The Word of the Day Is "Efficient"

Considering the rate that Gabe is growing, and how active he stays, I would say there is a better than average chance that he will end up being one of the biggest and brawniest kids in his class. History is pretty clear on the role these children typically play in the schoolyard: bully. To help keep this from happening, I've been spending a lot of time drilling the concept "hurting other people is bad" into Gabe's head.

And he's taking to it like a fish to land development. I think it's safe to say that, at this point at least, Gabe is not one of nature's gentle souls. Yesterday alone I had to remind him at least six times that he was bigger than Norah and that pushing her, pulling her, wrestling with her, and tripping her were not nice things to do. At one point, Norah was messing with the train tracks he was trying to set up. In his frustration, he yanked a track away and pushed her. Since she's built like a ball, she rolled, onto her back where she bonked her head on the floor. Now, it wasn't a BIG push, and bonking her head on the floor is something Norah does under her own power or inertia a dozen or more times a day, but from the way she wailed, you would have guessed that a trip to the hospital was required. She is clearly learning her place in the household as the second child: trouble maker.

After soothing her, I sat Gabe down and discussed, again, the concept of responsibility. As the big brother, it is his responsibility to take care of his little sister. Forever. Her honor and well-being are his to protect (I figure it makes sense to start on this now since he will be in a much better place to keep an eye on her in high school than we will be). And never, under any circumstances, is it OK for someone who is bigger to hurt a smaller person just because he can. He nodded and got a little weepy because he's pretty sensitive to getting in trouble. In between sobs, though, he said something that really got me thinking: "Pushing Norah makes me happy."

Er.

I wasn't sure how to process this, exactly, but I think it's safe to say that one of these two options is true. Either he was referring specifically to that instance, where Norah was being a pest and pushing her away "made him happy" because it allowed him to play with his train tracks undisturbed, or he's a budding psychopath. I'm going to go with the first option because, to date, I haven't seen much proof of willful maliciousness on his part. He doesn't kick the cats or punch other children (or us). I'm hopeful the former is really the case.

However, in the off chance that it is not, I've decided to start actively working on alternative methods to assure his place as "nerd" and not "bully" in the playground. Besides the constant reminders and moral lessons that I already dish out on a regular basis during the day, I am also going to try and teach him things that only nerds would know. Theoretically, this would make him a likely target on the playground, but, considering his size and physical abilities, I'm hoping that he WON'T be that target. At least not after the first time he has to rub some bully's face in the dirt.

Oh, wouldn't that be grand? The best of both worlds--the nerdy jock. It's every nerd's dream to be that guy--the one who can safely be smart because nobody would pick on him for it.

Sorry, just remembering how cool it was to be that guy growing up.

Anyway, to help facilitate this, I decided that I would try to teach Gabe a new big word every day (or, more likely, as often as I remember to do it). I hope to smoothly integrate it into our everyday activities--taking an opportunity that one of the kids or the environment presents us and giving him some abstract word to digest. I think it's safe to say that kids who throw out big words in grade school are going to be the ones on the receiving end of the wedgies and not the giving end. Other parents will, of course, assume that Gabe has pretentious parents at home--but they can suck it since MY kid will know what "pretentious" means by second grade and their kid will still be eating his own spit.

Actually, who am I kidding? Gabe will be eating his own spit, too.

But today I began our lessons with the words "efficient." Here's why:


After his poop, while I was helping him get his pants on, he distracted himself with this discovery. Why pick your nose with one finger when you can finish the job twice as fast with two?

"That is very efficient," I informed him.

"Fishin," he repeated.

"That means you can get something done faster AND do it with half the work!" I informed.

"Mmmmmmm," he hummed. "I sound like a bee!"

Obviously, I have my work cut out for me.

Apparently that was the point of the fingers in his nose all along. He wasn't being efficient, he was just being weird.

As for Norah, she seems to be developing nicely. She's starting to figure out some "games" that she can play with us, so I tried to coax her into showing them to the camera, with mixed results.

She has mostly figured peak-a-boo out and can do parts of patty-cake, contrary to what she displayed for the camera. Still, I figured I would get some video of her doing whatever since I'm still spending far more time on Gabe in these posts--and I'd hate for future Norah to think that her time in the spotlight was somehow being neglected (see, future Norah, you just aren't quite as entertaining as Gabe yet, but someday you'll get there!).