Places in the 'eart

We're back from Iowa. We had a great time visiting with family. And Edith did excellently through all the new experiences.

Four generations of Edith's maternal line

Helping Gigi Opal blow out her birthday candles. Edith saw that Gigi was "two eights." That's 16, right? Or 64?

Edith got her lidduh airplane after all. Though the one pictured here was a regular-sized commercial jet, the Milwuakee-Des Moines leg was on a prop plane smaller than a school bus. There was one seat on either side of the aisle--which rose up and down over the wheel hubs--for eight rows. The ninth and last row was a three-seat bench across the back of the plane. We were booked into the bench row (it turns out they are the only seats with child-sized flotation devices underneath). The poor passenger in the back corner who saw us coming quickly offered, "I can swap seats with one of you so the three of you can sit together," only to be told that in fact, we had purchased only two of the three seats and had nothing to trade her. I'm sure she was grateful when she wound up being reseated by the pilot, in order to balance the weight in the plane.

Incidentally, that whole balancing of the weight in little planes turns out to be a very approximate science. Before we boarded I was at the counter at the gate, waiting to ask what to do with the carseat, while the pilot was polling the ticket agent on how many people and bags there were. He was a bit concerned that the load was too heavy and asked whether any of the sixteen passengers was perhaps a child. The ticket agent told him that no, there were sixteen adults, and there was also a seventeenth lap infant she hadn't mentioned. Glancing at the carseat the pilot deduced that I was traveling with said infant and asked how old she was. I said that she was 20 months.

"Good," he said. "Under two equals zero pounds."

I laughed and said she was 27 pounds. He shook his head.

"Under two is zero pounds. A child over two is 81 pounds. A 'big child' is 100 pounds."

Thought those of you approaching your kids' second birthdays might want to know what was coming, so you can start planning for some heavy-duty conveyance vehicle in lieu of the umbrella stroller. On the bright side, you shouldn't need the carseat anymore.

The picture above belies Edith's true air travel experience. She was interested in looking out the window for about a minute. After that, unfettered access to "mommy's mehk" was all too thrilling, and she nursed her way across the country, attached for virtually all four hours we spent in flight each way. On the one hand I found it exhausting. On the other, we needn't have worried about how to keep a toddler content on an airplane. I think that had we been headed to Tokyo or Sydney, Edith probably would have nursed her way around the globe.

The airport was a different story, and Milwaukee is to be praised for its foresight in providing toddler "playgrounds" throughout the boarding areas. We had this one to ourselves, and it turned out to be just the thing for a two-hour layover.

When not playing on the playground we were climbing up and down "ips" (steps), above which hung a metal mobile sculpture. Edith pointed to the mobile and identified it as "ledduhs." I agreed it looked kind of like letters but said that in fact, I thought it was just art. At which she promptly put her hands over the left side of her chest and pumped in and out, saying, "Buh-bum, buh-bum." I have no idea where she learned that.

Two more entries for the How'd You Know That? files:

(1) Where Dad is "Mom"
Last week our neighbor babysat Edith for an hour. When I picked her up her lower lip was trembly, and I asked whether she had cried the whole time. My neighbor assured me that no, she had been fine until someone had mentioned "Gretchen." I smiled politely but thought it was unlikely that my name had registered with her. But a few hours later I asked idly,

"Edith, what's Mommy's name?"

"Gashen."

"Wow. And what's Daddy's name?"

"Mom."

And we thought our disguises were effective. Who knew she had us figured out the whole time?

(2)
This evening Edith came running into the kitchen saying, "Mommy! Ang-nul. Ang-nul."

"Angel?" I asked uncertainly, thinking that she was perhaps referring to the snow angels Peter makes in A Snowy Day, which we've been reading half a dozen times a day.

She shook her head and held out her thumb. "Ang-nul. Cut it." Sure enough, the kid had a hangnail.

Red-Letter Days

***

"It Wasn't Me..."

