Monday, September 21, 2015

Baby Help.

Ever since my son hit 18 months, his verbal skills have really picked up. Not only did he add more words to his vocabulary, but he is able to string words together, recognize several letters and parrot back things we ask him to say (which is particularly fun--but also a little dangerous). His new phrases crack me up and melt my heart. He says "I love you," "Go Niners!" and "Touchdown!" (All equally important phrases in our house). I am always most impressed, however, when he picks up a new phrase that I can't recall every saying... or at least with any frequency.

Here or there he surprises me with a word we've used a couple of times, or just read over in a book but never focused on. He calls our house "Home" and everywhere else is "Papa's House" "Auntie's House," etc. Even when he refers to our dog, it is "Nine's Home." This is my favorite because while I'm sure I've said "We're going home" a million times before, he is already discerning a difference between a house and his home.

His favorite phrase as of late, and in some cases the most aggravating, is "Baby Help." Now I know I've asked him to "Help Mama" in the past, and we most certainly call him "The Baby," (which is particularly frustrating when we tell him he's a big boy and not to whine like a baby to which he points at his face, smiles and says "Baby!" ensuring us he most certainly will act like a baby because he is one), but I can't recall a time the phrase "Baby Help" ever came out of my mouth.

It is clearly an indication that he is developing both his verbal and cognitive skills, being able to understand the meanings of words and put them together in new ways to convey thoughts and ideas. However, EVERYTHING is "Baby Help." The disagreement we have on repeat typically goes as follows:

("Baby" pulls all of the DVDs off of the shelf)
Me: Don't do that (frantically starts putting them back on the shelf, no longer in the alphabetical order they were in pre-toddlerdom)
Baby: Baby help!
Me: No. No baby help. Mama do.
Baby: No, Mom. Baby help! (grabs DVDs and shoves them haphazardly in all the wrong places)
Me: Baby, no. No, help.
Baby:...Mom... Baby help.

I eventually give in to baby's help and as I glance over at the DVD shelves on our walls my OCD aches as I notice "Home" placed next to "Monsters, Inc." and a few backward and upside down titles on either side. It's a battle I have chosen not to fight. For the first several months after my son learned how to walk I re-alphabetized those movies way too many times. I've finally realized it's not worth it.

I suppose I should be happy that the helpful toddler gene is strong with our youngin' but sometimes it is SO much harder when baby actually wants to help. He's become rather useful at some tasks--dusting, feeding the dog--but when it comes to vacuuming and carrying the laundry basket, it really creates more work than anything. That doesn't mean I don't acquiesce to his demands to help. I do. But I tend to let out a large sign every time I say "Ok, honey, you play here, mama is gunna go pee" and he says "BABY HELP!" as he chases me out the door.

I suppose one day he'll be a fairly useless teenager, finally able to complete tasks in a helpful manner after developing a complete unwillingness to do so. So for now, I take the "help" no matter how decidedly unhelpful it is.

--N.