The phone call of my life!
I got the most amazing phone call in recent memory yesterday---from a three year old. I talk to my wife on the phone daily from work. Yesterday, though, the little Bear saw his mom talking and I could hear him in the background saying “More Hi? More Hi?”
He uses the word ‘more’ to communicate his desire to do something. ‘More eat’ means that he’s hungry, ‘more outside’ means that he wants to play in the yard with the other kids----and ‘more Hi’ means that he wants to talk to his dad on the phone! This is astounding for a couple of reasons. Firstly because he has never asked to talk on the phone that I’m aware of. We’ve held it up to try and get him to talk to relatives at times but the last time I remember doing that to him he just looked at the phone like he was wondering how this thing was talking to him.
Secondly, he never really wants to talk to me much when I’m at home in the flesh. He’s still in that stage where his world consists of the Mamma, and me, who is basically just ‘not the Mamma’. Kim points to herself and asks him who she is and he'll say "mommy" with pride, and sometimes even calls her by her given name. He'll call all his other siblings by name when asked who they are. When she points to me and asks, "who's this" he says "guy" with not quite as much enthusiasm. But now here he was asking to talk to me.
My wife held up the phone for him to talk and he says ‘hi daddy’. Hi Daddy! Are you kidding me! My head exploded.
And then we started actually having a sort of conversation. Now, even though he’s three, he is a little behind developmentally. We found a picture of Lemur at three, taken the very day that Bear was born, and it’s amazing to think of them being the same age at that point. They were both at opposite ends of the developmental bell curve--Lemur being more advanced than the typical kid his age. So conversations with Bear usually go like this right now: He says something, I respond, he either repeats the thing he just said or totally changes the subject.
That is unless he’s involved in some sort of a spontaneous game with us where he’s teasing us. Like when we’re trying to get him to sleep or something and he doesn’t want to go there, sometimes he looks up and growls. We'll say, “No, no tigers now.” Then he’ll pick another animal sound, like squeaking like a mouse. We’ll say, “No, no mousies.” Then he just keeps going down through all his animal sounds, repeating when he reaches the end. That's about as good as it get with him right now.
But today he was asking me questions. And I would ask him something and he would give me an appropriate, albeit one word, answer. And when I would chuckle at how cute this was, that would just crack him up and he would giggle with glee. Then my wife told him to say good-bye, and he did, and she said to tell me that he loved me, and he did! He’s just learning, or just becoming willing, to say “I love you” and he granted me one of his precious few. And then, he gave me a smooch good-bye! My wife got back on the phone and said, “Did you hear what he did? He gave you a kiss goodbye. I’m so jealous, he’s been very stingy with those lately.”
That was one cool phone call.
He uses the word ‘more’ to communicate his desire to do something. ‘More eat’ means that he’s hungry, ‘more outside’ means that he wants to play in the yard with the other kids----and ‘more Hi’ means that he wants to talk to his dad on the phone! This is astounding for a couple of reasons. Firstly because he has never asked to talk on the phone that I’m aware of. We’ve held it up to try and get him to talk to relatives at times but the last time I remember doing that to him he just looked at the phone like he was wondering how this thing was talking to him.
Secondly, he never really wants to talk to me much when I’m at home in the flesh. He’s still in that stage where his world consists of the Mamma, and me, who is basically just ‘not the Mamma’. Kim points to herself and asks him who she is and he'll say "mommy" with pride, and sometimes even calls her by her given name. He'll call all his other siblings by name when asked who they are. When she points to me and asks, "who's this" he says "guy" with not quite as much enthusiasm. But now here he was asking to talk to me.
My wife held up the phone for him to talk and he says ‘hi daddy’. Hi Daddy! Are you kidding me! My head exploded.
And then we started actually having a sort of conversation. Now, even though he’s three, he is a little behind developmentally. We found a picture of Lemur at three, taken the very day that Bear was born, and it’s amazing to think of them being the same age at that point. They were both at opposite ends of the developmental bell curve--Lemur being more advanced than the typical kid his age. So conversations with Bear usually go like this right now: He says something, I respond, he either repeats the thing he just said or totally changes the subject.
That is unless he’s involved in some sort of a spontaneous game with us where he’s teasing us. Like when we’re trying to get him to sleep or something and he doesn’t want to go there, sometimes he looks up and growls. We'll say, “No, no tigers now.” Then he’ll pick another animal sound, like squeaking like a mouse. We’ll say, “No, no mousies.” Then he just keeps going down through all his animal sounds, repeating when he reaches the end. That's about as good as it get with him right now.
But today he was asking me questions. And I would ask him something and he would give me an appropriate, albeit one word, answer. And when I would chuckle at how cute this was, that would just crack him up and he would giggle with glee. Then my wife told him to say good-bye, and he did, and she said to tell me that he loved me, and he did! He’s just learning, or just becoming willing, to say “I love you” and he granted me one of his precious few. And then, he gave me a smooch good-bye! My wife got back on the phone and said, “Did you hear what he did? He gave you a kiss goodbye. I’m so jealous, he’s been very stingy with those lately.”
That was one cool phone call.
posted by Will at 1:26 PM
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