Conversations with a Three Year Old

When you're a first-time grandma you take delight in the first utterances from the precious one's mouth. I was blessed during Nayeli's first four months to be able to spend long periods of time with Rhiannon & Jason, and we "imprinted" on each other. After all, she was born on my birthday, so we were sure to have a special connection!

The first name she called me was kind of a long, drawn out "Maaaa." When she wanted out of her room (if she was supposed to be going to sleep and was putting in last requests, i.e. water, toy, one more song) she would start out calling, "Mama," "Mama." She'd lay on the floor and call under her door. Then she'd start calling "Maaaaaa." It was hard to resist but I usually did, trying to respect Rhiannon and Jason's bedtime rules.

Nayeli visited while R&J went to a wedding when she was about 21 months old. She loves our dog, Ivy, who is a gentle giant of an Alaskan Malamute. One of Nayeli's earliest words was "Ibee". She would pray for Ibee and "Tee" every night. Tee was what she called our cat, Misty. When Nayeli would visit we'd go through a little routine where we'd tour things around the house. I'd pick her up and we'd look at my collections, the animals on the fireplace, and the pictures on the wall. She'd get excited when she saw "Mommy," "Daddy," "Calbin," or "Ibee." We were standing in front of a collage Rhiannon had made for me of Nayeli's first year. Nayeli loved looking at baby pictures of herself. There are several photos of Nayeli with other people, including me. She would point and say "who's dat?" I'd answer, or I'd say "who is it?" She'd point out "Mommy," "Daddy." Then she saw one of the pictures of her with me and she pointed to the picture, and said "MA!" Then she turned in my arms to face me. She put her hands on my cheeks, looked in my eyes, and said wonderingly, "Ma!"

Nowadays I am "Grandma." Or usually, "Grandma, Grandma, Grandma." "Grandma, Grandma, watch me!" (jump off a rock in our backyard). "Grandma, Grandma, I want, I want, I want." The first time I heard her at a complete loss of words was at Disney California Adventure when I told her she could pick out a toy for her upcoming adventure. Her favorite princess is The Little Mermaid, Ariel. We found a playset for ages 3 and up of Ariel and her companions. She held the big box in trembling hands and said, "Grandma, grandma, I, I, I, grandma, I want, I want, Grandma, this, this, this for birthday?!" I agreed that I would get that for her for her birthday but she couldn't play with it until then because it said for ages 3 and up, and she'll be turning 3 on her birthday. She was quite satisfied with that.

As her vocabulary has increased, so have the chances for embarassment. For several amusing vignettes, check out Rhiannon and Jason's blog. One story Jason told recently involved a toy I bought her at Disneyland. She LOVED "It's a Small World" and I bought her a little boat that had four children from different countries. One of the children wore a sombrero. That was last February. A couple weeks ago, Nayeli brought it to Jason, saying, "Look, Daddy, I found a teeny tiny Mexican under the couch!" Pretty funny/disconcerting for a culturally enlightened teacher of Spanish living in a mostly Hispanic neighborhood in Nipomo!

I visited my Mom for twelve days at the beginning of July. That also allowed me to spend a fair amount of time with Nayeli and her baby sister, since they all live on the central coast. Nayeli would wrap her arms around me and squeeze. "I love you so, so, so much, Grandma!" Grandmas live for moments like this.

They visited us for a few days at the end of July/beginning of August. I noticed that Nayeli, now 3 1/4 years, has become quite the conversationalist. She seems to know that it's normal to converse at dinners, so she would bring up topics for discussion. She asked me, "Do you know Grandma Pam?" "Yes, I know Grandma Pam, she's very nice," I told her (Pam is Jason's Mom). "Do you remember Gram?" (My mother). "Yes, I remember Gram." "Gram, she, she, she, she, goes in the bathroom!" (laughter). "You're right, Gram does go in the bathroom."

We were looking through one of her ABC magnet books and it said "C" is for "cactus." I asked her if she knew what a cactus, and she gave her standard answer for "I don't know," "ummmmm..." I told her I would show her a cactus on our next walk. That evening we were walking all four dogs (they have two, we have two), and the baby in the stroller. Near the end of the walk we come to a neighbor who has a beautiful cactus garden. By this time Nayeli had stopped running (she was walking Ivy, who weighs 130 pounds, tugging at her leash whenever Ivy wanted to stop and sniff). I said to Nayeli, "here is what I wanted to show you." I showed her several cactus plants, explained how the leaves are thick to store water, and said the spines or thorns are "owie." Then she started running for our house.

The next evening we were almost done with out walk. The baby was happier that night, and the dogs really knew the routine. When we were almost done Nayeli saw the cactus garden. She ran ahead, saying, "Come on, Grandma, you need to tell me about something!"

