biking adventure: 4 hrs for 8 miles

So we´ve been working on getting Sophie used to riding in the bike trailer. To get her in the trailer, we basically have to bribe her with going to get ice cream. Who can blame her? It can´t exactly be a blast just hanging out in the back. Although it´s not all lame. After seeing donkeys, baby horses, ducks, sheep and cows, we made our way to the local country store, which is crazy cute, complete with rocking chairs on the front porch. After eating a fudgesicle that melted all over her by the hot sun, she declared herself looking like Toad in the story Frog and Toad: Ice Cream. At one point in the story, Toad is so completely covered in melting ice cream that he´s trying to bring back to Frog on a hot day, that he´s mistaken for a horrible monster. My monster wasn´t nearly as scary, but I did make her walk carefully back through the store with her hands in the air so she wouldn´t accidentally touch anything with her chocolately fingers. After we got her rinsed off, we set off again making our way down a road that gets so little traffic you could see the cows were surprised to see us. As we looped back home we stopped by a playground so that Sophie could work off some of that extra energy. Back at home, she wanted to go back to yet another playground, before ending her v. full day.

School bake sale--blissfull

This morning we had the annual bake sale at Sophie´s school. It´s at moments like this when I realize that we live in a unique part of the country, sitting at the juncture of a small town with a major university and the countryside. As part of the bake sale, the upper-school sold home made scones, biscotti and quiche (no crappy re-sold grocery store baked goods) and amazing coffee (not sucky Foldgers). There were fresh farm eggs and herb plants for sale, too. The parents and some of the children sat in the little garden area, which is in full bloom, mostly talking and blissfully eating. We´ve repeated said that this area should be turned into a cafe or better yet a beer garden during the summer when school is out. If this morning´s crowd was anything to judge by, I think it would be quite successful.

Sense of direction

She's got a good sense of direction.

We had to go to campus tonight, and in order to get there the quickest way, we would have had to go past a street fair with a bouncy castle.

We opted to go the long way instead. (Sophie got to go to the bouncy castle later—we just had to get to campus for a while first).

Sophie had already asked where we were going and immediately noticed that we were going the wrong way.

"Dis not the way to Campuh!"

Oh silly daddy, her mommy and I laughed, he made a mistake.

And as we passed the street leading to the street fair, bouncy castle, and the quickest way home, she said: "Dis way to home!"

A short while later she saw the clock tower.

"Dis wall have a watch on!" she said.

(That last didn't have anything to do with directions, but it was pretty cute.)

the constant battle

Everything we do now is a constant battle from the second Sophie's awake to the time she's asleep. Getting dressed--huge event. Getting to school requires bribery and cajoling. Eating dinner, no thank you. Taking a bath--you're crazy. Getting out of the tub--leave me alone, I'm taking a bath. Getting PJs on--only if a parent does it, whining is provided as an added bonus. Reading before bed--just one more book. Getting into the actual bed--utter resistance. 8.15pm a bit of peace so that we can gear up for the next day. For better or worse, she's only this way with us. That's love for you.

Playing Quietly By Herself

We've been working on playing quietly after dinner. On letting mommy and daddy finish the meal in peace.

Tonight we failed to get her to go to her room, but she did deign to play by herself. This took the form of her taking everything she could get her hands on out of her room and carting it to the living room. There she made a nest for herself and her doll.

Then she began explaining to her doll that she (the doll) was too old for a binkie. She took turns voicing both her role as the mommy and baby doll's role as the baby.

"No more binkie you a big girl now."

Shrieking: "No! No! I a baby! Wah wah wah!"

Calm: "No you big now!"

Shrieking: "But I wanna binkie!"

Calm: "Oh baby, you big. Big girls no have binkie!"

& etc.

So very busy

but here are some things that have happened lately.

1. Easter

She was all over that Easter action. She got a basket with a chocolate bunny. She hunted eggs inside the house. And then she hunted eggs outside on the lawn. And then we played finding eggs for most of the rest of the day.

She also got some Cadbury Creme Eggs, but let's not tell her about that, 'cause Daddy ate most all of them.

Then there was coloring eggs.

So! Much! Fun!

2. Sibling Rivalry with Her Hands

So she's been kind of roleplaying with her hands, making them talk at each other.

And lately they've been getting in a lot of fights about taking turns and who gets to do what. Which is odd, since why invent a sibling rivalry if you don't need to??

3. Scooby Scooby

She's been exposed to Scooby Doo at the gym (which provides child care when you work out and sometimes for longer periods for date night).

She still isn't very comfortable with anything that has more than a modicum of tension, so we've been having to answer a lot of questions about why people would be mean to Scooby and why they might want to hit him, and whether or not he'll be okay. This is difficult since we've no idea what episode she saw.

The pizza, candy, T.V. and movies, and--to be frank--the other children she's exposed to at the gym on date nights are all good arguments in favor of continuing private school through junior high (and beyond?).

The Headstart people came by the other day, apparently desperate to enroll new students. It would, as they emphasized, be free, FREE! Tempting. But as her mother points out, free isn't free: there are always hidden costs involved.

(There are hidden costs involved with having her at such a loving, polite, nurturing school as well: she can get kind of anxious when playing on the playground with children who haven't been socialized to be solicitous of others and wait their turn.)

