Dad-gum

Posted by Vin...



Ever since I've returned from deployment, Alex has been amazing me with his advancements. The one that gets me the most is his unprompted "thank you"s. It's like someone turned on the manners' switch in his head and now any time you hand him something, out rolls a "thank you" before he turns his attention to the object he just received. It's so cute and amazing to me.


Now I'll set up the situation. We all stopped for lunch this afternoon while shopping, and we asked Alex and Brennan what they wanted to eat by pointing to the kid's menu. Bren wanted pancakes. We tried to limit Alex's bewilderment by just asking him if he wanted a burger or grilled cheese. Right away his answer was "burger," but we didn't know how much we could trust the answer of a little boy who's just shy of 2. Was it what he really wanted, the last thing we said, or the first thing we said? It's so hard to tell, that we tried to play it safe and ordered the grilled cheese. He always eats his grilled cheese...right??? Wrong. No more than we got the basket they delivered his food in than he asked, "Burger?" We told him, "No, you got a grilled cheese. Eat." He promptly put it back in the basket along with the bowl of fruit with a resounding, "Uh-uh." We should have gotten a burger.


That's when he eyed my fries, and there's almost no stopping the One Story Bandit and his 15 foot arms when he wants something. I was able to corral him and keep the hot fries from him long enough for them to cool, but it was tough. He was so insistant on eating them so I asked him, "What do you say?" That's the end of what you hear me saying at the beginning of the recording. Alex says, "Please." I hand him the fry. Then right away he chimes in with, "Thank you." It keeps taking me aback, but this time I had almost thought, with a dejected look, that he had said, "Dad-gum" in his best Larry the Cable Guy (or Mater from the movie Cars for those who have seen/heard it about a hundred times too many) voice. Each time he would finish a fry, though, his hand would start creeping up like he was going to try to snatch another one. I would turn and look him in the eyes. His hand would freeze for a moment as he would try to stare me down. Then, the hand would extend to full length trying to reach as ours eyes remained locked. I would give him my best, "What do you say?" look to which the exchange would repeat every time. I reallized that in fact he was saying, "Thank you," but take a listen and you be the judge.

PS...After trying to upload an audio file as a video for the last 45 minutes, it won't work. You'll just have to take my word for it. Sorry. If anyone has any suggestions on a good file converter to change an MP3 into a Quicktime, MPEG, Windows Media, or AVI, let me know, and I'll update with the audio (I should have done it as a video).