After many attempted contrived situations to get the Pickle to walk, we finally helped him along. The MOTG lets go at the end and the Pickle takes a few steps
Baby Steps
That’s right – the Pickle took his first step yesterday!
Then his mother took one of his brother’s toys from him, and he took two or three more to get over to her and try to get it back.
The Pickle is walking
The Gremlin Composed His First Song
At the park today, amidst several jealous parents, the Gremlin composed his first song:
Oh you are a little pickle
Yes you are a little pickle
And I love you oh so much.
‘Cause you are the cutest brother
Yes, you are so cute
Even when you annoy the crap – uh, did you hear that mommy – stuff out of me!
And I will never hit you
Because I love you so much
Except when you touch my toys – then I’ll have to push you out of the way
Oh you are a little pickle
Yes you are a little pickle
And I love you love you love you love you love youuuuuuuuuuuu
And 7 + 3 equals 10
And BTW I’m really realy cool
Someday you will be too
But its okay because right now I love you
Even though your butt smells a lot
I love youuuuuuuuuuuu
Oh you’re a little pick and I love you
Oh you’re a little pick and I love you
Oh I love you so so much
Oh I love you so so much
Yes I do, yes I do, yes I do, oh I love you so so much
Yes i do, yes I love you
Oh I love you, yes I do
Yes I love you!
Master of Manipulation
So the Gremlin and his mother went to Target for some good one-on-one time today. The Gremlin noticed the MOTG put a candy bar in the cart.
“Is that for me?” he asked.
“No, that’s for me,” responded the MOTG
“Well, then can I have a candy bar?”
“No, they’re not good for you.”
“But then why do you get one?”
“Because I don’t have any candy.”
“I don’t have any candy.”
“Yes you do, the Easter Bunny just left you LOTS of candy at home.”
“Well why didn’t you get any candy?” the Gremlin was concerned
“I don’t know,” the MOTG had to reply
“Well, maybe you shouldn’t have been bad.”
“What?”
“Maybe if you hadn’t been bad, the Easter Bunny would have brought you candy.”
“The Easter Bunny doesn’t skip your house if you were bad.”
“Well then why didn’t he bring you any?”
“I don’t know,” said the MOTG, getting frustrated at the Gremlin’s circular logic.
“See, it’s because you were bad.”
“No, I wasn’t bad so I’m getting this candy bar for me, and you can’t have one because they’re not good for you.”
“But they’re good for you?”
“Yes.” The Gremlin was not pleased with his mother’s response and paused to looked at her.
“Well that’s crap.” At this point the cashier who was being highly entertained by the conversation, ended up losing it.
“Excuse me?” The MOTG spent the next few minutes disciplining the Gremlin and explaining why didn’t use that type of language. The Gremlin, being 5, was slightly obstinant, so the MOTG pulled out the big guns.
“Well, if you keep talking like that we’ll have to tell your father.”
“Psh, if you do, I’ll just tell him I learned it from you.”
“What have we said about lying? Does that help or hurt?”
“Yeah, but if I tell him that, I won’t be lying! In fact, I’d probably better just tell him anyway.”
“Fine, buddy, fine. I don’t think we need to tell your father…”
That’s right, he’s 5 years old and blackmailed his mother.
Pickle Picture Update – Picklish
That's right, we found him a 'Pickle' shirt
Park Peep Watch – I’d say again, but are you really surprised?
While attempting to ignore how often posts bear this title on this site – and what that says about my son, and possible future lawsuits – the Gremlin has again terrorized a public park.
Due to the Father of the Gremlin’s procrastination and poor planning, the car was scheduled to go in for new brakes at 8am this morning. This left the Gremlin and the Mother of the Gremlin with no way to get the Gremlin to school except to walk the mile and a half through the pouring rain of Seattle. Actually, it didn’t rain on them, but I’m sure the Gremlin will remember differently when he’s 35 or 40.
