Monday, June 4, 2012

Oh no!

"You know, the Humpty Dumpty rhyme never states that Humpty is an egg," Chris said on Saturday afternoon, thereby blowing my mind.

We were watching Sesame Street with Andy, and when we watch Sesame Street, we tend to make comments such as, "Big Bird really has a great sense of humor" and "You know, this show is REALLY clever."  This is one small nugget of being a parent; Sesame Street becomes fascinating television- nay, fascinating ART- that works on so many different levels. 

Other quick nuggets about being a parent:

If you hear a crash from the front room followed by an "Oh no!," you're slow to investigate since the "Oh no!" indicates your child is still conscious, so you probably have time to finish your sandwich.

At some point, you realize that it's easier to just take your kid to the goddamn park for thirty minutes rather than spend an hour and half explaining to a screaming child why you don't want to go to the park (couch is more comfortable than bench).

You let your child eat food off the floor because, hey, at least he's eating.

Parenting is basically cost-benefit analysis.  Your child is unspooling an entire roll of tape. The roll of tape costs a dollar.  Having the child occupied for ten minutes is totally worth a dollar.  You do not discipline your child for wasting all your tape and instead take the opportunity to sneak off to the bathroom for a rare alone-pee.

Sometimes you see your child doing something naughty out of the corner of your eye and realize that your best bet for resolution is to just pretend you're not seeing it and hope that he stops.

You become so much more sympathetic to lunatic mothers at the grocery store yelling at their unruly children.  Two years ago, I would have thought these women were out of their mind and had completely lost it.  Now, while that fundamental judgment hasn't changed, I totally GET IT.  I've lived it.  And I refuse to bring Andy to the grocery store again until he turns three... or fifteen.

Anyway, we were watching Sesame Street.  Humpty Dumpty strolls into town at some point, and he's the most hideous looking Humpty Dumpty I've ever seen.  Instantly, Andy takes a strong liking to this ugly dude, yelling out "'Umpty!"  He is excited to see Humpty sitting on the wall and then yells out, horrified, "OH NO!" when Humpty takes his predictable fall.  As Humpty is wheeled off to the Egg Hospital by all the king's horses and all the king's men, Andy cries out again, "Oh no!" and then "More 'Umpty!"  I rewind no less than a dozen times so that Andy can watch Humpty enter, sit on the wall, fall off the wall, and get wheeled out.  "Oh no!" Andy cries out every time.  Followed by, "More 'Umpty!"

Andy really likes Humpty Dumpty.  He seems to exhibit an excited anticipation of Humpty's inevitable fall.  I'm fascinated by Andy's reaction.  He knows that Humpty is going to fall, he seems to wait for it, but then he is so distraught by the shattering of Humpty that he becomes visibly upset.  It's this becoming upset that Andy seems to crave, though.  It's funny- when we read books at night that involve mild injuries or accidents (a frog accidentally kicked his frog doctor in one book; another book involved a daddy spilling food in the kitchen), Andy seems to take joy in commiserating with the characters, crying out "Oh no!" at the predicaments but also being unwilling to move past that part in the book.  He doesn't want to see things get better.  He wants to linger on the pages where the frog doctor gets kicked or the daddy makes a mess and spend no less than five full minutes Oh no-ing the situation and pointing out what's happened.

"See, the next page, the kitchen is clean," I might try to say to Andy, turning the page to where the daddy gets a mop.  But Andy will fight me, turn back the page to the original mess while muttering "More!" and then loudly cry out- "OH NO!"  That boy- I don't always understand him.  But I'm very interested in him.
Shouting out "Oh no!" is just kind of his thing.  Yesterday, we went to the park, and I brought a small shovel and bucket for him to play in the sand area with.  Andy ran over to the sand area, excited to start digging- but quickly grew upset when his sandals starting filling with sand.  "OH NO," he yelled, looking up at me with teary eyes and pointing out that he had sand in his sandals.  "Oh no."

"It's okay, Andy, it's just sand," I tried to reassure him.  I kicked off my own flip flop, stuck my foot in the sand, and said, "See?  Mommy has sand on her feet, too!"

To which Andy replied, "OH NO!"

He made me clean out his sandals and brush off his feet, and then he tried to play in the sand area by situating himself along the paved area surrounding the sand- his feet on the non-sandy side as he uncomfortably leaned over to attempt to dig.  For a little boy, he dislikes getting dirty.  I guess this is a good thing as far as I'm concerned.  But, jeez, Andy.  Sometimes your sandals will get a little sandy.  You can't let that stop you from enjoying life.  That's my mantra.  Don't let a little sand in your shoe stop you from having fun.  Or wait.  I think my mantra might be: Sometimes, in order to get out of awkward conversations, you have to pretend like you stepped in some glass earlier and now your shoe is filling up with blood so you need to be excused.  Thank you, Romy and Michelle.

If Andy heard someone say that their shoes were becoming blood filled, you can bet he'd say, "Oh no!"  Followed by:  "More!"

1 comment:

  1. Always hilarious and spot on.

    Danonymous

    ReplyDelete