The Munchkin Files

We use Lansinoh HPA lanolin ointment to treat and waterproof M1's knit woolies and also as a diaper ointment.  So the other day, when HB decided he needed a remote diaper changing area set up (our primary location is in the nursery where M2 was napping at the time), he removed the half-full tube of lanolin in addition to the other diaper-changing necessities.

And he left it out.  In M1's room.  During naptime.

When we went to get him up, we found this:

M1 had squeezed out the entire tube of lanolin onto his bed.  And apparently rolled his stuffed animals through the ooze.

And patted it all over the walls.


And beslimed several books.  His favorites, of course.  (He had a holy screaming fit when I discovered them at bedtime and removed them for cleaning.)

And smeared it all over his face.  (I don't have a picture of that, but envision a toddler with about a 1/8" thick layer of ointment from forehead to chin, and you'll get the idea.)

The whole ordeal led to several loads of laundry.  (It's not done yet - after three hot cycles with Dawn dish detergent, the lanolin is only mostly gone from the bedding.)


 And he learned another valuable phrase that day, too: "You never, ever squeeze the tube."

Today at lunch, HB and I made the mistake of having a philosophical discussion in front of M1.  Specifically, it was a debate between the merits of teetotalism versus moderate and occasional social drinking in Christian society.  Given that HB grew up in the Bible Belt and I grew up in Wisconsin: Land of Beer and Cheese, it is perhaps surprising that we meet in the middle so well on this topic.

But that's beside the point.  What is the point is that we hadn't realized that our conversation should have been censored in front of the Munchkins.  At least, we didn't realize it until M1 started babbling happily into his milk:

"Number three is tying one cutting board.
Number four is drinking alcohol.
Number five is drinking alcohol.
Number nine is talking alcohol.
Number ten is talking alcohol."

Now there's a counting chant that will never show up on Sesame Street.

What's worse is that he is enunciating it extremely well.  We may be in trouble after Sunday School this weekend.

(By the way, I have no idea how he constructed "number three is tying one cutting board."  Other than I'd never heard the euphemism "tying one on" before and I'd asked HB to explain it's etymology.  That's just going to have to be a mystery.)

On July 3rd, a local weather system decided to celebrate the holiday weekend with it's own brand of fireworks.  We got a moderately intense thunderstorm with extremely intense rain (three-quarters of an inch of rain in about an hour).  Fortunately M1 still isn't too bothered by storms - he loves watching hail and on Sunday he even exclaimed, "The thunder goes ding ding!"

But since that deluge didn't succeed in cleaning our car, we decided to introduce M1 to the joys of car-washing.  Unfortunately, we started by forgetting about the joys of "I pour it out!"

He apparently determined that the suds should be carried over to the car on top of the sponge (as if it were an artist's palette) and then gently applied to the car by hand.  And when that got boring, M1 decided that applying the suds to my front made a nice change.


Eventually, he did get the general idea.

M1 is having a problem with choices.  Specifically, he cannot seem to grasp the logical construct, "if A then not B."  So when HB and I take separate cars to meet up somewhere, M1 can't decide which one to ride home in.  For instance, as we were leaving the in-laws' house last Sunday after lunch, M1 immediately started saying, "Gonna go in the white car."

So we loaded him up in the white car and I drove off, while HB loaded M2 into the blue car.  And as soon as we started leaving the other car behind, M1 threw a screaming tantrum along the lines of "Gonna get in the blue car!  Gonna see Daddy in the blue car!"  Thank goodness it's only about a mile and a half to drive home.

Thinking I had learned my lesson, I made extra sure this week to ask M1 the question in several different ways, "Do you want to go in the white car?  Do you want to ride in the blue car?  Do you want to drive with Daddy? etc..."  90% of the responses indicated a preference for riding in the blue car with HB.

On the plus side (for me at least), HB was the one to get the tantrum this week.

And the fit continued at home.  As soon as the cars pulled into the garage next to each other, M1 started up again with, "Gonna get out and get in the white car."

HB gently but firmly told him that there would be no more car rides; we were going into the house.

M1's response?  "You don't want to go into the house."

Sadly for him, the Munchkin Mind Trick only influences the weak-minded.

M1 has a new game.  It's where he runs around in small circles yelling, "Go!  Go!  Go!"  I was letting him play it while I prepared dinner.  My back was turned, but I could hear stomp stomp stomp stomp "Go!  Go!  Go!  Go!"

Suddenly, this predictable medley of toddler sounds terminated in a sudden brief cacophony of thuds and crashes.  It seriously sounded like he'd fallen down the stairs, only I knew he was on the level kitchen floor.  Apparently, he'd run out of his shoe and tripped.

When I got to him and scooped it up, his first words were, "Gonna kiss it."  After presenting his skinned left knee and bruised elbow for some special Mommy First-Aid, he calmed down and started asking for more. 

"Gonna kiss your other knee."
"Gonna kiss your face."
"Gonna kiss your other face."

