I'm not complaining (much). This parenting gig is pretty great. She thinks I'm awesome and wants me to play with her all the time. My heart melts when she grabs my hand or when we're talking with someone new (to her) and she hides in my legs. I do recall when I was a kid how there was safety in those parental legs.
Lucy knows she's supposed to sit when she eats and she knows where the "jellies" are. Jellies are fruit snacks made with fruit juice - essentially candy with the idea of fruit to make us parents feel better. When we enter the kitchen she plops herself on the floor in front of the pantry door and sweetly asks 'jess pees' this translates to "May I please have a jelly snack; I'm quite hungry and you were put on this earth to meet my needs." Note her excellent use of the semi-colon, an art lost on most toddlers.
Last night I gave her the little bag of delightful treats and decided to sit with her while she ate them. Yup, I'm the kind of mom who will plop herself on the floor. It serves multiple purposes, it shows her that the floor is for all people and helps me find the dust bunnies that I can't see from my staggering height. Ok, 5 foot 5 inches tall is not staggering per se, but it is hard to find all the dust bunnies from that altitude.
We were sitting on the floor with our backs resting against some cabinets. Her feet were stretched out in front of her as were mine. As mine are a tiny bit longer than hers (see above noted paragraph) my feet were resting on the bottom rung of a nearby stool. She and I were deep into a conversation about the merits of grape vs. cherry jellies when she started to skootch forward on her bum. I was about to ask her where she was going when I figured it out. She slid forward until she could prop her feet onto the foot rest where my feet were.
I know... trite parenting stuff. GET A ROOM. But wait, this is my room. So I get to tell you (if you're still here) how it made me smile, but also made me take a mental note that this little jelly filled being is seriously paying attention to what is going on around her. No more off color sarcastic jokes that "she doesn't understand". The last thing I need is for her to make a "dirty sanchez" comment to the teachers at school.
It's kind of a silly story - we have an entire community of Fisher Price Little People. They are pretty cute and have come into our home on airplanes, trucks, buses and the Super Friends transportation system. They are quite the ethnically diverse group and we have named each one and made an effort to keep the names in line with their heritage. Lele is on her way to visit family in Hawaii, Jamal is the airplane pilot. Pat is the androgynous tourist. Madeline is the token disabled kid (glasses AND a wheelchair.) Mr. Sanchez is the school crossing guard. It's a toss up as to whether he is Hispanic or Indian but Lucy cannot pronounce Gaurav or Chandramouli just yet, so Hispanic he shall be. Well, last night Lucy took a diaper off one of her dolls and gently placed Mr. Sanchez (and a rather fresh Lego lady) into the diaper and we, the inappropriate parents, made a Dirty Sanchez joke. I guess at this point you're either eye rolling at our horrid child rearing skills or running to the Internet to look it up. For the record knowledge of what a Dirty Sanchez is does not imply participation or acceptance of such activities for this household. You may do what you like - but ick.
| Madeline and Mr. Sanchez |
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| "Dirty Sanchez" |
Gosh and now that I've written Dirty Sanchez into my blog four times it will pop up whenever someone does a search for it. What a boring shock that will be.
I would like to note that at no point was the DS phrase mentioned out loud in front of the child and we have always spoken of all the little people with the utmost respect. Other than influencing the origins of their names they are all equal in our eyes. I'm however ashamed to admit that pretty little Lego woman is a problem and we do find her in many compromising positions with her two Lego men friends. If it keeps up we may have to send her to readjustment camp to focus on her morals, if she can't change her ways that little
On a more acceptable parental activity front. We put up our Christmas tree and took the strategy to install the tree (pre-lit) one day and put up soft kid-friendly ornaments the next and then fill it in with all of the other special items the following day. She is naturally drawn to the tree, but after explaining that we look with our eyes and not our hands, and then a quick round one, round two of time outs for grabbing items on the tree she seems to appreciate that we're not messing around with our statement that she isn't to touch the tree. We have left off the delicate antique glass ornaments this year and the candy canes are still up for debate.
That's where we are this week. I'l check back in later and I'm sure there will be pictures of the kid in the future.
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