funny

You wanna cumbo?

| patmcg

We have not really even acknowledged Christmas 2007 so far at home. We have no Christmas tree set up yet, no presents piled up on display in the living room, or even wrapped, or even purchased yet. We have not even been playing Christmas music. This lack of Christmas spirit is not intentional; Christmas has just sneaked up on us this year. So today, to get our Christmas spirit kicked off, Kit had the idea to go see the Festival of Trees at the Atlanta History Center in Buckhead.

We were hoping the Festival of Trees would be sort of like the Christmas Tree Forest that Kit used to go to in Corpus Christi. It turned out to be classier, smaller, and more subdued than the Corpus Christi version. It featured trees decorated up in the traditional style from several different countries, accompanied by a written explanation of Christmas traditions in that country. But it felt more like a display than a forest, and it did not exactly jump start our Christmas spirits.

So we moved on to explore the rest of the museum. Claire was especially excited to see the big, working toy train track. Along the track were little displays of things like ice skaters on a frozen pond, elves working at Santa’s toy factory, construction crews at work on the road beside the track, and countless other things to look at, each with a button to push to make them go. And best of all was the fact that Thomas the Train was running around and around the track. Things were definitely looking up.

After we saw every little thing on the train display, we went outside and came across an old kid-sized playhouse in the garden. Claire knew it was made just for her, and she went right in to explore. She explored each of the three rooms and then made herself comfortable on the little kid-sized wicker sofa. Kit and I mostly stayed outside, letting Claire explore as we chatted about little things like where the heck we will be living in two years, what jobs will we both have, who is going to be president, and other basic unknowns of the relatively near future.

Over our chatter, Claire was sticking her head out of the playhouse’s front window, looking especially cute in her little green Christmas dress, saying what we could best make out as, “You wanna cumbo?” or just “Cumbo!” We replied, “What’s a cumbo?”, but Claire just smiled and kept saying it.

Finally, when Claire said, “You want cheese?” Kit put it together. Claire was asking if we wanted a “combo”, and she was acting like she was a lady at the drive-through window at Wendy’s or McDonald’s, where they always say, “You want to make that a combo?” or “You want cheese with that?” when you place an order. Kit and I were cracking up, because Claire did this with such as big smile on her face but was also trying to act serious, like she really did want to know if we wanted the combo. At least she did not ask us to “biggie size” it for only 39 cents more.

Pomodoro Prank

| patmcg

Tonight we all went out to eat at Artuzi’s, which is a quick Italian place nearby. I ordered Claire her own kid-sized penne with pomodoro sauce, because she had enjoyed that in the past when Claire and I ate here with my parents. I could tell Kit was somewhat skeptical about this potentially messy choice, but she did not veto it.

Sitting in the booth next to Kit, Claire initially tried to eat her penne with a fork. But after having the pasta slip off her fork a few times, Claire resorted to using her hands, which quickly became coated in the deep red, oily tomato sauce. At this point, Kit become nervous of Claire ruining her nice sweater shirt, which she was still wearing from work, so she sent Claire to sit next to me across the table from her.

Claire’s messy hands did not bother me, especially since I was not wearing anything fancy, just a t-shirt. This disinterest ended suddenly when Claire reached over and grabbed my white t-shirt with her left hand, leaving five little red dots on my right sleeve, one for each finger. As I recoiled from this intrusion, Claire reached quickly to my front with her right hand, to complete the hugging motion (or pincer movement, depending on how you look at it), leaving five more little red dots on the front of my t-shirt.

At this point, I was a little amused and agitated at the same time. Kit was just laughing. I did manage to lean away from Claire just far enough to keep out of reach of any further tomato sauce attacks. Claire thought it was funny that I was just out of reach and started swinging for me with her little hands, giggling the whole time through her sauce-coated face. “I want to hug Daddy! Hug Daddy! Huuuug!” she said, with a goofy smile on her face. At this point, it was clear that Claire was just having fun and had managed to make a genuine joke out of the situation.

The only real victim of this whole story was, of course, my t-shirt. But don’t worry about the shirt. It made an amazing recovery thanks to some quick on-the-scene dabbing, as directed by Kit, and some liberal use of stain stick later at home.

Claire Breaks a Heart

| patmcg

Claire may have broken her first heart today. It happened on the sidewalk in front of the Carter’s baby clothing store in Sandy Springs. That is where Claire left a 15 month old boy crying on the sidewalk, not because she hit him or bit him, or because he had skinned his knee. He was crying because Claire was leaving, and he wanted her to come back.

My mom and dad (Noni and Granda Phil!) were in town for the weekend to get a Claire fix to hold them until Thanksgiving. We all took a rare trip OTP (Outside the Perimeter) to the Carter’s store near Perimeter Mall to find Claire some new pajamas. Her venerable old ones had served us well but were finally starting to get too small.

Fresh off a fun lunch at La Madeleine, we headed to Carter’s. Kit sorted through the PJ’s while I kept an eye on the kid. Claire was pretty happy to be out and about, and was in a playful, chatty mood. She sorted through the floor-level clothes racks repeatedly saying “How cuuuute!” and then pointing at the tags and saying, “It’s twenty months!” (even though the tag actually said 24 months. I mean, get with it, kid!) As I checked out, Kit tended to Claire, who was happily playing with some small stuffed toys in the back.

As we all left the store and were on the wide sidewalk walking towards the car, a little toddler boy was heading towards the store with his parents and gramma. Claire ran forward and jumped right in front of the boy, patted herself on the chest, and declared, “This is Claire! Nice shoes!”

