Spooky

The other day we were all in the park, playing and walking around through the trees. Lily was standing next to me and J. had gone to get something. Lily, tapping her finger to her lips, said, "I'm trying to think of something." Then she looked over at J. walking towards us, and said, "I wish Dad could use his wings to fly."

Poetry. It's beautiful, listening to her put words together to make fascinating sentences. And yet, it also spooked me a bit. It's probably just me being superstitious, but I felt like she was talking about J. like he was an angel, like, as in, dead. Eek! It gave me a little shiver.

A Poke in the Eye With a Stick

Yes, that actually is what happened today. Lily was playing with another girl from her ECFE class at a picnic after our last session for this class, and the girl took a stick from Lily's hand and stuck it in her face and before I could jump in to stop her, she had poked Lily in the eye.

Her eye looked fine but she was covering it right afterwards and then a few minutes later she was rubbing it, so I took her in to the ER at Children's Hospital just to be safe. I have scratched my cornea before and it was very painful.

Luckily Lily was excited to go see her doctor. I was very calm and told her we were just going to go see the doctor to make sure her eye was okay, and I tried to make it a normal event, instead of a panicked one.

They checked both eyes, since I told them that she had gotten sand in her eyes a little while before the stick incident, and she was soooooo good letting three different docs and nurses look in her eye with a flashlight. She held still and did exactly what they asked her to do (look up, look down, look to the side), and didn't flinch when they put dye drops in her eyes to do the CSI light to look for scratches. I really don't think she was afraid at all.

So they found two scratches, one of which was about a 1/4 inch long, in her left eye. Hmmph. She doesn't have to be a pirate, but we have to put drops in her eye 4 times a day for 5 days. They hurt a bit when they first go in, so I'm sure she'll get sick of it. But I think we'll manage ok. The drops are to prevent infection while the eye heals, and the doc said these things usually heal pretty quickly. Phew.

The funny thing is, I felt bad for K.'s Mom. She was very concerned and got K. to apologize and explained to her how dangerous it was to poke people, etc., and she asked me several times if Lily was okay. I was of course concerned about Lily, but I didn't want to worry K.'s Mom. Isn't that odd? I just wanted to leave so I could get Lily in the car and then sit in the car and quietly call a triage nurse to ask if I should go to the ER. Which is exactly what I did.

Oh what a long day. I need to finish this tomorrow, but meanwhile I think Lily is okay.

Lookit ma belly!

And...action!

The Magic Word

Last night John was playing with Lily and one of her toys fell on the floor. She demanded he get it and in an effort to encourage manners (she's knows she is supposed to ask nicely and say "please"), he said, "What's the magic word?" With great confidence, she spoke up immediately: "Hocus Pocus!"

Oh my God, I laughed so hard! We had watched a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse edisode that afternoon in which Goofy is being a magician and he keeps forgetting the magic words. Well, Lily remembered!

Dahlink

Oh, she's just so cute! I think she was blowing spit bubbles here. She's standing on the swing in our front porch this morning, and we've taken a short break from making the cars and trains talk. Later they had a party with a piece of playdough cake that we made. Delish!

Mi Amigo

Lily is doing the talking for her toys more and more now, instead of asking Mommy or Daddy to always do it. And the talking toys are very polite. Cars will say to each other,

"What are you doing, my friend?"
"Come with me over here, my friend."
"Let's hide, my friend."

It's so cute, not just how they are all friends with each other, but how she has them address each other so sweetly like this. I almost wish our culture had this kind of polite address, the way more formal cultures do like in Mexico or Japan.

Goodnight, my friends. :)

Make it Talk!

Lily is going through a talking phase right now. Not that she's going to stop talking, but I mean all her toys are talking. And Mommy and Daddy have to make them talk. "Make it talk!" she'll insist. The cars and trains talk a lot. And now it's expanded to EVERYTHING. Not just the toys talk. Her tummy talks a lot:

"My tummy is saying 'I want a cookie!'"
"My tummy is saying 'Let's go to school!'"
"My tummy is saying 'I don't want a nap!'"

Her tummy talks about all sorts of things, the least of which might be food. And then she'll tell us to make her body parts talk. "Make it talk," she'll say, holding up a foot. But that's not all. When I give her two shirts to choose from, I have to shake them and make them say "Pick me! Pick me!" She loves that. The other day I was asked to make her bite of oatmeal talk. Of course, it said, "Eat me! Eat me!" It was like I was in Alice in Wonderland.

