These are our fairy trains. Or adventure on her day off of school. Ada invented ‘Penguin Day’ as the destination for our trains. And we had games, songs, followed by a tea party! Three years old bliss! (39 yo fun, but a lot of work too, whew!?)
The mysterious line-ups
Mysterious things have begun appearing around the floor of our house. Complex, multi-colored line-ups have begun appearing everywhere. At first they were simple, side-by-side groupings, like this:
An early line up...
A group of (plush & bristle-block) penguins
Food is lining up too!
Then, they evolved to systematized channels… and they became more multi-dimensional:
Two strands
A right angle
And multi-media:
Wood, plush, and plastic mixed-media
Slipper and water shoes acheieve a sort of symmetry
Shoes and puzzle combo
and just today, the dimensions have gone upward, outward more architectural…
Gaudi?
The key ingredients seem to be: i) items must be touching, ii) they must be placed one-by-one, iii) balancing must be achieved that can only be grasped by the creator (and not easily understood by a lay person). Something.. someone.. is putting a lot of effort into creating these mysterious agglomerations.
And all I know is that they keep coming…
Who could be making them….
Some clues.
For full disclosure, I have been watching first generation Star Trek.
Ada & the eyebrow
Yes, she gets it from her dad. (The eyebrow & dare-I-say ham personality) Both find it hilarious that I can’t do it!
The Henry Octopus kite
We’ve been having a lot of fun with kites, especially, Henry Octopus, who we’ve been using since the spring. See, the Bay Area fog is good for something! Ada had gotten good too. Unfortunately, Henry Octopus took his final sail in the CA sky on a trip to Santa Cruz. His stick snapped. Bye bye Henry Octopus. Thanks for the good times.
Oh, Mr. Garbage truck, where is my Christmas tree?
Ada loves talking about the garbage truck. We have been running to see it on Thursdays for almost a year. We hear it coming, and Hamid, Ada, or I say, “Garbage truck!”, and with quick eye contact, we run to the front door (formerly swooping her up), go out on the porch (usually in bathrobes/PJs) and wave at the garbage men — watching them (2-3 guys) do their amazing work. They are fast and quick, and amazingly coordinated and synchronized as they wheel a maze of multiple- drives & cans, a truly athletic spectacle! Ain’t no joke!
Garbage truck is a big part of our world & imaginations.
We talk about garbage truck driving around town. We see pickle, cracker, fish, and carrot driving cars, riding bicycles, and generally popping up, as we go about our business. It was the start of our first jokes, looking out a restaurant window 3-4 months ago, when we saw ‘pickle driving a car’. So garbage truck (& pickle and co.) are a big part of our lives here.
But Mr. Garbage truck is also curious because he took our Christmas tree! How weird that is?! Way back in December, Ada loved our Christmas tree. We got rid of it like everyone else in January. We put it out on the curb & we told Ada that the garbage truck took it, not thinking much of it. The next week she saw the garbage man pick up neighbor’s Christmas tree. How weird? What was that?
We did not realize it would require (now ongoing 6 months) of explanation. Its June, and Ada really still really wants to know: “Mr Garbage truck, where is my Christmas tree?”. Anyone have a good answer to this question? We try saying we’ll get another one in six months, when it gets cold out at Christmas time. But she’s more fixated than that. Its specific, “When is the Garbage truck going to bring it?”. She wants to know and ask them, “When can I have it back?”
She asks a lot. Now, with her newest vocabulary of a week or two of mastery, she’s told us, “I really like my Christmas tree”, “Can we get another one?”
Oh Mr. Garbage truck, where did you take our Christmas tree?
You know, Ada’s right. That is a good question.
What a weird, modern phenomena.
My Gorgeous Daughter
Hi world, treat me well.
This is Ada napping (i.e. trashing her room)
This is Ada napping. Can’t you tell? No?!, me either.
This is Ada napping (kind of)
Ada’s ‘big bed’ and dexterity have recently led to her discovering that she can, actually….aha!… ‘get up’! Our lives are forever changed. So far nights are fine. So far mornings are fine. (Actually, she calls out, “Mom-mmmmm-eeeee, mommmy, MILK! mommeee MILK!, mommee BOOK!” Starting at about 6:45am. Its quite demanding actually. There will be no late sleeping in this house!)
