When Harry Met Edie

Edith has become deeply interested in family stories. "Tell me about when I was a teeny tiny baby," she'll prompt, or, "Tell me about when you were little." Her constant requests have challenged us to dredge up old family lore and long-neglected memories, never knowing what is going to capture the fancy of the inquiring two year old. Sometimes we can talk for awhile without piquing her interest. But when something does catch her attention, it instantly becomes an official Story, with a set narrative arc that must be followed with each retelling. These stories she will then request by title.

Sometimes the stories seem quite bland to us. "Tell me the ice and snow" means I should tell her about how I used to walk Bismarck very carefully during the winter when I was pregnant with her, so a sudden jerk of the leash wouldn't pull me off my feet on the ice. More obviously dramatic is the story that follows from, "Tell me about when I went to the fireworks when I was a baby." Maiden trips to see fireworks, complete with precipitous departures, have become a favorite genre. There is a fireworks story for Edith, one for young Uncle Peter, and one for poor Bismarck.

I remember the age when I was eager to hear family stories. I, too, had established a stock set of favorites. Along the way Mom had referred to one of the events she was narrating as a catastrophe, and so my request became, "Tell me a Family Catastrophe." These revolved around mildly topsy-turvy moments in family history that seemed to me wildly hilarious--uncles falling off sleds into a running stream, grandmothers grabbing the wrong dye at the store and arriving for a visit with purple hair, pet pigs being loaded into the family car for a high school pep rally, elderly ministers having their toes painted by a prankster friend while they were asleep.

Edith's tolerance for catastrophe is pretty low as yet--with the notable exception of a car carrying her own mother stalling out on the railroad tracks. People falling off sleds or bicycles are too scary for her, as are most of the other stories about the escapades of Grandpa and his brothers. We're also not allowed to get to the end of any tale in which it sounds like someone might be about to get in trouble for breaking the rules. Nor can a story involve the explicit separation of a parent and child.

In fact, Edith's all-time favorite genre features the meeting of parents and children: She is a devotee of the birth story. We've rounded up as many of these as we know anything about. There is, of course, the story of her own birth. Then there is that of cousin Matthew, told from the perspective of Uncle Tom and Aunt Gretchen, who received an early morning call to come take care of Abigail and by the time they arrived, wound up leaving Aunt Susan and Uncle Phil just 34 minutes before the birth in which to make it across the state line to the hospital and up to the maternity ward. There remain a few other birth stories Edith has heard several times: her mother's, her cousin Maggie's as best we know it, and as much of Aunt Susan's as Susan knew anything about. Tonight for the first time she asked for cousin Santiago's birth story, and when I explained why it was different and very special, she still wanted me to tell it, and so she heard for the first time about what it means that her cousin Santiago is adopted.

The "birth" story that Edith most likes, however, is the one that begins, "Tell me about when me and Harrison were born." This was not a combined event, of course. What she means is that she wants to hear about the events that led up to her and Harrison becoming friends. Having told this story upwards of 30 times now, I am inclined to agree with Edith that it is a pretty good tale of the start of a friendship. Good enough to share. When she asked for it tonight at dinner, I pointed out to Tom that the way we tell it, you could almost imagine a couple sitting on a sofa reciting it in, say, a romantic comedy. Tom reminded me that he had pushed hard for our daughter to be named Sally, and that in my resistance I may just have thwarted destiny.

So begging pardon from Harrison's parents for taking the liberty of interpreting their lives, here is the first act in the story, "When Harry Met Edie."

Scene 1

Summer 2004. Mommy has just finished her general exams and is looking for a change of pace. She decides to take a summer German class. (E: "Like [classmate] Elias speaks.") The class is full of students from another school across town...including a woman named Campbell. At one point during the summer session, Mommy, Miss Campbell, and Campbell's husband, Mr. Conrad, have dinner together. Daddy works at the bookstore and has a shift that night, so he can't come. Everyone at dinner is nice. But German ends, and they all go their separate ways.