His face (specifically his forehead), did in fact need a lot of kiss-it-make-it-better treatments, since he'd raised an enormous goose-egg when he hit the tile floor.  But he shook off the trauma pretty well (getting a Band-Aid for his knee and some "boo-boo gel" [aka Neosporin] helped a lot), and only asked once more for "Gonna kiss your hair."

He even took it well when I told him that his request of "need a Band-Aid for your hair" wasn't a viable option.

Today, I had to have the "Birds and the Bees" talk with M1.  You know, the one that goes "the birds and the bees like the leaves and flowers to stay on the plants, and so does Mommy."

My poor jade plant.  It's the only houseplant that survived my cats.  (Well, mostly survived.  If you look closely at the leaves you can see some healed teeth marks.)

So, once you've proudly shown the leaves you harvested to Mommy, what's a toddler to do with them?  Why, set the table, of course!


The narrative, supplied by M1, is as follows:

One for you.  One for you.  One for you.  One for me.  One for me.

When he was done, there were three small piles of leaves.  One in each of our places at the table.

M1 one also has an obsession with flatware.  To the  point where we regularly have to tell him, "Do not drink milk with your fork."  So of course, the nearest handy utensil must now be added to the mix.


He is attempting to cut the leaves with the side of his fork.  He's fascinated by the way grown-ups can do that sort of thing with food.  He just hasn't figured out how it works yet.

By the way, I did take the fork away from him at this point.  I didn't care to find out the answer to the question, "Will he eat the jade leaves if he can stab them with his fork?"

I'm afraid I know what the answer might be.  M1 is pretty good about not putting non-food items in his mouth, but as I mentioned, he's got this thing about flatware.

Here's M2, modeling a modified Berry Hat I knitted for a friend.

Isn't she precious?  Couldn't you just eat her up?

That's pretty much what HB said the other day when he was holding her at lunchtime.

M1, however, overheard this remark and said, "No!  Need to pway first!"

It all started a little over a month ago.  After much coaching, HB got M1 to come into the bedroom on Mother's Day and actually say, "Happy Mother's Day!"  (Actually, he said "Tell Mommy Happy Mother's Day," but I'll take what I can get).  We couldn't get it to work as well when he greeted his Nana later that day, though.


About two weeks later, it was my father-in-law's birthday.  He and my mother-in-law dropped by the house to pick up his birthday present, and HB prompted M1 to give the proper birthday greeting, just like he'd been coaching him all morning.

M1, wearing a big delighted smile, came up the stairs from the den and cried, "Happy Mother's Day, Papa!"

So I suppose it was inevitable that yesterday as we were driving over to the in-laws' house for a Father's Day meal that when we asked him, "And what are you going to tell Papa when you see him?" that M1's first response was, "Happy Birthday!"

We also got M1 to draw his Papa a Father's Day card.  He decide to draw a picture of his Papa, which was basically a bunch of scribbles that M1 would verbally label as "Papa's whiskers," "Papa's ears," "Papa's face," "Papa's beard," etc.

This sounds pretty normal, except I don't think M1 has ever encountered the term "whiskers" as a synonym for "men's facial hair."  He's only ever used it to describe a cat's facial features before...

This morning, HB and I were chatting together over our coffee, when suddenly M1 came to the top of the stairs and announced, "I took off the mattwess!"

HB and I looked at each other.  We could tell that each was filing this statement under, "Deeply Suspicious."

We cautiously went to his room and looked in.  Sure enough, the whole bed has been stripped.

Being mature, responsible parents, we of course collapsed laughing.  Meanwhile, M1 toddles past us with the sheet and says, "It's dirty.  Gonna put it inna basket."


Into the laundry basket it goes.  Don't I have a helpful munchkin?  Everybody should have one - you'll discover chores you didn't even know existed.

Today's library reading time was aborted due to a fussy M2, so the kids got to go to visit their Nana and Papa instead.  After we got back to our house, I discovered that M1's right ear was bright red and about twice normal size.  (Obviously he must get that from me.)

While we waited for the pediatrician to get back to us, we applied some generic Benadryl cream, in case it was a bug bite.  After a phone conversation with the nurse (wherein we determined that a bug bite was probably most likely, but we're still not entirely certain), we dosed him with some oral antihistamines and topical hydrocortisone cream.

I immediately put away the antihistamine syrup and dropper because it was sticky.  As I am returning, I hear little toddler babblings of "Gonna make it better."

This is quite ominous.

Uh oh.  I've left the hydrocortisone out.

Entering the room, I find M1 happily covering both arms with liberal globs of the stuff.  He's even daubed some on his left ear - apparently it felt excluded.

M1 promptly got himself hauled upstairs where he and I jointly discovered that a cream-covered toddler has very little friction.  He started making a game of pulling out of my grip.  This quickly led to an object lesson in a corollary to Newton's Third Law:

When body (e.g. Mommy's grip) upon which a force is being exerted suddenly disappears from the equation, the counteracting force also abruptly ceases.  Should the other body (e.g. the toddler) continue to apply the first force, this force must act upon whatever body still remains (e.g. the toddler).

