Brain Spill

It is no secret that both Sempi and Vian prefer their mom over me. Vian perceives me as the guy who lives in the same house and occasionally grabs him from his mom to change his diaper. 

If I happen to enter a room in which he is playing, he will preemptively declare "I don't need you, appa". Which is a wonderfully  heartwarming phrase to hear from your child. 

A couple of days ago, the entire family was in the living room. Yoshi was playing with the kids, I was working on my laptop. Yoshi stood up to leave the room, and Vian starts to get anxious. Yoshi reassures him that she'll be right back. I wasn't paying much attention to the surroundings as I was focused on my laptop. 

Vian says something to me. I half-heartedly acknowledge. Suddenly he yells at me, "APPA! Are you going to answer me?". I immediately sit straight, set aside my laptop and focus all of my attention to him. "I'm sorry, Vian. What were you saying, baby?". Vian replies "I was saying that I don't need you". 

Very well then, I'm glad you got my undivided attention to share that, <redacted expletive>.

Sempi's new obsession is playing police. Every chance he gets, he recruits me and Vian to play police. 

Sempi: Appa, let's play police. You can be the bad guy and I'll be police

Me: Ok! Vian, what are you going to be? A good guy or a bad guy?

Vian: I'm batman. 

Me: I see, so is batman a good guy or a bad guy? 

Vian: No appa, I'm batman. 

Me: Alrighty then. I'm glad we settled that.

It is freezing outside. We bundle up and go out to explore. When we got back to our lodging it was warm and cozy. Yoshi decided to make everyone hot cocoa. 

She brings the cups of hot cocoa and the bag of marshmallows.

Yoshi: Vian, how old are you?

Vian: Two!

Yoshi: You can have 2 marshmallows for your hot chocolate.

Vian: Yay! (and proceeds to grab a handful of marshmallows and dumps it into his hot chocolate).

We don't have any wiretap devices like Google Home or Amazon Echo at our house. So whenever we encounter on in the wild the kids get excited about talking to them. 

We went on a vacation where the AirBnB had a Google version of the wiretap. So Sempi requested it to tell him a story and was pleased with the results.

Vian decided that he will try his luck on this device. Pretty soon I heard him screaming:

"OK! DOODLE!" 

"OK! DOODLE!"

"OK! DOODLE!"

Poor kid, one of these days he will learn how to pronounce the "Ga" sound. 

Vian is still having trouble pronouncing the sound 'ka'. He uses the sound 'ta' when he tries to say 'ka'. See previous post for some examples. 

We're reading a picture book on the couch. 

Vian: What is this?

Me: That is a farm.

Vian: Farm!?

Vian: What is this?

Me: That's a chicken.

Vian: A Tciten? 

Me: Yeah a chicken. 

I noticed that his pronunciation of "Tciten" is suspiciously close to how he would pronounce "Kitchen". 

So I figured I'll take this opportunity to troll him using cognitive dissonance.

Me: Where is Amma?

Vian: Over there (points to Kitchen).

Me: What is that room called.

Vian: That's a "Titen".

Me: What is this called? (pointing to the chicken in a book). 

Vian stares at me a second while he figures out my trap.

Vian: It's a dut (duck). 

Once again I'm outsmarted by a two-year-old. Never been prouder.