Hard to Capture

It's hard to capture the entire story, but here's the gist:

Once upon a time there were two liiiiiitle ambulances. And they lived in the country. And there were two firetrucks. The firetrucks crashed into the tree. And the tires popped. So the liiiiitle ambulances came to help them. A big ambulance came to help the big people. And they took them to the hospital where the hospital people took care of them. Then the ambulances went back home. That's the end.

And it's even harder to capture the visuals, but here's the gist:

Wrig is in the tub, up to her chin in bubbles, telling a story to a duck hand puppet (because the duck told a story first and that's the deal: if the duck - or the mommy or the daddy - tells you a story, you have to tell a story back). While she is telling the story, she makes zero eye contact. She is either looking at her feet or the ceiling or the bubbles - anywhere but at the duck or the daddy (who happens to cramping up from holding the duck in an attentive posture). And while she is telling the story, it is physically impossible for her to sit still. She kicks her feet, squirms her bottom. At one point, she turned so her back was to me, dipped her hair back into the water and did the upside-down splits, exactly like those swimming ballet movies from the 50's. At another point in the story, she went into a prolonged series of yoga movements: downward dog to plank, downward dog to plank, again and again.

I'm not sure if her squirminess was self-consciousness or simply a physical manifestation of the agonies ofthe creative process, but it was simultaneously acrobatic, awe-inspiring, and funny as all hell.

Poker Face

We have begun to play games with Wrigley. We play bingo and Candyland and a game that's almost exactly like Candyland called Hurry Home. Hurry Home comes with a die, which is very exciting (and can be dangerous in the hands of an excited three year old).

So here's the thing: when we play Candyland or Hurry Home, Wrigley cheats. Sometimes she'll "accidentally" skip a colored square and jump ahead to the next one. Sometimes she'll take two or three cards off the top of the pile and pick the one that suits her best. At its most flagrant, when she draws a card that forces her to go backwards - especially way, way, way backwards - she doesn't want to go. She can be cajoled, but sometimes she just won't go.

The funny thing is that, even though we've introduced games, we haven't talked much about winning. In fact, in Candyland, "winning" sucks; once you've made it to the castle, it's never your turn again. It's always the other players' turn until they make it to the castle too. In spite of all that, she knows it's important to get to the castle first, even if you have to bend the rules.

I'm not sure what to make of all this. Do we blame it on human nature? Do we blame it on parenting? Do we blame it on the poisonous, divisive political climate? I just don't know.

I do know this: when I teach Wrig how to play poker, I'm keepin' an eye or her sleeve.

Such big words

The other day Wrigley said to Ed, "I am embarrassed by the way you did that." Ed and I were puzzled until it dawned on us that she meant to say impressed.

Procrastinosaurus

In case you didn't know, Wrigley had a birthday last month. I am finally getting a couple pictures up from the grand celebration. Thank-you cards will make it out before the year in review letters!After saying - since July - that she wanted a firefighter birthday party, Wrigley mentioned a month before the big event that she didn't want a firefighter party after all. She just wanted her "friends to come over and hang out." I kid you not. I have no idea where she learned the phrase "hang out." So I scrapped all the research I did on firefighter parties (planning parties is not something that comes naturally to me, so I had to do a lot of work on it), and thought up just good generic party ideas. I had it all planned out, when I thought I should confirm with the birthday girl that her plans had in fact changed. She now wanted a dinosaur party. With gritted teeth and studied lack of profanity I asked, "Are you sure? You cannot change your mind after this." Wrigley was sure and she didn't change her mind again.We invited 4 friends, which seemed to be a perfectly manageable number. We had a dino cave, dino feet, dino egg hunting (the eggs hatched glow in the dark dinosaurs!), and dino painting. When the dino pretending lost steam we brought out balloons which were, as always, popular. If I recall correctly, the birthday girl didn't cry (which always seemed to be a requirement when I was a kid!), though as a good Mom I may have already blocked that part out. Wrigley is very pleased with having reached three. She tells us matter-a-factly sometimes things like, "three years olds don't mind loud noises" or "three years olds eat asparagus," or "three year olds can open tall cabinets."

WWSD?

My friend Stephanie is pretty creative. She just seems to come up with some pretty cool projects and solves problems really interestingly. I have a lot of friends that make and do a lot of things. It makes me wonder why I don't get off the computer and do more, but I suppose I do a lot of interesting things as well. Stephanie has that artistic talent which gives her projects and solutions a particular flair. For Wrigley's birthday she managed to figure out how to give her those race car tights that Wrigley desired. She sewed buttons on to tights, then made cute little felt race cars that buttoned onto them. The race car wheels are the buttons!

This morning Wrigley and I walked 14 blocks to preschool in the pouring rain. Her back and front were soaked, her tights were soaked and water pooled in her boots! She had a coat on, a blanket and the hood to her stroller, I swear! We put her in her preschool change of clothes before school started. Ed usually takes the car to his school, so I had to figure out a way to keep us stroller mobile despite any weather. When Wrigley was younger, we would just stay home when it rained really hard. But we can't really do that any more. She's three, we've got to go out. I shopped for a poncho for Wrigley, couldn't find one. I looked for one of those kinda creepy plastic stroller covers. No such luck. I had to pick up Wrigley in an hour, and I didn't want her crying 8 blocks into our walk home. What to do? What would Stephanie do? Ah ha! I took a long piece of vinyl that we already had, some big drafting clips and came up with a cover far better than the one I might have bought if I had more time and a car to search the Baby Stores. Stephanie probably would have painting great pictures or sewn on beads, but I was awfully pleased that Wrigley came home without a drop of water on her or her rain coat! And she loved the contraption!

Toasty and Salty

Last week I was sick on the designated pumpkin carving night, so we had plain pumpkins on our porch for Halloween. It was okay, though, because we also had our porch light off. We headed over to friends for Halloween dinner and trick or treating. I was missing toasted pumpkins seeds, though, so today Wrigley and I sliced open the tops of two pumpkins and cleaned them of seeds. After the first one went well and Wrigley still wanted to dig up more seeds, we went ahead and started on the second. A three-year old's attention can turn at a moments notice, however, so twelve seeds into the second pumpkin Wrigley decides she is all done. To keep her attention, we started talking about how some people sell toasted pumpkin seeds and how do we suppose they get them out. Eventually we were talking about a great pumpkin seed separating machine. Wrigley elaborated on how people feed whole pumpkins into the machine and the seeds are yanked out and waaaashed and put in the oven all by a machine called a Spitredator (spit-red-ator).

The seeds came out great. It seems that the manual Spitredator works just fine.

Wrigley adds, "I liked taking out the seeds. Taking out the seeds. We're going to carve pumpkins next year. I like carving pumpkins. I got my little white one. I love pumpkins, and I brought my white one inside. Some people have their pumpkins on their stairs. Now can you read a book?"

The pay ain't much, but the benefits....

I got a, "you're the best Mommy in the worlerd," today. What did I do to earn such a title? I put on shoes and socks and gave a hug.

Bad Names For Toys, Episode 1

Mother Duck.

'Nuff said.