Things you realize you shouldn’t have taught your child

Every now and then, you realize that you’ve accidentally given your child a skill you’d rather they didn’t have. You know, the day you catch them imitating Mommy and Daddy by turning on the tv, or ‘using’ the cell phone, or the computer, or something. This morning Max was crying because he was hungry and his oatmeal was still too hot to eat. He had already tried ‘blowing’ on it (so cute, but hardly any air comes out) and he still couldn’t eat it. So what do I do? I grab his sippy cup and shake enough milk out of the spout to cool it off a bit. Stir it in, and voila! Nice, warm oatmeal. I turn away for a few seconds, then turn back because he’s fussing again. His cup is on its side on the table, half-coated in oatmeal goo, he has oatmeal in his lap and on his hands (he hates that), and there’s a little puddle of milk on top of the oatmeal in his bowl.

That’s so cute! I thought. He tried to do what Mommy did. And wow, he picked that up really quickly. We cleaned things up and he got his breakfast without further incident. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the end of it. I set him up for his morning snack a few hours later, and when I came by to clean up, his mostly-empty sippy cup was standing neatly by half a plate of white and soggy goldfish crackers. Oh, dear. I have a feeling we’ll see this new skill again. I can’t believe he started doing that after seeing me do it once. I mean, Greg has spent days recently trying to get him to say “Uh oh! Hot dog!” (a la Bobby Lee) without success. And I’m just as glad.

In other news, I’m using the Magic Stripes to make a baby hat.

I’m flying without a pattern, here, as I couldn’t find one in the appropriate gauge that I wanted to do. For the first few rounds I was afraid that it wouldn’t stripe, at all, and I’d just get a vague pooling, but as you can see I am getting a thin stripe pattern. Nice! I’m not 100% sure it will be the right size, but I pulled Max’s little hospital cap out and it seems like it will work.