I See France

Sydney hasn't seen her favorite aunt for a month. But she loves to talk to her on the phone and tell her all the important things going on; usually those things are right in front of her, so the conversation is a little disjointed. Today, however, she proudly announced to her aunt:

"I'm wearing blue underwear!"

She was, too.

Storytelling

Out of the blue, Sydney will suddenly feel compelled to tell you her favorite story. It goes like this:

"Watching a tree fall down, go BOOM! in da trunk uv da maple. But da maple okay. An' mommy pull da comealong, and daddy pull da comealong too. An' daddy cut it up in pieces an 'they go in the fire."

That pretty much sums up our entire existence, with side ventures into blueberry orchards and vegetable gardens and our new venture, chickens. Sydney hears about our need for wood all the time, and she hears the chainsaw, but the felling of this one particular tree--which hit a maple we were trying to save but didn't end up ultimately hurting it-- made a huge impression.

The story makes a bigger impression on us. Those are full sentences she's saying there. Where the heck did those come from?

Happy Birthday, Too

Sydney's gotten into this bad habit of repeating things; so here we are. Our officially two year old daughter can count to ten (1...2...3....6!...6!...6!...7...8...9..10!) and recite the alphabet (A...B...C...D...4!.....4!....4!) and she can tell you what color things are (usually, they are blue), she can wash her hands and put on her slippers "all by self" as well as remove all the keys from my laptop's keyboard, and in generally she's turning into a fairly active, curious and energetic kid.

Happy Birthday, you silly little girl!

ECHOechoecho

Or maybe there's a parrot in the house.

On Saturday we moved the wood splitter from the garage to the open sun so I could see what I was doing as I changed the oil and tried to get the crotchedy thing started. My husband took his chain saw and announced that he would cut down a tree that I had refused to help him with, stating firmly that it was entirely too close to the power lines and I wanted nothing to do with it. He was feeling confident--or cocky-- and announced he needed no help from me. Off he went, leaving me to my task--and to Sydney, of course.

The %$#@*^!! thing wouldn't start, and I couldn't find any of our tools, and as I struggled to remove the spark plug I was muttering under my breath all sorts of four-letter words, which Sydney immediately picked up on and said over and over at the top of her lungs. Fortunately that's when I heard the tree topple and looked up to see the power lines flailing hugely up and down, to which I stopped my cursing and said to Sydney: "Daddy hit the lines!"

We watched the lines with some dismay until they stopped their oscillation, and I ran into the house briefly to make sure we still had power. When I returned, Sydney was repeating over and over excitedly: "Daddy hit the lines! Daddy hit the lines! Daddy hit the lines!"

Soaking it all up, she is. But she's not sure how to spit it all back out. So for the past few days her sentences have been full of curse words, demands, song snippets and random sentences, so at any one time one might hear: "Water! Bear, sit down. %#@%*$!! Mary had a little lamb, laugh and play, Daddy hit the lines!"

I can see why some people jokingly say that once they start talking, you'd wish they'd shut up. It's not that you don't want to hear what they're saying. It's that you have no idea what they're talking about.

Life in the Toddler Lane

For the most part, my life was pretty stable and predictable before I had a kid. I knew, for instance, that my keys were in my bag, that my hair brush was somewhere in the bathroom, that my shoes would remain empty until I chose to put my feet in them. These days things are not so predictable. I have no idea where my keys are, my hairbrush could be anywhere in the house and my shoes often have various pieces of detritus in them, including but not limited to: pieces of bark, small toys, coins, tissue paper, or baby socks.

This morning I stumbled into the bathroom to discover two cardboard tubes scattered on the floor. Last night I apparently slept with a dragon finger-puppet, which I discovered under my pillow when my own hand finally crept under there. I had our accountant's calling card safely tucked into my backpack, but I found it the other day among a recently re-arranged tupperware drawer. I just never know what might be hiding under the tablecloth or floating in the toilet. Who knows what has been thrown away in the trash can or tucked away somewhere safe.

Well, Sydney knows. But she doesn't necessarily think these things are important to tell you.

The Princess and the Pee

"I farted!" my angelic, sweet-faced grinning daughter yelled out. "I farted!" she said again, and to forestall a broken record repeating of the two words which will occur if I don't answer, I replied, "yes! Yes, you did!"

Actually I had no idea if she had or not, so I had to take her word for it, like I have to take her at her word when she looks me in the eye and says the following key words:

"diaper!"
"poop!"
"pee!"

Sometimes she means it, and sometimes she doesn't. Or possibly she's getting pee and poop mixed up, or maybe she gets the poop and the farting mixed up, or maybe she's just telling me that she's wearing a diaper, or that a few hours ago she pooped, or perhaps she's telling me that she knows what poop is, or maybe, she's just saying words. It's hard to tell these days.

In any event, we've hopped onto the potty train.

So far, nothing has come of it. Except that this morning she told me that the potty was cold and then refused to sit on it, preferring instead to squat in front of it, which is not, ideally, in the end what we're striving for.

I told her father this story and this evening he decided that if the potty was cold then by golly we'd have to warm it up. So he took a heated wash cloth and wiped the thing down, and lo and behold our princess did indeed sit on the throne.

No pee came of it. But I'm sure it's only a matter of time, as long as we can keep the seat warm.

Nice Hot Bowl Wa-Wa

We were fresh out of swim class, walking at the head of a crowd of people leaving the Y, and I was negotiating with Sydney.

"Mo hop-hops" she said.
I shook my head, "No, no more hop-hops until we get to the car."
"Car," Sydney said, "No hop-hops, car."
"What are hop-hops?" The woman behind me finally had to ask.

Busted!

Hop-hops are, of course, what Sydney calls bunnies, because she knows they hop, I suppose, and she and I were actually talking about Annies Bunny Grahams, which are kind of like your traditional Animal Cracker except they are all bunnies. So I had to explain to the woman that my daughter was actually talking about eating bunnies, which sounded terrible when you explained it in adult English. At least she wasn't sitting at our dinner table, listening to Sydney expound upon her love of baa-baa while eating lamb.

We'd recently heard from a child expert that not using the correct word for whatever the child says when speaking back to them is bad for language development. That means when Sydney announces that she wants wa-wa I should promptly say "water" back to her, and I should definitely not fall into the trap of referring to bunnies as "hop-hops." But on the other hand, what is language development after all but the ability to aptly express yourself? Why shouldn't I start referring to our mouthwash as "teeth juice?" Or to soup as "bowl wa-wa?" Or to the act of plowing snow as "mommy push snow?" Maybe Sydney just isn't as hide-bound, language-wise, as the rest of us. Maybe toddlers don't develop language so much as craft it.

Bowl wa-wa, by the way, is a simple meal which can be cooked up right at the dinner table. All you need is a bowl, some water, and some dinner. First you pour the water into the bowl. Then you put select pieces of dinner in the bowl. Then you mash it around with your hand. Then you drink it. If you have hop-hops and baa-baa at the same time, you might just be in toddler heaven. Or as Sydney might put it, in "baby up-high".