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There She Grows

Lil is very excited about baby V. She tells waiters at restaurants, strangers, anyone who will listen: “My mommy has a baby in her belly. its a little sister.” Yesterday out of the blue she said, “When I was a baby I drank out of a bottle. Where’s my bottle now?” I told her it was in the cabinet somewhere because she hasn’t used it in a long long time. So she says, “I’m saving it for Violet. She will use my bottle.”

She is already thinking about her a lot in that way. When she’s building things or coloring pictures she will often set one aside, announcing it is for her little sister. She drew a family picture for Mike’s birthday, consisting of 4 circle-blobs. Representing mommy, daddy, Lilah and Violet. I melted, of course.

She announces that she is going to teach V how to talk, walk, read, share, pet Marley gently, play catch. It is so adorable! She talks about sharing her toys, and then says, “but sometimes she will chew on it. Because she’s just a baby.” Yesterday she says, “I’m going to carry her across the street because babies can’t walk in the street.” Maybe when you’re both a little bit older, honey!

Lil was the first one I told I was preg (since she was home with me at the time), she was the first one to hear the news that it was a little girl, and now she has become the first person to feel the baby move (besides me, of course!). I can feel her squirming in there all the time, but for the most part she’s not big enough yet to be felt from the outside…so Mike is still waiting. But late the other night she was laying across my belly in a patio chair, almost asleep, and the baby started doing a little jig in the belly. I figured since Lil had so much surface area of her own body pressed up against it, she might actually feel it. So I quietly asked if she was asleep. “No…” she yawned. “Can you feel the baby moving around in there?” And her eyes open wide. “Is that Violet?!” And she sits straight up, wide awake, amazed. She totally felt it, that was cool!

It all started when she walks into the kitchen brandishing a pretty good sword she’d made from a sheet of tissue paper found in a shoe box. She comes in with her face super serious, pointing the sword right at me.

“On Guard!” she says, never breaking character. I’m still distracted by the impressive sword. “Where’d you get that?” I wonder. She says, “From the paper that came with the shoes.”

I go into her room and see there was another sheet of paper. “Hey look, I can make one too.” I try, but its not nearly as sword-like as Lil’s. “How’d you make it awesome like that?” I ask.

“Like this. Let me show you.” and proceeds to explain her technique. “Flatten it around your body, tighten it a LOT, then fold this and hold it. In your hand…like pirates do. Right!”

I’ve accomplished as much so far. But then, “how can we make the other end better?” she asks, fumbling with the ’sharp’ point of the sword. I suggest, “Lets twist it, like this.” And we both twist it into a small point, achieving total sword.

“See we made it out of paper!” she screams. “Now I’m a pirate. Yo Ho!” Pointing the sword at me, super-serious face again.

“This is my ship” I said, and pointed my sword back at her. Apparently giving in to the fact that my 3 yr old and I are about to have a sword fight with our paper swords. When they prove a bit too flimsy to sufficiently evoke one, she is looking a bit dismayed. So I say, “Welcome to my ship. Lets be on the same side.”

“Yeah!” her face lights up. She looks around the room and suddenly runs to her giant green chair, rocking it. “This is your pirate ship! Get on the ship, mommy!” So I do.

“This is our ship. You can be my first mate.” I tell her. “Yeah!” and then, pointing to various objects around her room, “There’s a seagull, look out! Its waves! Hey, there’s an island!” indicating a play-mat laying in the corner. “We’re there right now, lets go on it!”

So we slide off the chair and run to the island. “Lets see if there’s any hidden treasure around here” I say, eyeing a jewelry box a foot away. But she’s already ahead of me. “I found a treasure!!” she yells, grabbing a stuffed dog. “Good find, matey!” I say as she runs it over to the chair that was our ship.

We spent the next 10 minutes or so finding treasure – various objects around the room, and animals to guard it. She offers running commentary on each item as she stashes them on the chair. “An ancient pirate coin” I say as she finds a cup lid. “Good find, matey!” she yells back. “Here is a beautiful magic peacock purse to put the coins in!” She screams.

She is also the queen of making up words, and here was a prime time to do it. A rainstick was deemed a ‘mensia’, some puzzle pieces were ’snidos.’ The best was when she found one of her belts and announced that she had found a “long lost minxie golden arshala.” (I ran off to jot that one down right then and there so I wouldn’t forget!).

We ran around doing this long enough to fill the chair-ship with our plunder, so Lilah decided to expand our territory. “Behind the chair is the real part of the ship! Behind the chair. This is.. this is just where we keep our treasures and artifacts but we eat back here!” She slides along the wall behind the chair. This is when I had to check out; I told her I was staying on the island to help cover our tracks… then tried to straighten up a bit while listening to her continue on alone, gleefully narrating her story from behind the chair.