But, naps…another story. I can hear her trashing her room right now. Thud, thud, jostle, jostle, she tries the knob. Thwap! Thwap! Diapers strewn all over. Pajama & sock drawer: Boom! boom! Opened & slammed — contents emptied on the floor. Items attempted to be worn & quickly discarded. I may find one extra shirt on her next time I go in. Wipes dot the floor. She’s even plugged in a lamp. (Note to self: must re-childproof this weekend. Did anyone ever emphasize that childproofing is a process, not something ever acheived?).
I guess this what they call the stage of quiet self-play. (Somehow this sound more peaceful in writing!?) I think I see two cute eyes peeking out of the door at me.
Second mental note: Add childproof door knobs to that list. Appreciate her.
The question game
So Ada and I have been playing the ‘question game’ for awhile now. It started because she eats her blueberries so fast, if you don’t look quickly, you’ll miss it completely. We had this little cart in the kitchen with sliding drawers that you could push all the way through. One morning in January, eating breakfast, I took her little bowl of blueberries, put it into the sliding drawer, and pushed it out like a cash register drawer. Ching! “Take one!” She thought it was hilarious.
We added questions: “What does a cow say?”, “What is the puppy’s name?”, “What is something you eat for breakfast?”. It was our new game. We would go on and on. She loves it.
It has evolved since January. We play in the car. We play in the dining room. Mostly, it is a little white ramekin of berries with a tea saucer on top after dinner. We tap the top of the saucer, tap! tap! tap! Ask a question. It cracks open like a little mouth. ‘Take one!”. The questions now more complex. She asks, “Next question”. Sometimes we ask her to ask a question. (Her favorite is, “What do you drink in the morning?” “Coffee!” Okay, so Hamid has influenced on her on that one). We’ve covered most the topics we can think of. The challenge now is novelty: Rhymes, names, events, what color is…, who’s who, etc.
- The question game…
- …and the blueberry prizes!
Our most recent adventure was when Baba Bazorg was visiting. Baba Bazorg, Ada, and I were sitting around the dining room table after lunch. Baba Bazorg had asked a bunch of questions. I had asked a bunch of questions. We asked Ada to ask Baba Bazorg a question. She paused. Fidgeting. I asked her again, “Ada, ask Baba Bazorg a question”. She turned her head and said to us uncategorically, “I’m thinking.” We are stupefied. We raise our eye brows at each other. Baba Bazorg and I both wonder at the same time, “Did she just say, I’m thinking”? When/how did she learn to say that? We don’t say that very often (I can’t even remember an instance). It wasn’t simply parroting. Baba Bazorg works with children on language acquisition, and tells me how complex it is to learn abstract verbs. Wow. She was thinking. And she knew it.
I am really blown away, transformed in fact, by how fully formed we actually are. We have a lot to learn in this world, but we are full human beings from the beginning. We don’t simply get filled up. This is pretty cool!
Remember those books with the worm with the little hat (and tennis shoe)?
Ada has a new book. Remember those cute Richard Scarry books? Dogs, cats, animals driving cars shaped like pickles, carrots, pencils; and little cut-away buildings showing animals doing city activities and jobs? They are really fun at this age (2 and 38 years). Ada takes in a quiet moment of reading alone:
We’ve re-dubbed the Things that Go book “The Morning Book”. We take it out while making breakfast. It is a great solution for giving everyone a special activity, which is fun and connected, versus the grumpies that can emerge when we cannot “pick you up!”. Did you know that each page has a little worm with a little German/Swiss style hat? The lowly worm.
He wears one tennis shoe.
The Lowly Worm
(On a funny note and acknowledgment: I was googling ‘little dogs and cats in cars’, ‘street scenes with cut away houses’, and ‘veggie cars’, and feeling pretty silly — and ineffective– when I finally remembered, “Hey! there was a little worm with a German hat”, which immediately yielded Richard Scarry. My kind, and clever, friend Kerry also weighed in at 11pm, responding to a late night text message. She immediately knew Richard Scarry! Even with the poor description on my part. Thank you Kerry! Thank you little worm!)
Working on “sss”-words
We’ve been working on “s” words. They are rather hard to say, since they always involve a double consonant. So we practice, over and over & Ada loves it. She will ask & try over and over until she gets it.
Us: Say “stool”
Ada: “toowa”
Us: Say “ttt-ooo-lll’
Ada: ‘tt-oo-wa’
Us: “ttt-ooo-lll’
Ada: ‘tool’
Us: good! Say ‘ssss’
Ada: ‘sss-tool’
Us: good job! good effort!
Ada: ‘more! more ss-words!’…
So we’ve been working on: spoon, stool, school, squirrel, squiggle, stand, snake, smile, small. Double consonants are hard!