Scene 2

Fall 2004. Mommy and Daddy find out they are going to have a baby in the spring. One night in November, Mommy goes to the hospital where the baby is going to be born for a special visiting night for expectant parents, so they can familiarize themselves with the hospital and the care providers there. Mommy is sitting in the room full of expectant mothers and fathers (Daddy has a shift at the bookstore that night) thinking that this is a small town and that she hasn't yet told anyone at her school about the baby and wondering if she is going to bump into anyone she knows, when in walks...(E: "Miss Campbell!")...from her summer German class. They look at each other sheepishly and laugh, because they both have been keeping their pregnancies a secret. They discover that they are both expecting babies in April, when the flowers start to bloom. They agree that they will have to get back in touch then, so their babies can be friends.

Scene 3

End of April 2005. Mr. Conrad sends Mommy an email, congratulating her on being a new mother and letting her know that Miss Campbell and Mr. Conrad's beautiful new baby, a little boy named Harrison, has been born. He tells Mommy that Miss Campbell wants to celebrate being a new mother with another new mother, and would Mommy like to join Campbell in going out for a drink, while the daddies stay home for a night with their babies? Mommy responds to Mr. Conrad, congratulating him on the arrival of Harrison and agreeing that she'd love to go out to celebrate with Miss Campbell, except for one thing: (E: "I wasn't born yet!") Yes, Mommy and Daddy were still waiting. When did Miss Campbell want to go out? Mommy asked. She was thinking that May 5th would be a good day for Cinco de Mayo margaritas, Mr. Conrad explained. Mommy promises that if her baby has come by then, she will be delighted to go out with Miss Campbell for Cinco de Mayo.

Scene 4

May 5, 2005. But it turned out she couldn't. Why couldn't she go out on May 5th? (E: "You were in the hospital!") Why? (E: "I was being born!") Indeed. So Daddy called Mr. Conrad to explain that we were in the hospital and couldn't come, and Mr. Conrad agreed that that was a pretty good excuse, and that they'd have to try to see us all some other time.

Scene 5

June 2005. Mommy gets an email from Miss Campbell. It is to all her friends and family, to let them know that Harrison and his parents are moving to a new apartment, at XXX E--- Drive, Princeton, New Jersey. Mommy can't believe it: She, Daddy, and Edith are about to move to XXX E--- Drive, Princeton, New Jersey, too! Mommy and Daddy have been a little nervous about making the move across town to live at a different school where they don't know anybody, but this seems like a great omen. Harrison and Edith really will get to become friends after all.

Scene 6

August 2005. Everybody moves into the new building. Soon all the neighbors have a barbecue, and three-month-old Harrison and three-month-old Edith meet. A few months later they start in the same class at school together, the same week. So begins a beautiful friendship.

To be continued...

The breakfast story club

Whatever her feelings about dinner, Edith is a fan of breakfast. It is thus one of the few times when we can catch her sitting still long enough to record some of the stories she's always telling. Here's a snip from this morning.

Apologies for the poor sound in the first minute or so--it was an adventure story, loosely based on a picture book about a tiger named Stripe, and Edith's suspenseful voice dropped pretty low.
I always hate those movies with poor sound editing, and here I am propagating one. Maybe Uncle Peter can teach me how to edit it to make improvements. In the meantime, as background: The plot involves a tiger running out of the jungle where he lived, which was dangerous, cool and dark, and falling, falling into the water, where he swims with the fish, until he sees two eyes and a crocodile bursts upon him and tries to catch him, but he swims far away and has an idea, when he sees a cave, that that seems like a good place to hide. From there, I think you'll be able to pick it up.

Prepositional flourish

Some recent Edith-isms feature added prepositions, for emphasis and flair.

-"Change" is something that happens to Edith's rear end several times a day. "Change up" is something she does, as in "Hear that? I changed up the words to the song."

-When I tell her the story of Mor-mor's car running out of gas on the railroad tracks, she jumps in right after mention of the key event with "...which is dangerous, because a train could come and crush over you."

