Nate Nate

Land Shark, Redux

(The original is here.)

Where Is First Finger?

Presented without comment, Nate's first piano recital:

Art

Jonah, taking a giant bite out of his rectangle-shaped ice cream sandwich: "Look, Mommy!  Look what I made!"

Me: "Um, an ice cream sandwich with a bite out of it?

Jonah [looking confused]: "No, Washington!" 

Nate 1, Language Issues 0

Tonight, during his bath, Nate started singing a song he must have learned in music class (I say "must" because unlike the rest of what he's singing these days, this contained no dark themes or totally inappropriate lyrics -- yes, The Decemberists, I'm looking at you).  "Bubble gum, bubble gum, chewy chewy chewy chewy bubble gum, I like it, I like it," he sang happily. 

"Wow, Nate," I said, "I'm going to have to buy you some bubble gum!"

Nate, of course, has major food issues and generally refuses to put anything in his mouth that is not a direct descendant of the pancake family.  "What??" he started in a panic.  "No, I don't like it.  I don't like it!!"

"What??" I feigned innocence.  "But you just said you like bubble gum!"

"No," Nate explained, "I was just singing a song!"  Then a look of recognition came over his face, and what may turn out to be one of the most significant moments of our almost 6 years together suddenly happened.  "You were teasing me!!"

As is well documented on this blog, Nate has had some language issues.  We've had a lot of long, dark days and nights of struggling to define and understand exactly what is going on with him, how best to help him, and what the future might look like.  And one thing we didn't know if we would ever see is Nate making language-based jokes, or even getting jokes.  And then there he was, laughing hysterically over my joking literal interpretation of his song.  He got it, he got why it was funny, and he loved it. 

We've just seen such a sea change in the past couple of months, and even the past few weeks.  As Steve reported here earlier, he can't get enough of the Landshark skit.  He's becoming much more interested in stories, and his kindergarten writing assignments are becoming much more inventive and on-topic (recent assignment: Write a sentence about spring.  Nate's sentence: "In the Spring I will take many swimming lessons.")  It definitely feels like we might be seeing the beginning of Nate: The Talky Years. 

Although, even as I write this, Nate is standing here telling me that when I came in from Chicago the other night, I arrived at Gate 7.  Which is perfect, because I also really need to know that Nate will always be Nate.

Plumber, Ma'am

In the car this weekend, the conversation with the boys turned to sharks.  "Do you want to see a funny shark video?" I asked.  Predictably, the answer was "yes," though I think Jonah, who finds even the Backyardigans too frightening at times, wasn't sure.  

When we got home, after a little bit of Googling (incidentally, Jonah and Nate both know and use Google as a verb), I queued up Land Shark, the classic skit from the first season of Saturday Night Live.  And the boys LOVED it.  Since they first saw it, I think Jonah may have asked me a thousand times, "can we watch Lamb Shark?"  They've watched it so much that Jonah can now recite the whole thing from memory, and he wants to act it out constantly.  Knock, knock, who is it, mumble, who?, plumber, I didn't order a plumber, telegram, door opens, scream, etc.  It cracks me up every time Jonah (or Nate) says "candygram." 

Speaking of Googling, while we were waiting for our Saturday babysitter so that I could go to work, Nate was furiously Googling "when will [babysitter's name] get here?"  Oddly, Google didn't have the right answer. 

Posted by Daddy.