I often hear her doing stuff like that, from another room or something. She’ll be chattering away and on closer inspection we will hear what sounds like a complete story, orally authored by Lil. An ongoing narration of her imagined actions complete with characters, conflict and dialogue, adding things like ‘…said the cat.’ after whatever the cat said. Its hilarious, I SO wish I could have any of this stuff taped! These days when I break out the camera it ruins the situation. So as she’s getting funnier and funnier, less of her antics are documented. Gotta hold on to these hilarious memories!

I do love having a 3yr old who talks like a 5 yr old. For more than the ease of communication – its also hilarious. The other day she befriended a 5 1/2 yr old at the park, and the two of them played crazily together. I heard them running around in a ’spiderman castle’. Hearing them conversate back and forth, his mom had assumed Lil was her son’s age and was startled to see how small she is. Super small for her age? No she just turned 3 a couple months ago… I don’t know what people mean at first when they ask me that. “He never likes to play with younger kids, this is a first!” she tells me. Which seems to happen a lot. They interact similarly.

I forget this isn’t always the norm at her age, until people remind me. Like my aunts’ initial surprise at the beach this month when Lil grabbed a bottle of water and said “Its good to stay hydrated.” And pointed out that her saliva was on the ground, after spitting out a mouthful of sand. But, these are words I’ve used with her, so of course she knows them. Has for awhile. Is it so strange?

I am so curious how #2 will be! Lil told me today she is going to teach baby Violet to talk. I have a feeling V will be a quiet one in comparison. It would be cool if she is able to find her voice as easily as Lil did but then again, i also hope she sleeps more easily. That would be nice too!

I’ve wanted to post about this for awhile now, because Lilah’s been talking about it for months. I think it all started back when her friend Indie took a trip to Japan, combined with Lil’s learning about world-wide locations via the Wonder Pets. She wants to go everywhere she hears about, and particularly to a place she’s invented: Mekkon. This is Mike’s spelling of it, which I think works best because it makes the most sense phonetically.

A few facts: Mekkon is a whole nother country. We take an airplane. There is a pool, and little dogs. Sometimes Li asserts that only girls are allowed, so she can bring Mommy and Marley. Other times, its open to all of us. There will be a dance once we arrive, and we’ll wear fancy dresses. Other kids will be there, and she will share her toys with them. She has her own personal airplane captain who flies us there. His name is Captain Hensido and he’s a tall man like Papa. It goes on and on!

For awhile the Mekkon talk had trailed off, but it has fully erupted again after our big trip to Europe. Lilah is already a seasoned traveler by plane, but now she has visited other countries. And since we’ve been home, her interest in Mekkon is clearly re-kindled. And as time goes on, her description of it expands. She’ll announce that she is bringing a specific toy or outfit to Mekkon, and then talk about that aspect for days on end. Snippets of paper or her artwork often become maps to Mekkon and are folded meticulously for future viewing. God forbid one of those should get lost or thrown away. Oh, and we now have to take a tow-bus to get to the plane. Her interest in tow-vehicles grew out of a flat tire experience we had on her birthday. Ever since then, a tow-bus is an integral part of the scenario.

She has become so obsessed with the reality of this, that she tries to use it to get out of, well, anything she doesn’t feel like doing. I can’t go to bed now, mom, because we’re going to Mekkon. I can’t put away my toys, because I need to pack my suitcase for Mekkon! I’m not going to the playhouse (her daycare), because we’re going to Mekkon today.

This goes far beyond jokes or a momentary distraction. She will get so serious about it that she will literally spend tons of time searching for her suitcase or just the right bag and then meticulously pack it just so. Then she’ll carry or drag it around the house announcing that our tow-bus will be arriving any minute, and that I need to pack up and get ready too.

The night of her birthday, our friend Miguel was over here well past Lil’s bedtime. He witnessed her refusal to get ready for bed because she needed to pack her Mekkon suitcase. As she packed it thoroughly, she ended up discussing it with him at length, answering all his questions. It is fun to indulge her imagination on this. Our families get a kick out of it too, encouraging her to tell them all about it. Friends have joked about sending Lil a postcard or bringing a small gift from their recent trips to Mekkon.

