Jaryth

He can’t decide what he wants to watch today: “Rocky and Bullwinkle” or “Mythbusters.” He watched an episode of Mythbusters where they tried to pop popcorn with a bomb and with a laser. And all Jaryth wanted to see was the house get “broke all to bits”. And the “big fire!” When they switched to the car driving really fast (Jamie testing if driving fast in rain with the top down will keep you drier), Jaryth wasn’t interested. Then he started yelling “Rocket J. Squirrel! Rocket J. Squirrel!” I guess the ultimate episode would be where they blew something up while Rocky flew overhead.

Jaryth is downstairs yelling “Emo! Cars! Emo! Cars!” Mark replies “Which one? Nemo or Cars?” “Emo! Cars! Emo! Cars!” “You can only watch one at a time.” “Emo! Cars! Emo! He’s gonna swim with Dory!” In this instance “he” is Jaryth referring to himself. I guess he not only wants to watch “Emo” he wants to go swimming with Dory.

Jaryth saw his first movie last Saturday - Finding Nemo. And he loved it, what he watched of it, that is. He’s known who Nemo is for a while, because he has a Nemo swimming suit. Of course, he calls the fish on his suit “Emo” and “Emo’s Dad. But you can’t have everything. What’s funny to me is that now he wants to watch Nemo every day. We watched it on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and now he’s downstairs watching it with Mark. I suspect that even though I like Finding Nemo, I’m going to eventually feel about it the way I feel about Dumbo. Good movie, but I saw it too much. [caption id=“attachment_172” align=“aligncenter” width=“300” caption=“Jaryth got really excited when I asked him to pose in front of Marlin.”][/caption] What’s interesting is watching Jaryth figure out more of the movie every time he watches it. He now understands that the little red balls at the beginning are eggs. But he says “Eggs go?” when the fish knocks Marlin out and eats them (and Coral, Nemo’s mother). We’ve tried to explain to him that they are all gone except for Nemo, but I think that’s still beyond him today. Maybe tomorrow. Yesterday, every scene that didn’t have Nemo in it would generate a “Nemo go?” query from Jaryth. (And if you’re wondering, he hasn’t gotten the concept of interrogative words like “where” yet.) [caption id=“attachment_175” align=“aligncenter” width=“300” caption=“Jaryth Smiling for the Camera”][/caption]

I love reading Marc’s Green Living Blog. I do try to be conscious of eco-friendly or green choices, but his blog offers so much more than just that. Yesterday’s post “Finally, My Flying Car is Here” is a great example! I mean, would you really think of flying cars as something green? I mean, heck, they’re totally important, don’t get me wrong. As an avid Sci-Fi reader I’ve been waiting for the promised flying car for years! But to learn that not only is this car legal to fly with only 20 hours of flying time, but it also gets better gas mileage than my truck. Now if they’d just invent a flying trailer to go with it - or a truck that gets better than 13MPG and can still tow a 2-horse trailer. In other news: Jaryth’s site is back up. So if you’ve been jonesing for pictures like this, your wait is over. I’ve built it so that I can add new pictures by just uploading them into a directory. Lazy, yes, but heck, the photos are on the site again, so I’m happy, and hopefully his faraway relatives are too. ☺ I asked him to “smile” as I took the picture. This is the result. [caption id=“attachment_145” align=“aligncenter” width=“300” caption=“Jaryth Smiling for the Camera”][/caption]

I know, I don’t need any more sweets in my life. But Pepperidge Farms hit the jackpot with me with their Chocolate Goldfish Grahams. Jaryth doesn’t like them, but that’s okay, I do. :-)[caption id=“attachment_139” align=“aligncenter” width=“99” caption=“Yum!”][/caption]

Jaryth was a bit scared of his first lesson. But as I told Danielle, his teacher, starting low means he has more room for improvement. He cried less on day 2.

I was talking to my Dad today about Jaryth’s language. He was wondering if we spoke baby talk to him or if we tried to encourage him to speak correctly. I then commented on how we had been trying to get him to use the pronoun “I” rather than “he” or “baby” or “Jaryth” when referring to himself. So, just now, Jaryth came upstairs and was asking me where the remote controlled car was. Mark told him and then Jaryth said “he wants it”. Meaning that he wants to play with the car. Mark then said, “no, you should say ‘I want it’ to say that you want it.” Guess what Jaryth is now saying over and over and over? “I want it.” “I want it.” “I want it!” He cracks me up. He’s still downstairs telling Mark, “I want it.”

What you can’t really see from this picture is that he’s playing Plants vs. Zombies. When the zombie apocalypse comes, he’ll be ready with his biters!

My dad used to say to my brother and I “stop crying or I’ll give you something to cry about.” As a kid that statement always bothered me, as clearly I had something to cry about - why else would I be crying??? But now, as a parent, I understand the impulse to say that. After a 10 minute moaning/crying jag just now, I was about ready to “give him something to cry about” myself! But let me set the scene: Jaryth had just woken up from a 1.5 hour nap and was in a great mood. We played with his ball for several minutes, then he said he wanted toast with peanut butter, so we made that. Then he wanted water from the fridge. So he got his cup, and I unlocked the water dispenser. He held up his cup and filled it (about half full) with water. Then I locked the water dispenser. And he promptly got mad and dropped his cup. I kept my cool as I dried him and the floor off, calmed him down, and gave him back his cup and unlocked the water dispenser again. Lather. Rinse. REPEAT I didn’t stay as calm this time, as he started screaming (again) because he was (again) covered in water, there was water (again) all over the floor, and he still didn’t get a drink. I tried to calm him down, but I suspect the statement “you don’t get more water out of the dispenser if you’re just going to drop it on the floor” is what triggered the 10 minute crying/moaning jag. Toddlers can be a lot of fun. But sometimes, not so much.