Little Things

On Leo’s first night at home, Sammy got up for one of his middle of the night feeds. She stuck with us through the whole process.

It’s not a coincidence that, after being permanently pale for most of my 20′s and 30′s, I’ve had a nice tan every summer since Sam became old enough to enjoy the water.

Sammy peed in her bathroom trash can tonight, and I’m proud to be the kind of parent who doesn’t get mad about such a thing. I’m sure she just wanted to find out what it was like. And since I don’t punish her for things like this, she always tells me about them, saving me from consequences like pouring urine all over my feet. It’s a win-win!

Mommy, you know those bad guys?
Which ones?
You know, those worst ones in the whole world?
The Nazis?
No.
The Communists?
No.
The Islamo-fascists?
Yes! Those bad guys. The ones with the worst bad guy ever.
Osama bin Laden. Yes, what about them?
We killed him. He is dead. But there are other ones and if they got near us, they would try to kill us.
Yes, they probably would. But luckily, they aren’t anywhere near us and we have soldiers to protect us and keep them away.
If they got near you and tried to kill you, would you kill them?
I would if I had to, but I don’t have a gun.
I have a water gun!
 

Sam’s latest favorite movie is Aladdin. She wants to watch it every single day. She loves the genie. She thinks he is “spazy.” I might have used that word. Who wouldn’t, when referring to Robin Williams?

Anyway, at dinner last night, I was telling Adam about all the stuff I had purchased at Toys-R-Us:

“…and some hooded towels and crib sheets and another Diaper Genie and three tubs of diaper cream and…”

Sam got out of her chair and came  up to me and said, “Mommy, can I ask you something?” I said sure. She pulled me down so that she could whisper in my ear – something she usually does for things like, “Can I have some candy?” or “I really, really want to pull the cat’s tail.” – you know, things of utmost importance.

She whispered solemnly, “Did you tell Daddy that you got diapers with genies on them?”

I can remember all of the radio stations – numbers and call letters – that I listened to regularly during my youth in Los Angeles:

94.7 – KMET (rock)

95.5 – KLOS (rock)

102.7 – KISS (pop)

105.9 – KPWR (well, they called themselves “Power 106, so I assume those were the call letters) (pop/hip hop)

106.7 – KROQ (new wave/post-punk/goth/alternative)

But I can’t seem to get Sammy to understand the concept of “radio.” I don’t mean that I’ve tried to explain the waves, the receivers, the amplifiers, etc. I mean, I can’t get her to understand that I can’t pick what song will come on next, or even skip a song she doesn’t like. She has been raised with iPods, DVRs, Pandora, and streaming Netflix. Radio is very confusing to her, and she doesn’t like it one bit.

And now I’m starting to understand the real meaning of the concept “nostalgia.”

Sammy calls our new Honda Odyssey, the “Honda-see.”

I just went to a yard sale, and I bought baby boy clothes for the first time. Oh my god, I’m going to have a son! A son!

Sammy has a bunch of Barbie dolls and one of them is black. She has designated the black one as The Prince in her fantasy-play, and consistently calls it “him.” Interesting. I suppose it was the most obviously different of all the dolls. I’m sure she looked for a penis first, though.

One of the most common phrases out of Sammy’s mouth lately is, “Mommy, when the twins come out of your belly…” followed by some question about what life will be like in the near future.

I love maternity clothes. When else does a forty-year-old woman get to wear overall shorts?

You never realize how many acronyms surround us until you have a child who is learning to read. Sam is constantly being baffled by “words” without vowels. I try to explain it to her, but she is so excited by reading that she doesn’t care. And I don’t want to dampen that enthusiasm, so I don’t correct her very often. Today, she cracked me up by reading “Hubble.”  ”Mommy, look – it says Hubble! Hubble! Hubble!”  She was pointing at my computer screen so I looked for an ad for something space-related, until I realized that she was reading, “HBL.”

So we’re at the National Air and Space Museum, and we’re looking up at satellites which are hung way up high on the ceiling of the hangar. Sam asks what they are, and Adam and I struggle to explain:

“They’re machines that stay up in the sky and fly around the earth.”

We read the placard:

“Tracking and relay data satellites.”

That didn’t help.

“They orbit the earth. They just keep going around and around.”

“And we send signals up to them and they send them back down.”

Finally, I think of something that Sam knows about.  I say, “Signals are things like your voice on the phone. You can talk on the phone and your voice goes way up high to the satellite and then it comes back down to another phone so someone else can hear you.”

Sam looks up at the satellite and yells, “ECHO!!!”

On our way to Red Lobster for my birthday a couple of weeks ago, Adam and I were trying to talk up how great lobster and crab are. (Sam has had crab, but it had been a long time.)

Since she loves butter, I told her that the best part about crab and lobster is that you get to dip them in butter. I said, “It comes with a huge bucket o’ butter!” Sam loved that:

Sam: “We’re going to get a bucket o’ butter! And a clump of crab!”

Me: “Yes! And lots of lobster!”

Sam: “And a mountain of mashed potatoes!”

Me: “And bread – how much bread will we get?”

Sam: “A bathtub of bread!”

See what I mean about her creativity?