Excerpt from Instant Message Conversation

After much effort to put child to bed, we resorted to silent treatment.

9:15 PM
J: OMG
J: GET ON YOUR COMPUTER
J: She keeps turning the light on and off in my office
J: Now she is going through my CDs
J: ok she is playing with a puzzle
J: now she is putting it away
9:20 PM
J: Now she is just walking around the room looking in the air
J: Playing with the broken chair
J: I think I have to vacate
J: here I go
J: SHE KEEPS FOLLOWING ME!
J: I'm going to drop the hammer
K: LOL
J: She is brushing my hair!
J: What the heck am I supposed to do with that?
J: I'm going to ask her politely to go to bed
J: What do you think?
K: i don't know, this is some pre-school psychology experiment
K: no
K: IGNORE
J: She's climbing up on the bed
K: her bed?
J: no OURS
K: any bed would be fine, i guess...
J: ok now she is turning off every light
J: then turning them back on again
K: the door from our room to living room is closed
K: did i just hear a toilet flush?
9:25 PM
J: She came in the back way
J: The little stinker
J: No flushing
K: back way to where?
J: The hallway door
K: where is she now?
J: Close the door to the living room
J: Lets try and keep her in this side of the house
J: She's in the bedroom
K: ok, fine, but i don't care
K: this is the least mad at her i have been since bedtime started two hours ago
K: this is fun
J: She keeps messing with the lamps
J: She keeps LOOKING at me
J: touching my arm
K: IGNORE!!!
J: like "PAY ATTENTION TO ME"
K: exactly!!
K: be strong, sugawa
J: ok
J: Why isn't she bothering YOU?
K: because i am mean
J: No you are not
K: you are weak!
J: She's going to break the DVD player
K: whatev
K: the one in our room?
J: Yes
K: is pretty much broken anyway
J: I HAVE to tell her to stop it
K: no
K: is she safe?
J: SHE IS TOTALLY BREAKING IT
J: yes
J: but she is breaking it
J: It's kind of driving me nuts
K: I know
K: she is wiley
J: I'll leave the room
K: come in here with me
K: where it's fun
J: ok now she is playing with your belt
K: which belt?
J: and dragging it on the ground like a train
J: The El Paso belt
K: hmm
K: let's pretend we're going to bed
9:30 PM
K: is she whispering?
K: what was that noise?
J: Yes
J: She is messing around in the closet
K: hmm
K: maybe not good
J: oh sure. take your clothes off the hanger or break the DVD player
J: she is wearing a basket on her head
K: trying to squelch laughter
J: She is sitting on the bed
J: SHE JUST TURNED ON THE TV!!!
K: no
K: way
J: yes
K: WHAT DO WE DO? SHE IS WINNING.
J: Fresh Prince of Belaire is on
K: let's go sit on the front lawn
J: NO
K: she loves some will smith
J: so it seems
K: is this working?
J: I don't think so
J: Can I whisper to her to go to bed?
K: no
K: she is waiting for some feedback from us
K: if anything, maybe we silently put her in bed
K: NO WORDS
J: That's a good idea
J: I'm going to try that right now
J: here we go
J: 1
J: 2
J: 3

Frosty Elena Sugawa

Lucy made her stage debut tonight! She had the title role in her class skit in International Night, the Indian Montessori answer to the Christmas pageant. The program was held in a nearby church auditorium, complete with a real piano. The first class was the youngest of the bunch: the 18-month to three-year-olds singing/mumbling "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star." Maybe the cutest thing I have ever seen in my life. Wincingly cute. Where oh where was the film crew and the good holiday product I could be hawking with these darling, off-key creatures?

The only thing that could top those little stars? MY little star! Her class, the 2 1/2 to 5 year-olds, came out holding hands, dressed in winter finery despite the 80-degree day. They formed two circles, with the youngest kids on the inner circle holding snowflakes and the older kids circling the outside. Lucy/Frosty danced in the middle with a slightly dour look on her face (I neglected to give Lu the advice that Leslie's mom gave her before dance recitals and has apparently served her well her whole life long: "Smile your ass off!"). But she was DANCING, DOING IT! That was the cutest thing I have ever seen (see for yourself). Especially when they walked "off-stage," hand in mittened hand, and someone pulled Lu's mitten off and kept walking. She stood frozen, staring at her bare hand, holding up the line. She got a huge laugh. Then she cried.

My Little Bird

I was just listening to this sweet children's album by Elizabeth Mitchell and started to cry thinking about how much I love Lu. It has been a while since I could access that tenderest feeling for her. She is so big now, and so fierce, that even though I am crazy about her, I rarely have the feeling I am holding her the way I used to, like I had her pliant little heart beating against mine. These days, holding her is like having a bird cupped between my hands, with her wings beating, wanting to go. All I can do now is let her go and watch, hoping she will alight.

Boundaries

While riding in the car this evening...

