What I’m Grateful For

Last night, after a bad dream, Sophie appeared at the side of my bed. She no longer has to cry for attention — she can get herself out of bed and walk into our bedroom, calmly, simply, while I am still asleep.

“Man coloring me,” she told me, as I pulled her into my bed and she settled down, curling into the crook of my neck, instantaneously soothed.

A minute later she looked up and announced, triumphantly, “The man isn’t coloring me any more.” Her bad dream was over.

It’s a bit crowded, in our double bed, with the 3 of us and the cat. And it is so cozy.

The Princess Cliff

It’s starting: the inexorable onslaught of Disney-princess-ness. All last week, Sophie constantly wanted to wear her “princess underpants.” I am happy that my little streaker is willingly wearing any underwear, so I am not about to tell her that Tinkerbell is not, technically, as far as I know, a princess. Maybe Tinkerbell was inducted into the princess sisterhood, at some point during my long years of ignoring Disney? They’re not even Sophie’s underpants, really, they’re on loan from her Daycare Teacher, but she is not ready to give them back. She wants all the princess she can get.

Yesterday, Sophie found a princess necklace at the park. Which Disney princess has red hair? Darned if I know. Still, I let her take the pastel plastic flowery necklace home, with the Disney-princess-portrait in the central plastic locket. Sophie kept telling each of her stuffed animals: “I found a necklace at the park and my Mommy says I can take it home!”

I had asked around, way back when the ultrasound told me I was pregnant with a girl, and decided there is no way to fight the princess onslaught.

There are, however, ways to tweak it.

Today, Sophie insisted on wearing that princess necklace around her waist. “It’s my belt-seat,” she said. “I’m rock-climbing. You hold the rope, catch me case I fall?” Then she proceeded to pretend-rock-climb, while I pretended to belay her.

I am so proud. Her princess necklace is now, officially, a fantasy rock-climbing harness.

Immature Momma

Sitting in her bath tonight, Sophie started singing a song that I can only assume she learned from the older boys at daycare:

A B C D E F G kiss my booootteeee
H I J K kiss my boooottiiee
Q R S, T U V my boooty W X Y and Z.
Now I know my A, B, C, next time won’t you sing with my big girls’ underpants?

At each “my bootie”, she thrust out her tiny toddler butt and slapped it. Really. I am not making this up. I am only uncertain whether the phrase in between the letters was “kiss my booty” or “kick my booty” — mostly because I suspect that Sophie herself is unsure of the difference.

Now I suspect that Ideal Mom would have had some strategy to encourage this premature singing of the alphabet while simultaneously discouraging that premature sexualization. But I’m not Ideal Mom. I’m me, and my reaction, honestly, was to laugh out loud.

Sophie has been singing the alphabet for a week or so now, but she usually skips QRS and TUV. I’m proud of her for singing all the letters all at once. I think that maybe I should be offended at her addition of booty-thrusting to the alphabet song, but wouldn’t that just encourage her? I suspect I should ignore any two-year-old who says “my booty,” but, at that moment during bathtime, I didn’t have the willpower not to laugh.

I’m afraid that I am Immature Mom.

The only consolation prize is that, maybe, knowing that I laugh at so many things, Sophie will soon stop thinking that “my booty” is an interesting song lyric.

The promised photos

Here’s the documentary evidence of our camping trip to our very-own private-seeming beach, in the middle of our local military post. Ours were the only footprints in the sand:

Our own little refuge (as long as water didn’t rush down that wash; it won’t, in San Diego in October).

In the cold morning, eating oatmeal:

It’s so good to have Ben back home.

Camp Pendleton Camping

Miss Manners advises every parent to set up family routines. Miss Manners’ own favorite tradition is that all children should serve her an elaborate tea every Sunday. In our own family, the evolving tradition is that we will all get dusty and hoarse every Sunday of cyclocross season. It’s not quite formal tea, but it fits us.

“Wanna go to a bike race!” Sophie started saying on Saturday. When we arrived to help set up Celopacific’s Storm the Beach, Sophie was disappointed to see only the other adult volunteers, not her fellow toddler-aged residents of Camp Celo. She decided that we must be at the wrong bike-rice. “Wanna go to the bike race in another park. Wanna go to the bike race with Olivia and Sophia and that girl who paints a butterfly on my face.” I am continually surprised with how much Sophie remembers from weekend to weekend, and with how much Sophie is already insatiably sociable.

Still, Sophie adjusted pretty quickly to spending hours on a deserted beach. Six or seven miles north of Oceanside, ten miles south of San Clemente, in the middle of the vast openness that is the Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, Ben’s bike team set up their annual race. In order to guard the bike course, someone needed to camp out on this open beach with no other humans in sight as far as we could walk (well, southwards we probably could have walked to the Marine barracks, but we chose not to). It’s a tough job, but someone had to sleep next to the soothing pounding surf, on a beach where the only human footprints were ours. The only drawback was missing Halloween trick-or-treating, but fortunately Sophie is too young to notice. She got some candy on October 30th, from the doctor who gave her the H1N1 vaccination (phew; I’m glad she got that), and that was enough candy for her.

So we spent the weekend camping out in this great solitude only 20 minutes from our house. I myself am deeply suspicious of the military-industrial complex. I scoff every day when I drive past the sign announcing “Camp Pendleton: Protecting California’s Open Spaces.” I continually question how many underground chemicals and unexploded ordnance pollutes that apparently-open space. Still, I have friends in the military and I leap at every opportunity to get past the guard towers and on to the beach-front campgrounds of Camp Pendleton.

We found two bullets next to our tent, but Ben said they were already exploded. We found more animal footprints and shells than we have ever seen in Southern California, on this beach with so few people. We woke up next to dolphins.

