Conversations with a 3-year-old Part 2

While walking Addy to the car from the grocery store and strapping her in, she decided to sing.  She does this a lot, and usually randomly.  More often than not, nowadays, it is one or two repeated lines from the movie "Frozen."  I am sure that I am not the only parent who has experienced this.

She has been known to scream "Here I stand!  and here I stand!  and here I stand!" while pounding her foot on the ground and making an invisible castle rise up around her.

This time, however, she decided to change the words.  I think you'll agree, we have a singer-songwriter on our hands.

The first thing she was "singing" at the top of her lungs was "It's ALL my fault!  All my fault!!"

She did this maybe 6 or 7 times.  Now, she doesn't know was "fault" really means, at least I don't think she does.  If I apologize to her for something I shouldn't have done, like eating her food or raising my voice, I'll usually say, "I'm sorry, i was my fault."  She will respond with, "No!  It's MY fault!" as if possession of the fault is desirable.  Then again, maybe she really does want things to be her fault.

So as I start to put her in the car, she changes the song.  "Let it go!!  Let it go!  Let it GOO!!!  HERE I stand!  And HERE I stand!"

Adorable, no?  But finally, when I get her buckled into her car seat, she starts bobbing her head from side to side and changes up the song entirely.  "Peace like a RIVER!  Peace like A RIVER!  My SOOUUL!!"

It's then that I realize she has just solved every problem of mankind in one three-year-old's song.

Iterative

I am raising my mother.

I've tried to stop it, but life, as Dr. Malcolm once said, will find a way.

It started when I noticed her from behind.  Her hair is sandy and very curly, and is in the same shape as my mother's hair.  For all intents and purposes, it is my mother's hair.  But my wife's hair is also curly, so I could get over this.

My mother has some OCD tendencies towards cleanliness, but not necessarily neatness (that's my father).  Addy has been showing signs of both...  She pretends to clean the bath tub.  Where she gets this from, I don't know.  I don't think I've ever cleaned a bath tub with her around.  She likes to clean the floor, to clean the table, to clean the sink (which she claims is covered in cat poo because it is brown, but the sink is just cat-poo-brown).  She also likes to pile things up (which, if you know my mother, is a bad sign) and straighten things in rows and by type.  I know all toddlers do this, but she thrives on it.

When I was younger, my mother would regale us with "her songs."  These are usually cute little songs of relatively inappropriate lyrics for adults (but only because we have dirty minds).  The one that sticks out most in my mind was entitled, "Wiener City."  She would also extemporize.  Don't get me wrong - my mother can hold a tune.  She taught piano all my life.  She knows music.  So what would possess her to sing an ode to poo?  I swore I would never do this, though I was fully expecting these things to slip into my daily habits once I became a dad.  Sadly, it skipped a generation.

Adelaide has been singing.  She loves to sing and make up her own songs, though she lacks the technical expertise of someone as experienced as my mother.  Today she was singing, or perhaps chanting, "Poo-poo poopy" over and over.  I asked if she had to go use the potty.  She told me, "No," and then proceeded to renew her Aria de Merde with greater vigor.

...while running around without pants on.  She hates them, refuses to wear them.  The only difference between the two of them is that my mother will become self-conscious when other people come over and may see her in such a state.  My child has not yet learned humiliation.

No one warned me about this.

Conversations with a 3-year-old Part 1

This morning I was awoken by our three-year-old daughter, as is usually the case.  She likes to help me get ready in the morning.  This is a conversation we had while I was getting dressed.


"Hobo?  What's a hobo?" I asked.

"Hobo there!  mumbmnnusdf pretty dress!"  She opens up her hand to reveal several ribbons and bows.

"Oh!  HAIR bows!  Not hobos!  Can you say 'hair bow?'"

"Hobo!"

"Hair.  Bow."

"Ho--bo."

"Hair?"

"Haair!"

"Bow."

"Bow!"

"Hair bow."

"Hairhobo!"  At this point I cannot stop laughing.  She gets up on the bed behind me.  "I wanna hairhobo."

"I'm sure we all want a hairhobo, dear.  Where would you like me to put it?"

"No!  I lkdlkonmmsld daddy hairhobo!"

And that is the story of why I am currently wearing a hairhobo.