"Babe, why did you get out of bed so many times last night?"
"Because I didn't want to go to sleep."
"Well, you need to sleep because it helps your body grow."
[Ponders, then gets excited.] "And then, when you grow, grow, grow, you get really, really big and you can eat grown-up things. Like some gum."
I asked Lu's teacher if I could bring anything special for their Valentine's Day snack and she said to bring something healthy, instead of something sweet, and "not muffins, because they don't like them, they just smash them up." (Note: last week, I brought healthy muffins Lu and I made together.)
Last night, I spent a couple of hours making whole wheat blueberry pancakes, sweetened with honey, made in the shape of HEARTS, enriched with wheat germ and LOVE. I brought them to her classroom and set them on the table with all the other snacks: a ****ing chocolate cake, muffins and cookies. What chance does a whole wheat pancake stand against such sexy snacks?
Next time, for a special treat, I am bringing candy laced with cocaine. I bet they won't be smashing that s**t up.
I have been in Chicago since Tuesday night at the Retail Advertising Conference, shut in this giant Hilton with a bunch of people who kind of scare me. Sort of like "The Shining," only with advertising people instead of ghosts. It is so cold here that last night, there was frost on the inside (yes, inside) of the windows of our cab.
I am really missing Lucy. Tuesday morning, I was packing, getting the house ready for the carpet guys and generally doing the manic thing I do before I go out of town ("Where are the tights I bought?" "Are they in your suitcase?" "NO, they were right here." After 15 minutes of frantic searching, I find them. In my suitcase.)
As I ran around, she and Jason were in bed watching Sesame Street. She said, "Mom, come snuggle in bed with us." I really did not have time. I was missing a shoe. The carpet guys would be there any minute. I had two of Seth Godin's books to read before 4:15 the next day.
I got in bed with them anyway.
She painted me dinosaurs and buildings. She used all the colors. She even signed her name (as illegibly as any artist).
The price of eavesdropping is sometimes you hear this:
Father, singing: "I'm goin' on a booger hunt. I'm gonna get a booger!"
Daughter: "Nooooo. Don't blow my nose!"
Father: "I'll show it to you when I get it..."
[Silence, apparent aquiescence.]
Father, proudly: "Check out this huge green booger, Lu!"
Daughter, proudly: "Eeewww!"
Tonight we read A is for Angry: An Animal and Adjective Alphabet.
A is for angry. (She is well-acquainted with this concept.)
B is for bashful. ("What's bashful?" "Bashful is when you are shy.")
C is for clean. (She can sometimes be found in this condition.)
D-L (Insert darling animal and adjective combinations.)
M is for merry. ("What's merry?" "Merry means happy." "No, Mom, merry means when you have a wedding. You get married. Like you and Dad in the picture. You were dancing around and around." "What we were wearing?" "You were wearing a dress like poor Cinderella and Dad was wearing a tie.")
Merry? Marry? Well, she's not entirely wrong.
Nini and Uncle Adam took Lu to her first movie last weekend: "Happy Feet." It didn't go so well. Could have been the volume. Or the darkness. Or the fact that the first preview was for Harry Potter. Or the scary opening scene with a tribe of penguins dancing around a fire. She made it maybe 5 minutes into the movie itself before deciding she wanted to leave. Nini and Adam were good sports, even though I know that for Adam it's like walking out of a religious service.
Even though she didn't like the movie, she did enjoy dancing like a penguin:
Ice Day, Number Two: Being shut in has been a lot more fun than I would have expected. I have cooked enough for an entire winter and we have eaten like bears. We have avoided cabin fever with a rigorous indoor exercise regime consisting of me chasing Lu around the house, Lu chasing me around the house, tickling, wrestling and the ocassional tantrum, as well as one trip outside to see the snow. Lu loved it. Now she very much has winter on the brain. As part of her naptime stalling monologue, she noted that "penguins are good swimmers" and "you have to wear your glubs and cowboy boots outside, otherwise you will be very, very cold."
I am always sad when the holidays end. So is Lu. She doesn't understand why the party is over. Why the presents have stopped coming. Why bedtime has been reinstated. Why we have to stop eating all those carbs (no wait, that's me).
We went to see the big Christmas tree on the last day it was up. This was Lu's reaction to leaving:
Which is pretty much how I feel about having to stop eating fudge and white flour.
Snuggling up with us in bed, apparently too close to our morning breath: “Mama, your face sinks. Dad, your face stinks too.”
On a 70-degree day: “I need to wear these gloves. Otherwise I will be too cold.”
In the bathtub: “You have to wash your tickytocks. Otherwise they will be stinky.”
To Baby Rosie: “You have to stay in your bed. Otherwise you cannot watch ‘Dora.’”
About 20 thousand times in reference to any wrapped item: “Is that for me? Can I open it?”
After demanding that I “make it dark so Baby Rosie can sleep,” unsatisfied by my explanation that the blinds were as closed as they get, then fooled by Jason's remedy of opening the blinds and closing them again exactly as they were before, smugly: “See, Dad knows how to do it.”
