Several weeks ago, during writing time, Owen and I were investigating -ow words, like how, now, cow, etc. Owen being Owen, he thought silently for a moment, then said, “So my name is really Ahw-en (not sure how to write that phonetically, but -ahw like in c-ow).”
A few minutes later, he came and showed me what he wrote: “Look Mommy, I wrote my name: Ohin.” Can’t argue with that, just many in a long life of lessons about the absurd and inconsistent English language.
While hiking through the woods yesterday, Owen was jumping from boulder to boulder just off the path. At one point he stopped, holding his hand and rubbing it and exclaimed:
“I just stepped on my own pinkie!”
That about sums up our last couple of weeks. Owen is growing so fast that his gross motor control can’t keep up with it. The result has been lots of banged heads, elbows and the like. Right now, he has a bruise on one knee and a gash on the other (complete with frog band-aid). He falls down. A lot. In tennis class, even.
We thought maybe a chiropractic treatment would help, but the pinkie incident and one of the knees happened the day after, so I think we’re stuck with Jack Tripper for a little while longer.
The other night, when we were getting ready for bed, Owen was getting into his jammies and exclaimed, ”My world is the best world in the whole wide world!” Then his whole, gleeful expression morphed into slight confusion. I could tell he was processing the fact that he wasn’t sure if there could be a world within a world, but he was too tired to try to revise his comment.
It’s OK, Owen, I know just what you mean. Life here is pretty great from my end, too!
I’ve tried, I really have. I can’t begin to even type the ways I have tried to express to Owen why he shouldn’t walk all over the furniture, why sliding down the bannister is a bad idea, why entering the family room from the playroom by climbing over the railing and leaping onto the back of the couch is not good for anyone, why climbing the baskets to sit on the kitchen island will eventually break them … to no avail. I am somewhat resigned to the fact that he is part monkey.
However, after putting a hole in the antique reclaimed wood coffee table last weekend, I figured it was time to focus my efforts a bit more strongly. He now knows that when he climbs the baskets to the kitchen island, if one of them breaks, he pays for it with his piggy bank cash. Heartless, right? But that’s a logical consequence for the blatant disrespect of ignoring my pleas to not step on the baskets.
Today, while climbing the baskets, I repeated myself for the vigintillionth time to deaf ears … so I thought. But once he was perched happily on the kitchen island (which I need to leave more cluttered so there’s no room for him!), another Owen classic burst forth from King Clever. Have I mentioned I’m not quite sure where I got this kid?
“Well, I can’t break this (referring to the granite countertop) … unless I had pickaxe toes.”
It’s comments like this one that get me into trouble. Really, how can I discipline that kind of reasoning?
It was just one of those days. Those Days. When everything you say is met with a “NO!” and disrespect abounds. Still, I let Owen have his allotted screen time for the day, but not without a frustrated Mom lecture (and a broken timer).
“I will tell you when your time is up, and when it is, you will not say ‘Wait a minute’ or ‘Just a second’ or ‘Hold on’; you will stop immediately and you will say ‘Yes, Ma’am!’”
“OK.”
*pause*
“Can I just say yes?”
Why, why, why must his defiance be so cute?