Sunday, January 15, 2012
Saturday, January 14, 2012
Despite my last post full of uncertainty and angst....
....one of my kids just said something that has me laughing too much to keep to myself.
So a dirty little secret of mine is this: I can't remember anybody's actual first word. There are certain words that each of my kids, as babies, uttered that have stuck in my mind (like Katie saying, "What's that?" but pronouncing it "Whaaaatsssssuuuuuupp?" right when it was a catchphrase due to those commercials.) So when my kids ask me what their first word was, I just make something up.
Well, this was the topic of conversation yesterday during breakfast. I told Claire that her first word was "Dup" (meaning "cup" - something she demanded constantly.) I told Beth that her first word was "jump!" which I actually think might be true. When Lucy asked me what her first word was, though, I paused for a moment to think something up and instead of waiting she declared that she could remember herself.
"Really?" I said.
"Oh, yes," she said.
"So what was it?" I asked.
She looked at me with her blunt, frank little face and confidently announced what her first word was.
"Beer!" said Lucy.
So a dirty little secret of mine is this: I can't remember anybody's actual first word. There are certain words that each of my kids, as babies, uttered that have stuck in my mind (like Katie saying, "What's that?" but pronouncing it "Whaaaatsssssuuuuuupp?" right when it was a catchphrase due to those commercials.) So when my kids ask me what their first word was, I just make something up.
Well, this was the topic of conversation yesterday during breakfast. I told Claire that her first word was "Dup" (meaning "cup" - something she demanded constantly.) I told Beth that her first word was "jump!" which I actually think might be true. When Lucy asked me what her first word was, though, I paused for a moment to think something up and instead of waiting she declared that she could remember herself.
"Really?" I said.
"Oh, yes," she said.
"So what was it?" I asked.
She looked at me with her blunt, frank little face and confidently announced what her first word was.
"Beer!" said Lucy.
Thursday, January 12, 2012
On my lack of posting
I've basically used this blog as my memory book for the past few years, which has worked out well since I gave up keeping up individual books, oh, somewhere around Katie's 1st birthday.
I'm running into a problem now, though. The girls, as they get older, love to pour over past posts, laughing at the silly things they used to do. I'm glad they like it, but it poses a bit of a dilemma for me. For one, I self-edit very heavily now, maybe too much so. I find that I often start a post only to abandon it after editing out all the best parts.
Another issue can be summed up with the exchange I had this morning with Lucy. She asked me for an orange, but when I began to peel it she flipped out. She wanted to cut it with scissors and suck the juice out instead. This comes from a video I posted about a year ago, when she had done that very thing. The problem is, at the time it was funny and silly and just a one-off. But because I put the video on the internet, suddenly Lucy views it as the thing to do. As a parent, I believe that part of my job is to not take the mistakes of my children too seriously- sometimes I really just need to keep a sense of humor and laugh it off. But my children shouldn't view their mistakes that way - it is one thing for me to laugh at Lucy playing with scissors, it's another entirely for Lucy to think that it was such a funny thing to do that she should do it again!
So, I don't know what my game plan is going to be. I may keep the blog up and running, and just tell the girls that it is off limits until they are a little bit older. Or I may try to find the balance between kid-appropriate and boring. Or I may do some other, third thing that I haven't thought of yet. I don't know. I'll let everyone know when I figure it out!
I'm running into a problem now, though. The girls, as they get older, love to pour over past posts, laughing at the silly things they used to do. I'm glad they like it, but it poses a bit of a dilemma for me. For one, I self-edit very heavily now, maybe too much so. I find that I often start a post only to abandon it after editing out all the best parts.
Another issue can be summed up with the exchange I had this morning with Lucy. She asked me for an orange, but when I began to peel it she flipped out. She wanted to cut it with scissors and suck the juice out instead. This comes from a video I posted about a year ago, when she had done that very thing. The problem is, at the time it was funny and silly and just a one-off. But because I put the video on the internet, suddenly Lucy views it as the thing to do. As a parent, I believe that part of my job is to not take the mistakes of my children too seriously- sometimes I really just need to keep a sense of humor and laugh it off. But my children shouldn't view their mistakes that way - it is one thing for me to laugh at Lucy playing with scissors, it's another entirely for Lucy to think that it was such a funny thing to do that she should do it again!
So, I don't know what my game plan is going to be. I may keep the blog up and running, and just tell the girls that it is off limits until they are a little bit older. Or I may try to find the balance between kid-appropriate and boring. Or I may do some other, third thing that I haven't thought of yet. I don't know. I'll let everyone know when I figure it out!
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