Wednesday, July 17, 2013

Sarcasm - My Second Favorite -asm

"Momy, Momy, look, a smart car!!" "Hey, a convertible!!" "I see a little dog!!" "A double dump truck!!"

This is the soundtrack to my daily commute. Every day. Doesn't matter if we're already in the middle of another conversation, doesn't matter if I'm belting out a Journey tune, doesn't matter if I have not had a drop of coffee yet and just need a little peace and quiet, thankyouverymuch.

So I have resorted to the lowest form. The Sarcasm. I figure that Boy the Elder and Boy the Younger are going to need to figure out sarcasm sooner or later, with the family they landed in. No Sheldon Coopering allowed here. Might as well be sooner.

So when I'm presented with one of these excited announcements of the perfectly mundane, lately I've been tending to respond with a smartass-ish comment like: "Is it on fire?", "Is it flying?", "Is it doing something different than every other ______ that we've seen every day for the past few years and therefore actually worthy of some sort of mention today?" "No? Ok then. Let me know when it is."

A little jerkface? Maybe. But we are having massive interrupting problems right now, and I feel like I really need to kill this little monster before it becomes a big monster - and I see this as a very big opportunity to work on the interrupting.

As usual, my kids are surprising me with their brains. The first time I made a comment like this, I wasn't sure if they'd get it, wasn't sure if maybe I was pushing it a little, wasn't sure if it really was age-appropriate. No fear. They get it.

Last weekend, I took them to the beach and I saw someone riding a stand up paddleboard (which I'm really interested in trying) and I pointed it out to them. "Look, boys, check out that paddleboard!"

Boy the Elder replied, "Is it on fire?"

Sarcastic little jerkface.

Tuesday, July 2, 2013

I Don't Speak Whinese

I don't often recommend it, but having two children in 18 months does have certain benefits. One key benefit was spending about a year or two so ridiculously busy and sleep deprived that I was just completely oblivious to a lot of things.

Like Whinese. I do not remember this phenomenon in Boy the Elder. Possibly I was too distracted with the baby, possibly I was too comatose as a general rule to notice, possibly he just never did it as badly as Boy the Younger. That three year old can whine like a vinyard. Even if all he's doing is trying to tell me something,  even if it's something nice, lately he seems to be only able to speak Whinese. In the dialect of Pest Naggian. It is utterly exhausting. And I'm powerless to combat it. I try to ignore it. He gets louder. I tell him I can't speak Whinese and he should try again in his big boy voice. He looks at me like I'm some kind of idiot.


We just got back from a family vacation - a road trip - about 8 hours each way. The boys really surprised us and handled it well, but they were just...highly needy. We were together for five solid days, but somehow they seemed starved for attention. We were smart enough to stock up on movies for the in-vehicle entertainment system, but still, toward the end of it, at times I had to mentally struggle between keeping it rubber side down and between the lines and driving off a cliff.

And then the time zone change. We are all messed up. I couldn't go to bed, and the boys couldn't wake up. Well, except for Boy the Younger's 4 am wakeup, when he cried and whimpered "I just need to tell you something." "Ok, what is it?" "I love you. All."

I guess maybe it wouldn't hurt to pick up a few things in Whinese.