The Big City

"Can we go to the big city?" Animalia asks. Or sometimes she tells us about "when I was in the big city." The Big City. I think she means downtown Tucson with all the cars in motion and all the people walking from one place (the office) to another (lunch, probably, or back to work from lunch). It's funny for us because our street is so quiet, just south of "bustling" downtown, that she probably doesn't realize that we're pretty much downtown all the time.

When I was a baby...

Animalia is lately obsessed with making the distinction between herself and babies. Example: she found a pair of tiny shoes in a bag of stuff I was giving away and showed them to me, saying "Are these my shoes from when I was a baby?" She does that with anything small too. Like doll dresses, play food, and things she doesn't want to wear. Like pants. "They're too small!" she cries, "from when I was a baby!" Even when they're not... just because she hates pants.

But sometimes, like this morning, she still wants to be a baby, asking me to carry her "like a baby because I'm born."

At 2 years and 4 months...

At two years and four months, Animalia loves:

-dolls of any shape or size.
-her dog Cooper. She calls him "Cupa Coop," "Mr. Cooper," and "Zippy." The rest of us are only allowed to call him Cooper.
-making. Also known as cooking.
-yarning. Also known as cutting with sticks. That's knitting for the rest of us.
-books, especially Ghosts in the House! by Kazuno Kohara, Art (Petit Connoisseur) by Karen Salmansohn, Princess Baby, Night-Night by Karen Katz, and In Grandma's Arms by Jayne C Shelton and Karen Katz. Also, anything Maisy, anything with princesses, anything about dragons or dinosaurs.
-making pipis and popos in the potty, not like dogs or cats. According to Animalia, they do it outside because they stink.
-her ABCs and knows them well enough to purposely replace letters in the sequence. Hilarity ensues when she sings A-B-C-D-I-O-P or a similar sequence.
-to count.
-to tuck herself into bed when it's not bedtime. Of course, she doesn't love to tuck herself in when it is bedtime.
-being funny, making jokes, being tickled and everything else related to laughter.
-drawing. "Not on the books, only on the paper."
-dancing. She especially loves dancing in the kitchen to the oldies.
-humming random tunes.
-sopita.
-being scared. There are probably few bigger thrills for her than having someone jump out and scare her. Really.
-her family. Her happiest times are spent "together, with the whole family." She especially loves it when her mama, daddy, nana and tata are all in the same place at the same time.

Yarning

"Mom, I'm relaxing and yarning a scarf for my fadder"


-- Animalia, sitting on the stairs at Nana's house pretending to knit.

time out

So here's what happened:

I was moving laundry from the washer to the dryer. Animalia was actually helping me until the bag of dog food caught her eye. Then she started playing with the dog food. I told her to stop. I know, playing with dog food isn't the end of the world but she's acquired the bad habit of also torturing Cooper with food items, so I feel the need to retrain her to leave Cooper's stuff alone. Anyhow, she's sticking her hands in it. I tell her no. She does it again. Etc. When my hands aren't full of laundry, I physically move her away from it and she stops momentarily. So.. major plot point.. this is a rainy day. Some of the laundry needs to hang dry, so I scoop it up and start to hang it in the bathroom. She follows me and closes the door. I'm in the bathroom, hands full of wet clothing, and she's in the laundry room. Alone. I hang up the laundry, calmly, but irritated. I walk out of the bathroom when I'm done, only to find her standing in a puddle of dog food. Laughing. She's testing me. And she thinks it's funny. I'm irritated. I tell her that I told her no and she didn't listen so she's gotta go to time out. And I take her to a chair in the children's paradise that is our living room. And I sit her in it. And she cries. And cries. And wails her objections. And cries some more.

Two minutes later...

I tell her she can leave time out. She cries some more and stays in time out. Another minute or so later, she walks over to me, gasping. "Mommy, I'm sorry," she says. I say something parental, like "You got time out because you can't play with Cooper's food." She says something like, "Mommy, I'm really really sorry." She's dramatic, my child is. Then she asks for a hug and I give her one. Then she asks for a kiss and I give her one. The kiss part is weird because she grabs my face, one of her tiny hands on each of my cheeks, and squeezes me a little, and kisses me really hard. I can't help but think that this is the kiss of death, that my tiny child is some sort of mob godfather and I'll be smothered in my sleep tonight by a paid hitman. But I digress. So she gives me a kiss. Then she says, "Little girls don't play with Cooper's food." And I tell her that she's right.

Hair OR Things I don't know how to do

I was once told I was "blessed" with hair "como India." Until my teen hair experimentation years (dyeing and bleaching) my hair was blacker than black, thick, and so straight that it resisted most styling and rarely tangled. My hair could be, unlike the hair of many of my friends, combed when wet, then air dried, and look lovely. I didn't even really learn how to use a blow-dryer til I was well into my adult years. Curling irons and round brushes are still something of a mystery to me.

Fast forward to now. My hair, due to hormones and the previously mentioned chemical treatments is no longer as straight, nor as dark. There's a little wave in it that occasionally panicks me, but I mostly still wash, comb wet with a little product, then air dry.

And then there's Animalia. Her hair. Her fine, reddish brown, curly hair. I didn't need to bother with it for awhile. She was pretty bald for awhile, with a few tiny curls. Recently, though, her hair has come in full force, lots of it, lots of curls. I figured it out though. Her hair regimen. Earth's Best shampoo is great, I discovered with much trial and error. Then comb out tangles when wet. Then air dry, with some anti-frizz hair serum. Then pin bangs back with barette. If this is followed exactly, her barette can come out and her hair stays mostly out of her face, the back bouncing into little ringlets. If it isn't-- well, we have a frizzy, crazy, staticky mess. A bird's nest that looks crazy and disheveled and dirty, even when it's sparkling clean.

This is my penance for my many years of negligent hair care.