The Emma & William Chronicles: 2008

August - September 15th, 2008

We were driving over to pick up Burton at work and Emma was drawing away on her Magna Doodle. “Mama this is a Havalima”.
“You mean Javalina?”
“No, this is a Havalima monster and it eats APPLES! It goes out when it’s not bright anymore, it goes out when it is dark”
“What does it look like?”
“It is blue and purple and it likes shadows. It has a big nose like Wallace and Grommit. It has a big chin, but you can’t see his chin because his hair covers it up and you can’t see his eyes or his nose because they are all covered up by hair.”
Emma holds up her drawing so I can see it in the rear view mirror and it looks like Cousin It.

In the car, Emma was talking to me, and her stuffed animal cat.
“Mama, this is a real cat it is not tend. Hello kitty (falsetto voice) do you want me to take you home? Oh you are such a nice kitty, I will call you Chazzanina. Oh Chazzanina I love you!”

Emma has her hand cupped tenderly around some pretend object and walks toward me, “Mommy look at my dumpster, isn’t he so cute”!
“You mean hamster?”
“Yes. Isn’t my hamster cute!”

Emma was talking with her Grandpa Holmes on the phone and he asked her if she had been running through the sprinklers this summer. We recently moved into a rental with a low maintenance, xeriscape backyard. Emma responded, “Actually we don’t have sprinklers, we don’t have grass, we just have rocks”. How sad, we have to work on that one.

“Daddy, I am a baby tiger, my name is Nausea.”

William, as ever, is our little scientist. He is very fascinated with the way things work. He examined the cookie scoop’s release mechanism by squeezing the handle over and over again, watching the gears engage. After figuring out how it worked, William placed several Cheerios in the scoop, dribbled some water on top of them by shaking his sippy cup, then opened wide and released his soggy treat into his mouth.

William has a new favorite hideout. If we can’t find him he is likely under our bathroom sink relaxing on some of the towels we keep there.

William has discovered the leverage he can achieve with the use of a spoon. When he can’t get a drawer open in the kitchen he will place a spoon under the edge and use the counter’s edge as a fulcrum and open the drawer.

Other science experiments of note: William has discovered the vacuum seal he can create on his chin with small plastic cups or with a straw dangling from his tongue. He is also doing extensive research on the displacement of water by the volume of an object. In the bath he gets the water pitcher just at the edge of overflowing and very carefully sticks his finger in. As the water trickles out of the spout he starts giggling and then he shoves his whole hand and really laughs.

William has some short phrases that he uses frequently, a lot of single command words, but seldom uses full sentences. He shocked us the other day when he was gesticulating wildly for something he wanted on the counter. There were some finger puppets up there and I picked up one and asked, “Do you want this one”?
William answered, “Give me all of them”.

Whenever there is cheering on the television or when we clap for William he will bow his head and say, “Tank two, tank two, tank two”.

Emma: Why are teeth wet?

We are driving in our car after a church activity and Emma says, "Go faster!"
Burton: I can't go faster, we will hit the Bishop's car in front of us.
Emma: What would we say?
Tracy: Sorry.
Emma: What would he say?
Tracy: I don't know.
Emma after a few minutes and saying with the gusto of just having had an epiphany,
"He would say, 'What's the big idea'"!

Emma: Mama you be a mama dinosaur and I will be a baby dinosaur. I'm hungry Mama dinosaur.
Tracy: I'm making you some cookies, baby dinosaur.
Emma: No I want food. There is food! (Pointing at her little brother.)

William's newest favorite utensil for eating rice is his shovel from his sand bucket. His favorite new hat is the bucket.

A new surprise phrase from William. We were at the park for a primary activity and one of the other kids started climbing high on the equipment and he starts yelling "Get down, get down!" William is a boy of few words, but he stores them away for the right moment and then shocks you with the clarity with which he can say them.

William really likes chocolate. When given a chocolate chip cookie, he takes his finger or whatever other utensil available and digs out the individual chips. One cookie can last him a good 20 minutes as he is very thorough.