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Baby Daddy

Our First Argument!

    Josie and I got in an argument.

    It's kind of exciting and horrible, all at once. And I don't mean that we got into a disagreement. We've had plenty of those. We got into a full-fledged argument. To wit:

    I had submitted to her maniacal requests to play with the idiotic animated animal game on babymamma's computer and we had gone to the screen with all the sleeping animals in the pet shop, who you can wake up by jabbing the keys -- which is frankly weird and disturbing, if you think about it, sort of like your own animal torture screen -- and I was asking Josie to identify the colors of the various animals.

    "What color is the cat?" I said.

    "Yellow!"

    "Right! What color is the chick?"

    "Yellow!"

    "Right. What about the frog? What color is the froggie?"

    Josie paused for a second then said, "Yellow!"

    "Yellow?" I said. "Are you sure? Isn't the froggie green?"

    Josie furrowed her brow and said, "Yellow!"

    I pointed to the froggie again. "That's yellow?"

    Josie nodded. "Yellow," she said firmly.

    "Wait a second," I said, playfully. "Isn't that froggie green? Isn't that color green?" 

    Josie shook her head. "Yellow!"

    And it wasn't like she was just contradicting me. You could see that she simply disagreed and wasn't going to kowtow to my ridiculous notion about the frog being green. It was an insult to her intelligence.

    I felt kind of like how I did when I appeared on "Hannity and Colmes" -- which is to say not just incredibly sexually turned on by Sean Hannity and his big, beefy sausage bod, but also confused as to how to overcome such dogged rhetorical surety.

    Is this what awaits us at the station of the cross know as the Terrible Twos.

    Please, if you're going to answer, try to lie in a manner that will make us feel better...

 

 

   

 

 

 

 


Published Mar 19 2008, 03:42 PM by Almondjoy
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Comments

 

AnneAC said:

Well. I have one of similar age (18 months) and today I took him to Ikea. Alone. To purchase a King size bed. Alone. Without my spouse. It was miserable. I was pushing him in a regular cart and then pushing 200lbs of Ikea-wonderfulness on one of those flat carts. All the while the child is S C R E A M I N G "NO NO NO NO NO NO NO!!!!!!!!!!!!" and flailing sideways and backwards to, I don't know, vibrate himself loose from the cart and his screams were echoing off the rafters of the giant Ikea. It was the suckiest public outing as a parent thus far.

No reassuring words from this neck of the woods. However, that Hannity clip did sort of make my day.

March 19, 2008 4:22 PM
 

Cathy Carey said:

COOL, way to handle that idiot Hannity.  I avoid Fox News like the plague because of him and his ilk.

March 19, 2008 8:11 PM
 

Tracey said:

We have friends who have triplets. Boys. Congrats En Vitro! Anyway, I remember at their 2nd birthday party the parents were boasting about how the boys knew the planets (and made them recite them for us), numbers, colors, quadratic equations, whatever. Of course we oooohed and aaaaaahed because our son was still trying to sit up without assistance. We considered those three savants.

No. It's called rote. Sure, they knew what to say, but they didn't what a "planet" really was or how any of those things relate to life or the world. It's just mimicry.

I felt a particularly evil happiness when I learned this. Their babies aren't brilliant! They're just people chimps!

Josie was just saying the word she knew. She doens't know what "yellow" or "green" mean at this point.

But good on her for sticking to her guns. Wait until she's 13. Then you'll have battles on your hands

March 19, 2008 9:14 PM
 

Amanda said:

Here in Japan, blue and green are the same colour.  I have hazel-green eyes and am constantly told how nice my "blue" eyes are.  If blue and green are in the same category, then green and yellow can be too!!

March 20, 2008 1:55 AM
 

Roper said:

It would be great if you could get Josie to point at Hannity on the screen and say "Yellow."

March 20, 2008 11:11 AM
 

Joanie said:

No, Josie's waaay smarter than Hannity.

March 20, 2008 3:25 PM
 

Allie said:

You actually went on Fox news?  That is a forbidden channel in my house, probably why I didnt see you.  I would rather stick forks in my eyes and than have that channel on, man.

March 20, 2008 5:28 PM

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About the Blogger

Steve Almond

Steve Almond in Boston

The author of My Life in Heavy Metal and Candyfreak found out his fiancée was pregnant five days after they got engaged. He tells you what it's like to be a brand-new Baby Daddy. Visit his website here.

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