But with us, she will seriously push the envelope as far as she can. And sometimes it ends in a tantrum when she has to do something besides fly to Mekkon. Possible other locations and activities don’t entice her when she is in full Mekkon hang-up mode. There have been times she’s asked me point blank, “we’re going to Mekkon today, right mom?” I’m eager to pretend with her, but she’s not satisfied. Once, at the end of my rope, I said “we can go, but only for pretend.” She erupted into a tantrum with, “no, we’re going there for real!” When it gets to that point, Mike and I look at each other like, hmmm now what? She is an intense kid.

An idea Mike had is to take her to Catalina Island for a day and tell her its Mekkon! Is that wrong?

Thats a pic Mike shot a couple weeks ago. Lilah will be three in a couple months.
And here’s a random conversation i wanted to jot down from earlier today. Read the rest of this entry »

Occasionally, Lil is “Super Arrow”, a badass alter-ego who tends to fight bad guys. My theory is that she overheard superhero and adapted that, but I can’t be sure. I once asked her, “superhero?” And she was NOT pleased at the suggestion of a name-change so I quickly dropped it!

I haven’t taken much video at all lately, because I can’t keep up or do any justice to everything that goes on. She gets so involved in her imaginative scenarios. I wish I could just capture some of this stuff through my eyeballs, but all I can do is occasionally write these things down before I forget.

This photo of Lil cracks me up. Yesterday as we explored Mayor’s Bicentennial Park, she found some good sticks and became Super Arrow. Then we were on an important quest and she told me exactly what we were doing the entire time. I was helping her as best I could. I was “Super Arrow Kid”, after all.

She’s using a super magical wand stick to cast a spell on three bridges, capturing them. In order to protect us from three wild cats, who are capture cats. She also holds a sword. We want to catch capture cats. (She plays with words a LOT).

We’re trying to rescue a dragon, a good dragon. What’s the dragon’s name, I ask. “The Big Dragon…Hepsido. He’s invisible. He’s right over there, sleeping on that rock.” I have the gall to ask how she is able to see him if he is invisible. “I’m Super Arrow!”

Actually, he’s a baby dragon. Wait, he’s not there, he disappeared! So we walk down the river bed calling Hepsido! And then she discovers him sleeping in a cave. Its a bit precarious, honestly, so I break character slightly and suggest it may be too dangerous to retrieve him from under there. She says, “lets sit down and think about it.” And finds a rock on which to mull it over.

“I got it! We can reach him with sticks, find some good sticks, Super Arrow Kid!” She tells me.

The idea has merit, so I do.

We’ve all heard of time-outs as one of those standard issue parenting techniques that have stood the test of time throughout generations. Now that I’m a parent myself I’ve learned that time-outs don’t mean the same thing to all parents or all kids. When, how and why parents resort to time-outs and the ‘ground rules’ that surround them are surely as varied as parents and kids are varied.

Lately I’ve heard some talk from the attachment-parenting set (something I’ve considered myself a part of in many ways, go figure) that time-outs are in fact a detrimental no-no. An article on rootparenting.com was recently brought to my attention. It lists 5 reasons why time-outs are harmful to kids.

The whole write-up evokes the image of a dismissive parent angrily shaming their child off to their room at the first sign of ‘bad’ behavior. Paragraph after paragraph describes how time-outs lead to low self esteem, lack of trust, rebellion in the teen years, a kid’s inability to think for themselves, and just the general deterioration of your relationship. Finally, the author allows himself to admit the following:

Sure, you will need to let them simmer down from a tantrum or tears before discussing the issues they are having.

Um, bingo! Read the rest of this entry »

Vocab is reaching new heights. Her pretend-play is hilarious and has been for so long. This stuff isn’t necessarily new, its just me blogging about what’s been going on lately.

This morning she’s running around yelling, “The volcano is erupting! The hot lava could leave burns but I’ll protect you!”

Sometimes she walks around blurting out, “Met-a-morph-a-sis! That means a big change!!!”

She’s trying out new big words that she isn’t 100% sure how to pronounce, just to see what kind of reaction she gets, and to be corrected so she gets them right. She looked at me the other day, while we were trying to fit some of her toys into bins, and says, “That was suspessful?” She said it a little bit off, and knew it, hence the question. I said, “did you mean, successful?” and she nods. Now she’s got that one under belt.

Same thing with words like annoying, frustrated, exclamation (we’ve been talking about punctuation marks when reading together, because she’s been asking about them). Yummy foods are occasionally announced as “scrumptious!”

She knows the evil queen’s name in Sleeping Beauty is Malificent, and will readily correct anyone who gets it wrong (such as me). Something we discuss often is photosynthesis. Ever since she was first read this small vintage book about how plants make their own food from water, sunlight and air, Lil has been absolutely fascinated by the concept. She doesn’t remember the term yet on her own but asks about it to be reminded.