We're officially in the land of three-word sentences. Favorite phrases around here these days are "Edith do it," "Edith get it," and "Edith hold it." I like "Edith get it," as it frequently saves me steps. "Edith hold it" seems disproportionately applied to things I would rather she not hold, like the bottle of liquid infant Motrin with the unreliably childproof cap.

"Edith do it" is her favorite, with different connotations in the present and past tenses. In the present, it's usually an upbeat expression of determination to attempt something herself. For example, I'm wiping down her high chair tray after a meal and she announces, "Edith do it!" as she takes the sponge from my hand.

In the past tense? Well, it was turned around on me earlier this week. We were walking Bismarck in the woods and came across a frozen puddle.

"Look, Edith," I exclaimed. "It's ice!"

I stepped onto the puddle to show her. It creaked and then cracked.

Edith looked up at me with big eyes and said solemnly, "Mommy doed it."

***

Last Child in the Woods

Edith's increasing association of specific locations with specific events is amazing us. It must be part of the toddler love for order. Most mornings she wants to "Run!" the same five or six squares of the sidewalk on the walk to school. In the midst of winter, she still asks for "Beh-wies" when we pass the corner where a wild plant with some unknown type of berries bloomed last summer and fall.

But she was frustrated the other day when deer didn't appear in the same place on Farber Road that they had on her walk with Dad the day before. She was sure that that was where they belonged. She kept calling for them, until I suggested we go walking down into the woods to see if we could find them. I was surprised when she kept quiet and focused on spying deer for a good fifteen minutes as we circled through the woods below our apartment complex. We didn't find them, though.

I thought it was probably a good lesson, that nature isn't at one's beck and call but that you have to be quiet and observant, and sometimes you get lucky and sometimes you don't. But a good lesson doesn't quiet a toddler. Edith continued to ask, "Deehs? Deehs?" Finally I said that they must be sleeping. She accepted that. "Deehs. Sleeping. Shhhh...." And she bent over and put her head down on the ground.

Since this outing and the one mentioned above were actually one and the same, her account to Dad when we got home was, "Deehs. Sleeping. Shhh. Ice. Mommy doed it." It's a good thing she had an interpreter with her.

***

Ah, Idioms

One more mention of that walk: When Edith asked for deer I told her, "You have to keep your eyes out." Upon which she thrust her forhead forward and started blinking and squinting in the funniest manner.

***

"I Leave You Alone with Her for Ten Minutes..."

On the toddler continuum of trouble-making, I've learned that Edith is not much of a meddler with things that are off-limits. We still have most of the childproofing devices we bought sitting in their original packaging, because Edith never tried to drink from the toilet or open the china cabinet or any of the other things that some of her classmates figured out in about five minutes once they could walk.

But don't count on consistency of character in toddler. Sunday morning I was the one to walk Bismarck before church. As usual we were running late, so it was an abbreviated outing, just around the playground and back. You have to respect kids' efficiency in forbidden activities. When I came back in Tom confessed, "We've had a call to Poison Control since you left."

"What?" I asked, disbelieving. "I left the two of you shaving together ten minutes ago."

Done shaving, Edith evidently left the bathroom for the living room, where she snagged the corner of a bag of art supplies protruding from the top of a bookshelf and pulled it down. She then removed the plastic from a new bottle of green acrylic paint, and not unlike Alice in Wonderland, began to drink the mysterious liquid. Tom found her with a kelly-green moustache a minute or so later.

My only question: Why would a kid who conscientiously avoids all green vegetables take so readily to green paint?

Wait! I just had a flashback to childhood. Latticework under the porch, green paint, clean toddler...Uncle Peewee, care to shed light on this one?

***

Speaking of Dogs

If you were Edith, and you had received a book of opposites illustrated with photographs of dogs, and if one page opposed a chihuahua and a German shepherd with mostly black fur but some brindle markings on his legs,

surely you, too, would conclude that the opposite of

SMALL

was

BIZ.

***

Carseat Wisdom

We were pulling into our neighborhood from an errand the other night, and I prompted, "Edith, where are we?"

And she replied, "Here."