-It's not really an added preposition so much as an evocative verb choice and cadence, but when Edith gets going about baby chicks, she loves to tell you that the chicks start out inside eggs "and then they just crack-out." When she tells it, it sounds a little like something done in back alleyways or abandoned houses.

In defense of (good) food

Dinnertime in our household is a major battle. We don't care if Edith eats. We don't even care if she sits with us for terribly long. But we do want her to sit down with us at the beginning and for that sitting to be a relatively painless affair. For some reason, it's deeply objectionable. It appears that the whole concept, Dinner, is anathema to her. We've tried a few varieties on the general model, and we've even asked her if she can explain what's so awful about it. No luck. Most nights see whining, yelling, spitting out of food, dropping food on the floor, standing up and leaning back in the high chair, sticking her fingers in our glasses and plates, and every other limit-testing behavior she can muster. It all usually ends in tears and timeout for her, exhaustion and indigestion for us.

Thus it was almost a relief the other night to have Edith resort to verbal objections rather than out-and-out defiance.

"No!," she yelled after taking a bite. "This is poison!"

I told her it wasn't poison.

"Well, it's not healthy. I need healthy food."

I told her it was reasonably healthy. (Beef stew.)

"Well, it's just a little bit healthy. It's not healthy enough."

Mutant gene

Edith received an easel for Christmas that we left in the box for awhile. We wanted to save some of the bounty for later, and since Edith has not yet been terribly into art, the easel seemed like a logical thing to wait on until she had developed more interest. But then several mothers mentioned to me that having an easel made all the difference in whether their kids were interested or not in doing art. So the other morning, during a lull, we set it up. Suddenly Edith was announcing, "I'm an artist."

The next thing she did was declare that she was going to draw circles. And bam!--she did. Over and over. This was particularly impressive to us because at our parent-teacher conference just last week, Edith's teacher showed us some of her drawings from school that looked like lots of random scribble and explained that she couldn't yet draw a circle but that she had been trying. And now here she was a few days later, doing it.

As I watched her practice her circles with a furrowed brow and attention to technique, I was forced to acknowledge a fact about my daughter that I haven't wanted to see. Tom has been gently nudging me toward the hard truth for a few months, but I've resisted admitting it to myself. But the circle art laid it bare in the starkest light, making further denial impossible:

It appears that Edith is right-handed.

I don't know how two healthy lefties like us could have produced a child with this unfortunate defect. We'll do everything we can for her at home, of course, but we're going to need to look into some external support services when it comes to teaching her baseball and golf. Maybe we'll see if one of her teachers can put in some extra time with her on shoe-tying in a year or so, as she'll fall way behind if we try to manage that one by ourselves. We'll need to equip the household with some new kinds of scissors. It's hard to see all the ramifications down the line just yet. This is going to be a learning experience for the whole family, and we'll have to take it step-by-step.

EMEL & friends

We got our only snow so far this season when wet, sticky, giant flakes fell the other night for an hour or two, before turning to rain. It was enough for the toddler set to want to race out and play, of course. So we spent an hour before bedtime building a snowman with Harrison.

Cousin Abigail had just given us her old snowsuit and boots a few days earlier. We still have last year's 2T snowsuit, but given Edith's recent growth spurt (see previous post), the legs may have come up short. Also, it's blue. That seems to be objectionable.

Edith and Harrison also took advantage of the hour-long snow to try out her new sled. Edith's book, Clifford and the New Sled, states that Clifford's sled is named Rosebud--so Edith's is, too. Thus a mindless, mass-market picture book ruins what should have been a great cinematic experience later in life. (It should be noted that both parties in this picture are engaged in the activity they preferred. Personally, I'm with Harrison.)

Lest you imagine this was a real snowfall, note the effects of trying to play in it.

Missing each other's company in these winter months without their weekly meeting at the vegetable farm, Edith and Desi got together for strawberries and a couple bottles of Pinot Noir last Friday.

