Sunday, October 19, 2008

No more first name usage in our house

Tonight per our typical bedtime routine, I gave Moose a bath up on our second floor and was getting him ready for bed. This was one of the nights where we give him a shot of a methyl B-12 vitamin. Not a shot like in a shot glass, but a shot via a syringe in his right buttock. Typically I yell downstairs to Wife, using her first name, in order to indicate it's time for her to come upstairs and administer the shot while I hold Moose in place. 

An aside: Moose is helped so much by the B-12 shots that he actually gets excited for them every other night. Since we started these, he's much more focused on the here and now and FAR less spaced out. The pain of the shot must be outweighed by the benefits he feels because, and I'm not exaggerating, he usually leaps up and is all excited to receive his shot. Freaky. 

Now back to my story. Tonight I yelled downstairs to Wife, saying her first name. She didn't hear me at first, so I was saying it over & over again, fairly loudly, till she heard me. 

And what does Moose proceed to do? He repeated my wife's first name, over and over again, non-stop for about five minutes. I will admit, his imitation of me was perfect. Even had the questioning inflection at the end... Wife? Wife? Geez. What have I done?? 

Wife was less than pleased with Husband. Sigh. 

At least he's echoing our language. This is good. But now I know: no more using each other's first names. I don't think he knows what her name means, so hopefully this will pass. Hopefully. Not sure how we'll untrain this if it sticks around. 

1 comment:

tommysmommy said...

I was not less than pleased with you. You are terrific and fabulous. Echolalia sucks. I'm less than pleased with that.