Lucy: "OW, MY SHIRT IS UP HIGH! IT'S STUCK! OW!"
Me, reaching to fix it: "Okay, let me fix it."
Lucy: "DON'T TOUCH ME. NO, OFF!" Frantically brushes off my mere touch.
Me: "Babe, I was just fixing your shirt. I was helping you. It's not nice to yell."
Lucy: "No, Mama, it's not nice to touch people!"
Me, patting Jason nicely on his arm: "Yes, it is, it's nice to touch, see?"
Lucy: "No, Mom. It's not nice to touch me when I don't want you to."
Me: "Well, that is true."

Me, in my own head: "It's true...except you are not even three years old and although you have a burgeoning sense of personal space, you don't get to have any personal space from me. Your mother. Just like I didn't get to have any from you during the 9 months you occupied my womb and the 12 months you ate food from my body pretty much whenever you wanted. But okay, if you insist on being all WELL-ADJUSTED and HAVING A SEPARATE IDENTITY FROM ME, then fine."

Straightjacket?

As Maggie and I returned home from our annual Christmas tree hunt, we were greeted in the driveway by a bemused Jason. "You're gonna love this," he said.

Lucy had been quietly in her room for more than an hour, when he heard her yell, "DAD! I TOOK OFF MY SHIRT." So he went in there to find her naked and drawing on herself with the special marker from one of her books. Upon seeing him, she returned the marker and book to the bookshelf. He dressed her and put her back to bed.

This nighttime business of ours is feeling more like the state hospital every day.

Bedtime for Rainman

Bedtime is getting better. Jason had this really smart idea of showing her how to make the bed nicely so she'd be more excited about getting into it. Which has worked, except for how she gets completely nuts about messing up the bed — a necessary part of being in it. Once the covers are mussed, you have to start over.

Calgon, Hurry the Heck Up

She may or may not be asleep.

I am not sure because I am locked in the bathroom with a glass of red wine and a magazine.

Jason is not here.

I hope no one reading this decides to call Child Protective Services.

Night-night. Bed.

The nighttime ritual with Lu has been pretty consistent. Bath, watch a few minutes of TV in our bedroom, books, a few songs including "Who Knows How Long I've Loved You" ("I Will" by the Beatles), "When You're Down and Troubled" ("You've Got a Friend," by James Taylor), "Blackbird Singing in the Dead of Night" ("Blackbird," by the Beatles). Ater singing we say "Now I Lay me Down to Sleep," minus the morbid bit about "my soul to take," then she blesses various people, then she says "Night-night. Crib." You have to put her in her crib in just the right way, pat her back a couple of times, then she says, "Good ni-ight." And you are dismissed. And she goes to sleep. And it's a little miracle, every single night.

I only now appreciate what a miracle our routine was (namely the part about how she goes to sleep), because...it's gone. She decided during last Sunday's nap that she was done with the crib. She climbed out eight times, finally falling asleep with me next to her on a palette on the floor. We blew up a twin air mattress for her to sleep on that night, which she did, quite well.

But the novelty of that first night has worn off, replaced by the realization that she can leave the bed whenever she wants. And so she does. As I write this post, I am sitting guard outside her door.

Relativity

At the mall today, after some hysterics over a "flushy" toilet at Nordstrom, Lu was acting like a whiny little baby before we went into California Pizza Kitchen for dinner. In response, I acted like a whiny little baby. Nini diffused the situation, luckily, so we were able to enter the restaurant, order and eat like CIVILIZED PEOPLE.

Not so civilized: the people sitting next to us. Where do I start? This little family was a study in "Not How I Would Do It" — a useful phrase coined by the Stephens, a coy little judgment you won't be able to stop using (my granny's version of it was "I'm not on that committee.") The toddler, a month older than Lu, was screaming, banging her plate, standing on a chair, jumping on the booth, crawling on the ground, meowing, and acting in so uncivil a manner I really can't even describe it. The people next to us, an entire table away from the kid, asked to move. She was acting like a complete freak.

Which I realize makes my use of the word freak to describe Lu...unfair. She sat in her chair. She ate her dinner. She whined over a few lost crayons, but then shared her sundae. All the while, her crazed neighbor was acting so bad as to make Lu look perfect. Little Miss Crazy's Mama (mother of four, plastic-surgeried to the hilt, "none of my kids ever sat in a high chair or slept in a crib") kept praising Lu as though to set an example for her daughter, despite the fact that she's raising her like an animal. One that meows at the CPK.

Lu was no angel, but she did not crawl or meow. Comparison suited her today.

Snot

It sounds like a TB ward at our house: the coughing, the phlegm, the complaints. I am not sure if it's TB or consumption. Either way, a doctor visit tomorrow will tell us for sure. Maybe we will have to go to a sanitorium and get saunas and massages. Or move to the country where we can relax and breathe fresh air and be healed by boredom.

One odd symptom that does not match our TB/consumption angle: Lu has an itchy butt. This seems like it might exclude one from the steam room. For the record, my butt does NOT itch.