Sophie seemed aware that we were close to home. “Wanna sleep in my bed!” she said, but I told her, “Camping is fun.” Eventually, she agreed. She especially had fun on the next day, when Sophia and Olivia arrived along with the girl who paints butterflies on Sophie’s face, a punk-rocker mom whom I’m starting to love, Sophie’s older boyfriend Bikeshop Dan, and all the crowded excitement of the race. Even before then, though, Sophie was having fun, racing around in the sand, exploring the ravines, eating “chocolate tea” while the sun set pinkish over the ocean, snuggling under layers of blankets in our tent, and, when she woke up the next morning next to the ocean, gigglingly telling me, “I’m not awake yet.”

I will post photos soon.

Sophie’s Fantasies

Sophie is a Momma, putting me to bed and refusing to tolerate any of the delay-tactic shenanigans that I actually tolerate from her. Then Sophie is a baby, crawling on the floor. Sophie is pretending to change her own baby-doll’s diaper. Sophie is pretending that it’s an incredibly stinky diaper, and I get to pretend to say “ewwww.” Then we both have to be silent, because baby-doll is going to sleep.

Sophie is a fireman. Then she is the kid’s-folk musician Hullabaloo, singing each of Hullabaloo’s songs, adorably. Then a bird. Then, eventually, Sophie is Spiderman, who, as far as she knows, is a huge eater of interesting spidey-food. Sophie has never seen Spiderman, but she knows that a friend in daycare is a big fan.

Then Sophie tells me it is raining and we need to put on our jackets right right now and stand under an invisible umbrella or maybe an actual blanket. This pervasive rain fantasy of hers may be the largest legacy of our trip to Britain.

Sophie is doing the dishes in her play-kitchen, while casually murmuring “Oh-my-gosh.” She is cleaning the floor. Then she is going to school. Or work. Sophie’s work is pink, she tells me. Pink and blue and green and black.

A monster is coming, she announces, and we all must firmly declare, “Monster, leave me alone.” So we do.

I’m pretty sure that all this fantasizing is a normal stage of child development. I’m pretty sure she knows that the umbrella is invisible, not real. I’m pretty sure that telling fantasy-monsters to go away is good practice for adulthood. I hope so, because the other option is that my child is insane.

UPDATE: a friend at yoga informed me that, if we actually did a psychological evaluation of anyone under 5, every single toddler would be diagnosed as a bipolar schizophrenic. So I feel better, sorta.

Mean Girls, Already

Two of my favorite blogs have recent posts about young kids’ social cruelty: here and here. My story isn’t as dramatic as Mom-101s or Girlinapartyhats, but I’ve been thinking about it lately because Sophie’s erstwhile best friend keeps on hurting Sophie’s overly-fragile feelings.

“M is coming over! M can jump on my bed!” Sophie says.

But when M arrives, M refuses to jump on the bed. She only wants to play with the tea-set. Without Sophie touching it. When Sophie insists on making pretend-tea alongside M (even resorting to a tearful tantrum to get herself included), M decides that now she only wants to throw some balls around — although everyone else is now eating dinner. “M, wanna eat?” Sophie keeps asking. But M won’t eat.

“I want my blankie,” M says.

“I want my blankie too!” Sophie declares. She gets two, then makes the blankies into a pillow-fort and invites M in. M refuses to join her. And so goes the whole play-date.

Lots of 2-year-olds are happy with parallel play, I know — but Sophie isn’t one of those kids, and she doesn’t understand it when someone comes over but won’t engage with her.

A few weeks ago, while walking to the park, M refused to hold Sophie’s hand. For days, Sophie kept telling me, “I wanna hold M’s hand.”

They used to be good friends. I thought it was a phase: M was tired, this day, or hungry, that day, or just moody, that time. But it’s been a couple months now of Sophie feeling spurned every time they get together.

M is a remarkably independent girl. Even as a baby, she refused to cuddle with her parents. Sophie is a remarkably sensitive girl.

It was easier when Sophie met her first truly-mean girl at the playground, two weeks ago. That bratty 3-year-old tried to keep Sophie off the slide, then pushed Sophie down the slide. Sophie spoke up for herself, loudly and clearly: “Don’t push me!” I was proud of her. Eventually, Sophie started playing with this girl — until I heard Sophie suddenly scream, and saw the other girl had a huge hunk of Sophie’s hair in her hand.

I told Sophie that what we do with mean girls is just walk away. We sat under a tree, eating our snack, while the mean girl looked on jealously. That one was relatively simple.

Soph’s best friend isn’t mean, like that, just independent. And I’m wondering how many more playdates I should arrange, when it keeps on hurting Sophie’s feelings.

 

One more weekend photo

Last weekend’s bike race was held in a park that had a small rock-climbing wall. So here’s more cute photographic evidence that Sophie has a healthy balance of girliness and spunkiness — but maybe I should watch her more carefully when she’s bouldering – especially because I was also supposedly watching the other girl in a dress, then, too.

Transcending Girliness

Here’s Sophie at the Halloween-themed bike race:

Ben’s amazing Celopacific teammates keep their children amused by encouraging the older kids to decorate the younger kids.

Sometimes I worry that Sophie’s becoming a very girly-girl. Then I think, nahhhh.

I, fire man

After Sophie spilled chocolate ice-cream all over her outfit, she was walking around the house naked, twirling a tape-measure that, she has decided, is a fire-hose.

“I fire-man,” she announced, while admiring herself in the mirror. “I get out of fire-truck, make everybodies feel better.  I make them wet. Everybodies feel better.”

It was one of those many moments when I wished I had a video-camera rolling. Yes, folks, this is Sophie’s current ambition in life: she will heal the world by bathing everyone.