"Where Is?"

The weather is warming--finally--and the streets are brown and wet. Daddy has to call the courthouse each night after 4:30pm to find out if he has jury duty. Last night he bought a new drill and leave in conditioner and yogurt and hair bands and child safety locks. Your favorite toy is a house shaped like a toadstool that makes a tinny chime sound when the door is opened. The house also opens, splits in two entirely so that you can place the plastic fairies on the rug or in the bedroom or right beside the dining room hutch which contains a tea pot sealed forever to a hutch. This house is great in earthquakes.

"Up" is your only perfect word. When something goes missing you raise your arms, palms up, and shrug your shoulders and widen your eyes and say "wheys?" meaning "where is?" As in "wheys Dada?" "wheys the house?" "wheys the fun?"

Today is lapsit at the library which mostly consists of "Lift the Flap" books. There is always something fuzzy and cute (bunnies, puppies, kittens, guinea pigs, etc.) hidden behind the sofas, chair, dressers, pillows and curtains. I believe these books give you a false sense of reality. How about some real life "Lift the Flap" books? Huh? What's under the sofa? A bottle cap and a Co-op receipt! What's behind the chair? The wall! What's beneath the pillow? Stale cheerios, a pen, and the remote control! What's behind the curtain? Nothing! Nothing! Nothing!

In other news, you have learned the hokey-pokey. Or rather, when I put the song on the stereo you start to turn in circles until you get too dizzy to stand. Then you fall, gaze up at me, and offer a few half-hearted claps. I find this hilarious so we do the hokey-pokey a lot. It's winter! We call this fun!!!

You took this enormous and glorious two hour nap yesterday but we paid for it this morning since you woke up at 5:15 and then slept/cried/slept/cried until 6:30 at which point I pried myself from the bed, made love to the netti pot, and made you blueberry oatmeal.

I am also coming into my identity as strict disciplinarian. Because you are beginning to push, push, push your limits, we are starting to respond with firm and clear boundaries. Everyone knows that the most f-ed up grown-ups are those that had no boundaries as children so, when you commit "no-no" actions, we respond by firmly saying "no" and them wrapping you in a restraining grip and slowly counting to 30. Then we say "no" and you shake your head "no" to demonstrate that you understand and then we release you. When your father retrains you, you cry and fuss but then obediently follow the limit. When I restrain you, you sit calmly as though you are enjoying the restraint and then immediately re-commit the crime while laughing gleefully. Awesome.

Additionally, you've developed a lovely mealtime limit-pushing behavior. Toward the end of the meal you will pick up a handful of food and slowly, oh so slowly, you will carry the food in the air over the wide expanse of your tray until you are dangling the food over the carpet. As you carry the food, you stare intently at it, but the closer it gets to the edge of the tray, the less able you are to contain your malicious smile. Really. You start out very, very serious and you try to contain your glee but you can't. You finally look up at me with this coy, coy little smile, your fistful of blueberry oatmeal stretched above our rented carpet in what can only be described as a face off. If I show even the teeniest hint of amusement, it's done, released, the oatmeal is immediately licked into the fibers of the carpet by the dog.

So I am spending most of my time developing my badass face. One that I can use as dishonestly as my Minnesota nice face. It's hard work, these calisthenics of the face, and I wish they burned more calories.