And Lo, the Giant Tyrannosaurus Trembled and Ran Meekly Inna Table

Every morning, the story grows bigger.

DAY ONE

“Mommy!” cries Eamon, as I walk in the door to greet him after waking. “Red Claw!”

Of course, you know who Red Claw is, don’t you? How could you not? Doesn’t everyone watch hours and hours of Land Before Time, in which there are many villains who threaten the peace and sanctuary of the valley, but none so vicious and cruel as the infamous T-Rex Red Claw? Of course you do.

“What about Red Claw?” I ask.

“Inna table!” he whispers, pointing at his dresser/changing table.

“Red Claw is in your table?” I query.

Eamon nods. We check the table, even when the table proves absent of any gigantic, long-extinct therapods, Eamon just shakes his head. “Hiding,” he tells me.


DAY TWO

Enter Mommy, first thing in the morning.

“Shh!” cautions Eamon. “Eamon scared!”

“Why are you scared?” I whisper back.

“Red Claw! Inna table!”

“Red Claw is in the table again?”

“No,” says Eamon. A slight smile plays upon his lips before he remembers he’s supposed to be scared and returns to an expression of utter terror. “TWO Red Claws! Inna drawer!”


DAY THREE

“Good morning, Eamon!”

Eamon quickly throws down the book that he has been "reading" to entertain himself, and assumes his terrified expression as per his new morning habit. Improvising quickly, he pulls his blanket up around him as if trying to hide. “Mommy! Two Red Claws! Running! Eamon scared!”

“The Red Claws were running?”

“Chasing Eamon! Oh no! Eamon scared!”

“I’m sorry that the two Red Claws were chasing you last night.”

Eamon nods solemnly. Then he throws off the blanket and stands up proudly in his bed. “Eamon say, ‘No Red Claw! No bite me, Eamon!’” He waggles a little finger as he recreates how he told off two giant, slavering and starving carnivores.

“You told the Red Claws not to bite you?”

“Yes!”

“And then what happened?”

“Ran away! Inna table!” He smiles triumphantly, then adds, for emphasis, “Hah!”

In a few more days, I expect that we will be up to a sword-fight taking place on a narrow bridge overlooking a moat of razor-toothed alligators.



I have often been accused of being too lazy to reign in my own rather wild imagination. It is better at having adventures than I am, which is why I am content to let it be in charge. I generally prefer to simply follow my imagination wherever it leads rather than standing up to it and acknowledging the actual world around me. Off we go, my imagination seated proudly on the prancing Rozinante, while I follow behind, occasionally remembering the basics like food and shelter.

So I can only be ecstatic that Eamon appears to have a similar imagination. Together we can ride off into the sunset, defeating nefarious windmills and lecturing nonexistent Red Claws on the impoliteness of biting small children.

Somebody has to.

Painted Wings and Giant Rings

My parents stumbled onto My Gym over a year ago, and Eamon has been going since before he could walk. He went through the “Tiny Tykes” and the “Waddlers” onto the “Gymsters” and has just graduated to the “Terrific Tots.”

And boy, is the Terrific Tots different. In all the previous levels, the instructors have a variety of activities bookended by two 5-10 minute “Circle Times.” During Circle Time, the parents sit in a big circle on the floor, children on laps, and the instructor sings songs and plays games while the parents attempt to get their children to play along. Some do, but most sit there looking a little confused or daydreaming in their own little worlds. Sometimes the kids wander away completely, and no one really comments.

In Terrific Tots, however, the children sit on a mat. By themselves. The parents are nearby, but not actively clutching the children like in the previous levels. The instructor explains the directions while the children listen, and then (here is the fun part) wait their turn to participate in the activity. And if a child gets off the mat, the instructor stops everything and reminds the child to wait patiently on the mat.

