Oh, The Funny Things Finny Says!

The boy has really been cracking us up lately. I've been keeping a list of his gems from the last few weeks. There's no true rhyme or reason to this list; these are just things that made me laugh and I remembered to write them down. Enjoy!


**A couple of weeks ago, Fin got to school, walked right up to one of his classmates (his best buddy PJ that Greta has a huuuuge crush on) and said, "Hello, arch-nemesis!"

Later that week when HaHa went to pick him up from school, she arrived to see his entire class lined up and ready to go inside and Teacher Linda dragging a head-to-toe muddy Fin over to the sink to get cleaned up. She relinquished Fin to HaHa and when HaHa asked what he was doing, he said very loudly with closed muddy fists on his hips: "I WAS TRYING TO SAVE THE WORLD BUT THE BAD GUYS WOULDN'T LET ME!" She asked who the bad guys were and he said everyone but him (he was being Short Round from the Indiana Jones movies) and he needed more outside time to save the world.

**When something isn't going his way, he has started yelling, "Oh DAMAGE!" We know what he thinks he's saying, but it's far enough away to just be funny.

**When he plays with legos, we will often overhear him having one of his lego guys saying, "Curses, foiled again!" (Can you tell he's into comic books and super heros?)

**Lately, whevener he's learned something new or seen a new movie, he will randomly announce for a few days afterwards, "Mommy, I'm really into Robots" (saw the movie last week) or "I'm really into WALL-E". He's always IN to things now.

**He eats two animal-shaped vitamins every day. He has them play with each other on the table for a few minutes and pretends to feed them his acidophilus supplement (which always has to be broken in half so they each have food ), then he will eat one, do a little "ahhhhh!" yell for it as he chews it up, then has the other one say, "I'll save you!" before he throws that one in his mouth, too.

**A couple of nights ago, we went out to eat and before we realized it, he'd grabbed one of the after dinner mints as we walked out the door. So he was eating it in the car on the way home and asked, "Can I save my progress on this and finish it tomorrow?" Yeah, he's been playing a lot of video games lately. :)

**Last night the kids were doing the usual wind-down-for-bedtime jumping on the bed ticklefest. After about a half hour of trying to land on Dave's head, Fin announced, "I'm kind of an amaziac!" It seemed like a very appropriate description.

Fin's Latest Favorites

So after rereading a few entries from last year, I found myself alone in the car with Finny this afternoon and thought it might be fun to see how he answered the questions about his favorite things now. It was an amusing conversation.

Me: "Hey Finny, what's your favorite thing about Greta?"
Fin: "umm..." (silence)
M: "What's your favorite thing about Daddy?"
F: "Plaaaaaying!"
M: "What's your favorite thing about Mommy?"
F: "Freckle!"

Yes, still. No hesitation, I swear. LOL No priming, either. He has no idea we've had this conversation before. I was cracking up.

M: "What's your favorite thing about Greta?"
F: "When she tickles me!"

This is such a sweet answer and I assume the conversation is over. I was wrong.

F: "Talk more, Mommy."
M: "About what?"
F: "About all the things I love!"

M: "Okay, what's your favorite thing about Liam?"
F: "Playing Batman and Robin."
M: "What's your favorite thing about PopPop Doug?"
F: "Playing with Liam."

Not really about PopPop there, but I let it go. We were on a roll by this time.

M: "What's your favorite thing about HaHa?"
F: "She tells jokes."
M: "What's your favorite thing about GaGa?"
F: "Going to her house."
M: "What's your favorite thing about PopPop Art?"
F: "Making holes and watching the Penguin."

This last one confused me. I knew the making holes was referring to digging holes in the back yard together, but I had no idea what "watching the Penguin" meant. Apparently, they have some sort of game where anyone with an umbrella is the Penguin from Batman, but the follow up questions sidetracked our conversation and we didn't get to run through the rest of the family before we made it home.

I have to admit, I was more than a little surprised that he still listed the freckle as his favorite thing about Mommy, but considering he still asks for it at bedtime and when he's sad/hurt/scared/upset, I guess I should have expected it. I assume he won't go to Kindergarten and still be sticking his hand down my shirt for comfort, but I guess we'll see. :)

Quick favorite

I don't have a real story to tell today, I just keep forgetting to mention one of my favorite Fin-isms these days.

