Memory and the Oral Tradition

Sophie cannot read yet, but she can recite her frequently-heard stories with great accuracy.

Her mother will begin a sentence, and Sophie will finish it.

Sophie sees through the thinly veiled "Adventure Club"

As June comes to an end, and her last camp ended up getting cancelled, we enrolled Sophie into her summer daycare that is somewhat euphemistically called "Adventure Club". The first day she was game, but by the second, I think she began to see that this was little more than a modified daycare program. In fact, it was just daycare. The first day I couldn't get her dressed fast enough; the second, I threatened to take her in her pajamas. We'll see how day three goes.

Vocabulary

Pursuant to some roughhouse play, I dropped her on the bed from about two feet up.

She squealed in delight.

"Fling me, Daddy! Fling me!"

How does she pick fling over toss or throw? And how did it get into her active vocabulary?

Poop

Her sense of humor runs heavily to poop jokes.

Not too surprising, perhaps. She is three.

There's poop on the tree! Poop on your head! Poop on the grass! Um... Poop on the car! Um... (she looks around for inspiration) Poop on the playground!

etc.

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Today she called me into the bathroom, where she'd just finished pooping.

She had arrayed herself in "downward facing dog," butt to the door.

"Wipe me!" she shouted, when she saw I had entered the room.

Getting old...

I remember the first time she threw herself on the ground and howled.

Her mother and I thought it was cute.

Reading in the Atelier

Recently, the parents got a "new" office. On the one hand, we now share a huge, corner office; on the other, the building leaves a lot to be desired. But I´m making lemonade out of lemons. I´ve named the office, the Atelier. In many ways, it´s much like a cute French Atelier and about the same size. Everything is old, but it´s quiet and has it´s charm if you squint.

Since I´ve been doing a lot of thinking-practicing with art lately, calligraphy and painting mostly, the Atelier seems like a great place to be relocated.

This afternoon, Sophie came with me to help organize it. This is a picture of her "reading." She called the book her song book, but really it was a Golden Age Spanish play. Then she took "notes" in it. It seemed perfectly logical if I had written in it, why couldn´t she?

Maybe if we swing by an IKEA sometime, I´ll get her an easel to bring up here. Then we can work together in our workshop.

Now if I only had a cute cafe down below that served cafe au lait and croissants, it would be perfect.

you make my life sad

When I tried to help my daughter pull up her pajamas last night, she snarled at me. "You make my life sad!" Nice. She's in a do-it-myself stage.

dj lance rock

My daughter told me this morning I need to call DJ Lance. Lovely. Unbeknownst to her, we've bought her tickets for the Yo Gabba Gabba concert in fall--floor-level seats, baby!

Virginia Beach

We just got back from camping at Virginia Beach. This place was designed for children--crazy cool fun for those under 18. We had a blast camping and playing at the beach. On the beach Sophie was like a small girl who had too much PCP or something, running around joyfully and unhinged. Turns out she is an expert camper, except that her bedtime has now slid back to 10.00pm and that she consumes most of the tent. Our 4 person tent ended up being more like a 1 person and 1 three year old tent. At one point in the night, she had the entire double mattress and left me on my side hoping I wouldn't fall off. This is why we stopped co-sleeping.

An embarrassment of riches

For a long time, Sophie has required Pato's presence at bedtime.

When we put her in daycare, we sources another Pato to send with her to school for nap times.

Now that daycare is over for the summer, Pato the second has returned home to stay. Which means that now she has two Patos.

Which you'd think would make things easier, since now we have a spare.

But no.

A couple of days ago, Sophie protested vigorously because she now wants both Patos to attend her at bedtime.

First-World Problems

She lives in the United States in the twenty-first century.

She has excellent medical care; she's never been really hungry; she's never been really scared. She's never seen anyone yell at or strike someone else.

We provide her a range of enriching activities: swimming lessons, camping, biking, art projects, trips to the library, trips to the zoo, pottery painting, face painting, "Busy Beaver Camp".

She regularly rides on rides at the mall that for some inexplicable reason cost 75 cents for three minutes of gentle rocking back and forth.

And still she finds reasons to pitch a fit.

Most recently she was enraged—screaming, red-faced, incredulous, end-of-the-world enraged—that we told he to content herself with the iPod Touch rather than immediately handing over the iPhone.

Saving Face

As she enters into a negotiating phase it becomes important to give her a face-saving way of backing down.

So, for instance, she was allowed to leave a book open on a chair tonight in return for agreeing to put away (or to have us put away) the rest of her drawing materials.

In the event that she attempts to negotiate a non-negotiable, when, e.g. it becomes clear that we are going to the grocery store and not the playground, she deploys one of the following face-saving utterances:

• "I was just joking" (as in: "I wasn't crying, I just joking")
• "I know!" or "Daddy, DaddyDaddy—I know!"
• "I gotta tell you something. I gotta tell! you! something!" ("Yes, what is it?" "Um,... I, I already knowed that!")

glue stick as lipstick--fail

Sophie used the glue stick as lipstick. She repeatedly denied that she did, but when I rubbed my finger over her lip, it stuck to it. She stuck to her story though, she DID NOT use the glue as lipstick. Telling the truth has been a sticky issue lately.

Biking on the Creeper

Sophie had her sort-of first, overnight biking trip. We went down to Damascus, VA--v. cute and rode about 16 miles the first day on a fairly flat rail to trail. Half way down the trail, Sophie fell asleep with her head bobbing from one side to the other.

We aren't quite ready to take all of our camping equipment with us yet so we just got a hotel in Damascus. After showers, we hung out on the swing on the front porch and talked to some guys walking the Appalachian Trail, that also runs through the town.

The next day we did a 26+ mile trip. Sophie was awesome. It rained like crazy at the end and we were all muddy and wet, but in good spirits after a late lunch. Even at one point Sophie asked if we were going to bike again the next day.

We'll try a three or four day trip next.

Road Trip Ruler

We just got back from a trip driving to Indianapolis to visit friends, an 8+ hour drive each way and not a tear was shed by Sophie. In fact, she hardly complained and held up wonderfully. Amazing what 6 episodes of Olivia on an Itouch can do to keep a child occupied. Or a game of stick as many grapes in your mouth as possible (we did ask Sophie to stop because of the obvious hazard).

I hope she had a wonderful time. We visited the Indianapolis Zoo and the Dayton Children's Museum. This year was somewhat uncanny because she's clearly now has an awareness she didn't so much last time we were at the Indianapolis Zoo about this time last year. This time she rode the carrousel by herself--I remember when we went to San Francisco and she had no idea she was even sitting on a horse at their carrousel at the Children's Museum.

Teamwork

While kicking her soccer ball back and forth:

"We a good team! We not fighting!"