Out In the World

Parenting is, on the one hand, a matter of subjective opinion, and everyone should have the right to raise their children as they see fit. On the other hand, being a parent is like being under a giant diplomatic microscope; a UN of patriotic, vitriolic, sympathetic procreators whose country of child is necessarily the center of the universe. Enter; the beach.

Sydney, myself, my husband, and his sister and her husband, all met up at the ocean front a few weekends ago. Although the beach in question has miles of relatively uninhabited areas in which to camp for the day, we uncharacteristically chose the most busy spot; next to the pier, the playground and the sandy beach. Sydney was ready to play, you see.

All around us were people and children of varying stages of life and varying stages of beach dress; from the almost-nothing string bikini to the full veil of the modest Muslim. They were also from all different walks and views of life, as evidenced in the many encounters we had.

It's these encounters with perfect strangers, whose children interact with mine, which is the sticky point where diplomacy might break down. Sydney met up with a girl named Katherine, a cute princess of a three year old who seemed friendly enough until Sydney picked up some seaweed.

"Eww!" Katherine said, "I don't want it!!" Katherine's parents had obviously taught Katherine the dangers of the wild outdoors. Sydney, on the other hand, has never seen a slimy green thing she didn't like.

Ignoring the outburst, Sydney gave it to me. "Whatz dis?" she asked.

"Seaweed," I said.

While Katherine was still inching back closer to her new friend, Sydney asked, curiously, "Can I eat it?"

Seriously. What could make a mother prouder?

Later, as I was enjoying a nice dive in the cold Atlantic, I noticed a recently dead but mostly intact crab floating in the waves. I showed it to my sister in law, and then noticed that Sydney was still engaged with Katherine. "I'm going to go freak Katherine out," I said, and hurried to shore to cause diplomatic havoc.

Later, I felt a little bad. Was I dooming my daughter to a life without friends? But on the other hand, she has plenty of friends. She immediately named her new crab friend "Jeebo." Who needs a Katherine when you have a crab?

Y?

Sydney, you can't eat dirt. Don't eat dirt.

Why?

Because it isn't good for you.

Why?

Because it isn't food.

Why?

Because dirt isn't food.

Why?

Because it isn't.

Why?

Just because.

Why?

I don't know.

.....

Why?

Sorting Reality from Fiction

"A boy hit his head with a bottle!" Sydney declared, a few days ago, apropos of nothing, "but he okay kapuz his friend pick him up."

"Oh, I see," I said, trying to process a) what she was talking about and b) where she'd witnessed such an event. These days I have to navigate carefully through these statements to get at what she's really talking about. If I ask directly, she'll reply, "Stop talking to me!" and then she'll end the conversation and I'll be no wiser. So I try to sort it out in a round about way.

"Did you see this on the computer?" Maybe it was a Sesame Street scene?

"No," she said.

I tried a different tactic. "What was the boy wearing?"

"A jacket and a coat," she said, emphatically, and then she moved on to another subject. "You a BOY!! How you doin? It's so nice to see you!!"

Maybe she dreamt it. Maybe it was part of a conversation. Maybe she made it up.

Maybe, I don't want to know.

Kapuz

I make up stories and I make up games and I immediately regret it because whatever I invent we'll play for days on end. Take, for instance, Whappowong, which is when you suddenly flop down on the grass with your legs in the air and then you drop the legs suddenly--wong-- which is very funny and also, it turns out, funny on the twenty or ninetieth try.

I made up a talking hand puppet when Sydney was 9 or 10 months old called Tickle Monster. Then I made up another one called Cousin Tickle Monster. Some days, Sydney will only talk to Tickle Monster or Cousin Tickle Monster and not to me. Somehow she trusts them, even though they often tickle her instead of answering questions. "Hi Tickle Monster! How you doin'?" she'll say, looking directly at my curled up hand. "I'm good, Syd, how are you?" I'll say in my normal non-Tickle-Monster voice. "NO TALK! Just Tickle Monster!" she'll tell me. Sigh. I used to be so much more than just a hand.

Sydney's favorite joke is to call me a boy. "You a BOY!!" she'll yell joyfully. Recently she's been told that actually her mother is a woman. "You a WOMAN!!" she'll yell at her father, generally in a particularly crowded grocery store.

She's starting to rationalize things too. The other day she told me that she couldn't sit on the potty "kapuz it pinch me."

"It.. what?"

"Kapuz it pinch me!"

"Kapuz?"

