Valley of the Malls

Ten things to remember from our trip to Arizona:

1. Playing smack the penguin (Click the link. When you get there, click once to make the penguin jump, then click again to "help him fly.") Let us know if you beat Gramps's 593!
2. The mall parking lot that was so big I got lost trying to drive in a circle.
3. The same mall parking lot that had (I swear this is true) more places to eat than Oregon City.
4. Swimming every day.
5. Complaining that it might be too cold to swim, because it was only 82 degrees, then realizing that it won't be 82 in Portland until July 5th.
6. The huge wall that Wrig climbed and the two awed post-visit phone calls from Gramps regarding this wall (its height, its slickness, and its sheer unclimability!)
7. Spending two hours browsing in a bookstore while Grammers and Wrigley read book after book after book after ...
8. Grammers' amazing stamina. (I can't read for half that long, or bounce half as high on the bed!)
9. The spring training game that nobody really enjoyed (except me) but nobody wanted to leave. It was too hot ... it was too sunny ... it was just too "too."
10. It's really easy to be a good, attentive, and fun parent when somebody else is doing all the hard work (answering the why?'s and jumping up to handle all the I need more's, and did I mention two hours in a bookstore?

Thanks Grammers and Gramps!

A Pox on Your Firstborn

Way back when I dreaded the thought of having a child, I had a long list of specific things I really wasn't interested in going through. Changing diapers, for example. Or teething (which turned out to be as bad as I feared - if kids knew how hard they had to work to make teeth, they would brush them so compulsively that the combination of bristle and paste would rub those pearly whites down to little nubs).

Another item on my "things to fear" list was the chicken pox. So when Chris called me at work four days before we were supposed to fly to Arizona for spring break, I thought we were in for a doozy of a week. I imagined poor Wrig, hands covered in mittens that were wrapped in adhesive tape which was covered with socks, desperately pawing at her relentlessly itching body. I imagined her covered with constellations of red scabs (oh look! There's the big dipper!). I imagined canceling our spring break trip and breaking my parents' hearts.

Turns out, Wrig had the mildest case of chicken pox ever (Chris gives all the credit to extended breast feeding. Three cheers for Mommy's antibodies!) . Two sleepless nights. An afternoon of itching. The highlight of the whole experience was coming home one afternoon to discover Wrigley rubbing up against our 5 foot tall cat tree, scratching her kiester like a bear in the woods. A priceless picture!

Now, with the chicken pox off my list, there's hardly anything left to dread about child rearing at all! Except ...

I Totally Deserve This Kind of Response

D: Hey, girls. What brings you downstairs?
W: (brief pause) The steps.

Will you take a picture of me?

So we had to go back to the old site, and you know what? She still laughs exactly like that. All the time. Especially when I tickle her!


She likes to watch the video camera screen as I take pictures with it. We have lots of goofy faces!

"What's that thing on you, Daddy?"

"What thing?"
"On you. All wrapped up."
"Oh. That ... that's a bandage ... I, uh, I donated blood at work today."
Blank stare. Well, duh, Daddy-O. How do you explain blood donation to a toddler? "Remember a couple of weeks ago, when they took my hair away at school, and they gave it to somebody else who needed it?"
"Uh-huh."
"Well, today they took some blood and gave it to somebody else." Oh great. This is a fine way to get a kid excited about learning: school is a place where they take things from you. What happened to your arm, Daddy? "See, um, blood can make people feel better when they're sick."
Blank stare.
"Ok, when you're sick ... when you don't feel good ... how do Mommy and Daddy make you feel better?"
"Nurse."
"That's right, boo makes you feel better. And when your teeth hurt, what do we do?"
"You give me medicine."
"And when you have a cough?"
"Cough medicine!"
"That's right. Blood can sometimes be like medicine."
And off she goes to play.
Whew.

I haven't quite figured out how to answer questions yet. She's looking for information, right? So I can't just come up with some nonsensical answer. And when I start to give an answer in her language - they took my blood today - I often find myself overexplaining things. Honestly, I think overexplaining is better than leaving Wrig with an image of people taking away my blood the way toddlers swipe toys. And even as I speak, I hear in the back of my head: blahbity-blah. How much of this really sinks in?

But a few minutes after our discussion, Wrig comes up to me and announces, "You're sick, Daddy."
"Am I? What would make me feel better?"
"A nap," she decides. She picks up a blanket and covers my lap.
"That's a great idea," I tell her. "I bet a cuddle would make me feel better, too." So we cuddle. Then she tells me I have a cough, so I cough. And she runs away and gets handfuls of cough medicine from the chair in the corner. I tell her I feel better and kiss her all over. She tells me, "I'm pretending to be a doctor!" and demands that I cough again.
Because she is a toddler, after all, we repeat this endlessly. And even after I get bored I can't help but think, She's pretending to be a doctor.

So, sure, I blahbity-blah. Ask my students; they'll tell you. You've made it through this post; you know. But Wrig? She listens.

An existential joke

M: Knock, knock.
Zen Master W: Why "knock, knock"?

The Birth of Empathy

Wrig has passed most of the major little-person mileposts. Whenever Mom (my Mom, that is) asks, "So what's new?" it's kind of hard to think of anything to say. It's not like we're seeing major changes like walking, we just see little changes; Wrig will say something and we'll think, "Oh, you know that now. Huh."

For example, Wrig is beginning to understand that other people and things have a different way of looking at the world. When Mom (Wrig's Mom, that is)and Wrig were looking at a magazine, they saw a picture of a Mama lion carrying her baby by the scruff of the neck. Mom asked, "Would you like to be carried like that?" Wrig thought a bit and said, "If I was a lion I would!" She's gone from pretending to be a lion ("Roar! I'm a lion!") to trying to think like a lion.

She's made a small leap. She's starting to be able to look at the world from someone else's point of view.

If you can read this, thank a terrorist.

Hey! Did you hear the one about the Education Secretary who fears teachers?

(Thanks to my buddy Pat for the clever title).