Jack didn’t nap today, so our afternoon was a little rocky. I pulled a toy out of the closet as a fun surprise – for him, not for us. It was that piano toy shaped like a cat that plays the WORST versions of kid songs with cat-related lyrics. We had hidden it for our own sanity. He loved it, though, and giving it to him worked for a while, but then he got this really sad look on his face, mouth turned down at the corners like he was about to cry, and said “Dada me! Dada me!” Was he looking for Dada? Asking for Dada to play with him? That seemed unlikely. He doesn’t know pronouns and has no idea how to use “me”. He’s doing the Gaby thing of answering “You!” when we point to a picture of him and ask him who’s in it.
Still, we found Dada, but that did not solve the problem. “Dada me!” in increasingly sad and tearful tones. FINALLY I figured out that he wanted to hear one of the terrible songs on constant repeat. It was “Partridge in a Pear Tree”, but the lyrics were something like, “In the month before my birthday, my daddy gave to me…” and “In the week before my birthday, my daddy gave to me…” Ah. Dada me.
So I’d help him play the song, and then cycle past all the other bad songs so we could hear this one again. And again. And again.
John has taken Jack up to bed, so my mission is to hide this worst toy ever somewhere new. Somewhere Jack won’t find it. Maybe…the basement.
Momma Betty
Another neurosis he can blame Mommy some day. You took away my favorite toy!
Not the worst thing ever. A neighbor in Charleston told me that her dad, in a fit of exasperation, threw away all her Barbies. “I’m tired of them naked, headless dolls all over the place.” You were just a baby at the time, but I came to understand his frustration.