full steam ahead and crash into my shoulder or crawl on my head. Flip them over and toss them across the bed gently and start again. They have the best attack face!
Their tolerance for impact is next to nothing. Where their sibling was a Sherman tank going through, or over, any obstacle then crashing to the floor and continuing on with a cackle, they take the bumps much more to heart and wail to the skies.
Some of my favorite things: when reading a book where one of the characters is in a tree, I’d raise the book up high on that page so Smol and I would tilt our heads too. Now whenever we read that book and that page is coming up, Smol thumps their head back as if anticipating that page.
Once in a while, they’ll decide they want me to feed them. It might be instead of PiC or just having spotted their bottle, they’ll crawl over, climb on my lap and get in position. I wish they’d hold their own bottle like JB did from six months or so on, but this is pretty cute.
Pupdate
I can’t help but remember how Seamus used to observe JB at this same age with raised eyebrows. Sera is much less paternal. She just watches and sniffs heads. She definitely doesn’t stand still for them to crawl under her like JB used to do with Seamus. He was rock solid, so you’d see a JB go under one side and out the other and keep going. Smol aims to go under and Sera quickly moves out of the way. She has been spending more time around Smol, and has developed a great deal more patience with them.
She’s letting them pet her, supervised, and isn’t alarmed when they swing by her bed to say hello on the way to the kitchen. If she’s not in the mood for it, she just calmly leaves.
She’s shown great strides in her personal training as well. She went to the park with PiC and JB, where lots of dogs were gathered. They didn’t know it would be so busy, but had lots of treats to help her along, and she spent most of her time and attention sniffing the grass intently rather than being hyper alert to all the roving threats. I hope someday she actually relaxes around other dogs, for her sake, but she is doing worlds better than three years ago.
Precious Moments
Our kids are really weird and it’s entirely on us
JB: I have SO MANY hangnails, they’re having a hangnail party!
The fundraising life
JB freshly home from school: guys, I need money!
Us: That’s not how it works.
Reality hits home
JB watching over Smol, somberly: they are not very smart.
Me: Well. Yeah. They’re a baby. They know nothing.
Me about a bad project: “I thought the nightmare was about to be over”
JB pipes up: “but nightmares aren’t real, Mom”. YES OK I KNOW THIS IS WORSE.
JB: Love you, Dad!
Me: I’m mom.
JB: oh right. Love you.
JB language is still in effect.
JB: Dad, for my snack, I had liquid cereal!
Him: You had milk and cereal?
JB: Yeah that.
“Why do sandwiches need to work so much?
So they can get killed!”
Honestly, JB may be onto something here.
They’re operating at a level I cannot access. š
One of my kids could only do logical jokes and thus was never funny (ie: why did the ____ do _____. Answer: Obvious reason). Other one made up jokes like JB but had amazing comedic timing so they were all hilarious. Kid jokes are fun.
Hah yes we were getting the “logical” ones except the reasons were completely made up and therefore both illogical and not funny either š¤£ Which, I guess, is a different form of funny.
Ahhhhh crackup! Thanks for the laughs JB!
Spud loves saying rhyming words (real or not) and then pissing himself laughing. “What do you think of a chicken and a micken! HAHAHAHAHA”
he also said something the other day about doing something to make me happy when I am angry. Brainsplosion. I think I recovered enough to say that it’s not his job to make me feel happy.
OMG the “rhyming” and rhyming words are still SUCH a thing.
Whew, yeah we really beat that drum a LOT about how no one’s feelings are your job, only your own feelings are your job. It’s a lot of work but it is worth doing. <3