For several months now, there has been new emphasis in our lives. Frankly, almost everything Jake says is followed by that many times overly used grammatical symbol, the exclamation point.
It all began with “Oh no!” (combined with one hand on each cheek ala Macaulay Culkin). This is still uttered at least skeighty-eight times a night at our house and has been around at least since May.
“Uh oh!” is also a reigning favorite. I have learned that you should always stop what you are doing when you hear uh oh. There is always a reason. Something important has just been thrown out of the stroller, dropped from the car seat, or launched from the high chair.
“All right!” A more recent exclamation from his new school, Saint Lizzie’s. This week he exclaimed “All right!” as he climbed up and stood on a stool, a ladder, his stroller, and, get this, his rocking horse. He held the handles on his rocking horse and got both feet on the saddle so that he was acting out my worst rocking horse nightmare, inspiring a flashback of that movie, Wild Hearts Can’t Be Broken.
“All done!” Again, this showed-up probably one week into his enrollment at his new school. One of the most useful exclamations to date.
“Wow!” Pretty much everything Jake does inspires him to say wow. Many things I do also inspire an awestruck Wooooooooow. It has really improved my confidence. Apparently I’m quite impressive.
And last but not least, “Ta da!” My favorite little fact about this one is that it is usually accompanied by jazz hands. No joke.