Butties

Lily was getting her diaper changed the other day and John said she was talking about her bottom, and called her two butt cheeks her "butties." I love these words she makes up.

Nice Kitty

Here's another great picture from the Zoo trip. It's a leopard. And it's...so close! No glass, just fences. And look at how gorgeous this cat is, that wonderfully long tail, and the regal stature. Wow. Lily was somewhat impressed.

"My Bed Needs Me!"

Lily likes to delay going to sleep at night by switching back and forth between "Baby's bed" and "Daddy's bed" (it's Daddy's because most of the time lately I'm sleeping downstairs on the couch with a headache). And there's a point where we say NO MORE SWITCHING.

So the other day Lily was going through this routine at naptime, and I told her that was it, she was stuck with Daddy's bed. She tried to wriggle away and I put my arm around her and tried to hold her. She was protesting loudly when she came up with her latest plea for pushing the rules: "My bed needs me!" I laughed so hard that I couldn't hold her, then she was laughing and her fit was over.

She did win. We went to Baby's bed. But she did go to sleep.

Lily at the Zoo

Lily sittin' on a tiger statue. We saw two tigers, walking around. It was wonderful weather that day, sunny and about 60 degrees. Although some animals were sleeping, a lot were active.

Here's Lily and a soft-shell turtle looking at each other. This turtle was really fun to watch. He hides under the sand and all you see is either his head or his tiny snout. Then when he comes out, it's like he appears out of nowhere. We got to see him come out and then bury himself again after swimming around. He was fascinating, and Lily enjoyed watching him. When the turtle looked at her, she said, "He likes me." I love it when she says that. It's so life-affirming, and it shows a confidence in herself that makes me happy.

Here's Lily looking into an exhibit with little turtles. I love how they made this rope mesh down low where the little kids could look through safely without having to be held up by a parent to see. This zoo is the best designed one I've seen for being inclusive of little kids.

Humper-Lumpers!

For Mother's Day, I decided I wanted to do something to celebrate being a Mom, to go have fun with my family. So we went to the Minnesota Zoo. We hadn't been there before, and it was fabulous, so much so that we bought a membership before we left.

Lily had a wonderful time, and I just drank it in, watching her having so much fun. She didn't really get bored for very long when we were moving from exhibit to exhibit, because they have so many play areas and little tunnels and caves and viewing spots that only little kids can get into. She was having such a good time that she started making up words and just playing with language. She was learning a lot of new words, like wolverine and lynx and takin, and although she already knew what a camel was, when we saw them, she happily renamed them: "They're humper-lumpers!" she said.

It was a highlight of the day. We love it when she makes up words, and this one's a keeper.

People Who Don't Have Kids

Argh! I am feeling pissy because of one of the above mentioned people. And plus I have a migraine. BUT! This in no way means that this person is not deserving of my mommy wrath.

I went to the post office, my little local neighborhood post office that my friend S. is always telling me is so great and they're nice to her and interested when she brings in mail gong interesting places and...they are never nice to me! I hate it. I am always nice, never in a hurry (which is good, since they seem to move like molasses), and yet.

So today I come in with Lily and while I'm getting postage on a couple things going to Japan, Lily finds a Mickey Mouse and Pluto mailer behind me on the wall, and brings it over to show me. Fine, nice. Then she brings an armful. Shit. So we bring them back to hang back up on the wall, only all the holes to hang them by are ripped. So I set them on the floor against the wall. Meanwhile the woman at the counter is saying, "Yeah, can you not have him do that [strike 1, you called my daughter a boy, although I don't know why this pisses me off so much, it just does]." Thanks for the suggestion. Then she wants me to hang them back up. I tell her I can't, that the holes are ripped. "Well, then he did it, because I just hung those up this morning." Super. So I ask, "Well, do I need to buy them?" I'm willing to do this if it's necessary. I take responsibility for my kid. "No," she grumbles. And can hardly talk to me in a civil manner the rest of the transaction.

Well, pissy pissy piss. While she was telling me to keep "him" from pulling down the envies from the wall, she says that the kids tend to rip the holes they hang by when they pull them down. Well, so, it's happened before. So maybe you should NOT hang them down there, huh? Did that ever fuckin' occur to ya? I mean, c'mon, it's low hanging fruit, and it's got fuckin' Disney characters on it! It's 2 feet off the floor. Of course the little kids are going to pull it down! Duh!

