Books

So we spent a bit of time at a local thrift shop called Serenity House, where we found a few great books.  The first was
Matilda, Who Told Such Dreadful Lies...

Written by Hilaire Belloc and illustrated by Posy Simmonds.

The plot of the book is a sort of "boy who cried wolf" scenario, with Matilda telling awful lies and then.....well, here's the title of the ORIGINAL version of this story:

Matilda, Who Told Lies and was Burnt to Death.

I am not kidding.  Hilaire Belloc was not messing around.  I have vivid memories of reading Belloc's Bad Child Book of Beasts when I was a kid.  Hilaire Belloc (1870 - 1953) was a French-Anglo writer -- and he wrote a lot -- and his "Cautionary Tales" are really quite terrific -- in the sense of really terrifying!

So I was very pleased with my purchase.  When we got it home, I looked at it a bit more closely and noticed an inscription on the inside of the front cover, reading "To Melissa: On Dec 2 1995 -- First Confession at Queen of Angels in Port Angeles!"

For readers unfamiliar with the specifics here, "First Confession" is a rite of the Catholic Church that comes before your First Communion -- typically when you're in about the first grade.  While First Communion is often an occasion for celebration (lots of folks invite families and have a little party and the young person receives gifts such as books, a bible, a rosary, etc.), First CONFESSION, at least in my experience, is a rather somber moment, and certainly not one that involves parties or presents.   In fact, in my own recollection (and that of some of my Catholic friends) First Confession was a somewhat terrifying experience, because you had to sit down and remember all the sins you had committed and then tell a priest ALL of them, and not forget about any of them, or that was another sin, and then you had to go to Confession again (or at least that's what we thought).  And again, we were first graders.  We didn't really HAVE much to confess.  (Yes, Brendan, I know I had locked you in the closet several times by this point, but really, a sin?)

Anyway, the person who inscribed this book to poor little Melissa was commemorating what was possibly a scary thing by giving her a book in which the young, female protagonist tells a lie and then is burned up in a fire.  Wow.  Now that's a heck of a gift!

In slightly less terrifying book purchases, we also acquired a copy of Eric Carle's Pancakes, Pancakes!
 

It's one delicious read!

Goth Parenting, Take 2

So this afternoon we were in the car on a long drive around various farms. I had a few secrets in my purse to entertain Lucy. One of them was a blue squishy stress-ball-thingie in the shape of a brain (they gave them out at work). I gave it to Lucy and she was delighted. Until she remembered the zombies.

Lucy: It's a brain! the zombies will want to eat it!
Me: Well, when the zombies come, you can throw it, and they will go after that fake brain, and then you can escape!
Lucy: But I don't want them to have this brain! I like this brain!
Me: Oh. Sorry. Well, zombies are just pretend anyway! You don't have to worry about them.
Lucy: Mom, why do zombies eat brains?
Me: ....... uh, Jake, help me out here?
Jake:.......
Lucy: Why Do Zombies Eat Brains?
Me: Well, we don't really know, Lucy. Maybe we can ask the internet later.
Lucy: Well, if zombies eat brains, why don't they eat their own brains?
Me: How would they eat their own brains?
Lucy: [sticking out her jaw and making a motion with her hand] Like that.
Me: Oh, awesome. So when you're a zombie, you can eat your own brain.
Lucy: Yes! I'll be a friendly zombie. I won't eat other people's brains. Only my own.

We're going to make millions on this idea. There will be Zombies. Friendly Zombies. Even if they have to eat their own brains.

Also, this tidbit, heard literally moments ago at the dinner table:

Lucy: Mummies are mean, aren't they? MUMMIES -- Not MOMMIES. (she very clearly enuciated each).

Arguments with Lucy

I felt the need to document this "conversation" as it presents a first (you'll see which one). I was getting her a bowl of cereal for breakfast this morning, when I hear her yell from her highchair:

Lucy: I don't want that bowl!
Me: OK, you can have this bowl instead.
Lucy: I want two bowls!
Me: Nope. You get one bowl. Which one would you like?
Lucy: I want two bowls!
Me: Nope. You only need one bowl for your cereal. Which one would like?
Lucy: I want two!
Me: One.
Lucy: Sometimes, I have two bowls. Daddy gives me two bowls.

Yes indeed, this is our first "but [other parent] said I could/lets me do this" rebuttal. Awesome.

Regarding Teddy

If you've ever met Lucy, you've most likely also met her Teddy Bear, who accompanies her not merely while she sleeps, but on most outings, visits, and activities. Teddy was a gift from Stephan and Jess, and he's a wonderful, lovable fuzzy guy. Early on, when we realized that Lucy had really taken a liking to this particular fuzzy guy, we bought a "backup Teddy" in the same style in case of loss or other harm. We exchanged the two every once in a while to keep him clean and keep up the appearance that this was just one bear.

