I didn't want my vernacular to change because of this baby. I know myself too well to ever say "I'll never...", but there are a few things I'd really like to avoid, if possible.
When did the "time-out" become a thing? I never had any time-outs (times out?), and I'd certainly have been a good candidate. Mary is eight years younger than I am, and she's never had a time-out either, although in her case she might just never have been bad enough to deserve one. Anyway, I was simply "sent to my room", or if I was in school then out into the hallway, or to whichever stern school administrator was designated for dealing with such as me. I'm going to try not to threaten or administer the dreaded "time-out".
I'm hoping Mary and I can keep our adult vocabularies throughout this child-rearing process, and not affect any baby-talk in our everyday conversation. Now that babies are never to be left on their bellies, there exists "tummy time"... it's a phrase I don't love, even though we use it nearly every day, and I've used it before on this very blog. Maybe we can start to call it "front time" or "floor time" instead?
I vaguely recall being a bit puzzled when, as a child, I realized that my mom and dad weren't each other's mother and father, but still called each other "Mom" and "Dad". Already I catch myself, while talking to August, saying "let's go see if Mommy will feed you" and such. Truth is, I'm not sure how I'm going to refer to Mary in our son's presence without calling her Mom or Mommy or something. It's sure that he'll call us whatever he hears us calling each other, and I'm not sure we're going to want him calling us Mary and Waldron. Mary I can call her "your Mommy".
I wonder what other new verbal pitfalls await us in future. Well, that's all for now... time to go night-night.
No comments:
Post a Comment