4. P.S. she loves you.

She's still sleeping well in the grand scheme of things. But not as well as she used to with the binkie. She no longer asks for her binkie at night, but she sucks on her hand and takes longer to fall asleep.

And now that binkie isn't offering constant succor, she turns more often to us, with a series of delaying tactics and rearguard movements meant to keep us in her room as long as possible until she finally falls asleep.

Once we do manage to extricate ourselves from her room she'll almost always call out: "Mommy! Daddy! Guess what? I've got something to tell you!!"

"What is it Sophie?"

"Um, um, I love you!"

"We love you too."

"Um, um, sleep tight!"

"Sleep tight, goose."

"You check on me in five minutes?"

"We'll check on you in five minutes."

"I love you!"

"We love you too."

"Good night!"

"Good night!"

school is for suckers

Since Sophie is on spring break, she has been spending the week with JJ. Her days consist of playing house, running around on the playground, painting, and getting ice cream. Basically, her day is filled with whatever Sophie wants to do. I slightly fear how she's going to deal with fact that she will soon have to return to school. I'm preparing myself for a total mutiny on Monday morning.

But how is it that she recognize banks???

The story "Robert the Rose Horse" is causing some lingering anxiety.

Robert himself is lovely. The issue is the bank robbers whom Robert foils with a mighty sneeze.

For the past two days or so, Sophie has been asking whether there are police men in any bank we might pass while driving. And then she asks whether there might be any bank robbers inside.

"No, no!" we say, "Bank robbers hardly ever happen outside of books."

Still she seems preoccupied with the issue.

And tonight in the bath, she earnestly told me: "Daddy, I don't like Oscar the Grouch."

"Why not?"

"He mean! Why he mean?"

I attempted to explain.

"He take dis blanket and RIP it! He mean and then Elmo go in dere. Why don't he share?"

This is roughly the plot of "Elmo in Grouchland"—a movie that she's only seen about fifteen minutes of, but which haunts her still.

She has more questions than I have answers lately.

Traffic Jam

The hour we spent in slow moving traffic due to an overturned camper van on the highway was made just a bit more tedious by Sophie's incessant questioning.

"Why we not going?"

"There's a truck in front of us. It's not going, so I can't go."

"Why?"

This sends me into a state that can only be called flabbergasted. Seldom has my flabber been more thoroughly gasted.

"Be- because there's a truck in front of us. If we drove forward, we would hit it!"

"Oh. Why?"

Before I was a parent—before I was the parent of a three-year-old—I imagined that I would cheerfully answer all the questions my sweet little sponge had as she sucked up knowledge and learned to appreciate the wonders and joys of the the world around her.

"Because ... because it is there and if we tried to occupy the same space we would—"

"Why we moving?"

Silence. Sometimes there has to be silence.

"Daddy? DADDY! Why we moving now?"

"Because the truck has moved and so we can move forward to now."

"Oh. Why?"

"Watch it buddy!"—this last to one of the cheeky devils flying by on the right and then trying to insinuate their way to the left.

"Hey buddy!" she growls, "Watch it buddy!"

"Sophie—" I say, looking wearily at her in the rear view mirror.

"Daddy."

Unfortunately my darling little sponge, the soaker up of joy and knowledge and etc., also has the attention span of a sponge.

"Daddy? Why we not going?"

Repeat for the hour or so it takes us to crawl the 3.6 miles past the accident site.

-----

My attempts at a meta-explanation to her questions ("Why we going slow now? You like going slow?") were met with what I now realize are the natural cognitive boundaries and expectations of a toddler. There was an accident, I told her, some people had an accident and the police men and the fire trucks had to go and help them and they are in the righthand lane and so we have to be in the lefthand lane—all the people that usually have two lanes have to use one lane and so there are more people and that means we all have to go more slowly so that we don't hit each other.

"Some people have an accident?" she says.

"Yes," I say.

"Oh. Some people pee pee all over the road?"

"You a GOOD daddy!"

... she said after I agreed to buy her a box of popsicles in shrill neon colors, a "Super Miracle Bubble Wand", hot dogs and french fries for dinner, and a box of something calling itself "Fruity Bunnies" ("It's Fruitfully Good!") for breakfast tomorrow morning.

I caved like a bit of tissue paper caught in a sudden spring shower.

something cool

I arrived home from work and found everybody outside. Sophie saw me and said, "Watch me do something cool!" It didn't matter what she did, just saying that was cool enough. The cool thing was crawling over the gazebo railing, just so you know.

When I grow up...

A couple of days ago, on the occasion of getting her first haircut at a barbar shop in the mall:

"I wanna be a hair cutter when I'm big!"

Two days before that, while riding in the car and playing with her stethoscope:

"I wanna be a amimul doctor when I'm big!"

Her parents: "Aawwwww!"

Sophie: "Yes. Cause I wanna help the amimuls."

(Had we been talking about veterinarians? Her mother thinks so.)

Itai, we miss you

Sophie still misses her friend Itai from our "old" home dearly. A couple of days ago at the grocery store she wanted to get the grocery cart that seats two kids so that Itai could sit next to her. She´s done this a couple of times and it´s so darn sweet.

She still talks about Itai a lot and especially remembers swimming and canoeing with him. Although they did a lot together for two-year olds, I´m struck by how many small details she remembers even though we moved six months ago.

אנחנו מתגעגעים אליך‎ איתי