Mister Mac

Talking to Mac, who’s cranky after a bath:

“Can I hug you?” 

“No!” 

“Can I kiss you?” 

“No!” 

“Can I tickle you?” 

“No!” 

“Can I squeeze you?” 

“No!” 

“Can I love you? 

“No— yeah.”

Mac can make the d sound only at the beginning of a word, not at the end. So if he’s not hot, he’s “coln,” and when he greets Brian at the door, he says, “Hey, Dan.” When he’s impressed, he says, slowly, “Oh my wern.” When he’s tired, he asks, “Go t’ ben, Mom?”

Somehow, he knows Michael Jackson’s song Bad and sings it often, making up his own words to suit his mood. Because he can’t pronounce the final consonant in “bad,” and doesn’t know any other words (so they come out in an indistinguishable stream), it can be hard to catch. 

For “more bread:”

“More bren, more bren, no lo lo bren.”

For “I’m mad:”

“I’m man, I’m man, no lo lo man.” 

Etc. 

He calls Neva, girl, and William and Barrett are “guys.” (He never calls Neva by her name. Only “girl.”) “Tell Neva ‘thank you,’ Mac.” “K’ou, girl.”

He loves to sing. He’ll mouth the words to songs in the car, after telling me to ‘watch this’- “Mom, ah dis!”

He sings “Twinkle Little Star” like this:

“Keno, keno, keno tar

Up buh buh buh buh buh high.”

At night, he asks for the “Neva Mae” song: “Ah Mae?”  He wants the same thing Neva has, wants to do the same thing she does. Sometimes he requests the alphabet song first: “C-D-D?”

He’s in the thick of learning how to speak English, and I am holding onto this phase tightly with both hands. I am going to miss it with all my heart. 

“Broke-it, this, mama.”

“Have-it, this?”

“Eat-it, this?”

“Hold-you, me?”

“Oh, ‘licious!” (delicious)

“Oh, shoes!”

“Oh, un-wear!” (underwear)

“Lap!”

“Hand!”

He replaces the w at the beginning of words with l. 

After potty: “Mom, I lipe?”

In the car: “Down, lindow?”

In August, he took to potty training like a fish to water. He’s had the fewest accidents of any of the kids, which I didn’t expect. (This is probably because anything his siblings do, he wants to do, too, and just as expertly.) He quickly- almost magically- transitioned, upon turning two, from being a pretty cranky guy, to such a pleasant little fellow. He trucks along at a good jog to keep up with everyone, climbing and jumping when they do, swinging his fat arms as he runs. 

He loves to be a big helper. After he picks up toys or puts food into Bo’s bowl, I gush over him: “Mac! That was so nice of you!” “Nice-you,” he repeats. Sometimes, he praises himself before anyone else does. “Nice-you!”

We have played this game over the past month, but I think it’s ended. He doesn’t seem to like it anymore. I’d tell him, “I kiss!” And then I’d kiss his cheek. He’d reply in his husky little voice, “No, I kiss!” He’d wrap his arms around my head and pull my face in to kiss my cheek. We’d go back-and-forth like that seven or eight times: “I kiss!” “No, I kiss!” Can you imagine a better game? I’m so glad I just wrote it down. I never want to forget it. 

Finally, I never want to forget how each night, in the dark, I hear him tell me I love you: “Luh loo, Mom.”