Wisdom of Isabelle

What does the duck say?

"Quack"

What does the horse say?

"Neigh"

What does the cat say?

"Please please can I go outside."

(No, I do not make these up!)

New Skill Developments

The life of a toddler is filled with challenges and opportunities to learn. We do more learning between 1 and 3 than anyone does earning their Ph. D., arguably more than anyone does in their entire school career. Well, Isabelle just demonstrated another new skill.

This morning she asked to bring her travel seat downstairs to sit in at breakfast, instead of her regular booster seat. I said "yes." No harm in it, let the toddler exercise her desires. We brought it down and had breakfast while Carrie slept in (because of an unusual dose of the usual problem: a toddler who got up 10 times between 12:00 and 2:00 looking for cuddles).

About 9:00 Carrie got up and went downstairs with Isabelle while I went upstairs to study. Isabelle puts her hand on her travel seat, and says, "Mommy said 'no.' Daddy said 'yes.' I asked Daddy. Nice Daddy."

Now that she has learning how to split, I'm thinking of getting a woodstove.

Of daikon and diapers

So the other day was "otaku night." For the uniformed 98% of the world, an "otaku" is a fan of Japanese animation (known as "anime"). For otaku night, our friend Michelle was making sushi and mochi, and we could not possibly be shown up. So we made teriyaki tuna, miso, and... oshinko. Oshinko are Japanese pickles. If you've been to a Japanese restaraunt, and ordered pickles, you've probably got a plate of brightly colored, unrecognizable vegetable shapes. The bright yellow half-moons are daikon, a kind of radish, and that is what we sought to pickle. Now making pickles involves several things: the right kind of brine, a few days for the item to sit and soak in it, and a tolerance for the smell. It doesn't matter if it's kosher dills, saurkraut, kimchee, or oshinko, pickles stink. Somewhere between low tide and untreated sewage.

"What's that smell, Mama?" our daughter asked, every time the refrigerator door opened and the cloud of aroma filled the kitchen.

"It's the pickles, honey."

The next day, Isabelle was noted with that far-away look in her eye. Carrie, as many a mother would do, bent down and sniffed her diaper.

"Do you have a poop in your pants?"

"No, Mama. It's the pickles."

--

PS: Unbelievably, the pickles were delicious.

Television and Vocabulary

TV is not all bad, believe it or not. At least, if you watch it on DVD without the commericals. For one, it makes a fine babysitter. (oo, naughty, naughty parents!) Each evening, after dinner, she sits down to Winnie the Pooh, and Mom and Dad are able to wash dishes, pay bills, and take out the compost with the efficiency of childless people.

It also has improved our daughter's vocabulary, in ways exactly opposite to its reputation. Although she knows all the colorful words her parents injudiciously use ("Why does Daddy say 'Oh, shit'?"), she's much more liklely to say "Oh bother!"

It's also developed her story play. Mom and Dad encourage her to read a variety of books, but the television has plenty of patience for the 207th iteration of "Piglet breaks the balloon." Since Pooh has become a staple, her little fingers have climbed several honey trees, her bonzos (big stuffed flowers) have become umbrellas ("tut tut, it looks like rain"), and her toy figures get "stuck" in all kinds of places.

Everything has a downside, though, and TV is no exeception. Little Roo has renamed Carrie. She's no longer "Mommy." Now she's "Ma Ma."

Parenting and Microbrewers

It had to happen. Isabelle saw Mommy and Daddy drinking a beer, and asked to taste it. Now, we knew how to deal with this. We remembered how our parents dealt with it. Kid asks to taste beer, you say, "sure." Kid tastes it, makes a face, never asks again (until she's a teenager, of course). So we let Isabelle dip her finger in, lick it off.

"More."

"You like it?" we asked.

"Yummy."

On reflection, it occured to us, when we were children, our parents drank Budweiser and Pabst Blue Ribbon. We probably let Isabelle taste a peach Magic Hat #9. Right.

So we're back to the old rule. "Just for Mommys and Daddys." Because I said so.

