March: assorted notes

March 16th
In the bath. You have been playing for awhile while I do the dishes. I come in to check on you and grab a plastic fish to say hi to your plastic whale swimming under the water. "Hi whale."
"Hi fish. I working."
"Oh really? What you working on?"
"I working on, a painting. See?" And we both point our submerged plastic noses at the porcelain walls of the bath.
"Oh wow. What is it a painting of?
"A boy. See it? See it, fishy?"

March 13th,
Warm Sunday. After a fun, sweet walk around the neighborhood, lying in the grass in the sun and feeding crab apples to Charlie Brown, we end up at the local creek, where Nico is happily splashing around and hunting for fish. You want to join her, very badly. After a few requests are shot down, you decide to try a different tactic. You are at the edge of the water, after throwing a bunch of rocks into the creek (plop) for Nico to catch.
"Mommy, you go home now. I stay here in, with, Diko. play in water. you go home."
"Fat chance, Sava. Nice try"  I reply.
But the sun is so warm and the water does look like so much fun to play in. If I were you, that's what i would be wanting to do too. You don't know about pollution yet. It's not your fault that you live in a dirty world. In my mind I am calculating the harm, imaging the quick bath I could draw back at home. You are in a dress with socks and shoes on, big girl underwear.  The shoes are already soaked from stomping in the mud puddles of the grass alley. You slyly look back at me, gauge the seriousness of my rebuttal, decide that I am bluffing and so you hoist your dress and inch in....'it's okay' you whisper to yourself after a grinning minute of wading in the water, dress hiked up at the waist and knees treading the glittering cool surface... "Mommy's at home right now..."

....Later that day...   Running away from me down the sidewalk in your dress after the bath, shoes and underwear discarded. I finally catch up to you, three blocks down. I am winded. I am getting over pneumonia and i am out of breath. You look up at me and you are protesting your capture, laughing..."I wanna take walk with.. my feet .....and my giny!"

-strangely, potty training is coinciding with.... late onset thumb sucking.

Saturday March 12th.. a triumphant day at the indoor pool (every saturday morning we have a date where we go to the farmers market and then the gym and after i work out and you play in the daycare, we go swimming together). You are wearing your new pink polka dot bathing suit which you picked out yourself- you are the most adorable creature that has ever been invented and you walk around to everybody pointing to your suit "Look, i picked it out..by MYSELF!!  We are swimming around and you are showing Nemo, Nemo's dad, and Dory (three floatie fishies with buggy eyes that live in the toybox at the pool) how well you can hold your nose and put your face under the water. They are so proud and astonished they splutter water everywhere and just squeal with excitement. They are really just goading you on, and you eat it up. Later, I ask, "Hey Sava, you are doing SUCH a good job putting your head under water. Do you want to jump into the water and go all the way under? I will catch you and bring you back up!" You think this is a fantastic idea and grab a hold of your nose and fearlessly plop in. I stick my arms underwater and pull you up and you are spluttering and grinning, wiping the water from your eyes. "DO that AGAIN!" (which we do, like twenty more times)

-when we play the game where we are pretending to eat you all up, chomp chomp chomp, you squiggle and laugh and then demand that we spit it out, whatever part of you we ate: her your ear, your cheek....."Spit it OUT!" and you demonstrate for us, "Spphtht".

talking to little plastic horsies, to puppets, to snapdragons. Sometimes refusing to talk to me or daddy but demanding that we hold up the thing so that she can have long conversations with it. She is in that short precious window of time where she really believes that they are alive and animated.  

march 11 Sava and I walked by a little girl downtown tonight. Sava said, "That's a little girl. She's my daughter, and I love her so much right now." Where does she get this stuff?- daddy



march 9th Sava made up the name Bug Wallace this morning for a beetle she found in the house. I was reminded of Inch Connecticut. The rest, well, I'm not sure where that came from, (Bug Wallace drinks eyelid tea and sleeps for a blink by the Salton Sea) but I like the idea of it. -daddy

March 10 I hear a thud and come into the room. You had fallen off the end of your bed and you were crying your fake cry. I comfort you for a moment, hold you and kiss you, and then you tell me to "Hold horsey, mommy."  I pick horsey up and bring it up to your face.
"Hi, horsey. Hi. Horsey. I ,  I... fell."
"awww" says horsey. "I'm sorry. How did you do it?"
"I, I climbed up, like dis" (re-enacting the perilous clamber up the wooden rails of the foot of your bed) "and, I .. fell. Hurt, my leg. Der. Kiss it?"
(horsey kisses the knee)
"Ohh, tank you, horsey. Feel, much better now!" (sniff) "Give me, kiss?"
(you bend down to kiss it on the lips)
"Hold my hand? Ohhh, tank you, horsey"
(holding the tip of its forelegs in your little pinched fingers, you give me a sentimental, smeary smile) 

March 8th Sava just awakened from a bad dream intermittently sobbing and singing Old MacDonald.

She loves yelling orders for food down the stairs while lounging around on the bed in mommy and daddy's room. "MOMMY!!!! GIVE ME. BRING ME CHICKEN AND ICE CREAM AND MILK AND WATER AND JUICE AND PEANUT BUTTER AND TOAST AND CHOCOLATE ICE CREAM AND..... NANA ICE CREAM AND .....QUESADILLA! OKAY????"


March 7th "You were in the CITY? You fly in airplane up in the sky? You come home see me? Oh. Miss you, daddy. Thank you coming home. Miss you so much."

-While Jamba was gone to SF for a week, we initiated POTTY TRAINING. which has been going surprisingly well. I am shamelessly, flat-out bribing you. I am so damn sick of buying diapers I can't even tell you.  So every time you poop or pee on big girl toilet, you get a piece of candy cane.  And the other day we went to target to buy 8 pairs of big girl underwear, which you carry around everywhere in a green metal pail.

-at the Chop House, on a date with your daddy. Daddy says, "Sava, i am going to go to the bathroom now, okay?"
"Oh? Daddy have a (high pitched squeal) PENIS???"


-Sassy sava likes to boss, but sassy Sava is getting better ... whenever mommy is ordered to do something, like "give me water!" she is asked.. "Sava, how do we ask nicely for things? "Please?" "Start from the beginning., Sava" "Please, mudder, can i have some water?".
I am actually really proud of how polite you are getting. Although it is hilarious to have it turned on us... like this morning. "Sava," asked daddy "Would you like to take a shower with me?" "No tank you" you replied sweetly, grinning a chesire grin as you lay comfortably against my chest.

-Everybody is pregnant, and you are convinced that you have a little baby in your belly. "see it?" you squeak, pointing to your belly? "shhhhh, my baby is sleeping."