Little Things

I showed Sam my gory wound. It’s shocking how bad it looks even four weeks after surgery. Sam could hardly look at it. I told her that I’m going to have a very bad scar. Later, she said, “Mommy, will you be able to walk when your foot gets better, and when you don’t have that Harry Potter anymore?”

Sammy and I were doing a piano lesson. When we were done, as usual, we just fooled around on the keyboard. Sammy made up her own version of Twinkle Twinkle which ranged over two octaves instead of one. MiddleC, C-octave-down, MiddleG, G-octave-down, etc. I was impressed! I asked if I could play the song she wrote and she said yes. It was fun to play that way and I told her so. I told her that I love to take songs I know on the piano and make them fancier. I said, “I love to take a simple song and embellish it.” Sammy started giggling uncontrollably. “You almost said bullshit!”

She is creative in many different ways.

Sam is now in the “hot lava” phase of childhood development. There seems to be some overlap with the preceding ”potty humor” phase, which makes for some interesting stories acted out with her dolls.

Mark the day! Last night Zoe and Leo became true Mossoffs – they ate steak!

The other day, Sam came running to me in tears – real, sad tears, not the tears of a tantrum or frustration at not getting what she wanted. I was concerned. She doesn’t cry like this very often. She flung herself into my arms, and my daughter, who never shed a tear when we had to put her beloved cat to sleep, wailed, “Mommy – the iPad died!”

While role-playing with her dolls, Sam uttered this monologue:

I put the ball under here. Now you listen to me. I’m going to tell you what to do. You go over here and  I’ll go over there and then we’ll get the ball…no! That’s not the way to do it. Now I’m going to put you in jail. I’m going to put you in jail for real and you’ll never get out again. But I didn’t know that. Okay, you’ll be okay. Now you listen to me, I mean it. Does anybody want a peanut?

So what did you do at school today?
I did a piece of work before I had snack.
Oh.
Yes. And I had snack with R.
Oh, that’s nice. What did you talk to R. about?
Oh no. I didn’t have snack with R. today, I had snack with A.
Oh, I see. So what did you talk about with A.?
He asked me to marry him.
Really.
Yes. He asked me to marry him so that we could kiss someday and he asked me to kiss him and I did.
You kissed him today, at school?
Yes.
Was that the first time you kissed a little boy?
No.
Oh, really?
No. A. is not a little boy. We’re getting married.

Sam used to sing along with Laurie Berkner. Now she hums along with Beethoven.

For a long time, Samantha thought the word “Zappos” meant “box.”

Our regular babysitter is on vacation so I’ve hired a temp for this week. Zoe won’t eat well with her. Which means that Zoe noticed the difference. Zoe knows and cares that there are different people in her world!

Every once in a while, either Leo or Zoe will get very cranky and I’ll have to soothe him or her. Not often, but it happens. I think they do it just for differentiation so that I’ll appreciate their normal state of pure contentment.

One of Sam’s favorite phrases used to be, “I can’t do it – it’s hard.” Now one of her favorite phrases is, “I can do it – it’s easy!”

It was bedtime and Sammy and I were making up songs. Silly rhymes with funny tunes – anything to get a laugh. I was being very creative but Sammy just kept making up songs about pee and poo and it was getting old. “Can’t you make up a song about something other than pee and poo?” I asked.

“Hmmm, how about a song about Jinxy?” she asked.

I was thrilled. She hadn’t talked about Jinx much since we put him to sleep a few weeks ago, and I thought her feelings might come out in her song. I’m paraphrasing, but it went something like this:

Oh, I had a cat and his name was Jinx.

And he was cute and beautiful.

And he got a shot and it made him sleepy.

And then he got another and it made him dead.

We had to put Jinx to sleep because…

He peed and pooed in the house!

Now who is the creative one?

Sam injured her toenail and the whole thing was peeling away, so Adam had to cut it off. Sam sat patiently through the whole procedure, and when Adam gave her the toenail to look at, she asked if she could put it under her pillow for the toenail fairy.