So when my mother told me that Eamon was being promoted into the Terrific Tots class, I admit that I had my doubts. Eamon is…well, a 3 foot tall ball of energy. It’s not that he can’t focus…it’s actually just that he finds almost everything interesting and wants to explore all of it. He wants to meet everyone and enjoy all that life has to offer…and I just wasn’t sure how that was going to fit in with him sitting still on a mat and listening to directions.

When my mom called me right after the new gym class with her report, I didn’t have high hopes. But Eamon came through with flying colors. He only had to be reminded to sit on his mat twice, and each time got back on the mat quickly and quietly (like he really had plain forgotten, not that he was being defiant). He listened to all the directions, did his best in all the activities, and apparently charmed everyone after doing a hand-stand (with assistance) by standing up afterwards, throwing out his arms gymnast style and exclaiming, “TADAAAA! Eamon did it!”

Even so, I was pretty sure that it might have been a fluke. A one-time thing because the class was new and he was around older children he wanted to impress.

This past Friday, I took him to the gym myself, back to his old Gymsters class because the Friday Terrific Tots class is full.

When the instructors called Circle Time, Eamon ran over and sat on the circle without even waiting for me. As the instructor went through the routine, he listened and followed every single direction…without any help from me. He laughed when she told a joke, he answered when she asked a question.

I watched the other moms and dads, wrestling with their 2 year olds, trying to help them understand that it was time to jump (Eamon had already been hopping for a good minute), or to stand on their beanbag (Eamon did this immediately, turned to me and shouted, “Where it go, Mommy? All gone!” then opened his feet and yelled, “Dere it is!”), or to sit and listen to the story without wandering away (Eamon planted himself front and center in front of Miss Allison and watched the entire story with rapt attention).

And I realized…Eamon is a Terrific Tot.

For all you parents out there, you probably already know how it feels, when you realize that your child is stepping out of Toddlerhood and into the Little Kid Era. The overwhelming pride (“That’s my little man!”). The gigantic sense of relief (“Thank heaven we made it through!”). The thrill of excitement (“Think about all the things we can do now!”)

And the tiny but tenacious thread of despair as you realize that every day he becomes more independent, he needs you just a little less.

The other day before bedtime, I was reading Eamon a story called Where is Baby's Birthday Cake? I tried to insert the word “Eamon” instead of “baby.”

“No, mommy,” Eamon said pointedly. “BABY. Not EAMON.”

“But you’re my baby!” I said.

Eamon just shook his head. “No baby, mommy.”

“Then what are you?”

He responded without hesitation, “Eamon. I EAMON.” He then looked at me as if I was an idiot, not knowing who my own kid was, a look I expect I’ll be getting more and more often.

So I finished reading the book, word-for-word as written.

But secretly, defiantly, whenever I read the word “baby” out loud, I thought, “Eamon” in my head. I then tucked him into bed, managed to sing “Puff the Magic Dragon” (his favorite bedtime song) without crying or explaining the irony to my sleepy 2 ½ year old, and kissed my darling boy goodnight.

A Sense of Humor Only a Mother Could Love

I am happy to report that Eamon continues his study of comedy, but has decided to infuse it with his own special geeky twist.


Hence, this joke the other day:

EAMON: Stop sign, daddy! Stop sign octagon!

DADDY: Yep, a stop sign is an octagon.

EAMON: Octagon three sides, Daddy!

DADDY: Um…

EAMON: Haha! Octagon three sides! Eamon CWAZY!

You might remember my hope that Eamon would one day find this particular ion joke funny. I think we are well on our way, folks. Any two year old who finds the idea of a 3-sided octagon hysterical…well, that is a two year old after my own heart.

And let me just say, thank goodness he’s such a cute little guy. Maybe it will (somewhat) help to offset the budding nerdiness. In the meantime, Eamon Wolfe, I find you absolutely adorable and hysterical, even if you have a sense of humor that only a(n equally nerdy) mother could love.