***

"Oh Yeah? Well Mine is Better..."

I overheard my first playground-style braggadocio from Edith tonight. We were in her friend Annabeth's kitchen, where there was a photograph on the refrigerator of Annabeth on a white horse.

"Horse!" exclaimed Edith. "Neeeeeigh!"

"Yeah, that's my aunt's white horse, and I got to ride it. It's big. She has two horses and that's the biggest, and I really rode it," said Annabeth.

Edith looked at her and responded. "Edith's horse. Home. Red. Big."

I agreed that she had a red bouncy horse at home and asked if we should have Annabeth over to see it.

"Yeah!" agreed Edith. I then made the mistake of suggesting that Annabeth could ride it.

"No. Edith ride. Ambef ride white horse."

Or as I heard it in my mind,

"No [way]. [Only] Edith ride[s the beautiful red steed]. Annabeth [can] ride her [stinkin'] white horse [if she wants to]."


Annabeth did come over for the evening shortly thereafter, and I found myself thanking the stars that we did not have children eighteen months apart. (With utmost respect for those of you in the Two Under Two Club...) Between the pair of them they kept me on my toes. Or rather, on my hands and knees, clearing the trail of destruction they left in their wake.

Edith both was fascinated by the big girl and still feeling the need to assert herself over and against the guest. Like when we read books. Both girls would pick out a book and come over to have me read it aloud. Faced with two books at once, I'd tell them that we'd take turns reading one and then the other.

When I said that we'd read Annabeth's chosen book first, Edith let me get through three or four pages before announcing sweetly, "The End," as she leaned over to close the cover before Annabeth could find out that there were still more pages, then deftly stuck her chosen story on top.

But for the most part, the girls had a good time together. Even if Mom was exhausted.

***

Soul of a Bush Pilot

Tomorrow Edith will go on her second trip by airplane, to see her great-grandmother in Iowa. Last week she pointed out an airplane overhead, and I thought it was time to prepare her, so I said, "In a few days Edith will go on an airplane.'' Wow, was that exciting.

She wanted to be sure Mommy and Daddy were going, too. I confirmed that we were and told her we would be seeing Mor-mor, Uncle Peewee, and Gigi Opal on the other side. She liked all that, though she kept asking, "Mee-maw at there?" and I had to tell her that, no, Grandpa couldn't be there this time.

But the news she really resisted was the commerical jet.

I told her it would be a big airplane. She replied, "Beeg airplane? No! Lidduh airplane! Lidduh airplane!"

We've had this conversation several times since then, and Edith is still adamant about the Cessna over the 717.

Outgrowing the diminutive

We've had another second-year-type milestone: end consonants. Unlike the major gross motor developments of the first year, second-year developments are largely unenumerated in the parenting books, usually comprising the further perfection of a skill rather than the initiation of an entirely new one. And not all kids go through all of them in the same way as dependably as the vast majority of kids usually roll over, crawl, and walk. Nevertheless we've found second-year milestones can be just as abrupt in their onset and just as likely to make Edith seem suddenly more grown-up.

So Wednesday she abruptly started putting the end consonants on a whole handful of words for the first time. Most significantly, the beloved muh! has become mehk! Meaning that when Edith demands "Mommy's mehk!" in public, people now know what she's fishing for under my coat.

And somewhat poignantly, Edie has become Edith. She got on her new tricycle on Wednesday and cheered, "Ped-uhl, Edith, ped-uhl!" And that was that. Fortunately for her family, she still answers to both.

As long as we're talking about tail ends, here's Edith multi-tasking (that's toothpaste):

Happy doo-doo

I should have learned from our friend, Leigh. On the morning of her birthday she was fishing for something more than "Good morning" from her three-year-old son, Ely. Upon her further prompting he came up with "Good morning, children."

This morning Edith was lying on her changing table singing "Happy happy happy," as she often does when she's in a good mood. Then she changed it to "Happy Mommy." I smiled and said that all she needed to do was add one more word in the middle, since today was Mommy's happy birthday. And she promptly sang, "Happy doo-doo, Mommy." Which is as close as we get to "Happy Birthday to you" these days.

