Category Archives: parenthood

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Toddler Translations

My son’s vocabulary and grammar is improving as he gets older. The fact that he knows general rules of plurals and possessives and tenses is fascinating to me — especially when he bumps up against some of the exceptions to those rules. Some of his pronunciations are awesome, too.

Connor says: Connor means:
There’s us’s house! There’s our house!
She comed over! She came over!
I pooped my underwear. I need to go potty.
It hotted me! It blew hot air on me!
That’s full hands. My hands are full.
I winned! I won!
It falled over. It fell over.
“Muse-kit” Music
“Breck-piss” Breakfast

To his credit, when we correct one of his grammatical whoopsies, he repeats it back to us and remembers the exception to the rule in the future. The boy is a sponge — but that’s normal for his age.

His teacher at daycare says she actually misses her Connor conversations on the days when he’s not there. On top of being quite the talker, he also has quite the imagination, and comes up with highly amusing stories and explanations.

One day this week, as we were sitting at a stoplight, Connor was looking at some trees — tall, old, gnarled, bare of leaves.

“That tree is dancing!” he said.

Then we had a conversation all the rest of the way home, where I was the dancing tree and Connor was telling me all about what the tree could eat at our house, like soup and strawberries and carrots, and I love you, tree, and give me a kiss, and I’ll see you tomorrow after breakfast!

This age is awesome.

Most of the time.

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Unsolicited New-Mom Advice, Part Two

Welcome to Part Two in my series of Unsolicited New-Mom Advice! As I said in Part One:

I’ve had more than one occasion where a friend or acquaintance has announced her mom-to-be status, and has welcomed any advice I might have. When I was a new mom-to-be, I found a lot of that sort of advice that was given to me to be invaluable — especially the things that might have taken me a while to work out for myself.

In the first installment, I talked about having a (flexible) birth plan, packing your hospital bag waaaay early, taking home everything from the hospital room that isn’t tied down, making sure Baby has a place to hang out in your — ahem — crib, swaddling and swinging and bathing and zippered crib sheets. In this installment, I recap a bit, sing the praises of second-hand baby clothes, and kind of go on a tangent about breastfeeding.
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