Eye Bus

Jago is like probably every little boy his age.  Sometimes he is a little too rough, hits, throws things etc.  Luckily, more times than not he seems to be simply testing us or looking for the limits, or just trying to entertain himself.  Sometimes when he is playing with us, he will hit us, and we always redirect by saying “Ei mama” or “Ei Papa” which is kind of the German way of saying gentle or soft.  Ei is pronounced like “eye” or simply the letter I, and its easy to say.  And we usually accompany the phrase by softly stoking him or whoever he happens to be hitting.  So needless to say, he hears Ei mama, Ei papa quite frequently, and it’s been extremely effective, because he almost always immediately changes his behavior and kind of mimics what we are doing.  Well, for Christmas he received this radio controlled little school bus, and he likes to watch us drive it around.  For some reason, he picked the bus up and threw it on the ground.  I tried to calmly explain to him not to throw the bus because he would break it, and then he wouldn’t have it any more.  He then went over to the bus, bent down, started softly stroking it and said Ei Bus, while looking at me the whole time.  It was all I could do to keep it together while he was looking at me.  Its been about a week now, and I’m still cracking up about it.  Just thought I’d share.