Grandson Aiden, or on those days I can’t remember all their names he’s affectionately known as Grand 6, is growing up. He’s approaching the big three years old. Our two biggest goals for the summer are 1) that cool underwear vs. diaper thing, and 2) improving language skills.
Gotta hand it to the kid. He’s really giving the communication thing his all. You can actually see him concentrating to get the words out in proper order – meaning – he’s putting a couple words together to form sentences. Don’t get me wrong, we still have our fair share of one or two word expressions. He’s a master at the word “No.” Says it so clear, makes you want to hug him. Or pop his bottom when it’s his answer to a directive like, “Let’s clean up toys!”
Well, leave it to a kid to put an adult in their I’m-the-grown up-know-it-all place. I think it was Dora that was on at the time. Might have been Team Umizumi. Let’s just say it was on Nickelodeon. I was busy changing one of the twin’s diapers. Aiden was all over the t.v., pointing and shouting, “Eight! MawMaw, eight!” I’m wiping poop off a toddler’s bottom who picks that moment to impersonate Chubby Checker and The Twist, so I glance up at the t.v. for just a second and and say “Uh-huh, eight.”
Aiden, aka Grand 6
Aiden looks at me kind of weird and says again, “Eight, MawMaw, eight.”
With the toxic diaper out of the way, a clean diaper somewhat attached, I pay more attention to Aiden’s excitement over the number eight. The only problem was, they weren’t counting to eight, they were only counting to six. My first thought was WOW, Aiden can count to eight. I have contributed something to his day-times other than forced naps when grandma gets tired! Yeah me! Then I wondered what happened to the number seven?
So we go back and forth a few times with me counting to eight, with seven included, and him saying “No MawMaw, eight!”
Then I watched whatever show was leading my little Grand 6 astray and realized what he was seeing. Eight wasn’t eight at all – it was ATE. As in the elephant ATE the apple. Aiden demonstrated ATE by putting his hands to his mouth and pretending to gobble up something.
I don’t know how I’m going to explain there, their, and they’re.
Sometimes things aren’t what they seem
Awe … That’s so cute. Doesn’t it make you feel a little bad when they try so hard to get you to understand. They grow up so fast. Todays hassles are tomorrows memories.