Actually, Desi's train set was of far greater allure than dinner, allowing the parents the almost-unknown experience of sustained adult conversation for periods of fifteen minutes or more. On leaving, Edith told us that she had had great fun, except that Desi had mixed up two trains. "He kept calling it Thomas, but it was Edward." We heard about this all the way home, as Edith continued to ask for our reassurance that Desi would eventually figure it out. "He's a little confused. But when he gets older, and can read numbers, he will see, 'Oh, that's Number Two! That's not Thomas, that's Edward!' Right, Mommy? Tell me again." Incidentally, Edith can't reliably read numbers yet either...but she can tell one engine's nose from another's with deadly certainty.

Martin Luther King weekend provided us a special treat: Edith's West Coast buddy, Soren, visited New Jersey! Edith and Soren were born a week apart, their mamas having been online pregnancy buddies. This was their third meeting (if you count the in utero one). Last time we got together, they lay on their bellies and drooled at each other. Hanging out at age two was ever so much more satisfying.

Once again, trains featured prominently in the day's fun. All parties were agreed that this particular engine was Percy.

Having spent Saturday visiting Soren at his cousins' house, Monday we hosted him at our place--along with several more far-flung toddlers and their mamas. A bona fide Playgroup moment for us uninitiated full-time daycare folks! From left: Edith, Sylvie, Anya, and Soren. Not pictured: Anya's baby brother, Jack, a source of interest to the two year olds.

Sylvie introduced all the kids to the fun of yogurt in a tube.

Also a devotee of Fraulein Maria, Soren checks out Edith's Sound of Music companion book. Like her, he puzzles over this mysterious bride who clearly is not Julie Andrews. (Actually, she's Maria von Trapp--but try explaining that one to a preschooler.)

Anya and Sylvie share giggles in the tent.

Soren gives Pea Soup's teeth a close inspection before cozying up.

It was Soren who first taught Edith the importance of always having a pair of red sneakers in your wardrobe. He gave her her first pair; this is number 4.

Beyond measure

Earlier this week Tom held up the yardstick next to Edith and realized that she was the taller, by a good inch or two.

"You're over three feet," he told her.

"No, I'm two. I'll be three on my birthday." For Edith there is only one relevant unit of measurement, and she knows where she ranks.

Those of us interested in other measurements looked up her height and weight in the Merck medical manual and discovered that after having spent most of her infancy and toddlerhood at the upper end of the scale, she now seems to be tracking at just about 50th percentile for her age. She certainly is shooting up and slimming down. Suddenly some of her 2T pants tend to leave a bit of ankle exposed, while her shirts, by contrast, are doing a somewhat better job covering her belly. Her limbs look lean and muscular, the baby fat largely gone. And here on the tail end of toddlerhood--many child development specialists call 2 years 9 months the official start of "preschool" age--she has indeed lost the toddle. She runs fast and confidently.

Our baby is growing up. Even if she thinks that that only happens once a year on May 5th.

The Holidays 2007: A Visual Retrospective

Here are some photos from Christmas and New Year's, at last.

Pre-Christmas

Edith and Harry examine the advent calendar

Christmas hugs for Harrison

A very excited Harry heralds Christmas with a Fourth of July Sousa march around the apartment

Santa's pre-Christmas delivery in New Jersey

Christmas Eve

Sprinkling reindeer food (oats and sparkles) in the front yard

Bedtime reading with Mor-mor (Crow Boy, a copy that used to belong to her and her sisters)

Everyone listens

Leaving milk and cookies for Santa, with a note

Christmas Day

(lots of great moments, very few pictures)

Great-Grandmother Mary had trouble remembering names, but she knew the words to "The Night before Christmas"

Tom and Peter poop out on the black forests of an Ansel Adams jigsaw puzzle (!)

