Unstricken and I seem to think alike (see the comment on the previous entry). I have been toying with the idea of teaching Andy a rude word that he could say without the risk of actually offending anyone. My original plan had been to teach him a literal translation of one of his favorite phrases (that was getting him into constant trouble at daycare) into German: “Erdnussbutter! Leck meine Kippe!” I won’t tell you what the original phrase is, but I will disclose that the most offensive single word in it is “butt.”

I didn’t follow through with that plan when I conceived it, but then last night Andy actually asked me what the German word for “butt” was. I told him I’d have to think about whether I wanted to tell him. Eventually I made a deal with him: I would tell him the word, but he could only say it to Jay or me–not at daycare or anywhere in public. If he can handle that, he’ll be allowed to say certain other things at home that we don’t personally find offensive. (The latest expression he’s been trying out, along the lines of “What the duh!?” is “What the Jesust [sic]!?”)

Now, I’m not kidding myself about the likelihood of his being able to refrain from saying “Kippe” in public. That’s why it’s German. But wait! you say. German is not all that obscure a language, especially in Minnesota. Isn’t there a pretty good chance that he will call someone a Kippe-head, only to discover that person actually understands German?

And that’s why I taught him “Kippe,” which means “[cigarette] butt” rather than “Po,” which means, well, what Andy thinks “Kippe” means.

Okay, I admit that a few of Andy’s less-than-desirable phrases were learned from Jay and/or me, but the “duh” one is from a Spider-Man comic book. He’s lately been adding “Duh!” (with or without the follow-up “I got that part!”) to the end of many, many statements. We’ve been telling him, naturally, that this is rude and that he must not say it.

Today we were walking home from daycare, and Andy pointed out a purloined shopping cart in the alley near a neighbor’s garage. I exclaimed, “What the!?” Andy elaborated: “What the duh!?” I laughed. So Andy repeated it, watching me carefully to see if his new expression would really be allowed. I didn’t say it wasn’t, so he announced, “It’s okay to say ‘What the duh.’ Mom, that’s okay to say.” And I told him it was. So if you hear Andy exclaim “What the duh!?” you can place 50 percent of the blame on the writers of Spider-Man and the other 50 percent on me.

Saturday, April 26 was a cold and windy day. With snow. As we were walking from the car into a restaurant to meet Grandma Jerrie and Grandpa Jim for lunch, Andy shouted, “Stupid, smart-aleck weather!” He is allowed to use certain rude words like “stupid,” provided that they are directed at inanimate objects rather than at people. He went beyond berating the weather, however, and continued: “I’ll kill this weather with my boom gun!” And although he was technically unarmed, he pulled out an imaginary gun and proceeded to “shoot” the wind.

From the April 26, 2008, Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader page-a-day calendar: “Persian King Xerxes I punished stormy waters by having them whipped 300 times.”

Andy was in the bathtub chatting about his plans to flood the whole house. I have a friend whose four-year-old intentionally flooded the bathroom because he was mad at her, but Andy just seemed to think it would be fun to swim around downstairs and try out his new goggles (which I got to make hairwashing less traumatic, but then forgot to use when I washed his hair last night!).

“Tomorrow I’m going to flood the whole house. I’ll run the water in the bathroom, and you and dad won’t take [sic] an eye on it, because I’ll put a sign up that says, ‘Caution! Do not go in the bathroom!’ And you won’t go in because you’d be too scared to see the water reaching the overflow part. And I’d fill in the overflow part so the water will not, will not, I repeat will not go down the drain.”

Andy hopscotching at the Hamline/Thomas park

Today at daycare Andy learned the famous mnemonic “My very energetic mother just served us nine pickles.” (Sarah learned it as pies rather than pickles, but that’s a minor point.) He is so proud of himself that Sarah doesn’t have the heart to break it to him that since Pluto is no longer a planet, the revised mnemonic would have to be: “My very energetic mother just served us nothing.” What a bummer that would be…not nearly as much fun as saying “My very energetic mother just served us nine pickles” over and over (and over).

And no, “mnemonic” was not Andy’s word. In fact, he doesn’t seem too clear on the concept of how exactly the sentence is supposed to help him remember the planets.

