Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Cute, With A Side Of ???

For reasons best known to himself, Max has taken to referring to Maggie as "The Little Squeaker Toy". When Maggie is upset or peevish or angry or sad, Max will sidle up to her, nuzzle her cheek with his nose, and say in his high-pitched patronizing-the-baby voice, "Hey, you Little Squeaker Toy! Don't cry! It's okay, I'm here, my little squeaker toy! Who's a little squeaker toy?" and etc.

I am not quite sure what to think about this new development. On the one hand, it's really cute. On the other hand, it's kind of weird, no? Maggie is not, by my observation, particularly squeaky, and she certainly does not condescend to be anybody's toy. On the other hand, it's REALLY cute, and Maggie LOVES it. It is frequently the only thing that can make her forget that her will has been thwarted by an unforgiving universe yet again. On the other hand, I strongly suspect that the whole routine, especially the high-pitched voice, is Max's sincere imitation of me when I am in full-on Mom mode, and I -- I guess I just wasn't aware that I came off quite so high-pitched and saccharine. On the other hand, it is really, really, very cute. And I reckon it is the most benign of the many names we can expect Max and Maggie to call each other as the years go by.

5 comments:

Ian said...

As a side note, have you noticed that Maggie always points to the dinosaur in that book and says "Owie Bum!"?

Kinda weird.

Chelsa said...

I think it's because the dinosaur comes out of the egg, but in the picture it looks like he's sitting on a jagged, broken egg. But yeah, she always wants that book read to her, and then she chants "owie bum? He's owie bum! He's a owie bum!" all the way through the book.

Jen said...

I love when children open our eyes to all that we overlook and take for granted. It makes you wonder what other things they notice as odd that we see or disregard as usual.

auntie penny said...

Maggie looks like she is almost the same height as Max. I guess she has two tall parents so that makes sense but she is a sprout for sure.

Chelsa said...

She is tall, but there is some weird camera angle stuff going on, too -- she's not as tall as Max. Max is going to be taller than me in about five minutes. Maggie probably won't be taller than me for another year or so.