Pretty big words for a kid who is still months away from turning 3, no? Of course, its not like multi-syllable words are a huge deal; she’s been able to say some for ages now. I think it was a year ago when she first began to marvel waiters by demanding “guacamole”. But it is still a thing of excitement for me, how many new big words are added to her vocab all the time. Its all happening so quickly.

A relatively new one, that isn’t necessarily huge but has us laughing, is “whatever.” She tried it out on me the other day in the form of a question, to make sure she was using it right. She couldn’t figure out which tee shirt she preferred so I said, well lets just put this one… then and she asks me, “whatever?” yeah, whatever. i say. and so now she’s been using that one a lot. Whatever, mommy. Yep she is 2.5 going on 14.

Really though, I wish she would adopt the “whatever” attitude a bit more often when it comes to stuff like that. Because mostly, Lil still can get extremely upset and frustrated over little decisions like that, or when things don’t work out perfectly on the very first try. But when she is able to take it with a grain of salt, what used to be “no biggie” seems to have been replaced with “whatever”. lol…

Quite a few in our friends & family have recently had a baby or are pregnant, some of them with twins. So L has been talking about babies in her body for some time now. When she plays pretend, if its not teacher or doctor (or monsters or animals), its being mommy. She is forever wrapping various objects in blankets and putting them down for naps. And last week we visited the California Science Center with our playgroup, where L stared wide-eyed at an exhibit of fetuses at various stages. Needless to say, she is now more fascinated than ever. Here is one example.

This morning she was playing alone and I could hear her getting upset. I found her struggling to fit a baby in its crib (L becomes exceedingly frustrated about things like this not working out instantly as she envisions they should, an intensity I should talk more about some time). In this case, the baby was her camera case wrapped in a pair of her tights and they were not staying on properly, which infuriated her. As did the fact that the whole thing didn’t lay comfortably in the plastic bowl that was its crib. The horror!

Once we managed to tuck baby camera case into a shoe box with a proper blankie, everyone was much happier. She kept it nearby all morning, and later she put the camera case under her tee-shirt and was pregnant. Saying he was going to come out in a few minutes.

She talks a lot about having a baby brother. She wants a baby in general but definitely leans toward having a brother. She’s been discussing this with me for quite some time now. I only hope she is still this interested in the idea of a sibling if and when it does happen. Lil is changing and maturing leaps and bounds all the time; she acts well beyond her age and is extremely opinionated. I sort of figured spawn2 would be on the horizon by now but things don’t always go as planned. I just hope we haven’t missed a great window, so to speak, of two little ones being close friends. On the other hand, with a little more space between them, L might feel less like her turf is being infringed upon, and could be a great help in caring for and teaching a new little one.

When I tell her that a new baby might be a sister and that its not something we can choose, she just says, BROTHER.

No pressure though!

During our walks, Lil will often pick up one of the big pinecone-shaped seeds that fall from the trees lining our block. The other day she held it up and announced, “this and the tree match.”

The tree truly was the exact shape as the seed. I told her that was a very good observation to make, and that’s a connection that can be found time and again throughout nature. Miraculously, she left it at that. For now. But sometimes when we tread on subjects of such potential depth, she wants to know much more. It amazes me, the discussions we get into nowadays. Most always initiated by Lil, her curiosity and alarming understanding about certain things.

Read the rest of this entry »

We’re driving back from Kiel’s art show and Lil is gazing out the window at stars. Sometimes she starts singing “twinkle twinkle little star” at the stars, and she was. She sings the whole song in her sweet little voice and then ends it each time with, “yee-ha!” We have no idea where that came from, but its a steadfast addition to the twinkle twinkle song.

For the first time, she asked if she could fly up and touch a star. We joked about her catching one in a net. I got a little more serious and told her that, while they look teeny tiny, its just because they are so so so very far away and they are actually bigger than she can imagine. Far larger than the whole earth, etc.

“Way way out there? Out of space?”

Outer space, yeah.

And she starts talking about flying to a star in a spaceship. “Can I ever fly in a spaceship to the stars?” Yes, we believe so, we say. That might be possible in your lifetime. Is that what you want to do? “Yes. Maybe I can find Wall-e.” We laugh.

“Can you watch me? Watch me go to the stars?” She asks. “We definitely hope so!”

And after a few more thoughtful moments she goes, “Outer space is cool.”

A sequel to this post. The other day we were in the grocery store that has the inner starbucks, and stopped for a treat. I got an iced latte and she got a biscotti. It took her a few tries to pronounce it right. And then,

her: Biscotti? Some type of cookie?

me: Yeah its that long cookie you sometimes get.

her: Biscotti. hmmmm, lets see. Spanish?

me: No, its a different language. Italian.

her: Talian!