I was just fuming when I left, and had to consciously slow down, so I wouldn't take it out on Lily, who really had committed a minor infraction. It's not like they can't sell the stupid mailers now. They just can't hang them up on the wall. Well, cry me a river, lady. Get a plastic holder for them and hang that on the wall, like the other mailers. I know she probably talked about me after I left. Like I was such a bad mother. Meanwhile, I'm out in the rain, trying to strap HER into the car seat, and we're parked on the street and it's raining hard and the cars are zooming by and splashing me and Lily wants to play pretend driver. I'm patiently explaining that this is not a good time to play pretend driver.

I wish I had a nice post office to go to. And that people weren't such idiots. Wow, am I ever crabby.

"Can I Fit Through This Butthole?"

I thought that's what she said, but I thought I must be hearing her wrong, so I asked her "What did you say?" about three times. I didn't really want to repeat what I thought I heard and have her decide that although that's not what she said, my version was more fun.

But I finally had to say it, and sure enough, that's what she said. "What do you mean?" I asked, making an effort to control my face muscles so that I would not look horrified. Then she showed me.

We were sitting at the table and she was on a chair with a back that was open on the bottom half. She was on her knees on the chair, and wanted to know if I thought she could climb through the back, or butt hole. Phew! It's a pretty apt description, really. i mean, if someone is sitting in the chair, what do you see if you look through the back of the chair? A butt.

Sure enough, she fit through the butt hole.

(p.s. Think I could get Reader's Digest to pay me for this funny story? Heh.)

Hoppy Oppy Boppy!

That is one of Lily's favorite sound combinations right now. She's a singin' toddler. She loves to sing right now, and she'll make something up, just a couple words or even nonsense words like her favorites, and she'll say, "That's my best song." John told me she was singing to one of her stuffed animals and told it "I'm singing you my best song."

I love this marvelous, simple joy. She'll ask us to sing with her sometimes, and when I do, I realize and remember the joy of just making something up to sing (I was a notorious late-night singer, according to my older sister whose bedroom was next to mine) and it didn't have to be complicated or make sense or mean anything, it just had to please me with its sounds.

It also reminds me of one of the Basilica's mottoes, "Make a joyful noise unto the Lord." I know it's called something else besides a motto, but it comes up all the time in bulletins, reminding people why we sing so much in church.

We take Lily to Mass almost every Sunday, and she likes it. She's usually interested in the music, and I think she enjoys seeing (and hearing) Mommy and Daddy sing. I mean, we sing to her all the time, but then she sees us singing at church and it just reinforces how it's a normal, joyful part of our lives, to sing. It's one of the main reasons I love church so much--the singing. And why I love this particular church. We'll sing a lot of things that other churches would just say, and I think it's so much more beautiful to sing it.

Lily's joyful little snippets sometime reminds me of these short bits that we sing in Mass, like we'll sing after each petition, "Lord hear our prayer" or "Thanks be to God" (sometimes in Latin) after each reading. Lily sings "Cocoa's happy" and "And Mommy and Daddy and Baby and Cocoa."

Sweetness

Yesterday I had to go to the hospital for an infusion because my migraine was so bad. So John had to come home early from work to take me in and to take care of Lily. When he got home he showed Lily what he'd brought from the company store: cake mix, "so we can bake Mommy a get well cake!" Chocolate GF (gluten-free) cake, plus he'd picked out special frosting that Lily would like--whipped pink.

It was such a sweet thought, literally and figuratively, and Lily enjoyed helping, and they even put candles on it for me to blow out. Lily kept saying, "It could be Mommy's birthday," so John sang "Happy Get Well To You." Lily helped me blow out the candles and we all had a piece.

That's my family, God love 'em.

Laughter

Rough day today for me. Very nauseated and big headache. But Lily made it bearable. Tonight she made John and I laugh so hard. It was almost bedtime and so John was reading her a book (we always read three books before naptime and then before bedtime), and he kept dozing off as he was reading.

I've done it before, too. You are trying so hard to keep reading that your brain will make up stuff that isn't there while your eyes are crossing and your speech is slurring. I was reading The Cat in the Hat yesterday and dozing off at the part where the house is all messy before the cat starts cleaning it, and I heard myself explain to Lily that "this is the part the garbage man says." Then some more awake part of my brain said, "What the hell are you talking about?!" And I woke back up and read a few more pages.