UPDATE:

I record these toddler ideas of a joke not because they necessarily belong in the golden tomes of comedy classics beside "Take my wife...please" but because I want to give VH1 plenty of material when they do the Behind the Comedy of Eamon Wolfe's life. And I didn't feel like this particularly deserved its own blog entry, but it amused me highly with its sophisticated sense of word play (lies; it's entirely unsophisticated, but it amused me anyway):

ME: I love you, Eamon Wolfe.

EAMON: No Eamon Wolfe! No!

ME: You're not Eamon Wolfe?! Then who are you?

EAMON: Eamon.

ME: So you're sticking with the first name. Good choice. But...Eamon who?

EAMON: Eamon...DUCK! Quack, quack! Ha ha! Eamon CWAZY!

So yes, folks, in one fell swoop, Eamon 1) made a joke about his own name, therefore proving that if any classmates try to make fun of it in a few years, Eamon will probably have about a thousand possible ways to one-up them ala last 5 minutes of 8 Mile, making them look like childish amateurs for even attempting to tease him; and 2) has gone and invented himself a tag line. Expect to see his memoir of that title in about 30 years, and I guess I should go ahead and snap up www.eamoncwazy.com while I'm at it. Thank you and goodnight.

Dis Way!

So, apparently, most of you people out there have something called an “internal compass,” which keeps track of whether you’ve turned right or left and keeps you from getting lost in Patrick Henry Mall even though it only has two long hallways and you’ve been going there for about 19 years.

And apparently it is not common for a 31 year old woman who has been, more or less, generally successful in life to still not actually know her right from her left without seriously concentrating, and even then only getting it right about 80% of the time.

So, if you have never made a turn and found yourself utterly confused because even though you can acknowledge that the buildings and scenery in front you look VERY familiar, you have NO IDEA where you have seen them before…then you might not get why the following information makes me breathe a huge sigh of relief.

When Eamon was less than a year old, we would drive down Jefferson Avenue to get to Target or Babies R Us, passing the entrance to Kiln Creek, the neighborhood where my parents live. Eamon couldn’t talk back then, but he compensated by making this weird fish noise that meant (why not?) “Grandpa.” One day, we passed by the Kiln Creek entrance and heard that fish noise from the backseat.

We just laughed. He couldn’t possibly know. My parents’ house is back deep in the neighborhood, requiring several more turns, and anyone, he could barely see out the window. Coincidence.

Well, that same coincidence happened so many more times that we felt sort of silly calling it “coincidence.”

So we figured, hey, he goes there every day. That’s why he knows.

But it turns out, Eamon knows a lot more than that. In fact, the older he gets and the more he talks, we have come to the realization that Eamon Wolfe always knows where he is. He not only has that internal compass, but I’m pretty sure he also has an internal birds-eye-view map. I admit that I just laughed when I heard that some people’s brains naturally work like this, since I can barely even read and interpret an actual map.

But I can come up with no other explanation for why Eamon always knows where he is and where he needs to go.

In fact, about three months ago, Eamon and I went to the Tabb area to visit a friend. We had never been to that area before. We came back on Victory Boulevard, a street that we often drive down, but from a direction we had never before taken (I have confirmed this with everyone who has opportunity to drive Eamon in their car). We stopped at the K-Mart shopping center at the Hardees, and Eamon immediately asked me, “Gym?”

I just sort of stared at him. The My Gym, where he goes once a week, was on the complete opposite side of this rather large shopping center. We could not even see it from where we were. But he knew. Finally, I said, “Um, no. Chicken.”

This happens a lot. As long as we have been somewhere once before, we can come at it from any direction and Eamon knows where he is. Moreover, even though he doesn’t know the words “left” and “right” yet, he has started giving directions by yelling, “Dis way!” and can lead almost any expedition quite faithfully…although it always ends up going either to Pet-Co, to see the cats, or to Toys R Us.