A Big Girl Bed

Isabelle moved into her big girl bed. It is her daddy's bed, from when he was a little boy. It was assembled with much fanfare and a little fuss. Isabelle was furious at Mommy for wanting to put the vinyl mattress protector on her pretty mattress. We (the three of us) agreed that Daddy would sneak it on and put the pretty sheet over it so that she wouldn't have to see it. Daddy, thinking himself very clever, went one step further, and threw the pretty quilt over the top before she came up to see it. Isabelle loved it. So much so that she became mad when Daddy folded down the pretty quilt for her to get under it! "No! No!" Fortunately, Moppity Molly came to the rescue, diving under the covers and demonstrating their use, which delighted our little girl.

We helped her into the bed, and she sat in the middle and looked so cute. We admired her, and fussed over her, made sure she could climb out on her own, turned the lights off on request--until she said, "Mommy Daddy go now." It was only 6:30.

When bedtime finally arrived, she snuggled down without a fuss. Ten minutes later the study door opens to reveal a very sleepy girl who said, "Well, I had to get a tissue."

Back to bed. Voices over the monitor. "Teaser [cat] going to sleep with you? I think so. Teaser get on the step stool. Teaser going to sleep with you!"

A couple years ago we put a tiny little peanut in the middle of a great big crib. Yesterday, there was an enormous baby in that crib. Today, there is a tiny little girl in the middle of a great big bed. A she is so proud she's like to split the zipper on her jammies.

Free Book

The other day I was thinking about how to explain to my daughter what Martin Luther King Day was about. So I drew a picture book for her. Rather crude, but it will work. I'm going to try to post it on my website tonight in PDF format for anyone else with a toddler. Here's the link:

http://uliante.com/mlkday.PDF (unfortunately this is a 2Mb file, not for dial-up modems)

In my research I stumbled on this link, which includes an audio file of King's famous 1963 speech. It's worth listening to, if you've never actually heard it. What a preacher!

www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/Ihaveadream.htm

Isabelle Antics

Isabelle's new love is the alphabet. She loves to sing the alphabet song and read alphabet books. She doesn't know her ABCs, she'll mix up similar-sounding (X vs. S) and similar-shaped (B vs. H) letters, but she now knows that the letter after K is not "elemeno."

She is also creative with her alphabet books. She knows that "T" is for "Teaser" (our cat) and P is for "Pizza. For to eat." She also decided, on her own insight, that O is not only for "orange," but also for "Oh fooey!"

Isabelle and Ebert

Isabelle says:

• Cinderella: Two thumbs way up
• Snow White: Thumbs down
• Sleeping Beauty: thumbs down
• Beauty and the Beast: Two thumbs way down (scary)
• Winnie the Pooh, the Honey Tree: thumbs up
• Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer: thumbs up

The nominations for best actor/actress go to:

• Gus-gus the mouse (Cinderella)
• "Honey-the-Pooh" (Winnie-the-Pooh)
• The Bumble Snow Monster of the North (Rudolph)

After the trouble with Beauty and the Beast, daddy was worried about the Abominable Snow Man, but Isabelle fell immediately in love with him, and now stomps around the house roaring.

Isabelle Antics

Last night we went on a moon hunt. Isabelle has always loved finding the moon in the sky. Last night she pointed and said, "Go get the moon."

I explained, which I shortly regreted, that "You can't get the moon, as you walk toward it, it walks away."

Isabelle insisted, "You [I] want to get the moon. Go see it."

So we went on a moon hunt. Isabelle picked the street going most toward the moon, and we walked and looked at it from various places. Covered a few blocks and made it downtown before the moon, in a timely fashion, disappeared behind clouds just as Daddy felt we had to go home.

Isabelle was fine with heading back, but who knows if we're going to have to go moon hunting again, soon. I think next time I'll give a less technical answer.

--Brian

The Wisdom of Isabelle

Isabelle on Anatomy
"Daddy got nipples."

Isabelle on Music
"More 52s"

(nb. for those who weren't listening to pop music in the 1980s, the B-52s were a dance band combining catchy rhythms, a happy-go-lucky spirit, bee-hive hairdos, and nonsensical lyrics (most famously: "It wasn't a rock/It was a rock lobster!")

The Wisdom of Isabelle

On Economics:
"Go to work. Get paid. Go home."

On Preparedness:
"Snow's coming. Get ready. Buy sled."

On Negotiation:
> Oh, honey, you don't want to play with that sponge, it's dirty and full of germs
"Need a clean some other one."