"You don' unnerstann!" she said, sorrowfully, an expression I've used often to let her know that I'm trying to figure out what she's saying, but don't quite get it yet.

"Say it again, I'll understand this time," I said, helpfully, hoping it was true.

"No potty, kapuz it pinch me!" she said, impatiently.

"OH! Because it pinched you! I see..." it had pinched her the other day, accidentally. I let her know I fixed the potty and all was well, and we went on to our customary "I don't half to be brave" which means that she won't get a "soap bath" tonight and won't have to endure the agony of getting her hair washed.

Kapuz we all know how bad that is. Just, you know, kapuz.

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".

And Yes means Yes

At 21 months, we're embarking on 2, and we all know the Terrible Twos.

Here's a sampling:

The game of Chase Me: Chase Me is excellent exercise, for child and parent alike, and consists, at least at the moment, of going round and round the dining room table or, if we're really ambitious and rambunctious, the circuit we can make by going through the kitchen to the living room through the hall to the dining room and back through the kitchen. The game is necessarily accompanied by the panicky giggle from the 21 month old and the phrase "I'm gonna get you" from the chasing parent.

Chase Me is also employed when about to do something you might not want to do, such as getting dressed or going to bed.

No: The word no is increasingly employed by both parent and child to mean things we shouldn't do (No climbing on the radiator) or things we don't want to do (no brush!) or things we're not going to do right now (No car today) or things we're not going to have anymore (no more juice). No is also a word ignored increasingly by both parties, to the point where my husband, in one frustrating moment, told Sydney sternly, "No means no!" She has taken this to heart, repeating it endlessly back to us so that we understand too: "nomeanno! nomeanno! nomeanno!" Of course she's right. In a fair world, her "no" would mean no, too. Someday soon, maybe, Dad will be forced to tell her: "yeah, well, life's not fair." Hopefully that won't be until we reach the Terrible Teens.

Smiling: Yes, Virginia, being cute and having an adorable smile will get you everything in the end. This girl has a mind of her own, a head of blond hair and the smile of an angel. Watch out, world. Here she comes.

Errant Xylophones

"Nysh!" Sydney says, pointing to the swords we have hanging on the wall or to the cucumber she wants cut up smaller. "Nysh!" she says when she sticks her hand under the water, when it is that rare just right temperature that is neither hot nor cold. "Daddee! Nysh!" she says with a definitive nod of her head, which either means "Daddy is nice" or "Daddy is a knife." We assume the former.

Language has always been a confusing mishmash for me, one of the reasons I have stuck with my primary and only tongue, English, although my fluency in this particularly confusing grammatical structure is probably a fine accomplishment, given the sheer number of rules and exceptions we have to play with. Not to mention the further down the alphabet you go, the less examples of viable words you have.

Take, for instance, the letter X.

Sydney has started to take an interest in her blocks. She has moved past the knock them down, stack them up stage and has moved to the pictures, numbers and letters represented on each of the six sides. Some of the blocks are thoughtfully arranged so that the letter represents a word represents a picture, and thus we have our lesson in language while striving to play. For a while the game is easy enough. "A" is for apple, "B" is for basket... but then you get to "X" and what do you do now? What super 21 month old can get their tongue around the word "xylophone", not to mention trying to explain what it is?

This particular block set tried to represent x-ray, with mixed results:

"X!" I say, turning the block around to reveal the big X and the small x. Then "X is for xray..." and then turning it around again to the picture side, which shows a kid with a blackened middle and bones for a belly, at which point I say "and this is a...."

"Boy!" Sydney gamely says, going for the most obvious portion of the picture and conveniently ignoring the "x" part.

.."Yes," I say, "x is for... boy." How am I really supposed to explain the concept of a machine which can see your bones? She doesn't even know she has bones.

Houston, we have language, over.

It's not the Queen's English, not by a long stretch. In fact most of it could not properly be thought of as English at all. But it gets its point across.

Sydney learned, a few weeks ago, to say 'no'. She's been shaking her head 'no' for quite awhile, so it was almost an afterthought when the word came out of her mouth, an emphatic, clear, beautifully simple 'no' which, though I knew I'd come to regret it later, I promptly encouraged. Now she uses the head shake for a different purpose, to indicate that she knows the thing that she is saying and the thing that she is pointing to are not the same. For instance, a hand straight up to the ceiling, a shake of the head and the spoken word: "baby" means: "There are no babies on the ceiling."

It's true, too. There aren't.

"Shoe!" she told me in a plaintive sort of way, the other day, having lost one between the cushions of the couch. "Shoe! Shoe!" she continued to whine, until I retrieved it for her. "Shoe!" she said, relieved.