Christmas visits with high school friends

With Brian, Rina, and Rory (13 months)

With Claire and Henry (22 months)

With Anna, Matt, and Clare (12 months)

Post-Christmas

With 72 people at the house in Delaware we didn't have much time to get out the camera, but we did get a shot of Great-Great-Aunt-Eleanor with the Lank cousins (and Pop-pop)

New Year's Eve

Back in Jersey, a visit from Rebecca

Becca and Edith take in E's newest favorite imaginary world, Monsters, Inc. "You be Mike Wazowski, and I'm Boo."

New Year's Day

P.K.

Edith is developing her Preacher's Kid credentials early.

Yesterday during the children's sermon--the point in the service at which the children are invited down to the front of the sanctuary for a message pitched to them--the congregation was treated to the sight of Edith and her little buddy, Josh (another Preacher's-Kid-in-Training), sitting on the steps engaged in just about every activity except listening to the minister. While he gamely tried to get the kids focused on identifying items from the church's lost-and-found and speculating on how one knows who a lost item belongs to, Edith and Josh were tickling each other, holding hands, pulling each other's hair, and leaning in for kisses and love pats. At one point Edith stood up, faced the congregation, and raised her arms several times in sweeping arcs, as if directing them in song.

All of this is within the range of normal for the preschoolers during the children's sermon, though as a newcomer to children's time, Rev. Y seemed more hesitant than Rev. Peggy would have been to call out the kids by name and admonish them to behave.

It was after the service, however, that Edith took it to the bona fide P.K. level. We were having lunch at a local diner, and I asked Edith whether she had been listening to Rev. Y during the children's time.

"Yes," she insisted.

"Do you remember what he was talking about?" I asked.

"Jesus."

Said with confidence just bordering on attitude, the perfect mixture of knowing a safe bet and daring us to contradict her.

Enter the Princesses

A package arrived from Edith's fairy godmother (who, it seems, shares an address with Aunt Debbie). It's all over now, baby.

Then again...

...there are those times when even a two year old plus prodding and poking don't suffice.

Last night on our way out the door we found a large box in our entryway, addressed to Tom and Gretchen from Edith, via her grandparents. Surprised, we asked her about it. She remembered nothing. We asked whether she might have helped Mor-mor to pick out a birthday present for Mommy over Christmas. When that elicited no response, we started testing the box. It was very large, and the package inside was rectangular but rather soft. Wrapped in birthday-themed paper, it was addressed to both Mommy and Daddy. We hadn't mentioned wanting sheets or towels. Too small to be two new pillows. Surely no one had bought us matching outfits. We were stumped.

Finally, we opened it. A note lay on top:


Why ever didn't we guess?

The note brought it all back to Edith, who promptly and gleefully absconded with both crocodiles, taking Pea Soup in today for a visit to DaPreschool (as she calls it). We did get a brief moment with them: Confirming they are the nice kind of crocodile, Edith held them to our faces and said, "See? They have jaws to kiss you with."

Better than shaking the box

...is living with a two year old.

Last night Edith and I went into her darkened room to change her diaper. She pointed to a wrapped box in the corner and said, "See that? That's your birthday present. Daddy and I wrapped it. I did the tape, but Daddy said not too much tape. It's for you to cook with. You can do all kinds of cooking. It has butter and all kinds of things for cooking."

I looked at the shape of the gift, remembered some conversations from before Christmas, and deduced that the box with a picture of butter and other things on it was likely a crockpot. I didn't even have to prod it.

Edith's excitement about my birthday is touching. When I picked her up from school yesterday all her teachers wished me a happy birthday--two days early. Edith had been talking it up. When we dined with her cousins at their house last night, she eagerly led the singing of "Happy Birthday" and told everyone she had helped Daddy frost the cake.

I'm glad someone is excited. Edith is 32 months old. Tomorrow I'll be twelve times her age. I can't help thinking of Meg Ryan's crying jag in When Harry Met Sally:

"And I'm going to be forty!"
"When?"
"Someday!"
"In eight years..."
"But it's out there!"

I realize we're overdue on Christmas and New Year's photos. Coming soon. In the meantime, please start posting your crockpot recipes.

Edited to correct the When Harry Met Sally script.