The MOTG did what she could to make the trip more interesting – they played games and even stopped on the way for a treat, but disaster was imminent when the MOTG noticed the Gremlin doing his potty dance.
“Hey Buddy, do you need to go to the bathroom?”
“Nope!” And he ran 20 feet to show here, and then stood there doing his potty dance while she caught up with him. Fortunately, the Gremlin had run up to one of the many parks in between his home and his school. The MOTG looked around. The park was mostly populated by people walking their dogs, and those people were mostly in the clear space so the dogs could run and do their business as well. Without remember she was with the Gremlin, she looked down.
“Okay, if you need to go, you can go in the park.” The Gremlin’s eye grew big and he grinned the evil grin of Gremlins everywhere.
“I CAN?! Okay, I have to potty!”
“Okay, just go in one of the trees away from the people, okay?”
“OKAY!” The Gremlin shouted over his shoulder, and ran right over to the cluster of trees and shrubbery perfect for hiding the ill-timed indescretion from the rest of the park. As long as you were inside. The Gremlin, however, was not. In true 5 year-old fashion, he marked the people with the dogs, and made sure they were at his back.
He then picked the closest possible tree to them, and without even bothering to go behind it, dropped trou.
It was fortunate, however, that no people with dogs were near-BARK! BARKBARK!
True to the form of the bad timing that can only be associated with the parents of the Gremlin not wanting to be embarrassed but ending up so anyway, a person walking to the park with his dog had been following the MOTG. His dog was currently lunging against his leash towards the exposed buttocks of the child in question. The Gremlin looked up, and as he is 5 he is therefore never in the wrong.
“Gosh man, can’t I get some privacy here? I’m trying to pee!”
“Uh, yeah, well, uh, sorry about that. Uh, my dog kinda likes that tree. He, uh, tends to use it every time we come here.”
“Well tell him to wait! I’m using it right now!” The man was now almost next to the MOTG, but clearly not desiring to get any closer to the Gremlin.
“Yeah, uh, apparently it’s popular with dogs, and uh, well…” He seemed to realize he’d just associated the Gremlin with a dog and was trying to get over both his discomfort and embarrassment at the same time. The Gremlin, though, provided the MOTG with a way out.
“There!” He said as he started off down the hill and towards his school, wiggling his backwards Star Wars Lego underpants up over his bottom, though failing because he was also trying to walk with his pants around his ankles at the same time.
You Can CHOOSE?!
Coming home from school the other day, the Gremlin had a question about some friends of ours
“Why did Miss L and Mr. S decide to have two babies at once?”
“God gave them two – they were trying to have one.”
“So it wasn’t an accident?”
“No, they wanted a baby.”
“Why would you want a baby?!”
“Because they didn’t have any babies.”
“But WHY would you want a baby?!”
“Well, some people think babies are fun. Cause you can dress them up and stuff…”
“But they already have babies, they have Remy and Cliquot!”
“Buddy, you can’t dress up dogs.”
“Sure you can, I see dogs in stupid sweaters all the time!”
He still doesn’t understand the concept of choosing to have a child.
He’s Such A … Good Big Brother?
When we first found out that the Mother of the Gremlin was pregnant, we were extremely concerned that the Gremlin himself would not be a very good big brother. This was not in the least because the Gremlin is a picky, bossy tyrant of a 5 year-old, but rather from the fact that to function, he requires his life be scheduled to the minute – somewhat akin to Sheldon from the Big Bang Theory.
It was an amazing surprise when the Pickle arrived and the Gremlin … loved him. The best anecdote we have of this to date is the fact that wherever we drive, the Gremlin will always reach over across car seats and hold the Pickle’s hand.
Now this is not to say that we have been sitting back and just hoping the Gremlin would magically come to enjoy his brother’s company. We had been putting enough time and energy into preparing him for his brother’s arrival that had we been alternatively tasked to create alternative energy or create peace in the Middle East, we would have put big oil out of business and be given the Nobel Peace Prize. One of the things we had been talking to him about was if he or his brother got in trouble.