He does know some of the planets’ actual names, though, such as Venus. He knows that although it is not the closest to the sun, Venus is the hottest because of its atmosphere. (He asked Sarah why it was called an atmosphere, and Sarah ventured a guess that it must have something to do with spheres, which are ball shapes, like the Earth. Andy didn’t like that explanation and preferred his own, namely, that it’s because you fear to go into it.) Looking at a picture of all the planets, Andy pointed at Venus and declared it the winner, then pointed at Mercury and declared it the loser. “Because the hottest planet wins the contest! The other planets are all boo-hooing because they lost!”

CORRECTION: Jay has informed me that it wasn’t the daycare teachers who taught Andy about mothers and pickles; it was Jay!

Yesterday we received our official notification that Andy won the lottery–the school choice lottery, that is–and can enroll for fall at our first-choice school: L’étoile du nord (the French immersion school). Le Woo-Hoo! Andy himself, however, did not express the great delight at this news that some of us did. His remark was: “I hate French!” We will chalk that reaction up to its being late and the end of a long, napless day when he heard it.

If you’re wondering why we kept him up late under those circumstances, the answer is that it was our ECFE night. And it was a first at ECFE for Andy–he spent most of the “separation time” (when the parents and children are in separate rooms) in the big kids’ room with the older, school-age children! Sarah was too scared to ask what prompted this decision on the teachers’ part, suspecting it might not have been his excellent behavior and gentleness around the toddlers and babies in the preschool room, but he certainly seemed to enjoy it–especially since the big kids get to go to the gym! Knowing this, he may never agree to go back to the “regular” kids’ room.

We were sitting outside enjoying a popcicle, and out of the blue Andy told a joke.

Andy: What is more dangerous than petting a pocupine?
Us: What?
Andy: Feeding a T-Rex!

You might remember Andy’s invisible friend Yuma Gruma Zoom. Not that you probably met him, because he’s nocturnal. (Nocturnal is Andy’s actual word to describe him. People always ask me about that when I tell them about Yuma Gruma Zoom, so I will clarify here in advance.) Well, we haven’t heard much from Yuma Gruma Zoom lately.

But yesterday Andy was playing with the toy truck that Yuma Gruma Zoom sleeps in, so I asked him if Yuma Gruma Zoom was around. (I know it’s tedious for me to keep repeating the invisible friend’s entire name, but Andy is pretty adamant that just Yuma or even just Yuma Gruma is incorrect.) Andy said no, that he’s nocturnal. Now I knew that, and in fact it was why I asked since it’s the truck that YGZ sleeps in. I didn’t get a chance to point that out, though, because Andy immediately told me he doesn’t like YGZ anymore. Why? Because YGZ bites him when he’s sleeping! Now, I knew that YGZ was banned from Andy’s daycare because of biting, but I didn’t know that he bit Andy. Apparently so. In fact, we immediately had to build a cage around YGZ and his truck so that YGZ couldn’t fly out and bite us. (I guess he was in the truck after all.)

So that will be the last time I mention Yuma Gruma Zoom. I would suggest that the next time you talk to Andy, you don’t mention him either.

Andy can now recognize several sight words. We’ll be reading along in one of his comic books, and he’ll look ahead of where I am and read a word like “Ha!” He even remarks on the presence of (sometimes multiple) exclamation points. He is also learning the rudiments of phonics and is starting to sound words out. Our TV displays one of three channels: AV1, AV2, or Front. I’m not sure what these designations signify, but Andy “read” the AV1 by pronouncing it (correctly) as if it were a word spelled “av.” Speaking of TV, this is one of his sight words, not surprisingly; it did surprise me, however, when he asked me how we can pronounce it since it doesn’t have a vowel.

One of the most fun parts of his learning to read is that he sometimes spells out words in conversation. Y-E-S and N-O are the most common, but there are others too. Lately he has taken to telling Jay and me: “I love Y-O-letter U.” The first time he did it, he explained: “Did you hear what I said? I said, ‘I love Y-O-letter U’ because if I just said ‘U’ you might think I meant ‘Y-O-letter U.’”