The World According to Pok – Finger Counting

This is a guest post from my young niece JY! She is the eldest among the kids (though she is a young lady now), and finds it hilarious what comes out of my son’s, AKA “The Pok”, mouth.

During one of my many Skype conversations with my little cousin “The Pok”, we engaged in our usual conversation. As usual, we began by asking each other what he had eaten for breakfast. He racked his brain for all he had eaten throughout the day and delighted in the culinary exchange.

Once our “food conversation” was over, The Pok suddenly grew very excited to demonstrate what he had recently learnt – how to count!

First, he started to count my fingers as I held them up in front of the webcam. Each time, he would not get the amount of fingers correct. Curious, I asked him how many fingers he had.

Cousin of the Pok: “[Pok], how many fingers do you have?”

Pok: “I have all of them!”

With that we all laughed hysterically, including “The Pok”, though I knew that he didn’t understand that what he said was funny.

The World According to the Pok – Cussing

Our boy, AKA ‘The Pok’, has started to say some really funny things with the reasoning of a 4-year-old behind his musings. Some of it is hilarious, or just bizarre.

I am far from being a saint when I am driving and reacting to the idiotic misaligned actions of my fellow drivers. To be honest, my language when cussing other drivers can be pretty bad. That has all changed significantly (my wife might begs to differ) since becoming a dad. I am always conscious of the fact that I have a little word repeater in the back seat.

But I couldn’t contain myself on the way back from a “boys only” trip, with the Pok, to Ikea. [side note: this would appear to be our second favourite destination for “boys only” trips, the first being Bunnings Warehouse Hardware Store – end side note].

Travelling in the car at 60 kph, I had to slam on the brakes to let in a young driver who was too impatient to wait for the acres of space available behind my car.

I let rip within the noise cocoon of my own vehicle, “You stupid Muppet!” Satisfied with myself at the verbally issued tirade.

Within a second “The Pok” gave his version of cussing to the driver, “You silly Prawn Head!”

I double taked, as this was the first time I had heard him have a crack while driving.

“[Pok], what did you say?”

He responded just as eagerly, “I called her a silly Prawn Head, because they are just silly.”

I burst out laughing at what he thought was a demeaning turn of words, which bemused him as to why I turned from road rage to laughter at his outburst.

Some day, when he is much older, I will teach him insults that are not comedic.

The World According to the Pok – Hardware Store

Our boy, AKA ‘The Pok’, has started to say some really funny things with the reasoning of a 4-year-old behind his musings. Some of it is hilarious, or just bizarre.

‘The Pok’ loves coming with me to Bunnings (Warehouse) hardware store. It is always a man adventure, and he is always discovering new things in store. However, the most important purchase at Bunnings is always a sausage sandwich from whichever local group is fundraising. It is always two sandwiches, one for me and one for him – and we never share!

So after I quickly wolfed my sausage sandwich down the chute, he continued working through slowly savouring his while constantly smearing tomato sauce and mustard all over his face.

I was in a hurry and had to exchange an item, so we queued up while he continued to eat.

Two attractive young women walked in, obviously friends, and the one in front caught a glimpse of ‘The Pok’ as. She started cooing at him, and then turned to her friend and said “Look at that little boy, he’s so cute.”

I don’t know how to react to strangers doing that. Guys never do it, but some women of all different ages feel the need to make a comment about someone else’s child. So I kindly smiled, and of course ‘The Pok’ kept on eating his sandwich ignoring the two young women. Side note – I keep on telling my brother that he can borrow his nephew for a day of “shopping” and we will get a shirt or cap made up that says “I’m his uncle”. – End side note.

The girls joined the queue directly behind me, and the one who made the comment then decided it would be a nice gesture to engage with my boy. She bowed down to his level and said, “Hello little guy, are you enjoying your sandwich”.

‘The Pok’ locked eyes on her and loudly…

GROWLED!

Shocked, she recoiled back and awkwardly said to her friend, “I guess that wasn’t a good idea.”

I didn’t know whether to laugh or be embarrassed by my boy’s response. I apologised to the young woman on behalf of both us, “He is not normally like that.” My son finished off his sandwich.

An important lesson was displayed here. Never get in the way of a man (little or otherwise) and his food, particularly if it involves meat.

The World According to the Pok – Scales

Our boy, AKA ‘The Pok’, has started to say some really funny things with the reasoning of a 4-year-old behind his musings. Some of it is hilarious, or just bizarre.

The Pok has become quite adept at many mechanical and battery powered devices. His journey of discovery is amazing, and always eventful.

One morning, as we were kidding ourselves that we would get a lie in, The Pok did his usual entry burst into our bedroom with whatever bizarre things were going through his head. He started by playing with his toys at the foot of our bed and somehow ended up in our bathroom. We thought that he might have been going about his “business”, until…

CLUNK, CLUNK!