But we're not done with the language feat yet. She continues to surprise us with just how much she understands, now that she can tell us, in her limited way. We were talking about the kids she'd see tomorrow in playgroup, and we mentioned one rambunctious child by name. "Bmp!" Sydney said, with a sorrowful expression and her hand on her head. I knew immediately what she meant, "yes, he's kind of bumpy, isn't he? But he doesn't mean to."

"Wow!" my husband said. That was a leap we hadn't quite expected to make, given that we're still just on nouns, yet. Perhaps perceiving she'd blown our minds, Sydney safely retreated to known territory, pointing to the ceiling and shaking her head. "Baby!" she said.

No, there's no babies up there. I'm not sure there's any here.

The Young and the Binkiless

Time flies, even when you're in the midst of the largest poopy diaper you have ever seen.

And sometimes, when you're having fun, too.

This past week we made a trek via airplane to St. Louis to visit my brother and his wife. Just two years ago we swore up and down to each other, pray God to strike us dead if we didn't, that we would never, ever, ever take Sydney anywhere which required flying until she was 18. Fortunately we didn't specify the unit of time.

At 18 months, Sydney isn't saying much, but what she does say speaks volumes. For instance, if one of your only words is "hat," you will make sure that everyone around you knows that the world is full of hats. Lately the fullness of the world is divided between hats and shoes, and the newest addition, cars, threatens to push hats off to the sidelines. Planes aren't cars, though. No, planes are items which, though fun in theory, are a bastion of pure toddler torture. All these people to smile and play peek-a-boo with, a full aisle to walk up and down, and a Fasten Seatbelt Sign on for most of a turbulent flight. What could be worse?

Still it wasn't all bad, especially the Itsy Bitsy Spider with Aunt Stephanie, and the chimpanzees Sydney struck up a conversation with at the zoo, and the long, long message she managed to leave on our home answering machine, after somehow successully dialing our number on the cell phone. Her first attempt didn't make it out of St. Louis. That's because she dialed Uncle Nathan, who was driving.

Anyway, we're back. We're out of the "car". We've bought a new "hat" (it says St. Louis Zoo). We managed, we think, to bring everything and everyone back, even though we lost the parking ticket at the airport. Note to my childless friends out there: Yes, children are a lot of work. But everyone sympathizes with you when you have one. If you can stand the 3 o' clock sleepless night and the 4 pm tantrum for no reason, then having a kid will get you places. And then nice people will help you get out of those places.

Having a kid will make your blog entries schizophrenic, too. Oh well. Can't have everything.

Walking on Water

First it was a few hesitant steps before falling back down onto the floor. Then it was a few more steps here and there, when Sydney didn't have any place important to go. Then all of a sudden, one day, like a switch had been thrown in her head, it became the dominant method of locomotion.

The Sydney walketh.

The entire process between the first few steps and the actively walking toddler took about two months, belying my romantic notion (and really I should know better by now) that these things just happen one day and then you're on to the next milestone, say, speaking words that make sense to the adults around you.

The pinnacle of the walking saga so far has been the walk we all took on the weekend, complete with dog, stroller and baby. On the way out Sydney was content to be wheeled about but on the way back she insisted on getting out. Once out, she insisted on getting down. And then she walked--marched, more like-- all the way back home.

Uh oh.

Gray Anatomy

Years ago while I was still in high school, and the specter of having children was at least a ways off if possible at all, I entertained my friends with the notion that should I ever have children I would inflict upon them a language no one else would understand, though it would still be English. I would do this by teaching them that a knife was a "fork", a spoon a "bowl", and so forth. Of course I myself would have to learn this new language to really be consistent about it, but that didn't factor into my fantasy. I just thought it would be funny.

So these friends might think this is only karma.

Sydney and us are at the point where limited but emphatic conversation can occur. "Do you want to read a book?" will be met with an enthusiastic nod. "This one?" --another nod. "Do you want me to read it? Or Daddy?" -- another nod (the multiple choice question is usually where the conversation breaks down). Occasionally there is something which does not meet her approval and she will vigorously shake her head to indicate her unwillingness to take part.

So we've embarked on a somewhat serious effort to impart the knowledge which was passed down to us. I decided to start with body parts.