I feel ambivalent about this. On one hand, I am thrilled that he did NOT inherit my directionally-challenged brain. I won’t have to worry about him like my parents used to worry about me when I started driving: not because I wasn’t a good driver, but because I was forever getting lost…even in the parking lot of Target.

On the other hand, I am a bit embarrassed because I am realizing that my directional capabilities are on par with those of a two and a half year old, and Eamon will probably surpass me before he turns three.

And on the third hand, I’m just really, really glad that I will have someone in the backseat who can get me where I’m trying to go. Even if we always have to detour by a Toys R Us first.

Ha...Ha?

Aaron is out of town. Work is stressful. I am tired. But Life, it marches on. We must march on with it, though I think it is fair to stop the procession long enough to appreciate another Momentous Event in the Story of Eamon Wolfe.

Therefore, without further pomp or circumstance, I give you: The First Joke.

(Wait, one more aside. Before I tell you the joke, please remember: he is only 2 1/2, and we all start somewhere. Be kind in your judgment. End aside).

This joke was told on the way back from the zoo with my parents yesterday.

EAMON: Knock, knock.
NINI: Who's there?
EAMON: Ninon (Lion)
NINI: Ninon who?
EAMON: RAWR!

Okay, well, so the concept of a "punchline" is perhaps a bit elusive for our young comic, but he is trucking on nonetheless.

In fact, just this afternoon, he told his Second Joke.

Eamon had just put his alligator in his playhouse. He ran up to me, holding out his arms. "Where alligator?" he asked.

"Why, I don't know," I pretended. "Could it be...on the MOON?"

Eamon looked at me blankly. "Noooo," he said, slowly, as if speaking to someone of small intelligence. He pointed to the playhouse and said, "In house." He then took the alligator out of the house to show me, obviously worried that he had inherited half his DNA from someone who thought that alligators could somehow be magically transported from a playhouse to the moon.

A few minutes later, though, he hid the alligator in the house again, ran up to me, and repeated the process. "Where alligator?" he asked.

"I don't know..." I started.

But before I could finish, Eamon exclaimed, "On moon?!" He then devolved into giggles over what was apparently now *his* joke, therefore completing another Important First in the Life of a Comic: Reappropriating Others' Material.

If he keeps up with this rate, I figure that he will be doing open mic nights by Labor Day and have his own HBO comedy special by Christmas. Let me know if you want tickets.

Almost Learned Behavior

When I taught third grade, we spent a lot of time going over the difference between an instinct and a learned behavior. I tried to use as many examples as possible, and relate them to the children’s lives.

“How many of you have a younger brother or sister?”

Many would raise their hands.

“Raise your hand if your brother or sister was born knowing how to drink milk.”

They all raised their hands.

“That’s right. Knowing how to suck milk is an instinct. Now raise your hand if your little brother or sister was born knowing how to talk.”

They all giggled, but none raised their hands.

Well, we’ve spent plenty of time covering Eamon’s quest to learn to talk in this blog, but there is another related learned behavior that we have been working strenuously to teach our little man: manners. We sound (and feel) like broken records, always prompting him to say “please,” “thank you,” “sorry,” or “excuse me,” and it is starting (finally, months later) to pay off.

Unfortunately, though Eamon now knows these words, he sometimes misjudges how to apply them to social situations.

For instance:

AT THE GROCERY STORE
The bagger finished bagging our groceries and handed me the bag, so I said, “Thank you.” Eamon overheard these magic words, and piped in, “Thank you!” And then, just for good measure, added, “I love you!” Luckily the bagger just thought it was funny.

AT HOME
Eamon was watching a dinosaur show when my mother told him that I had come to take him home. Eamon, without missing a beat, said, “No thank you,” and resumed watching his show.

IN THE CAR
We were listening to one of my and Eamon’s new favorite songs (Janglin’ by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes), and I was dancing along. Eamon, with just a hint of pity in his voice, said, “No thank you dance, Mommy. No thank you.” And just in case I didn’t get it, he also threw in, “Please.”