But of all the people ever wished a happy doo-doo -- and there's at least one other, since it turns out today is Edith's teacher's birthday, too -- none ever heard it said so sweetly, as she repeated it again in the afternoon and at random throughout the evening until bedtime, accompanied by the coziest of hugs. That's all the gift I needed. Edith understands about birthdays.

Holiday pix, Part 3: Delaware

And before returning to our regularly scheduled duties (exams, dissertations, coloring), we were able to visit the other side of the family briefly in Delaware.

Note: In all posts, clicking on an individual picture will give you a larger version in which it is easier to see details.

By the twelfth day of Christmas, Edith was an expert on gift opening.

Delaware Santa Clauses were eager to enhance Edith's mobility, with this tricycle...

...and this wagon. Both were big hits.

(Meanwhile, North Carolina Santa Claus aimed to enhance Mom and Dad's repose, with a new mattress to replace the crater-pocked moon surface on which they'd been reclining for the last four years...hardly a Sea of Tranquility. The new mattress arrived last night, and at least one of us has been sleeping on it almost straight since then. Now there are definitely no more monkeys jumping on the bed--just standing beside it begging someone to get up and take them for a ride on the new wheels.)

The balmy weather continued, evidently confusing these thousands of geese on the marshes near Mom-mom and Pop-pop's house. They were holding a conference, we think: "Now look, you guys keep saying we need to fly further south, but I don't see what all the fuss is. It seems perfectly fine right here."

Before heading back to New Jersey, we showed Edith that there's an ocean--actually, the same ocean--at Mom-mom and Pop-pop's house, too.

Holiday pix, Part 2: Sunset Beach

North Carolina Santa Claus granted that we should get to spend the otherwise dreary period between Christmas and New Year's at the beach this year. And divine powers granted that it would be sunny and a balmy 65 degrees or more throughout our stay.

"Beach! Ocean!"

Down at the pier

Ever in quest of the perfect S, Edith is intrigued to find the beach makes a ready writing surface.

Touching the ocean with Moo-maw

With Uncle PeeWee

Even in the midst of a vacation, Edith made sure that Pooh got his vitamins.

Rocking on the porch with Mor-mor

Holiday pix, Part 1: Princeton to Chapel Hill

Christmas 2006

The first present to arrive at our house was a snazzy spinning lightstick, for Edith from her cross-continental buddy Soren. Soren's mother promised the lightstick would provide whole minutes of backseat entertainment on roadtrips, and she was right!

Santa Claus arrived a bit early in Princeton one afternoon during Edith's nap, leaving a bouncy horse and a few other odds and ends.

We then traveled south to Chapel Hill, and as in The Nutcracker, the Christmas tree grew...

Like two generations before her, Edith loved playing with the creche she found under this tree, leaning into the now-somewhat-rickety manger to kiss the baby Jesus, rather than, like some of her relatives past, acting out an alternative Christmas story in which said baby is actually discovered by Herod and burned alive in hot oil.

On Christmas Eve we told Edith she had to be generous enough to leave some milk and cookies for Santa Claus. Several days earlier she had received a magnetic "dooduh pod" (doodle pad) from her Aunt Susan, on which she loves trying to write the letter S. We told her that an S would be a good thing to leave Santa by way of a note, and she came up with one of her clearer attempts.

The youngest member of the family hung her stocking seventh in the row after Moo-maw, Mor-mor, Mommy, Daddy, PeeWee, and Biz. Why no, I never have thought of us as hillbillies before.

On Christmas morning, Edith showed us all what Santa had brought overnight.

Not over-awed for long, she got down to business.

Some gifts demanded immediate use. Like these crayons: Santa, in his infinite wisdom, gave Edith crayons that are good for writing on windows. We know he was thinking of our large French doors. We just hope she quickly learns to distinguish between window crayons and other crayons, lest Edith, like her cousin Maggie, who embellished her bedroom walls during a recent naptime, make "a bad choice."

