Quotable toddler.

Ragnarbaby has only one word in his vocabulary and is pretty well satisfied that "Mama" is the only word he will ever need, and why would he bother learning anymore. When The Destroyer (new title...same Ragnarson) was young he never really rocked the "Mama" so it does give me a little zing every time I hear it, although I realize that in Ragnarbaby's world Mama means "food."

Son number one, on the other hand, is a talking fool. I know for a fact that every child accumulates quotable sayings that will come back to haunt them later in life, but since I had never done the making a child from scratch thing there were a couple of months there when I was pretty sure that The Destroyer would go through life relying on the subtle variations of "ball" and "vroom" to get him through. I imagined him like the prototypical American tourist, using volume and insistence to make up for lack of language: "Ball, ball, BALL!! VROOOOOOOOOM!!!"

And now of course he blathers constantly, and I confess that sometimes I long for a simpler time.

During our perennial dinner argument one evening The Destroyer cut off my repeated "Sit down and finish your dinner," pleas with the simple but effective: "Chomp, chomp. I am eating you. You don't have a head anymore." "Destroyer, sit down." "You need to stop talking, you don't have a mouth anymore."

After telling him that I had to "Quick, run up to the store," I was told. "NO! You need to WALK to the store. If you run really fast you will fall down and get a hole in you and blood will come out of it."

When I try to encourage independence by asking him to pick out his own clothes or perform some other simple task he says "You can do it Mom, I know you can!"

Manimal found him sobbing, unable to find his second flip-flop (which he was sitting on). "My flip flop went on an ADVENTURE!"

His favorite food is "Meat, with no yucky stuff."

His favorite activity is playing with the dirt in our front yard (there might have been a few blades of grass struggling through the construction debris, but they have been long since plowed under by a variety of dump trucks and diggers). His second favorite activity is badgering anyone who happens to walk past. "What is your name? What is your name. My birthday is in August," (calling after them as they walk away) "My BIRTHDAY IS IN AUGUST!!"

He went fishing with Grandpa during summer vacation and was thrilled to discover that "Fish are full of MEAT!"

Ragnar...proud mother of the extremely verbose.