Grandmas (and grandpas) live for these moments of wonder, enlightenment, and affection from these little ones. These little ones are also terrifically honest, however. On one of my visits in July we had had a great day going to the park, going to the beach, and playing at home. I told her I was going to have to "hit the road, soon," because I had to get back to "Gram's" house. She found out that her family was going to visit some friends for dinner. Those friends have three little ones. Nayeli was sitting on my lap and she told me, "I want you to hit the road now, Grandma. Hit the road!"

Nayeli's Grandpa, Marty, visited them on his own in July, to take Jason and Nayeli to an airshow. Nayeli loved the airplanes, and she spend most of her time on Grandpa's shoulders. It warmed Marty's heart to see her run up to different airplanes and say she wanted a picture by that plane, or that tire. Afterward he had her glue up some parts for the airplane he's building. It was a terrific Grandpa/Granddaughter day. When it was almost time for him to head home, Nayeli found out it was bathtime. She loves bathtime so she told Marty, "Grandpa, the door is over here." She showed him to the door!

When you have conversations with a three-year-old you never know what you're going to get. So you take it all - the sweet, the funny, the embarassing, and the surprising!

GoodlyMcNight!

Soon after Mom and Dad got married I discovered that Daddy had a language of his own. Each night he would tell me "GoodlyMcNight." I would ask "are you Irish?" and he would answer, "No, I'm Polish."

When we cooked chicken we used the whole chicken, so we were always finding chicken bits - livers, hearts, etc. in with our wings and drumsticks. But with Daddy around most of those chicken bits were "gilberts," with the exception of kidleys (kidneys). He had a thing for replacing "n's" with "l's". Disneyland was Disleylant.

I think he liked to play with the sounds of words. He was a jazz musician, and he had a gift for languages. I believe he knew German, and some Polish and French. In his later years he tried to pick up Spanish by watching Telemundo. Since he said he was Polish I would cook him Kielbasa, or smoked pork hock & beer stew. The German part of him loved German sausages - a highlight in my teen and young adult years was going with him to Berghoff's in Chicago. French cuisine was introduced in the form of escargot. As an adult I've never eaten it, but as a teen I would try some at the White Horse Inn before our lobster entree.

We lived in the San Fernando Valley, which had its own amusement park in those days. Busch Gardens opened in Van Nuys at the Anheuser-Busch brewery in 1966. Mom and Dad married in 1969 and we took many trips to "Birdland," as my dad called it. We would take the monorail ride through a building which demonstrated how beer was made, and into the park. The smell of hops and beer imprinted on me... however I never did develop a taste for beer (not even when I went off to college!) My sister and I would put up with the boring part of the ride in order to get to the wonders inside... beautiful gardens, birds everywhere, and a handful of rides. Amazingly enough, "Birdland" had free admission, although I suspect that the main reason we visited often was the free beer. I learned that Daddy's favorite beer was the premium brand, Michelob. He preferred Busch to Budweiser. Barbara and I were thrilled when Busch Gardens opened a log ride. That made waiting on our parents outside the beer pavilions all the more worthwhile. Log rides are still my favorite kind of amusement park ride - if you're going to go shooting downhill, let's have some water to land in.
Besides the free beer, Busch Gardens was best known for its collection of birds. Mom and Dad's car (I'm not sure if it was the Mustang or the Cougar XR7) developed a high-pitched screech when they first turned it on. Daddy would say, "ah, Birdland." To this day, when I hear a car make that noise I think "Birdland."

Dust or tiny bits of paper or other debris on the tables were "bits of pih." He would often brush "pih" off a table or his clothes.

He had nicknames for everybody. Babies and kids in general were "ick-mick" Somehow Rhiannon was "the Princess" and Calvin was "the Punk". That hardly seemed fair!

Early on he started calling me "Moldy." I have no idea why. I have thought about it in later years and wondered where it came from, and whether it was positive or negative. However, I was never bothered by it because he always sounded affectionate when he said Moldy. The name stuck into my adult years, because when I got married we became "the Marty and Moldy Show."

Daddy said my sister was "toinky-boinky." At the time I thought it meant she was cute, pretty, and not quite as much into school as her big sister. Later I thought toinky-boinky was kind of mean-spirited, like he was putting Barbara into a certain role. She put herself through college to get a degree in physics, became an optical engineer, worked with astronauts on space shuttle projects, and has been very successfully homeschooling her daughters. No "toinky-boinky" in her!

Most of the funny words and names that Daddy came up with left a positive impression. I still cannot look at chicken parts without thinking "gilberts." They are a part of our family culture. I would be curious to know whether my mom, sisters, or kids remember any other "Aceisms" Daddy had in his unique vocabulary. We should come up with an Ace Glossary! Are any of his words being used by the kids? Will they become part of the next generation?

Goodlymcnight!