Oh Look! It's October!

Today is October 5th. October 5th and a high of 89 degrees. October 5th and the slide too hot to use, October 5th and I'll consider using sunscreen before I take you to the park. September was crazy. But now suddenly it feels like summer again and my body wants to lounge and my spirit feels incredibly lackadaisical.

Busy how, you say? Well, Dada has been busy applying for ordination (writing essays and taking psych tests and shopping for albs), prepping for his classes, applying for teaching jobs, and writing articles about Kierkegaard and Lady Gaga. Mama has been busy editing a book about vocation and attending Mentor Series events.

And you? You've been busiest by far. You're stringing words together into sentences now. Things like "Thisbe. Eat. Sit. Here. Nana." and "Book. Read. Couch. Now. Babar." and, my personal favorite "Drive. Fast. Police. Car. Come. Pay. Money." This weekend you used the word "the" for the first time and yesterday you said "him" in reference to Dada. Now we're waiting for the little words--the prepositions and pronouns and articles--that can connect your thoughts together. You've mastered so many nouns and verbs, now you're beginning to explicate the relationships between things. Not just meaning but clarity and coherence too.

Your energy is still through the roof. The other night before bed you literally ran over twenty laps around the couch. In a row. For fifteen minutes. Without stopping. Really. Jumping is another favorite pass time (couch to ottoman, ottoman to floor, stairs to floor, etc) but one that Mama is not such a fan of. Also of interest is categorizing people based on their possession of a "penis" or "vagina." As in, "Mama. 'Gina." "Dada. Penis." When we ask you what Luxy has, you say, "butt."

I am having trouble, maybe because I am brain dead from already writing three hours today, at being able to articulate exactly what has changed in you this last month. Mostly, the change feels more intuitive--you suddenly seem like a little girl instead of an androgynous, Godzilla-like toddler. Maybe it's the fact that you insisted on playing "pay for things with fake credit card" for twenty minutes yesterday afternoon. Maybe it's that you ask for "hugkiss" before Dada or I leave the house or maybe it's your longer hair pulled into pigtails or barrettes.

Maybe it was seeing you at the park a few days ago with a four year old girl who clearly wanted to befriend you. "Hi," said the girl, "my name is Olivia. What's your name?" "Iz," you said, pointing to your chest. "Friend," you said, pointing to her. Then you took her hand (and she, thank you Jesus, complied) and you walked off toward the swings together. It's one thing to watch you talk to us--it's another to see you using words to build a relationship with another person. Without prompting or staging, without me hovering nearby. And though my joy was tinged a little with the melancholy of "oh great tomorrow she'll asking her therapist about how to draw more firm boundaries with her mother," I was mostly just really, really proud of the person you're becoming.

[Note: photo is of you and Agnes and Karu from a month ago but I've been lazy about uploading and downloading and reloading and deloading photos.]