Edith received a number of tools for helping around the house, including a supply of child-sized kitchen utensils (should we be worried that her favorite was the meat cleaver, which she wielded with abandon for much of the morning?). But before delving into haute cuisine, she took time to study Mommy's copy of Peter Singer's new book on ethical food choices.

We weren't sure she would know what to do with this household tool, since she hasn't, uhm, seen anyone iron terribly often. But it was a hit nevertheless.

Despite Mom's greater enthusiasm for this endeavor, she has demonstrated yoga just about as often as ironing since Edith was born. But Edith didn't need instruction--she looked at the cover of this reference guide Mom received and jumped right in:

Merry Christmas!

Holiday updates

Happy New Year, all! Edith just completed the first calendar year for which she was around to see the whole thing. Our 2006 ended most unseasonably, if pleasantly, in balmy 70-degree weather in North Carolina, where we've been spending a leisurely holiday break with Mor-Mor, Moo-ma ("Grandpa" as pronounced by Edith), and...PeeWee. Sorry, Uncle Peter, I think the name is here for good.

I'll post plenty of pictures once I'm back on a computer to which I know how to upload. In the meantime, you're stuck with more text.

Amidst the Christmas and New Year's festivities, Edith continues to grow and flourish. The most exciting development of the last month has been her consistent, successful use of the potty. We've had a training potty sitting in our bathroom since the beginning of November. Edith knew it was hers and liked to sit on it, but that was about as far as it went, since we weren't pushing any kind of regime. Then one night while Tom was drawing her bath, Edith sat down on the potty naked and tinkled in it. Tom made a huge deal out of the event, cheering, clapping, and calling me to come look. Edith was delighted with the attention, pointing and clapping for herself. But she also had a disbelieving look on her face a bit like, "So THAT's what you wanted me to do with that thing? Why didn't you just say so?"

Since then, we've asked her if she wants to use the potty every time we change her diaper. She always says yes and almost always tinkles, then stands up and claps for herself. A few days ago for the first time she couldn't emit anything. I reassured her that that was okay, sometimes we are empty. Since then, she has had a couple more times where she sits down, concentrates, then shrugs her shoulders and announces "empty."

But mostly she loves the new game and participates with enthusiasm. She has figured out that after she deposits in the potty, I take out the little bowl and dump it in the big toilet. So now she races to do to that part, too (always making me catch my breath, lest she dump the contents before reaching the big potty). Then she tears off some grown-up toilet paper, wipes, throws the paper in the big potty, and flushes...just once, she agrees, holding up a single finger and announcing "one." It's all very exciting. I have no idea how long it will be before she asks to go potty without prompting, but we're in no rush.

One thing she has started asking for on this vacation has been to "watch flowers." (She has started using a few two-word phrases in the last couple of weeks, too.) Flowers in this case are the dancing variety animated by Disney in Fantasia, accompanied by the Cossacks' dance from "The Nutcracker Suite." Mor-mor fulfilled her promise to corrupt Edith on this vacation and introduced her to television. As things go, two-minutes worth of Fantasia seems relatively harmless, especially since she shows little interest in anything more than the jumping flowers section. But she does want to watch them at least half a dozen times a day. At first she enjoyed trying to jump along with them and just once got airborne by a few millimeters. But then Uncle PeeWee stepped in to help her achieve a more impressive vertical, and now she would far rather have someone assist her with her leaps than leap alone.

The other major new development is a growing fastidiousness about dirt and mess that, while far better than the opposite, I fear sometimes borders on OCD. She is especially concerned about toe jam and several times a day can be found pulling apart each pair of toes and digging out the most minute (imaginary?) specks of sock fluff, announcing with concern, "Duht. Duht." She then asks someone to blow on her toes to get rid of any remaining specks. A new entry in the category of "What will they think of us at daycare?": I'm can't imagine what Ms. L or Ms. C will say when Edith sits down in the middle of the floor, pulls off her shoes and socks, and demands that they blow between her toes.