Just a few weeks before my birthday, little William had his first birthday. A whole year has flown by since I first visited him in hospital and we packed him up to come home. He's been growing and learning so much since then, but it's important that he gets the best tutelage and learns from a master. That's where I come in; I'm training tomorrow's rascal.
Walking is something I'm helping with. Well, encouraging. After a few weeks of faltering steps made while holding onto the couch, coffee table or people, William is getting more confident every day, while I egg him on. True, I do sometimes tell on him if he's tottering his way over to something he shouldn't (like my breakfast), but soon it'll be a case of look out every ornament that's within reach!
I'm also helping encourage him with some new tricks. Mummy has taught him what the answer to the question "What noise does the lion make" is (answer: "rarrhhh"), and we're now moving on to clapping hands and waving goodbye. He hasn't quite got the waving right yet - when he tries it looks a bit like he's trying to get something sticky off his hand.
People have told me that my vocabulary is pretty good, so this is something else I can try to pass onto William. He's only just said his first word ("mama") though, so that could be a long road.
Mostly though, the things I'm teaching William are those things Mummy and Daddy wish I wasn't. Like when we're eating dinner and I slouch back in my chair, letting bits of food fall off my fork onto the carpet. William looks across at me, finds it hilarious, and before you know it there's food being dropped from two sides. Which is normally where threats and curses ensue from Daddy, but neither of us pay much attention. Being a rascal is just far too much fun.
Every day I’m watching the things going on around me, listening to the things people say, and picking up new things I can say and do myself. Since I spend so much time with Mummy and Daddy it’s natural that a lot of what I pick up comes from them. Which is a shame, since sometimes they say such silly things…
Here’s one example: When the sun’s out I love to play in my sandpit, getting little piles of it into my pants and hair that I can then distribute by walking through the house. I also enjoy building little piles of sand outside the sandpit, so that my cars can drive over it or diggers can lift it. One time when I was in the middle of tipping sand out of my sandpit Mummy warned me with, "When the sand is gone, it's gone".
That’s not much of a revelation really. If she’d said “When the sand is gone, it will magically refill itself”, that would be impressive. But knowing that it’s gone when it’s gone – I could work that out for myself.
Another silly thing they say is when they’re trying to get me dressed. They’ll get as far as changing my nappy, then try to convince me to put on something I don’t want to wear by saying, "It’s pants or nothing".
That’s the surest way of me always picking "nothing", since it gets me out of wearing the thing I didn’t want to put on anyway. It’s not quite the reaction Mummy had in mind, so she probably should have thought that one through a little better.
Dinnertime is another occasion when silly sayings tend to come out, especially if they’re trying to convince me to eat something that looks like it belongs more in one of the cat’s dishes. Often there will be bribes involved to get me to eat more.
A week ago we all went to the daycare Christmas party, and when we sat down to have our picnic dinner I wanted to eat a yummy roll instead of the sausage they’d given me. Mummy pointed to a part of the sausage about half-way down, and said, "You can have a treat if you eat as far as that". So I then skipped most of the sausage and took a bite out of only where Mummy pointed. There you go – I ate exactly where you told me to, so pass me the treat please.
Things I've picked up from Mum & Dad (or why it's not my fault)
Originally published 9 October 2016
When you're a growing young boy like me you're learning new things all the time. When I'm out in the car I learn the names of things by asking the other passengers incessantly what they're called until they give in and shout the answer to me. When I'm at daycare I learn about how to play with others and how to wangle extra lunch by scoffing each course so quickly that the teachers don't think I've actually been served yet.
But the way I learn most of my new things is at home, and specifically from Mum and Dad. There are always new books to read when Dad orders them from the library, so that helps me pick up new words. But it's not all good learning like this. There are a whole range of other less laudable habits that I'm picking up from them. They might not even realise I'm learning and copying them, until I start doing them as well. So basically, none of these are my fault...
In an earlier blog I mentioned that my vocabulary was better than William's; not altogether surprising given his current level is gurgling and dribbling. But my vocabulary doesn't compare with Dad's; shame that most of his are naughty words that I'm starting to pick up. For example, after we've woken up and had a cuddle in bed, Dad will sometimes have a big stretch and say "ah, shit", so naturally I copy him and say the same thing. The repeat it again when Mum comes in later, which normally ends up with a rebuke for Dad.
After that we'll get our morning drinks to have in bed while reading a few of my books; Dad has his coffee and I have my milk. Dad loves his morning coffee so much that following a particularly satisfying mouthful he'll say "ahh, this is the tits" (which I think = "delicious"). Which then means I learn that phrase too and say it myself after a swig of milk. Cue another stern look from Mum in Dad's direction.
Something they're both guilty of, and which I've also picked up, is excessive eating of biccies. The sort of eating where they open a pack, pour them all into a container, then munch on them after dinner, until 10 minutes later someone reaches for the empty container and says "we'll need to add biscuits to the shopping list". So naturally I'm also now in the mindset of wanting biccies after dinner; sometimes I won't even have finished dinner before I'm asking for biccies.
And this one is especially not my fault because the biccies are actually supposed to be mine in the first place. They're an Oliver snack, not a parent snack. If I helped myself to something of theirs, like walked into the kitchen and poured myself a nice gin & tonic, I'm sure they'd not be best impress either. So they've only got themselves to blame for me demanding biccies after meals.
Another bad habit I've picked up is being mean to cats. That's actually another one I learned from Dad, which seems to be where most of the bad habits come from (did Mum actually do her diligence on this guy before they got married?). Dad and I both love cats, but at the same time seem to like torturing them. Come summer time when Dad's unrolling the hose to water the garden you just know one of the cats is going to get soaked. And not just with the gentle setting either - the full-on jet of water one. Suddenly there's a "meow" followed by a ginger streak as a cat goes tearing across the lawn to hide amongst the trees.
All of which goes some way to explaining why I pounce on the cats with such regularity; lying on them when they're trying to eat or forcing myself into their space on a chair when they're trying to sleep. It's probably a sort of tough love type of thing, it's just that in the Hartlands we tend to make it very touch on the cats.
So that's pretty much the case for the defense - blame these things on Mum and Dad, because they started it. And naturally in time-honoured fashion I'll now be doing my best to pass these bad habits onto William...
Learning to speak English is hard work. Well, learning any language is hard work really. Look at Daddy - three years learning Japanese and he can barely speak a word of it. So since I'm not even three years old yet, it's no surprise that I'm still getting to grips with some of the words.
That's part of the reason why some words I don't quite get right, but then there are others where the way I like to pronounce them have stuck, to the extent that even Mummy and Daddy call them this now. These are some of my favourite ones that have stuck around for a while.
"Beketts" - breakfast (usually weetbix, banana and milk)
"Bunken" - broken (often something not actually broken, but which needs Mummy intervention to fix)
"Cukky" - cuddly (my sleepytime friend in the picture above: a purple one for home and a blue one for daycare)
"Getaboo" - peek-a-boo (usually said when I'm hiding in the pantry or behind a door)
"What that one noise?" - what's that noise (a phrase more than a word, like in the video below)
