Snapshots

Maia seems to love disappointing me--in play only, of course. There's her disappearing blanket trick. And then we've got a book of opposites, one of which is a sad/happy girl. Chloë and I used to play with that. So do Maia and I, but it's moved out of the book. When she says "Can we read book?" and then picks one out and says brightly, "How bout dis one?" I sit on the glider and say, "Are you coming up?"

"No," she says, because she knows I will make a sad face and say despairingly, "Sad Mom." She used to then say, "I will come up and sit with you," which would make me smile and say brightly, "Happy Mom!" But lately, she doesn't bother. Because Chloë is usually around for this, she's taken to saying, "I'll sit with you!" or throwing her arms around me for comfort, even though I've laughed and told her we're just playing often enough that it should have sunk in. And since Chloë's been doing this, Maia will say, "Chloë will sit with you," and lounge in front of the glider, all independence, even if Chloë's not around.

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Chloë asked me to read out of her Elmo omnibus today. We read "Elmo Loves You," which is a poem in the formula "A loves to B, C loves to D. E loves to F, and F loves to [do something ending in -ou]. Elmo [does something], and Elmo loves you!" Afterwards I said, "And what do you love to do?"

"Watch body videos," she replied. Our Youtube selection has expanded to include videos on the liver and the kidneys (also Vihart's Doodle Music), and she does indeed ask to watch them morning and night. The other day she went to her room to dress and asked suddenly, "What's a duodenum?" And then later, to Eric, it was, "What's an esophageal sphincter?"

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She's constantly asking what this or that means. "What's a plank? What does walking the plank mean?" "What does repair mean?"  "What does focus mean?" "Then what does concentrate mean?" "What's an esophageal sphincter?"

The other day Eric was talking to her about school, and mentioned "college" (I don't know if he described it as optional or not). "I know what that is," Chloë said. "Mama was talking about it last night. During her Goldilocks story."

Eric turned to me. I certainly hadn't mentioned the educational level of Goldilocks or any of the bears, so I thought a moment. "Cottage."

"I forgot," Chloë said, with a charming grin.


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"Stop eating the soap," Eric groaned to Maia at bathtime today.

"Yum," she replied.


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Chloë and I discussed this morning what would happen if we moved to a new house, and how someone else would come live in ours. "Would they play with our toys?" she wondered, so I explained, "We would bring our things with us. The furniture and toys and books and clothes, all those things."

Tonight, at dinner, Eric groused about how the rectangular place mats never sufficiently protect the tablecloth on the round table. "This table isn't coming with us when we move," I reminded him.

"Mama! You said it was!" Chloë scolded me.

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We went to the fabric store yesterday to give Chloë the opportunity to buy something with her money. (Her choice: a felt princess hat and a wand with streamers, the latter of which she didn't like and tried knotting on the shaft, so I wound it around and glued it down and got her now-frequent praise of "You're the best!" I was also happy when she was dressed up in these while playing with Maia, and at some point Maia said something about her being a princess. Chloë said, "No, I'm a pirate now! Arr, matey!") Maia, as usual lately, was very difficult to get to follow me through the store, preferring to linger and look at things longer than I could stand. At one point she stopped at a small display of stuffed animals. Chloë and I moved on to the next aisle. When Maia didn't follow, I went back and said, "Come on, baby bird, let's look at something new."

She turned to me, holding a purple hippo in both hands, and said, "This animal misses its mama so much."

(I did not buy it for her. But it was a very close thing. She got a wand of her own instead.)