Physics lessons still did not prevent the inevitable bath.

Grocery shopping with the munchkins is always a venture into the unexpected.  You never quite know what's going to happen.

One might be stopped by a lovely grandparent-ly couple who address the cute, curly-headed boy riding in the front of the cart:

Woman: My aren't you cute!  Are you too shy to talk?
Me: M1, can you say "hi?"
M1 (grabbing my pharmacy purchase and proudly holding it up for display): Miralax!

Or M1 may express his fascination with analog clocks by pointing out every item in the store with a dial:

"That's a scale.  That's a clock.  That's a scale.  That's a clock."
And that's Mommy's head exploding.  Don't worry, she's not using it much these days.

Sometimes, M1 even tries to drop canned goods onto his sister, who is sitting in her carseat in the main area of the cart.  He probably figures she would enjoy shaking the cans as much as he does.

And there is always the popular game show: Name that Produce:

Me: Do you know what this is?
M1 (after a thoughtful pause): Gwapefwuit!
Me: No, that's a lemon.

Me: Do you know what this is?
M1 : It has an apple.
Me: No, but it is a fruit.
M1: It has a fwuit.
Me: It is a fruit.  It's a mango.
M1: Mango!
Me: That's ri - No! Don't eat it!

And he nearly always starts the same mantra nonstop when we start checking out:

"Have a good day!  Have a good day!"

M1 adores watching his daddy (HB) and me play PC games.  This is good because we can entertain him and de-stress at the same time.  M1 will even ask us to play them.  "Gonna play the numbers game!" he'll say.  Or "Gonna play World!"  And one of the things he loves just as much as playing "World" is exiting it.  He will often ask us, "Make the World go 'way."

I just hope that he grows out of saying that before he goes to preschool, or he may unnecessarily concern his teachers.

Another game he loves is "Zombies."  That's Plants vs. Zombies, to those of you who don't wish to follow the link and find out.  I don't recommend it unless you are prepared to be completely and totally addicted to it at first play.

But back to M1...

He loves watching the zombies.  He loves to announce that "balls are hitting the zombies."  He'll even inform you that "zombies are not kittens" (I'm not sure how he got them confused in the beginning, but it's straightened out now).

And today he decided that the printer we just replaced (under warranty, fortunately) was the "zombies' broken printer."

Maybe we'd better not keep it in the house...

I had to cut M1's toenails today. As I'm sitting bent over his feet in my lap, he starts playing with my hair.  Then with my ear.  I didn't think too much of it until he said, "That's a big ear!"

All I can think of at this point (up until he tries to stick his finger in my "big" ear) is a parody of a line from The Bob Newhart Show:

Mommy, Mommy, ears so wide

Look like pancakes side-by-side!

 But at least it's better than the time he started patting my chin and saying, "Beard.  Mommy beard."  In the months since that episode, we've taught him useful concepts like "Mommy doesn't have a beard" (though every so often he reverts).  Some days not an hour will go by without an observation like "Daddy has a beard," "Mommy doesn't have a beard," "M2 doesn't have a beard," "Papa has a beard," "Nana doesn't have a beard," or even, "Kitty doesn't have a beard."

As tiring as that gets, I am only thankful that his first foray into sexual dimorphism was so G-rated.

Last night, M1 and I were discussing his dinner plate.  For the first time, he was showing an interest in the dinosaur pictures printed on it.  Sadly, he started out by calling them "doggies."  Then "horsies."  We didn't get that straightened out until I gave him a helpful sound effect to go with the word "dinosaurs."

After the fun of shouting, "Dinosaurs say 'RAWR!'" at each other wore off, M1 looked around and pointed at the milk label.  "That's a Dillons" he said.

Surprised that he would recognize the store's logo (I don't think he's ever discussed the stores we shop at by name before), I encouraged him.  "That's right!" I said brightly.

"Dillons say 'rawr'" he pronounced next.

?

"Noooo," I said slowly. "I don't think Dillons says 'rawr.'"

He thought about this for a moment, and then cried, "Dillons say 'Chicken! Chicken! Chicken!'"

...

There are times when I just have no explanation for my son.  This is one of those times.

To some people, the word "munchkin" conjures vision of small, brightly colored folk sending a bewildered Dorothy on her way to see the Wizard:

Others immediately think of those yummy doughnut holes that Dunkin' Donuts makes:
Many of my fellow geeks refuse to consider anything except the witty D&D parody card game by Steve Jackson games:
But in our house, "munchkin" most often refers to one of our two kids.  Munchkin the First (M1) is a busy little boy of 28 months.  The character on the card game often seems like he would be simpler to deal with and less destructive.  Munchkin the Second, aka "the Munchkinette" (M2) is only six months old, so she probably won't get a lot of posts just yet (except when she becomes the unfortunate subject of her big brother's "helpfulness").

Enjoy!