Well, I couldn’t really blame him on that one.

Anyway, we’re going to keep plugging away. We will civilize this child yet. And if you see Eamon, please remind him to use his manners, okay? Thank you.

An Idiot's Guide to Exercise

The summer I was 10, I swam every morning for an hour during swim lessons. I rode my bike the mile or so back to the pool every afternoon and swam around for about 3 more hours. I think I was in pretty good shape then.

And that was probably the only time. I have what French scientists have recently identified as a genetic mutation of the 19th chromosome, also known as Canapé-Pommes-de-Terre Syndrome. This is a very serious syndrome in which otherwise perfectly healthy adults find themselves inexplicably drawn towards soft, fluffy places to sit for extended periods of time. There is no known cure for this syndrome, and various studies have found mixed results for treatment applications.

Nevertheless, I recently began a personal campaign to treat this affliction and described part of the process here. My desire has been fueled mostly by (in this order) the determination to get into a size 8 before all is said and done, and also to be healthy and live longer and all that rot. It’s a two-pronged approach, but in the blog entry I spent far more time discussing the healthy eating bit than the exercising bit and here is the reason: I suck at exercising. If Gardner ever identifies exercising as the 10th multiple intelligence, I would probably score a 32 on that IQ test.

I am actually amazed that I have yet to seriously hurt myself in this endeavor. And don’t think it’s through a lack of research. I’ve taken time to read plenty of websites and blogs on how to exercise (specifically jog), carefully digesting and considering every piece of information. Then I go to exercise, and I totally 1) forget everything I’ve read, or 2) think that I am some sort of Super Human to whom the rules do not actually apply. The only way I seem to remember anything is to expose myself to seriously embarrassing and/or painful situations in order to permanently scar the piece of information into my exercise-impaired brain.

All that being said, I will therefore share a few rules that I have (finally!) learned throughout the entire process:

1. DO spend the money on nice exercise clothes. Wearing your husband’s old boxers or exercise pants and a cotton t-shirt seems like a great idea until you remember about Newton’s Fourth Law of Motion: Chafing.

2. DON’T keep thinking that you don't really need to being water for a short jog. You are not immortal, no matter how many times you have seen Thor.

3. DO engage the services of a personal trainer. Mine is about 2 ½ years old. He sits in the stroller on our walknruns and shouts things like, “Run, Mommy! Go fast! No walk!” It’s terribly motivating but sometimes we have to stop and have the talk that if Mommy keeps running, she might possibly die, which means that Eamon would then be in charge of waking everyone up in the morning, feeding the dog, giving everyone their medicine, and driving himself to his grandparents’ for the day. That is an awful lot of responsibility for a young child, so maybe Mommy should just walk for awhile. That is why we call it a WALKnrun.

4. DON’T eat right before exercising. Just don’t, okay?

5. DO consider whether your ancestors came from cold-weather climates when planning your run. Just because you can comfortably jog in 75 degree weather with only 10% humidity does NOT mean that you can comfortably jog in 90 degree weather with 70% humidity. Listen to your body or else train your child how to dial 9-1-1.

6. DON’T forget to buy new exercise clothes when you go down a size. Unless you enjoy running down the street with one hand pushing a stroller and the other hand holding up your shorts so that you don’t expose the entire neighborhood to your Laundry Day underwear.


That’s all that I can think of right now. There are probably more rules that I have learned that I have already forgotten until I can manage to embarrass and/or injure myself somehow and remember them permanently. Hopefully, writing these few things down will help ascertain that they stay in my brain a little longer than usual.

Of course, those of you reading this probably had 1 of 2 reactions: either you are not exercise-impaired like I am, and you are now dubious as to whether I am actually bright enough to live; or you and I are of equal exercise-intelligence, and you have already forgotten everything that I wrote. Either way, happy exercising. I have to go do some laundry.