So John was reading and he'd already dozed off a few times and I kept saying, "Hey! Wake up!" Finally one time he was totally incomprehensible reading, and Lily said, very clearly and patiently, "What are you trying to say?" It woke him up and he answered her, laughing, saying, "I have no idea!" We were both laughing so hard that it made her laugh. It was so funny, because that's what we say to her when we can't quite understand what she's saying. So then she turns around and says it to us. I guess you could call that a good parenting moment. It was wonderful.

I love this cookie!

Especially the black frosting. This was at a General Mills family event celebrating winter. I guess they thought it would be funny to have snowman cookies with black frosting, for the hat and lining the edges. I mean, there's no way a kid could not get black frosting all over their face! Hee hee.

Some Great New Children's Books

Every few months I try to grab a few recent Horn Book issues from the library and scan the reviews and ads for new children's books that look fun. Then I get online and reserve a bunch of titles from my local library, which is now a huge conglomeration of Hennepin County library and the Minneapolis libraries. So I can usually find anything I want, I just have to wait for it to get to my branch where I pick up my reserves. It's quite satisfying, a definite improvement over ye olden days when you had to go ask the librarian in person for every book you wanted.

So here's what I've gotten lately that I like:

Mermaid Queen by Shana Corey
This big picture book biography is gorgeous and fascinating. It's a bit too texty for Lily right now, but I mostly got it for me to read anyway. It's the story of Annette Kellerman, the real-life inspiration for Esther Williams. I always thought Esther Williams was, well, a mermaid queen herself. Who knew there was an even more interesting real-life woman who was a real queen of the water?

Annette Kellerman was a sort of swimsuit suffragette for women, rebelling against the ridiculously uncomfortable swimwear of her time (the early 1900s). This was no small feat. The first time she swam in public in America (she grew up in Australia and England), she was arrested for her shockingly revealing swimwear (while the other women on the beach sweated it out under their parasols on the hot sand, too poofy and heavy to actually go into the water)! Celebrating swimming as both an athletic and artistic pursuit, she paved the way for female athletes all over the world.

The artwork is--dare I say it?--splashy. And I mean that in the best way possible. It's appropriate for the subject matter, and the bold color palette of artist Edwin Fotheringham is delicious to behold. Not only is water illustrated with curving, swlirling shapes, but everything from the sound of music to the night sky seems to take on the joyful shapes of water as well.

The Fantastic Undersea Life of Jacques Cousteau by Dan Yaccarino
Yes, another book about humans in the water. A large part of my childhood was spent in the water, and I miss it! I want to go back to the beaches of my youth. And the swimming pools. Especially the backyard swimming pools. But I digress.

Cousteau was kind of a skinny little runt, so his doctors suggested he build up his strength by swimming. Then when he was a young man, he got in a bad car accident and had to wear braces on his arms. His fate was sealed soon after this, but not by his injury. He built strength in his arms by going back to the sea and swimming. Then a friend lent him some goggles and he suddenly saw all the fishies in the sea underneath him.

Yaccarino does the artwork as well as the story, and it's wonderful to see how he transforms Cousteau's scrawniness on land to lithe grace underwater. In one layout, Cousteau's swimming form parallels the shape of an octopus swimming above him. The colors are bright and many-layered, like the rich palette of undersea life Cousteau is exploring.

Like Mermaid Queen Annette Kellerman, Jacques Cousteau was a pioneer in his field. Today we take scuba suits for granted, but the diving suit of Cousteau's day was like an iron spacesuit. Cousteau worked with engineers to invent diving equipment that allowed him and his team to swim like fish. Likewise underwater camera equipment.

The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau (of which I have fond memories) ran for ten years on television, and served as Cousteau's platform to both entertain and educate the world about the vast array of life in our oceans that needed our protection. Yaccarino does a nice job of portraying Cousteau as a man who wanted to share his joy and passion, in contrast to a celebrity with a cause-of-the-week.

This is a fabulous book. I'm going to buy a copy to keep for Lily (and me), because I think it works on so many levels. The artwork is so good that it can be explored on its own, and the story is appealing in a classic way, like a rags to riches tale, where the rags are Cousteau's physical limitations and the riches are his exploration of the undersea world--and most importantly, the joy this brings him!

And that concludes today's book reviews. Hope you enjoyed them! Oh, and if you don't get the Horn Book at your library or you aren't familiar with this bible of children's book reviews, you can always look at a few pages of reviews of the current issue online. Here's a sample.

Non-Verbal Communication

This is from Christmas, obviously. I just love the look she's giving me.