He Swears He's Not Bi-Lingual!

So the Mother of the Gremlin (MOTG) has come to the realization that she's not an intimidating presence in our son's life. This is good and bad. When he's being bad he goes straight for her, however it does make issuing instructions in possibly perilous predicaments problematic (hehe, alliteration is fun!).

Various things have been tried to combat this, and the MOTG has found that she sounds significantly more serious when she orders the Gremlin in Spanish. For instance, when he persisted in grabbing the laundry right after it was folded, his mother said

"AJ! No mas! No mas, arrieta!" (AJ, No more! No more, immediately!)

The Gremlin paused at this and considered his answer carefully.

"No, momma, I'm not going to stop, I don't speak Spanish."

"Oh really? Then how did you know that I asked you to stop?"

"Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, momma, be quiet."

Language Barriers

The other day the Gremlin was released upon the park for several hours, in an attempt by his parents to actually get him to sleep - or act in any way, shape, or form as if he was not a living ball of energy. Various other parents in many different states of cleanliness (or not) to release their children as well, and the Gremlin was ecstatic to have other people to play with who could actually keep up with him without yelling at him to not jump in the house every 2 minutes.

So after a rousing game of "chase" around the playground equipment, the Gremlin wanted to show one of the other boys something he'd seen across the playground. He ran over to the boy and took hold of his hand. He tugged on the boy's arm and said, "come here! Come on!" He repeated these a few times before falling silent. He turned and looked at the boy, and a lightbulb went off in his mind. "Vamos!" And he and the boy went off together across the playground.