Princess Trivia

Out of the mouths of babes four year olds: Ariel wears a sea bra to protect her deese* from sharks.




* Miss M.'s word for breasts. Don't ask me, I'm just her mother.

Little Kid Couture

The things that can happen when you let your child dress herself:

• Plaids and stripes
• Shirt with little flowers, pants with big flowers, socks with other flowers - "Look Mama, I'm all flowers - I match!"
  
• Skirts with pants underneath

• Pants with tights underneath

and, the discovery, at the end of the day, that she's gone to school without underpants.

Pint Sized Grammar

About a boy in her daycare class:

I love Owen, he's such a favorite boy for me.

How she asks for things:

May you please get me some milk?

Instead of using "tomorrow":

The next day, can I visit the children?

Sometimes it sounds like she's speaking English as a second language.

Saint Bernard

Last night, I went in to collect Miss M. from the bathtub and found her on her hands and knees, collecting the baby elephants by mouth and depositing them on their floating mama's belly. "What are you doing?", I asked. "I'm a saver dog!"

If that means I've given birth to a Saint Bernard, will she fetch me brandy in my dotage?

What Kids Call Adults

The kids at daycare figure out which mommy/daddy belongs to which kid pretty quickly, but what the parent's name is takes a little longer. So, when parents show up, there's a lot of "Hi, Joe's Mommy" and "There's Jane's Daddy".

Next door to us, there's a family with identical twin girls who are a little bit older than Miss M. She can't figure out which one is which, and frankly, I think their father gets it right about 50% of the time. So, she doesn't use their names much: she calls them "the children", as in "Can I go to the children's house?".

Last night, I was in the kitchen, she was in the living room, and W. was outside. All of a sudden I hear her calling out the window:

Hi!

Hi!

The Children's Daddy, hi!

Hi!

Sure enough, there was the children's daddy, outside talking to W.

More from the Backseat

After I refused to repeat Puff the Magic Dragon for the sixth time in a row and tried to play something else:

"I don't like all of these songs. They make me incredible. I want Puff the Magic."

It's lovely that she can use a four syllable word with no sense of its meaning.

And:

"Look, Mommy, there's a racing car!"

Because all convertibles are racing cars.

Why, oh why?

Why is it that my child can say yes, with a y, but yellow comes out lellow?

We were hysterical last night:

Say yellow.

Lellow.

No, yellow.

Lellow.

What color is your shirt?

Lellow.

Questions from the Back Seat

How do we make water?

How do we make school buses?

How do we make signs?

and...

What kind of aminals eat poop?

We are in for it when she is a Teenager

The other day, when we picked Miss M. up at daycare, her teacher told us - with great amusement - that she'd been walking around outside with a pensive expression on her face. When asked what she was thinking about, she said "I'm looking for the man of my dreams".

Beastly Mispronunciations

The ex-pen-koff skunscreen is sitting on the refrigedador.

(The sunscreen isn't really expensive, but it is sitting on the refrigerator because otherwise the small child tries to smear it all over herself by herself.)

Word of the Day: Stoloniferous

Nice word, huh? Very…mellifluous.

Yesterday, Miss M. and I were poking around in the garden. W. had recently patched some bare spots in the so-called lawn with grass seed, and I showed her how the new grass was coming up. She asked “how do we make grass?” It’s a common type of question of hers, and is always phrased that way:

• “How do we make cows?”
• “How do we make Jeeps?”
• “How do we make eggs?”
• “How do we make airplanes?”
• “How do we make ants?”
• “How do we make frogs?”

I like that she thinks all of those things are made by us humans. Anyway, in the strange way my mind works, I got from grass and grass seed to stoloniferous grasses and stoloniferous weeds. I have an evil weed in the garden, a stoloniferous evil weed called goutweed or bishop's weed. I get down on my hands and knees and start pulling it out, carefully so as not to break it off and leave the roots in the ground, following the root along to get as much as possible, muttering to myself “stoloniferous weeds, stoloniferous weeds…” It is the kind of weeding that is like eating peanuts; once you start, you can't stop.

Gendered Ice Pops

After dinner last night, Miss M. and W. were eating popsicles for dessert. Well, maybe not. Miss M. announced that the girl team was eating popsicles, and the boy team was eating momsicles.

Wednesday Whimsy

Miss M. was full of whimsy this morning. For breakfast, she asked for cereal with granola, milk and "dried out berries". Later, discussing her various backpacks and which one we took on the train to New York City last week, she said "I took the purple one to your city." She calls New York City "your city" - and it is my city, indeed. And then, caravanning to the car repair shop to drop off W.'s car for new brakes, she pointed to the newly re-installed bike rack on the top of his car and said "Daddy's car has antlers!"

Three and a half is a funny funny age. Exasperating, too, but the whimsy usually makes up for the exasperation.

Misha's Toddler Appeal (or lack thereof)

I showed Miss M. this nice clip of Misha leaping about in Don Quixote. About half way through, she said "when are the ballerinas going to come out?"

Puff Went The Magic Dragon

Greedy Greedy

As I was loading Miss M. into the car the other day, with a container of raisins in one hand and a piece of matzo in the other, she said to me “I have two snacks. One for me, and one for me.”

Grandmother

The other day, I told Miss M. that she'd be going over to see her grandmother. She said "I don't have a grandmother, she's my grandma. Grandmothers have long sandy hair." Um, okay. We're not quite sure where that one came from.

Accuracy At All Times

"Accuracy at all times" is one of those catch-phrases in our house - you use it when you correct someone else's grammar, or usage, or pronunciation, or such like, to deflect the irritation of the correction.

Miss M. is showing signs of being a stickler. We have a nice little copy of Five Little Monkeys by Eileen Christelow, which we read at bedtime a lot. Monkey #3 takes her tumble, and Miss M. now says "not her head, her CHIN". Yup, the illustration has the monkey landing on her chin. I may have to take a Sharpie to the book. In the meantime, I've just done a crude Photoshop edit.

More Hanukah

ONe day last week, I took Miss M. to work with me. She brought her harmonica, and played it in the office. But she calls it her "more hanukah". I love that. We're not even Jewish.

But seriously, why do toddlers get syllables out of order like that? She does it with some other words as well - of course I can't think of any at the moment.

Out of the Mouths of Babes

Miss M. has been sick all week. Monday was a holiday, I stayed home with her on Tuesday, she went to Grandma's on Wednesday, and today I took her to the office. I thought she was better, but she spiked a fever again at about 11:30 - so home again we went.

Anyway, on the train in, she said to me "Mama, you're so kind to me". And later, leaving the train platform and emerging into the splendid main area of Grand Central Terminal, she said "it's so beautiful". Indeed it is and indeed I am.