This little display just about floored all of us, including the little boy’s parents. The boy was shocked and speechless. Claire then proceeded to pull out all her tricks as everyone watched on. She sang parts of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and The Wheels on the Bus as she danced and spun around. She ran around and tried to do some hopping, although that was less successful. She gave a heartfelt but largely unintelligible monologue. As her finale, she patiently recited the entire alphabet, almost flawlessly. The boy’s mom said, “Oh my god! Is she saying the alphabet?” The little boy watched Claire this whole time, engrossed, with his mouth half open.

Finally I had to pick Claire up since it seemed like she was just starting to show off at this point. We talked for a bit with the boy’s parents. The boy was 15 months old and was named Conner. They were in “the city” for the day to do some shopping. Little Conner did not have any brothers or sisters and stayed at home with his mom every day, so he had not been exposed to many other little kids. Maybe he would have been fascinated with Claire even if she had not put on such a show. But I felt a little bad for him because it seemed like his mom was thinking, “Why can’t Conner do that?” Either that or, “Them city kids is smart.” Just kidding. Anyways, we tried to explain that Claire was barely even talking at 15 months.

Eventually, we had to part ways. As we walked off, Claire looked back, waved, and said “Bye Conner!” Then she said quietly just to me and Kit, “That was fun.” At this point we heard Conner crying. Looking back, he was trying to run towards Claire, and his parents were trying to grab him. I think he wanted to see Claire’s second act.

Now that I have finally written this up, a couple of weeks later, we still talk about Conner occasionally. Sometimes Claire lists him along with her other friends, like Grace and Reese and the kids from school. She even named her new wiggling pig head toy after him. So I guess Conner made an impact on Claire too.

Talking Maniac

| patmcg

Claire has been elevating her talking to the next level lately. She used to say mostly single words about things and people, like “blanket” or “Gracie”. Now she is sometimes speaking in actual sentences. If she spills her drink, she’ll say “I spilled it.” Dropping something, she’ll say, “I dropped it.” If she wants a book that is out of reach, she says “I have it.” That last one sounds kind of rude in a way, but I think she picked it up from me asking her to give us something she has, like a flashlight. I normally say, “Can I have it?” as I hold out my hands. She even told Kit, “I love you” the other night out of the blue.

I guess this means that one day I will have a conversation with Claire over breakfast beyond the current standard, “Pancake. Table. Reesie. Goergie.” But what else could there possibly be to talk about?

She is also “messing up” fewer words, which she does so cutely. Sadly, flamingos are no longer “‘mingos”. I think she was onto something with her “mingos”. We call aligators “gators”, right? And “ome-ne-ne” has largely been replaced by the technically more correct, “Open it”. She is even sort of counting now. Somehow a game evolved where we spread the phonebooks out on the kitchen floor in a crooked line, and Claire steps from one to another. As she steps, Kit and I count, “Oooone. Twooooo. Threeeeee…” Claire has picked this up and will usually repeat the number, and sometimes even say the next number before we do: “Fooooooour” That just kills Kit and me.

But happily, she does not say everything perfectly yet. Here are some things that she still says funny. I wanted to get these down before she fixes these too.

  • Oatmeal is “elmote”. It sounds like “Elmo”, with a distinct “T” on the end.
  • She also adds a sharp “T” to the end of “arbor”, which is Spanish for tree, making it “arbort”. Sometimes this devolves into “Eye-bort”.
  • “Close the door” is just “Clodoor!”, usually said with gusto as a single word.
  • Elephants are “ephelants”
  • A lion is a “liney”
  • A spider is a “pider”, and Spiderman (Reese’s favorite) is “Piderman”
  • She loves saying Cock-a-doodle-doo, but leaves out the “doodle”, making it the more concise “Cockadoo!”
  • A strawberry is a “strawburrrdy”, usually said with gusto.
  • Pasta is “patsa”
  • Blueblerries are “blue-blerrrries”
  • A quesadilla is a “kadeeya!”
  • A heart is a “lart”
  • Corn is “corner”. This especially applies to the Mr. Potato head character Pop Corn.
  • Some phrases are a mystery, like “Apple duty!”, which she repeats often.
  • When we say “Gimme five”, she’ll slap our hand and say, “Go five!”

Catch Phrases

| patmcg

Claire has developed a couple of catch phrases lately.

The first one she stumbled upon accidentally when she randomly said something like “Stay safe!” over dinner one night. She said it sort of seriously, but with a little grin, and looked at us for a reaction. Of course, we were rolling around laughing. The other phrase she likes is “Take it easy”, which I occasionally say if she gets worked up about something, like splashing her bath water too much or redistributing all her socks around the house. One day I said it, and she repeated it back to me with flourish. “Takeiteasy!” she said as sort of a single word.

She says both of these phrases a lot now, at least as a parlor trick if we remind her of them, and she usually says them back to back. It probably cracks me and Kit up more than anyone. Kit has started singing the Eagles song “Take it easy” to get Claire going.

We’ll finish with a message from Claire:

“Stay safe!”
“Takeiteasy!”

Remote Entry

| patmcg

When Kit left for work this morning, her car was sitting there in front of the house at 5:30 am with the trunk and widows open. The car was unlocked, and the seats were “all moist” from the humid night air. Kit didn’t leave the car wide open last night, so what happened here?

Yesterday, Kit had rushed out of work “early”, at 7:00 pm, so she could see just a little bit of Claire before her 7:30 bath and bedtime. When Kit got home, she put her car keys down on a stool by the door and picked up Claire for a nice extended hug. When Claire was back on her feet, she immediately reached for the car keys. She loves the keys, especially the remote entry buttons, which she mashes a lot. Sometimes it even makes the car honk outside the window.

Claire had pressed the “open trunk” button at least once, and did something to open the windows too. I used to accidentally annoy Kit by somehow cracking the windows with the remote entry buttons, but I never even knew how I did it. Apparently Claire picked up the same trick, and it is a lot cuter when she does it.