"This is your eye! This is your nose! This is your mouth! This is your ear! ..." and so on. Then I'd ask her to show me where the body part was. Until recently, I've been met with a blank, disinterested stare before Sydney would turn away to show me something much more interesting, like her stuffed dog. But the other night we finally had a breakthrough: when I asked Sydney where she thought her nose might be, she confidently and enthusiastically patted the body part she thought I wanted. Surprised, I asked her again, with the same result.

Here it is folks: Sydney's nose is where most people might think her right ear would be.

Venturing Outside

My husband came home from a trip to the dump to the sounds of his daughter screaming in the wilderness, as if she'd been abandoned in a cave, or her arm had been cut off, or she was surrounded by hungry bears about to tear her from limb to limb. Concerned, he rushed towards the sound, only to confront his wife coming out of the field, holding onto their struggling, protesting daughter.

"What happened?" he asked.

"I picked her up," I replied.

Sydney has discovered the Great Outdoors; the infinite wonder of leaves, dirt, bugs, and worms. And she loves it so much that she will stay there, thank you, until she's had her fill. Never mind the black flies, the sun, the inclement weather, or the fact that its time to go eat dinner.

While we take in the whole landscape, noting the little baby on the big lawn, she's examining the minute details of grass, dead leaves, a baby-hand-sized rock which she's found hiding under the grass. She will reverence these objects for long moments, and then, as a final compliment, she will put them lovingly into her mouth, a kind of reverse engineering; I like you, therefore you must be edible.

As with all new things this too will become old hat, and we'll see her start walking through puddles, running over fields, walking into the forest, climbing up mountains. But for now the kid is rooted in one spot, endlessly picking at the growing grass. If I could only pick her up and move her to another location without causing World War III, I almost wouldn't have to mow.

One Year Later: A Retrospective

One year ago today, Stanley Hilarius became Sydney.

It's certainly been an interesting one year and nine months. It's been a long, hard fought battle, but I must admit that Sydney has won. And I have the scar to prove it.

We've learned alot since those first shell shocked days. Mostly by trial and error, we've learned what Sydney does and does not like, when she'll sleep, and when she won't. We've also composed quite a few songs which, I'm sure, would make my operatic brother cringe but actually shouldn't surprise him too much. After all, I did come up with the words to the fantastic song: Fat Person, Sittin' on a Bike.

Chewin' on the Sydney Hands
Chewin' chewin' chewin'
Whatcha think you're doin'?
Chewin' on the Sydney Hands!

Magic Bag
Sydney's in the magic bag!
Cuz she is a baby.
Sydney's in the magic bag!
And I don't mean maybe.

Big Syd
It's the Big Syd!
The Big Big Syd!
The Big Big Big Big
BIG little Syd!

The Sockless Sydney
Sydney doesn't have any socks on!
What are we gonna do
About the sockless Sydney?

Washing
Oh, we're
Washing the face
Washing the face
Washing the face
So we can go to bed.
Cuz if we don't wash the face
then we can't go to bed
and if we don't go to bed
then the morning doesn't come.

Talent creeps up on you, you know.

In any case, we've managed to go back to our previous hectic lives, albeit with the copious help of relatives agreeing to babysit and rotating schedules which, whilst we were still in the midst of the breastfeeding saga, basically took me entirely out of the picture every two hours.

Fortunately Sydney took up the slack. That girl can stack a cord of wood in no time.

Wait, that's not how it happened. Turns out she was with me.

So today is Sydney's Big Day, and to celebrate, she decided to cry around 2am this morning, just about the time she first made noise. She's on her own journey, notwithstanding us, her parents, and we're really just following along. We try to guide her towards the carrots and the sweet potatoes of life, but more often than not they'll end up on the floor. Whatever she ends up putting on her plate isn't really up to us.

Happy First Birthday, Sydney!

Standing on Ceremony

Babies are constantly on the move and their brains are constantly calculating the next developmental step, and most of all, babies do things on their own time, so you often miss the next big thing until it happens out of the corner of your eye while you're having a conversation with your spouse.

Look ma! ...no hands!!

Sydney has learned to stand and she's learned to cruise, and apparently she's been processing the fact that her parents don't need to hold onto things when they walk about the room or carry her about, and so yesterday, apropos of nothing, she removed her hands from her mother who was being used as a support, lifted them up, and for two seconds was standing on her own two feet with only gravity and air keeping her upright.

To which we responded with the appropriate amount of praise, while our minds were whirling. Oh no! And we just got the house child-proofed for a crawling baby!!

Next I suppose she'll start saying real words, like "president" or "tricycle" instead of "bababa!" or "rarara!"

Should I start making her apply for college now, or wait until the summer?