We haven’t done one of these in a while. So what’s the little mouse up to?
1. She is ever more enthusiastic about Glee Dance Parties. She’s really getting into the actual dancing, trying to imitate what she sees on screen, shaking her hips, etc. And she loves Tik-Tok. You really haven’t lived until you’ve heard a tiny-voiced toddler say, “‘Fore I leave, brush my teeth with a bottle of Jack.”
2. And in other inappropriate-things-we-let-her-watch news, she loved “Game of Thrones.” (And don’t think for a minute that I’m not dorky enough to sit here thinking, “Are TV shows in quotes or italics? And if they’re in italics, should I not use italics on “loved”? But I’ve decided they’re in quotes. Even if they are not on TV but HBO.) She especially loved Daenerys, whom she referred as the “Alice in Wonderland girl,” and she looked forward to seeing her “nak’dy butt.” She was very sad, in fact, when Daenerys was not naked. We pointed her out on screen once and she said, very sadly, “Oh. She’s not nak’ded. She’s not going to be nak’ded.”
3. She’s still hitting me a lot when she gets angry.
4. She’s still feeling me up all the time. Her newest justification line (in addition to “I like your breasts. They’re so lovely.”) is “We have to protect your nipples from the sun.” Because that’s what we say – that we have to protect her from the sun, not her nipples specifically – when we put sunscreen on her.
5. She’s really trying to imitate very polite and relational ways of expressing herself. She’s just as likely to say “Shall we do x?” as “I want to do x.” She asks if you like something and then says, “Oh. I like it too, with you.” If she hears me say I like something, she says she likes it with me, even if she has no particular reason to. Like when I saw Ruth Reichl on “Top Chef Masters” and said I love her, she said, “Oh, is the purple girl your favorite? She’s my favorite, too. I love her, too, with you.” Then again, sometimes she likes to distinguish herself. She wanted to watch Grease today because we heard “Summer Nights” in the car, and I said, “I like Grease,” and she said, “It’s not your favorite. It’s my favorite.”
6. She is also now a big fan of Hairspray (2007) and walks around the house screaming out “Good morning, Baltimore!” all the time.
7. She’s gotten even more snugly with her father. The other night she got out of her bed, where I’d been reading her stories, went into our bed, wrapped her arms around her father’s neck, snuggled into him, and said, “I love you, Daddy.” Aaaaaaaaand that’s why she’s still sleeping in our bed.
8. She’s also gotten more attached to her Grandpa Lalan. Last time we were in NJ she elected to watch noovies in his bed with him for twenty minutes or so when offered the choice. And she played piano with him and played with his (really, my ex-stepmom’s) extensive collection of restaurant matchbooks and made him chase her around the house. He was pretty happy about it.
9. She also had a great time at the beach last time and was very bold about running into the water. She wasn’t even scared when a wave came and slapped her in the face.
10. She was extremely intrigued by the fact that a seagull pooped on my back. She’s been bringing it up every so often since then, always including my mom’s phrase, “Yucky-Puckies!”
11. She likes to read to herself. She remembers the contents of a lot of her books.
12. She likes to help me choose which romance novels to read when we’re at the library. I think she’s selecting on the basis of hot pink dresses on the cover, which is not necessarily how I’d do it, but it’s a method.
13. She refers to certain of her activities as “work” and tells me she has to “finish with my work” before moving on to the next activity.
14. She says “aminal.” Like a stereotype of a toddler on an ’80s sitcom.
15. She has decided preferences in the clothes she wears. Right now she’s in pretty full-on girly-girl mode, wanting always to wear dresses, pink, and sparkles.
16. Lately, anything long and flowy – hair, a scarf, a plastic vegetable bag from the grocery store – is a “dream.”
17. At my cousin’s recent Bar Mitzvah, she was extremely cute, running around the sanctuary, mostly between me and her cousin Sammy (the Bar Mitzvah boy’s sister), admiring her sparkly purse and trying to wear my dad’s girlfriend’s heels. She also insisted that all of us be holding prayer books at all times, even when they were no longer in the prayer portion of the service but on to the announcements-and-sisterhood-inductions portion.
18. She also has a new game where she makes hand motions I’m supposed to imitate.
19. We were over on Navy Pier this weekend (well, not on, but just west of) and she had a GREAT time splashing in the fountain. But she insisted on taking her dress first off so it wouldn’t get wet. (She would have taken her underwear off, too, but we decided that was a bridge too far. It’s not like I don’t carry ten extra pairs of her underwear on me at all times.) Sometimes she is the exact combination of Jason and me.
20. She likes to pick up sticks on walks. When we were with Archie, my mom’s new dog, I thought, you know, puppies and toddlers are really kind of the same thing. They even fought over the same sticks.
21. Zoe was both adorable and impossible with Archie. He was actually very gentle with her, much gentler than he was with, say, me. But Zoe would insist on sticking her arms in his mouth and then getting upset when she felt the slightest hint of teeth.
Okay, that’s all for now. Just so you all know, this Friday will be another SYTYCD evaluation with my sister. Then I’ll be out for the week. (Woohoo!) Then the next SYTYCD evaluation will be posted a few days late, and then Sophia and I will be taking some questions. Talk to you all later!
Raspberry Lime Ricki 