“So buddy, we need you to keep calm more than anything – if you’re yelling or whining we can’t understand you. But just stay calm and tell us what you saw. You won’t get in trouble, and we’ll get your brother fixed up, okay?”
We weren’t sure if this was soaking in or not until Thursday. Everyone was going about their daily routines – the Father of the Gremlin was diligently working (and by that I mean, writing an update for this site), and the MOTG, Gremlin, and the Pickle were packed in the car on their way to CostCo. They had just pulled onto the expressway when the Gremlin piped up.
“Mumma, you should pull over and take a look at Pickles. I think he has something in his mouth and now he can’t breath.” The MOTG looked back, and the Gremlin calmly smiled up at her – holding his brother’s hand – and there were normal signs of stirring from the Pickle’s car seat. The MOTG was skeptical, but the Gremlin seemed very sure.
Once she pulled over and walked around the car, the MOTG did not manage to stay as calm as the Gremlin. The Pickle’s face was moving from dark red to purple, and he was swinging and jumping, trying to move in his car seat. The MOTG fished around his mouth, and managed to extract a wood chip that had become lodged in the Pickle’s throat. Once it was removed the Pickle began to breath again, right up to when he made a lunge that grabbed the wood chip and tried to again stuff it in his mouth.
The MOTG safely disposed of the wood chip, and made an inspection of the car seat and clothing to ensure no further playground-related items would be able to be inserted into the Pickle’s airway. She got back in the car and started down the road.
“Thank you very much for telling me that, buddy, you probably just saved your brother’s life.” The Gremlin just smiled, and kept holding onto his brother’s hand.
The Park Peep Watch (Yep, Again)
It’s always interesting to me how certain things just happen to certain people. I, for instance, can’t count how many surreal experiences I have had with the US’ domestically challenged population. From public exposure, to people “talking to me” from 20 feet away in a line without my knowledge, I am a magnet for weird occurrences with the homeless population.
The Gremlin, however, seems to have the opposite issue – specifically that repulsion is between his pants and his waist. You just can’t keep pants on the kid.
Well it just so happened that the Gremlin, having joined a preschool, managed to find several kids his age interested in the same things he was. He was departing from a playdate with his brand-new friends when it hit again.
“Momma, momma! I have to potty!”
“Well, we’re almost to the car, and the bathrooms are back through the parking lot, through the park and inside the zoo. Can you hold it until we get home?”
“No momma, it’s about to come out!” At this point, the Mother of the Gremlin took stock as to where she was – she’d deliberately parked in the free parking lot, which was significantly segregated from both the rest of the park, and the street. There was very little likelihood of anyone coming into the lot at that time, and he couldn’t be seen.
“Okay, buddy, just go ahead and go in the bushes.” The only thing that could really happen would be for his friend to drive by, and that was unlikely because they were going the other direction-
“Justin! BYE JUSTIN!” The Gremlin, who was in mid-stream, had bolted out into the parking lot waving multiple appendages as his friend and friend’s mother drove through the lot, waving back at the Gremlin and laughing.
Pickle Update and Working Hard (Or Hardly Working)
With a 7 month-old crawling Pickle, the attentions of the Mother and Father of the Gremlin have turned to such fun activities like: ‘Making Sure Pickle Doesn’t Pull the Flatscreen Down’ and ‘Making Sure Pickle Doesn’t Fall Down the Front Stairs.’
This has kept the Gremlin acting out looking for attention. Through various tantrums and other authority-defying actions the MOTG first figured out what he was doing and asked him about it.
“Buddy, do you think you were good?”
“Not even remotely.”
“Yeah, it feels like you didn’t even try.”
“Mumma, sometimes there’s no point in even trying.”
Favorite Toy of the Week: Lego Star Wars Droid Escape