That got us up.

CLANG, CLUNK!

Now we were very curious…

BANG, CLANG!

That time it required a response. My wife asked him, “[Pok], what are you doing in there that is making so much noise?”
She walked over into the bathroom to see him lifting up the bathroom scales on its edge, about to release (drop) them back on the stone tiles.

“Mummy, the thing that measures feet isn’t working.”

Sure enough, the batteries had gone dead, no matter how many times he tried to tare out the scales.

Needless to say we sourced some batteries so that feet measurement could resume.

The World According to the Pok – Squashing

Our boy, AKA ‘The Pok’, has started to say some really funny things with the reasoning of a 3-year-old behind his musings. Some of it is hilarious, or just bizarre.

The house of late has been rather busy, with a baby being awake in the wrong timezone (right now I think our daughter’s timezone is somewhere between GMT +3 or +4 – though she is not responsible for any social or political unrest in these parts of the world, for those who know their geography) getting ‘The Pok’ bathed and into bed has become a challenge.

So the other night, in between baby wailing,  nappies getting changed, and our threenager boy getting toweled down, we as parents got caught out.

The TV was on in the bedroom, when the magic “Adult Time” kicked. What we thought was ‘Masterchef’ (not my choice) continuing to play on the tube, turned out to be ‘Offspring’. I looked up in my horror to see the lead character (who, as informed by my female colleagues in my office, can be a bit of a floosie) getting excitedly undressed by her male de jour on top of the kitchen bench. [For the record, she was undressing him just as rapidly].

‘The Pok’ was standing bolt upright with his eyes GLUED to the tube.

I scrambled, asking my wife urgently “Where’s the remote?”

My wife, on the other side of the bed, responded with a wet wipe in one hand and a nappy in the other, “I don’t know, I have my hands full!” She had seen what was going on too by that stage.

The characters were just about butt naked with the male character on top of the female character who was fully on top of the kitchen bench by that stage.

‘The Pok’ was stunned into silence.

I finally found the remote in the middle of the bed under a pillow and a swaddling cloth. Off went the TV, finally.

I went calmly over to my boy to try to explain, “[Pok], we don’t like that show. We shouldn’t be watching that. Time to get ready to read a book and go to bed.”

His response…

“Good, because he was squashing her.”

My wife was in tears trying to hold back her laughter.

 

P.S. Life and work has caught up with me of late, and my blog has been suffering as a result. But I am back 🙂

The World According to the Pok – Midwives and Baby Delivery

Our boy, AKA ‘The Pok’, has started to say some really funny things with the reasoning of a 3-year-old behind his musings. Some of it is hilarious, or just bizarre.

He delivered a double whammy when he came with me to the hospital to see his mother and baby sister for the first time.

I could tell he was nervous with anticipation because instead of being a chatterbox like normal he traveled in the car in stunned silence. I told him, “[Pok] you know that when we get to the hospital that the baby might be asleep, and Mummy is very tired.”

He nodded and held my hand as we walked into the birth centre.

His face lit up when he saw his mummy and he was in awe upon seeing his baby sister. He then instructed all of us to talk softly so as not to wake the baby up.

When one of the midwives came into the room to check up on my wife and baby girl, I left the room to refill a glass of ice water and reheat the hot water pack. On the way back to the room all the midwives were having a chuckle and I soon found out why.

My wife proceeded to tell me…

When the midwife entered she started to talk with my wife about her medication requirements.

At that point The Pok propped up and told her, “You need to be quiet because my baby sister is asleep!”

My wife was in stitches and told her, “I think that you have just been schooled by a 3 year old.”

The midwife turned to The Pok and contritely replied, “I am sorry, I was using my outside voice” proceeding to lower the tone of her voice and continue the conversation. She turned to my wife and said, “If you don’t mind I think I need to tell my colleagues about your son.”

Later on, during this hospital visit my boy asked the question that we had both not been keen to answer all the way through the pregnancy.

“Mummy, how did the baby get out?”

I had to jump in quickly to cut it off at the pass.

“[Pok], I think that the baby crawled out.”

My wife added quickly…

“And I gave her a little push.”

He thought about both answers and this seemed to satisfy his curiosity.

If he was going ask where the baby came out, then our bottled response was for him to ask his teachers at preschool…

World According to the Pok – eBay

Our boy, AKA ‘The Pok’, has started to say some really funny things with the reasoning of a 3-year-old behind his musings. Some of it is hilarious, or just bizarre.

