"Look Daddy!"
He'd brought home a stack of artwork, all done that day at school. It'd been a rainy one, so I'm guessing the teachers were hustling to keep the kids busy. He was beaming over it, and wanted to show it to me, so we plopped down on the couch to go through it. The caterpillar made out of circles, the green diamond he had painted, the sheet of construction paper with various torn bits of paper glued all overit. And on each one, he directed my attention to the letters affixed to the top.
"Look Daddy, it's my name." Pointing to each letter, he sounded them out. "Aitch, eee, enn, are, why!"
I had forgotten this, the joy that comes when these straight and squiggly lines first start to make sense and coalesce into words, words that go along with the pictures on the page and fill in the story. And the happiness of being able to recognize your own name and put it down on paper.
"And Simie's name is ess, eye, uh, emm, oh, enn!"
His excitement was contagious. He's hungry for it, to have this power for his own, to be able to decipher the symbols and get at the stories that they're telling. As cornball as it sounds, I almost feel like I'm re-experiencing this happiness for myself.
While we're on the subject of our children's firsts, I'll have a post up tomorrow at DadCentric about another first, this one not quite so exciting, but entertaining nonetheless. Be sure to check it out. And in case you missed last week's post about my violent children, allow me to enlinken you.
Showing posts with label language. Show all posts
Showing posts with label language. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Sunday, July 15, 2007
Dispatches from the Holmesfront
Blurbs of a random flavor.
These are the things that occur to me
I think it would be really cool if Wu-Tang would take a sample from the show "Deadwood" from any one of the thousands of instances where Al Swearengen says "Fucking Wu!" and then use it in a song. My apologies to those of you who are not familiar with "Deadwood" and/or the Wu-Tang Clan, but you can trust me that it's a really great suggestion.
Fucked Statements: Statements Which Are Fucked
One should refrain from making statements structured according to the following pattern: "I'm not [blank], but [blankety-blank-blank]" where blank = a label or descriptor, often of a negative nature, and blankety-blank-blank = a declaration that clearly indicates that the speaker is in fact what they disclaimed to be in the first portion of the sentence. Examples:
"I'm not a prude, but when I'm in a crowded public place, it sometimes occurs to me that every person I see has genitals and I get so upset that I have to sit down!"
"I'm not a racist, but I sure liked this neighborhood a lot more before those people moved in."
"I'm not an especially vulgar person, but motherfuck this cocksucking son of shit."
To prevent such inconsistencies, one should consider one's disclaimers before appending them to the beginning of any statement. If any incongruities are detected, one should remove the disclaimer before speaking, and simply accept the fact that one is what they would perhaps wish not to be.
The E is for Electronic
An old friend from college whom I've not seen or heard from in over a decade found me recently. Since then we've been emailing back and forth, and it struck me as interesting and kind of cool that we were communicating through a medium that was hardly even on my radar the last time he and I spoke, which in the grand scheme of things was not that long ago, but in technology terms was eons ago. Trippy.
Helper Toddler is Helping
Henry seems to be big on housework these days. His latest thing is loading and unloading the washing machine, a task which seems to bring him enormous pleasure. He'd love to try his hand at the dishwasher, but we keep him away from that for now since we can't afford to replace all of our dishes. Soon enough though. Perhaps he'll be like David Sedaris and ask for name brand appliances at all gift-giving occasions. Then he'll grow up to write fabulously hilarious stories about his childhood and growing up with his quirky but lovable parental units.
I are tawk funny sumtim
I am beginning to believe that regular viewings of ICanHasCheezBurger may be having detrimental effects on my command of the English language. Sitting in a meeting at work the other day, someone made a suggestion that I really liked, and the thought that passed through my mind was "dat am da ossumest ideeyuh evr!" Fortunately, I was able to translate it into something coherent before I opened my mouth.
These are the things that occur to me
I think it would be really cool if Wu-Tang would take a sample from the show "Deadwood" from any one of the thousands of instances where Al Swearengen says "Fucking Wu!" and then use it in a song. My apologies to those of you who are not familiar with "Deadwood" and/or the Wu-Tang Clan, but you can trust me that it's a really great suggestion.
Fucked Statements: Statements Which Are Fucked
One should refrain from making statements structured according to the following pattern: "I'm not [blank], but [blankety-blank-blank]" where blank = a label or descriptor, often of a negative nature, and blankety-blank-blank = a declaration that clearly indicates that the speaker is in fact what they disclaimed to be in the first portion of the sentence. Examples:
"I'm not a prude, but when I'm in a crowded public place, it sometimes occurs to me that every person I see has genitals and I get so upset that I have to sit down!"
"I'm not a racist, but I sure liked this neighborhood a lot more before those people moved in."
"I'm not an especially vulgar person, but motherfuck this cocksucking son of shit."
To prevent such inconsistencies, one should consider one's disclaimers before appending them to the beginning of any statement. If any incongruities are detected, one should remove the disclaimer before speaking, and simply accept the fact that one is what they would perhaps wish not to be.
The E is for Electronic
An old friend from college whom I've not seen or heard from in over a decade found me recently. Since then we've been emailing back and forth, and it struck me as interesting and kind of cool that we were communicating through a medium that was hardly even on my radar the last time he and I spoke, which in the grand scheme of things was not that long ago, but in technology terms was eons ago. Trippy.
Helper Toddler is Helping
Henry seems to be big on housework these days. His latest thing is loading and unloading the washing machine, a task which seems to bring him enormous pleasure. He'd love to try his hand at the dishwasher, but we keep him away from that for now since we can't afford to replace all of our dishes. Soon enough though. Perhaps he'll be like David Sedaris and ask for name brand appliances at all gift-giving occasions. Then he'll grow up to write fabulously hilarious stories about his childhood and growing up with his quirky but lovable parental units. I are tawk funny sumtim
I am beginning to believe that regular viewings of ICanHasCheezBurger may be having detrimental effects on my command of the English language. Sitting in a meeting at work the other day, someone made a suggestion that I really liked, and the thought that passed through my mind was "dat am da ossumest ideeyuh evr!" Fortunately, I was able to translate it into something coherent before I opened my mouth.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)