Ever Changing Personalities

Remember how I told you Jack likes to be called by different names?

It just keeps evolving. After watching Madagascar 2 with his brothers, he has now decided he would like to be called "Moto Moto," or "Move it Move it" (because of the song from same movie.)

If I try to call him Jack or even cute Mooksie, he patiently (or not so patiently depending on my level of cooperation) insists I repeat the entire sentence replacing "Jack" or "Mooksie" with "Moto Moto" or "Move it!" then proceeds to sing his rendition of "Move It" complete with dance moves while demanding to watch the YouTube clip on my IPhone for the hundredth time.

These new developments are, quite frankly, annoying. I don't love calling my little boy "Move It." It's not even a name!

Perhaps "Move It" and "Moto Moto" are a quickly dying phase though. Just last night, as I was putting him to bed, he came up with a new one. He likes to say goodnight to all his photographs in his room. He says goodnight to the picture of a bird Ben drew for him: "Goodnight bird from Ben!" He says goodnight to the picture of daddy carrying him on his shoulders: "Goodnight, Daddy!" He says goodnight to the picture of himself: "Goodnight, Jackie!"

Then, he looks at the picture of himself as an infant and says, "Goodnight, Baby Jesus!" I pointed out to him that that was actually a picture of himself as a baby: "It's not baby Jesus, it's baby Jack!" Then he said, "I am Baby Jesus!"

Mooksie, Moto Moto, Move It, and now Baby Jesus. What's next?

Multiple Personalities

We have so much fun with Jack's ever-increasing verbal abilities. Not only is it fun to hear the words he comes up with on his own, but he will repeat just about anything you ask him to. It is one of the big boys' favorite games: to see what they can make Jack say and what funny twist he will give to it.

With his verbal abilities comes more evidence of his unique personality showing also. He is developing quite the little imagination! One day, a few weeks ago, when I called to him by his name, he looked at me and said:

Not Jack. Name's Mooksy!

You want me to call you Mooksy?

Yes! Mooksy!

*lots of laughing and giggling and repeating "Mooksy" over and over again*

He now calls himself Mooksy and even talks about himself in the third person, such as:

Here comes Mooksy!

Mooksy is super fast!

Come get Mooksy! Chase Mooksy!

It is cute and we are all more than happy to call him Mooksy. As Ben pointed out, no one else has a nick name in our family, and Mooksy is fun to say!

But his personality is split even further than this, I'm afraid. The boy is also a tad obsessed with Harry Potter, so he also will answer to "Harry Potter" sometimes, if the mood is right. Yes, that's right. Occasionally, if asked what his name is, he will tell you he is "Harry Potter" and he has a "flying car."

I'm not done. Just yesterday, because Matt was away, I broke out my new Micheal Bublé Christmas music to listen to with the boys. No stranger to his voice, Mitchell asked, "Hey! Is this Micheal Bublé singing Christmas music? Hah!"

Jack tried out saying "Bublé'" just once and was hooked. For the rest of the evening, he was referring to himself in the third person again, this time insisting we think of him as Bublé! What kind of character is this guy becoming where he is a wizard one minute, a singer with a funny name the next, and a completely made-up weirdo the next?

Boonts!

Jack has been making quite a bit of progress in his speech over the last month. I can no longer measure his vocabulary in neat and easy terms such as "Yeah, he has about a dozen words." I can no longer list all his well-used words off the top of my head, and I am not the only person who can understand his words anymore.

Despite his advances, the last week or so, he has begun adding his own flair to his words, that are a funny but frustrating development. He is adding a "ch" or "ts" to the end of many of his words. One of his most-used words, fan, has become "fanch." Hands have become "hants." Spoon = "foonch." Even his brother has gotten a new name - "Bents."

My new favorite evolution though is his new word for balloon: boonts!

Yesterday, I bought a bag of water balloons and they kept us busy all day. I must have filled and tied hundreds of balloons. Keeping up with three boys who can explode them faster than I can fill them keeps a mom occupied (and more than a little wet.) Every time Jack needed a new balloon filled, he would hand me an empty one and say, "boonts! boonts! boonts!" until I finished filling it for him.

Now half a dozen "boonts!" for every balloon I filled for him equals A LOT of the same word over and over again!

It must have been cute and catchy enough though, because the rest of us eventually started calling the water balloons "boonts" as well, and now they big boys say it without even using a baby voice or laughing. That is just what they are calling them now, apparently.

Today promises to be another hot one and with daddy out of town, I think we will probably use up the rest of our "boonts" (and possibly the rest of my sanity as well...)

Inventing New Words

For the most part, I think I am fairly honest with my kids' abilities. I think they are all intelligent and each one has areas they are a little ahead in, but I don't pretend any of them are geniuses or prodigies in any area.

That said, I think Ben has a talent for language. He spoke early, he was conversational early, he has been clearly understandable by all at an early age, he has an advanced vocabulary, and he rarely makes grammatical errors. If he does make a mistake, he only needs correction once and the mistake is rarely made a second time.

Mitchell is also intelligent and even speaks well and understandably, but doesn't posses quite the flair Ben does in this area. Because Ben has always spoken so properly, I can't recall any funny or cute mistakes that were a part of his vocabulary for a time.

Mitchell, however, has loads of them! Knowing that Ben might be above average in this area has really given me a patience and even a delight in Mitchell's "mistakes." He calls propellers "impellers." Cement mixers are "cemix makers," and he "sinks" sometimes instead of "thinks." For a time, anything risky, exciting, or dangerous was "whoa, denrious!"  The Land Before Time is "Land For Be Time," and he does things "all bury himself," rather than "all by himself."

These words of his, and countless others of the like, are cute, funny, and make me smile every time, and although I usually do correct him when he uses them, I am always hesitant to because of the humor and happiness they bring me.

Lately, his words are becoming more and more correct and I find myself missing his "mistakes," but there is a new word that he has come up with that is pretty funny and has been invented not out of incorrect pronunciation or mix-up of letters but a combination of two over-used words. His newly invented word is: "binlook!"

When he wants me to pay attention or see something he says, "binlook!" Do you get it? He has said "Ben, look!" so often that it has become one word meaning, "check this out!" and he uses it no matter who he is speaking to!

I like this word quite a bit. I like it because it's existence symbolizes how close my boys are to one another.

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