Of late ‘The Pok’ has been getting quite stubborn in his morning routine. It has become quite a struggle getting him to the breakfast table, dressed, teeth brushed, and out the door. This exchange went down a couple of days ago.

Father of The Pok: “[Pok] come down stairs please and eat your breakfast.”

The Pok: “I am playing with my Lego”

… 5 minutes later

Father of The Pok: “Come downstairs now, we are going to be late!”

… 10 minutes later

Father of The Pok: “Hurry up and finish your breakfast, we are going to be late.”

The Pok: “I don’t want to finish” – [insert The Pok angry face]

… 5 minutes later

Father of The Pok: “Wash your hands please and come upstairs to get dressed.”

The Pok: [insert tumbleweeds, and The Pok running off to play with more Lego downstairs]

Father of The Pok: [insert great frustration] “If you don’t start listening to Daddy then I am going to put you on eBay”

The Pok: [instant attention directed to his father] “Awww, I don’t want to go on eBay”, an upset look on his face, but he proceeded to listen and get dressed.

10 minutes later we finally got out the door.

P.S. Yes I am a bad parent, but he is a child of the internet and he doesn’t understand what putting him up for adoption means.

P.P.S. He uses his cute looks, and smiles, to try and mentally manipulate us. We are trying hard to resist.

P.P.P.S. eBay’s terms and conditions don’t allow me to post him for auction. I explored ‘buy it now’ but it would seem that these same conditions extend to direct item sales too.

World According to the Pok – Computer Sleeping

Our boy, AKA ‘The Pok’, has started to say some really funny things with the reasoning of a 3-year-old behind his musings. Some of it is hilarious, or just bizarre.

With The Pok having relatives in several places around the world, he has grown up very much used to the idea of communicating by Skype. In fact, he quite often asks to talk to family members on the computer when there is not enough action in his immediate locale. Returning home a few night’s ago, The Pok asked his mother to speak to his cousins on the computer.

As my wife walked off to the kitchen she said to him, “We don’t have to switch on the computer, we just have to wake it up.”

The Pok rushed off to jump in front of the computer.

Moments later, we heard him shouting something incomprehensible repeatedly. Concerned my wife went to see what was the matter.

There he was sitting in the chair shouting at the computer. My wife asked, “[Pok] what are you doing?”

His response, “I am trying to wake up the computer.”

My wife shook her head and said, “You just have to move the mouse.”

The Pok and his cousins were able to host their Skype video conference at a safe volume.

World According to the Pok – Mickey Mouse and Babies

Our boy, AKA ‘The Pok’, has started to say some really funny things with the reasoning of a 3-year-old behind his musings. Some of it is hilarious, or just bizarre.

So the weekend had arrived and The Pok and I were treating ourselves to another episode of the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, when he suddenly burst out and said “Mickey has a baby!”

I responded, “Really, who is Mickey’s baby?”, knowing full well that no character in this cartoon was the offspring of the mouse.

Pause for thinking… “Mickey has a baby in his tummy.” – oh dear, where is this going with a 3-year-old.

Correcting him I said, “Mickey is a boy like you and me, he can’t have a baby in his tummy.”

This very much puzzled the Pok, with a confused look descending. Then he shot up spiritedly and announced, “Minnie Mouse has Mickey in her tummy!”

I tried to quickly divert this conversation, “Minnie Mouse is not Mickey’s mummy, she is Mickey’s friend. Hey look, what is Goofy doing?”

He burst into laughter at Goofy being goofy, conversation avoided.

I was not anticipating having a conversation about the “birds and the bees” while watching an episode of Mickey Mouse, particularly with a 3-year-old. And every adult knows that Minnie Mouse is Mickey’s special friend…

 

 

World According to the Pok – Honey

Our boy, AKA ‘The Pok’, has started to say some really funny things with the reasoning of a 3 year old behind his musings. Some of it is hilarious, or just bizarre.

Last week as we sat down to the normal routine of a weekday breakfast, my wife, the Pok, and I loaded up our breakfast bowls at the table. I had cereal and milk, The Pok had his favourite cereal with yoghurt, and my wife had served herself some toast which she intended douse with a topping of honey. In my infinite wisdom (and to deter the ants of Summer) I put the bottle of honey in the fridge. My wisdom did not extend to cover the effect that the cold had on the viscosity of the honey itself – cold and not runny at all.

So as my wife turned the bottle upside to squeeze the honey out, what should have been a simple toast dressing turned into a squeezing ordeal. Each squeeze of the bottle produced only a few drops and my wife had to squeeze more than 10 times to get the minimum acceptable amount to cover her toast. Normally this amount of squeezing would have produced far too much honey.

The Pok looked at her disapprovingly and said “Do you think you have got enough yet?”

We burst out laughing at his first attempt at reverse parenting.