–

Later that same night when we were getting her ready for bed, she started singing one of the Spanish songs. One where they name the articles of clothing.

her: Who is wearing a vestido? Lilah?

me: No, Lilah is wearing a camisa.

her: Camisa. (grabbing her shirt). Pantalones! (grabbing her sweatpants). Mommy is wearing a vestido?

me: Vestido is a dress. Mommy is wearing a falda. A skirt.

her: Falda is a skirt, vestido is a dress.

her: hmmm…. what’s Tuhtah mean?

me: Oh, you mean when daddy calls your dress a tuhtah? That is a whole nother language. That’s how you say dress in Assyrian.

her: Whole other language!

..He hasn’t said that to her in a long time so I was really surprised she remembered that and made the connection that it also meant dress in a language other than English.

That is all.

Last year between croupe and teething, our poor sick Lilah didn’t enjoy halloween to the fullest, but we had some good times. I’m sure she doesn’t remember that now, but this year she is extremely psyched about all things halloween. We’ve been talking about it since early last month; now that its approaching Lil can’t wait. We discuss it every day. She knows we’ll soon be getting a big pumpkin to carve into a jack-o-lantern. She’s constantly pretending there’s a ghost in the house, or sometimes she is a ghost cat slinking around. She has also taken it upon herself to ride our broom like a witch, cackling as she tries to maneuver around in our small kitchen. She is obsessed with her halloween books, bringing them with her on car trips and into school. She says she wants to give Halloween a hug. Here are a few of her decorations:

Here’s a brief video that is a few weeks old now, when she rediscovered her ducky costume. Its the one she wore last year, but fits must better now. I’ll make a green cape and find some flight goggles to transform her from an everyday duckling into Ming-Ming, the ducky from her very favorite show the Wonder Pets.

And then way later, tonight in the car, Lil randomly announces: “I have babies inside my body. And they’re gonna come out. I have babies inside my body and they’re gonna come out.”

me: You have babies inside your body? How many?

her: Two.

me: Oh. Just like Carrie?

her: Yeah. I have babies inside my body. They’re gonna come out. In just a few seconds. Brothers! My two brothers.

me: That’s very interesting. What will they do after they come out?

her: I don’t know.

me: If they’re your brothers, then they come out of my body.

her: No! No, my own body. Babies in my body. They’ll come out in a few seconds.

mike: Are they talking to you right now?

her: Yes. They’re babies.

mike: What are their names?

her: Um… Rose. And… Jasmine.

It seems her too-early mastery of the English language has started to make the whole thing seem old hat. Because Lil has begun making up her own new language entirely. Just experimenting I guess, but its hilarious/awesome. It started awhile ago, and she’s expanded upon it since. When she plays around with her Lilahspeak, we can usually tell what she’s conveying but its definitely her own brand new words. And often, she plays with rhyming. Its like she’s got her own cockney rhyme slang going. She’ll substitute a rhyming word in place of another word in a sentence, and crack herself up doing it. Or she’ll play around with letters and sounds: muh mar mu moing min mere, mommy? instead of what are you doing in there. Its funny when others hear this kind of stuff occur, they think its her cute silly 2-yr old way of trying to speak. And I think she gets a kick out of that, too. Fooling people. Its like a little secret.

Its also a reminder to me that I have to get this kid some Spanish. She’s just so rife for new language challenges right now and there’s no excuse if I don’t give her that opportunity. Sure, unlike so many other kids around these parts, we don’t have a spanish-speaking Nanny to accomplish this. But its not like I don’t have years of school spanish vocab in the vault somewhere. There’s plenty I can teach her, translation-wise, but she needs to hear it in context from real spanish speakers. I’ve enlisted her good friends next door to speak to her only in Spanish but that hasn’t panned out so far. I don’t think they realized I was serious.

I took her to a session of Habla Blah Blah, a spanish-immersion music class for little ones (how awesome is that name?). The class itself did not seem worth enrolling in right now but the songs are perfect. So we got their CD (thanks karen!), and it has quickly become Lilah’s most requested car music. She’s heard it 3 or 4 times and has already started to sing along to parts. Lil has an uncanny knack for remembering songs and loves to sing them. I try to tell her what everything in the songs means; she is quite intrigued. She gets some of it. Mostly I think she just loves the fun voices and catchy tunes, but this is a start. What other great spanish kids music is out there?

Oh and by the way, Lil knows one thing in Hebrew: L’Chaim!