Small and mighty

The combination of willpower, imagination, and um, directorial vision issuing from our toddler these days threatens to undo us. As one of my colleagues reported her husband saying, "Why do we continue to feed them and put them to bed on time? It just gives them the resources to come back at us again tomorrow."

It's not all "oppositional" energy, to borrow the word one of Alice's preschool teachers used last week. (The other teacher more bluntly greeted us one morning with the declaration, "She's a lot H-A-R-D-E-R these days.") Some of Alice's efforts are richly imaginative...but exhausting for all that.

A morning last week was typical. I stumbled out of an early shower, hoping to get to my closet to begin dressing without detection, only to find a bright-eyed little person with a determined look sitting outside the shower door on a stepstool that she had  dragged into position, legs crossed as she paged through a small volume on cellular biology.

"We're going to play baby," she announced without fanfare. "You're the baby. Get down on the floor and crawl. You don't know how to walk."

And so the day begins. Every waking moment is a moment in which we're supposed to be taking roles in some imaginary play. Not that I acquiesce to all such demands. But I'm not naturally inclined to power struggles, and even negotiating (or flat-out denying) such demands is exhausting when they come in a steady stream.

The other day I watched our alpha toddler on the playground with a mild-mannered four-year-old friend, literally ordering said friend in a ceaseless march around the play structures for 45 minutes. "Now you climb that tower. No, THAT tower. That's your castle. Wait for me to invite you to my castle. Don't move." Her friend dutifully followed all directions, as I cringed and apologized to the friend's father, who reassured me that his shy daughter seemed to feel comfortable in that role. Maybe, but someone is going to have to put up a fight at some point--I hope. In that hour on the playground I saw the behavior that Alice ideally would like to solicit from all the rest of us; she never stops trying.

So maybe it's time to record some of the funnier moments, for balance.

***

When playing princess, Alice declares that Daddy is "my prince" and so she addresses him. "Come to the ball, my prince."

She has since extended the form of address. We play preschool, and she is the teacher. I raise my hand in Circle Time.

She nods, "Yes, my kid?"

***

Again, we're playing preschool, and Edith is the teacher. She orders the class to start some new activity, and I say I don't want to do it. She puts her hands on her hips.

"This is not a crying or a whining school. Let's go."

***

"Do they have toys in jail?" she asked Tom at dinner yesterday, apropros of nothing. Tom said they do not.

"Yes, they do," she countered.

"How do you know?" I asked "Have you been to jail?"

"No," she responded serenely. "I haven't been to jail. And not to college either."

***

The recent past for Alice is last day. She reminds us that she went to school or we read a certain book "last day." And why not? Maybe she'll start talking about yesternight, too. First thing in the morning, meanwhile, she continues to want greffast.

***

And a couple from sister Edith:

I was leafing through the day's mail and came across a coupon from Gymboree. I commented to Tom that I'd just been solicited to sign a petition to Gymboree, protesting their sale of onesies for infants bearing the slogans "Smart Like Dad" for boys and "Pretty Like Mommy" for girls. 

"That's ridiculous!" exclaimed Edith.

Yes, I agreed, it is.

She nodded. "Infants can't read!"

***

Yesterday Edith told Tom that when she turned four, back in Princeton, she'd thought she would move up to the pre-K class at school immediately, on her birthday. She got to school expecting to join Mr. Allan's class and was told that no, she had to wait until everyone moved up to the next class together in September.

The following spring her younger friend, Serena, turned four. She came running into school on her birthday excited to join Mr. Allan's class.

"So I took her aside," explained Edith, "and said 'Hon, it's not gonna happen. Believe me, I've been there. I made the same mistake as you. Learn from me.'"