But recently, BOTH teddies have been showing a lot of wear. When people on the street see him, they comment on what a "well-loved teddy" he is (and they don't even know that the one they're seeing shows only HALF the wear!). Worrying about what would happen if serious medical intervention was needed for Mr. Teddy, we actually bought two more backup teddies. The problem is, those, more recently purchased Teddies looked SO DIFFERENT from the original 2 teddies. The new ones were plumper, their fur shinier and not matted, and their arms still had stuffing in them. Either we had to actively mess them up to make them look like the current teddies, or somehow make Lucy believe that her original teddy had magically transformed. But could that possibly work? We were skeptical.

Fast forward to last Thursday, when Lucy got sick in the middle of the night, apparently without waking up. When we realized what had happened, we put her in the bathtub and laundered everything in sight. Teddy was in bad shape. So we thought, well, maybe this is the chance. Previously, we had never told her that we were washing Teddy -- we just switched the dirty Teddy with the clean one without her knowing that anything was amiss. But this time, since she knew Teddy was in a Bad State, we thought it might work to tell her that we were going to clean Teddy and the shiny, dapper fellow we were returning to her was simply Teddy after the bath.

It worked. Sort of. My fear was that she would revolt completely, knowing that this was not HER Teddy, and she would reject the new bear. Instead, she embraced him, delightedly cooing "My NEW Teddy! Look! Look!" She seemed to have no worries about where old Teddy was. We had a brief moment of panic when she asked what was in his hand (where he has stitching) and we realized we didn't know if the previous Teddy was the same (turns out they were the same). It's interesting that she seemed to both believe that this was HER Teddy, at the same time that it was a NEW Teddy.

Here's a shot of Lucy & Carter with the plump NEW Teddy:

So far, so good. We'll be bringing NEW Teddy (and his backup version) along with us for our next trip. I wonder how long it will take for him to look like his predecessors. And I wonder how much this whole charade is going to mess up Lucy in the future, when she reads this and understand that there were four teddies masquerading as one lovey. We'll start the future therapy fund now.

Conversation with Lucy

Last night, I was doing a little work on my sewing machine. Lucy became very interested and came in to watch. She asked what I was doing and what "that" (the sewing machine) was, and then we had this exchange:
Lucy: I want to work the machine
Me: Sorry honey, you're too small. I'll teach you how to work it when you're a big girl.
Lucy: Make me big!

Conversations with Lucy

Second (?) installment

Grandma has been visiting for the past week, so things have been rather exciting for Lucy with an extra person around every day to entertain (and be entertained by) her. She enjoys spending time recounting past glories, such as Halloween ("I wear Carter costume!") and trick-or-treating ("I saw Curious George. He scared me." [true story]) and, more recently, the holiday parade downtown ("Kids gave me candy!"). This is great fun.

This evening at dinner, we were talking about an upcoming wedding we're attending in January, and Lucy, hearing the word "wedding" assumed (reasonably) that we were talking about the wedding we just went to a few weeks ago. "I go Christy's house!" she gleefully announced. To simplify the matter of where we were going for the wedding of Christy and Eric, we just told her we were going to Christy's house, so I believe that it's possible that at this point, Lucy believes that the whole of the church and reception hall where Christy & Eric were married, and perhaps even the hotel where we stayed, are "Christy's House." Sweet! Nice diggs, Christy.

Anyway, to get to the best part of the conversation, we asked Lucy if she remembered what she did at Christy and Eric's wedding. Here's a fairly accurate transcription of the rest:
Lucy: "I played!"
Me: "Did you dance?"
Lucy: "Yes!"
Me: "Who did you dance with?"
Lucy: "A little boy."
Me: "That's right!"
Lucy: "His name Nathan."
[It is true that his name is Nathan, but I really had no idea that she even knew his name, let alone that she would remember it three weeks later. We were all very surprised by her detailed information!]
Me: "Yes, that was Nathan. Nathan Laub. Those Laubs are good eggs."
Lucy [immediately]: "Good eggs come from chickens."

OK, so I really don't know why I said they were "good eggs"; though of course they ARE, it was a funny thing to say. But her response cracked me up. Like an egg. A good one.

So thanks again, Christy & Eric, for a super-fun time. I think there are some images on Flickr that show just how much fun Lucy had. And Nathan, you're on notice: you have an admirer!

Bottle-Free!

The Big News of the weekend here at 83 Durant is that we staged an intervention, and Lucy is officially off the bottle. She had her last bottle before bed on Thursday night. Since then, we've re-engineered the pre-nap and pre-bed routine. We offer her a sippy cup of milk, read her a book in her room, then put her into her crib. Surprisingly, this has not caused a disaster. We were both pretty worried about making the transition, and we were expecting some serious resistance. But apparently, we were more attached to the bottle than Lucy was. This doesn't seem to have disturbed her sleep schedule at all.

Hooray! True to form, we've worried about the wrong thing entirely. So now I need to worry about trying to figure out what the thing is that I should worry about.