Rose at 13 months, Calvin at 3.

[dwenius]

Rose is a perpetual automatic joy machine right now. I repeat: One year olds are the nicest. people. ever.. They walk (in a cute drunken way), they talk (in warped little phonemes that only a parent or sibling can understand, usually), they are easy to distract/calm/re-direct, they understand the word No but they do not ever use it, and when you walk into the room after even a brief absence, they light up like a Christmas tree.

You suspect, at some fairly early point, that your infant loves you unconditionally, but by the time they are 1, it is their sole mode of expression 75% of their waking time. I can't explain how fulfilling this is after a day or a week or a month of being ground up slowly, but exceedingly fine, inside the corporate machine.

***

Calvin is a complete bi-polar three year old. He can be so utterly sweet and pleasant one moment, then not get what he thinks he wants and turn into a screech monkey. The "EHHHHHHH I WANT IT" cry of the 3 year old is universal; when I hear it on an airplane, I can get an instant laugh out of the parents by asking when the child turned 3. But when he's in a good mood, wow.

***

In 2005, the Edge World Question Center survey question was What Do You Believe Is True Even Though You Cannot Prove It? Hidden in the response from Alison Gopnik, UC-Berkeley Psychologist, this gem: "I think that, for babies, every day is first love in Paris. Every wobbly step is skydiving, every game of hide and seek is Einstein in 1905."

Just so.

Go here and scroll down to read her entire response.

***

Calvin refers to unknown persons of any age, gender, or species as "that guy." As in "What's that guy's name?" or "Why did that guy fly away?"

***

So. Many. Cabinet locks. Must install toilet lid locks soon, too, as the urge to splash is well nigh invincible.

***

Calvin is so entirely free of irony, he has a pet rock.

Named Rocco.

He takes it everywhere.

***

SCENE: Calvin and I are zoned out watching "Old School Sesame Street" (Oscar is ORANGE! Big Bird has NO HEAD! James Earl Jones counts to ten!).

ENTER TODDLER STAGE LEFT: "A bee, a bee, a bee, la la la la la..." [She trails off into silence. Is she mesmerized by Cookie Monster? No! She spies...a BUTTON! Which must be pressed right now! a chubby finger extends upwards, and the screen goes dark while the audio track continues.]

ROSE: "Dere!" and she toddles away.

CALVIN AND PAUL: "Hey! Rosie, we were watching that, could you turn it back on please?"

ROSE: [frozen in her tracks] "...Yah." [toddles back over, extends chubby finger as far as it can reach one more time, click.] "Dere!"

CALVIN AND PAUL: "Thanks!"

***

Other things Rosie says:

"Up!"

"See!" and just right now, "See Chree!" while pointing at the blinky lights on the tree.

"owwwwwwww" - whispered, breathy, could mean put me "down", take me "out" of this chair, or "ow, ha ha, I poked you in the eye!" Yes, she hits me on the head with a wooden ball, looks at me, and whispers "owwwwwwww."

"Up a doe!" = Up we go, when picked up.

Like all of our children, she says "Ki-kat! See Jake! Gabby!" I'm still sad that she never learned to say Elwood.

When she's all in her jammies and ready for bed, and I pick her up and bring her out to the rest of the family. She says "Nigh nigh nigh nigh, nigh nigh Mama, nigh nigh Nini ni ni, nigh nigh Caba" and does that baby-blows kisses thing where they hold their palm to their open mouth and then wiggle it towards you without ever making a kissy noise. See everyone in the room melt.

***

Calvin and I went for a hike up the hill last weekend, turned left down the road not taken, and emerged oh, 3 miles later several streets further down the block than ever before. His little legs just churned through hill and dale, we had to jump down a small cliff, we studiously avoided all the dog poo (grrrrrr....), and coming down to street level we lost our footing repeatedly on all the eucalyptus leaves. At the bottom, we met a random neighborhood woman, and Calvin says, "Wow! Hi! We went on a hike up the hill! We saw a log sticking up [tree stump], and some feather plants [no idea what they really are] and sat on a log bench to have a snack! Then we walked more and more and more and we slided down the hill...it was steep! and we slided on it! My favorite color is magenta, what's your name?" Random neighborhood woman is charmed beyond words.

and so, home we went.

Enjoying the HELL out of this parenting thing.

Comments

[ex-askesis860.livejournal.com]

"Wow! Hi! We went on a hike up the hill! We saw a log sticking up [tree stump], and some feather plants [no idea what they really are] and sat on a log bench to have a snack! Then we walked more and more and more and we slided down the hill...it was steep! and we slided on it! My favorite color is magenta, what's your name?"

I've been to this party.

[sequentialscott.livejournal.com]

Three year olds are among the weirdest people in the world. They have this weird mix of logic, naivate, and non-sequiturs. Here are a couple from Kayla at about that age.

The first birthday party she really went to was for her Uncle Mason. We all sang happy birthday, and we helped her with the words. Thereafter, the recipient of the happy birthday song was always preceded by "uncle." As in, "Happy birthday Uncle Mommyyyy...."

I was serving dinner and put a plate of broccoli on the table. Kayla: "Is that brocolli?" Me: "Yes, it is." Kayla: "Why is that brocolli?"

How do you answer that?

[dwenius.livejournal.com]

I want to say we had this exact discussion with Calvin or Nina, but I can't see it in my head clearly enough to say for sure which.

Children love saying brocolli. Ours also love eating it, even Rose. She picks it up by the stalk in a chubby fist and gnaws at its little brains.

[neuraltube.livejournal.com]

Yes, Oscar was orange, and his eyes were close together. But my biggest chuckle was the anencephalic Big Bird.

Now that we've found our remote control, I can watch the extras and second episodes on the disks! :-)

I'm so glad you are writing some of this stuff down. Your kids are hilarious.

[megasus4.livejournal.com]

I can't wait. :)