If you ask Fin if he's doing something or you talk about something he's doing to someone within his hearing and he wants to protest or deny those actions, he will often say:

"No, I amn't!"

which I think is one of the cutest things I've heard in my life. He's been saying "I amn't" instead of "I'm not" for a few months now, but it never gets old.

Finny's new pants

A while back, Dave took Fin to see his first movie in a theater. It was WALL-E.

Since then, Fin has been obsessed with WALL-E and EVE. And when he's really in to something, he will pretend 24/7 to be that character. His very vivid pretend worlds started with a few weeks of being Ernie from Sesame Street just after Greta was born. He made Dave be the Count. He went through a long stage of being Caillou (and of course, Greta had to be Caillou's little sister Rosie). And lately, he's EVE.

Dave and I have discussed at length why he might want to be EVE instead of WALL-E. My guess is that it's simply because EVE can fly and WALL-E, well, WALL-E picks up trash.

Anyway, while he's pretending to be EVE, he is also becoming very aware of and adamant about gender appropriate pronouns. So, when he's EVE you can't refer to him as "he" or "him" without immediately hearing, "Eva's not a boy! Eva's a girl!" or "Not 'him'! HER!"

And of course, because we have always been direct and honest with his questions about anatomy, Fin knows very well that he has a penis and that girls have vaginas.

Last week, I had gotten him to use the potty and was trying to get him excited about his "big boy pants". I thought I might be corrected and told they were "big girl pants" instead, but what he actually came up with was even better.

"Those aren't my big boy pants. Those are my ga-ina pants! I'm putting my ga-ina on!"

Yep, he knows he doesn't have a vagina. But girls do. And since EVE is a girl robot...

He now asks for his vagina pants most days. I think PopPop Doug was concerned when Fin asked him to help put his vagina on. LOL.

Amazing what these kids come up with, isn't it?

The evolution of (Fin's) language, part 2

Fin's been a pretty good talker for quite a while now. He gets shy around people he doesn't know well, but when he does talk, most people can understand the majority of his words.

But like any 2-yr old, there are a few words/sounds he mispronounces. He tends to have trouble with two consonants together. For example, space is "sace" and scan is "san" (which could also be sand or stand; context clues help).

He also has issues with L sounds, but he's actively trying to pronounce them and makes a very cute effort, talking about his "lllllllegs" instead of his "eggs" and asking you to "cllllose" the door instead of "cose" it.

But some of my favorite mispronounciations of his these days are random two-syllable words. He seems to prefer vowels together, so he just moves some letters around.

Pretend is "ta-end".
Potato is "ta-ato".
Vagina is "ga-ina".

And of course, there's a reason he talks about vaginas enough to have a standard mispronounciation. But that story warrants its own post. ;)

The evolution of (Fin's) language, part 1

Fin has been a pretty verbal kid from early on. His first word was Mama (yea!) at about 10 months old and he's been talking ever since. I quit counting his words at about 14 months because he had so many, especially when you added in all his BabySigns and animal sounds as well.

Our pediatrician had told us that he would expect him to be saying 2-3 word "sentences" by his 2nd birthday. At his 2-yr check up last year, we told the doc that Fin was already saying 8-9 word sentences pretty regularly. Dr. C said that put him at the verbal level of a 3.5 yr old.

Immediately after the appointment, I wondered if I was just imagining that he was putting that many words together because I want him (as all parents do, I think) to be amazing. But the next day we were riding in the car and the stared thoughtfully at the sippy cup in his hand and said, "milk and juice take turns in the purple cup."

Yep! That's nine words! And my 2 year old understood the concept of taking turns (he'd had both milk and juice from the same cup that morning) and knew the color purple! Yea!

So since that confirmation, I've just accepted that he really is a verbal kid and enjoyed the many amusing things that come out of his mouth.

I also noticed a really cute verbal evolution from him. When he was younger, he would point to pictures in books and grunt when he wanted to know what something was called. The grunt eventually morphed into "Dat" which then became "dat?" as he grasped the concept of asking questions.

He then started with "what dat?" and then "what's that?"

Finally, after hearing, "That's a ...." as a response so many, many times in his life, a few months ago Fin started asking, "What's that a?" and even "What is it a?"

LOL - he knows the article comes before the word so he supplies it for us! He's been doing this for about 4-5 months now and it's still cute every time he asks.