the whys

It has come to pass that now everything Gaz sees in the world must be hit with a few hundred "whys." I don't know what it was about yesterday, but just as it seemed like she was winding down for the evening the whys commenced. About everything.

After about an hour and a half of trying to answer her questions, usually more than once, she went to bed relatively easily and after making shadow puppets with balloons for a few minutes, she drifted off to sleep much more easily than she has in a week.

So the whys are annoying and shall continue to annoy us for a long time, I think, but if it wears out her brain to the point that I don't have to deal with a screaming, thrashing kid who's trying to escape from the bed at bedtime, I'm all for it.

In other news, Gaz now makes her toys talk in funny voices (just like Mommy and Daddy do), and gets upset when she can't draw letters like Mommy does. She calls her H's "crazy" and then mopes. I try to tell her that some two-year-olds don't even know what an H is, but still she mopes. Coloring outside the lines also makes her upset these days.

It's hard being Gaz. Today we have to go replace the chocolate bunny that I thought she'd forgotten about the bottom half of and ate. So we're going to go get a sale chocolate bunny and maybe distract her from the missing bunny bit.

Inquiring Gazes Want to Know

Mark returned home from work and Gaz asked him, "Daddy, did you loose some liquid?" We don't know what she meant by that, but we agree that it's funny.

ETA: Just when I thought it was safe to blog, Gaz, who is now painting at the dining room table, just remarked, "I try really hard to paint, but Daddy keeps bothering me!" (For the record, Daddy was trying to discourage her from getting paint on the table. Our little artist is apparently quite sensitive, not to mention headstrong. Whatta combo.)

Oh, and I just remembered that Saturday when we got in the car to go up to Wisconsin, she asked, "Um . . . Mark, can you turn on the heater?" Which is exactly what Grandma Judy said when she was last a passenger in Ookla. Gotta love that little myna bird.

Zoo and Tea Party

Gaz has just discovered the joy of riding her Scuttle Bug trike over bubble wrap. All she needs is a rousing top-of-the-lungs rendition of the alphabet song to complete her noisiness.

In other news, she was pretty well behaved yesterday, despite much exertion at the zoo (for a friend's birthday) in the morning and at the baby shower (a tea party with all the trimmings!) in Wisconsin in the afternoon. We made a rather late day of it, and even still she wasn't too bad on the drive home. She talked to the one star she could see out of her window. She noticed that it seemed to be traveling our way, and so invited it to come home with us.

Her cat obsession continues, as she spent the entire baby shower trying to con various people into letting the cats out of the bedroom. She compensated by then eating so much icing that she was wired and crazy the rest of the day.

Now for an early dinner, because I imagine today we're going to have a nice, early bedtime.

Tabula Rasa!

Uncle Greg is visiting with us at the moment. Gaz thinks he's the bee's knees, and I think he's done something to her brain.

You see, today they're playing with her MagnaDoodle, and in addition to teaching her to say "tabula rasa" every time she erases the board, he's also drawing pictures for her. Pictures which she is coloring and staying inside the lines. Consistently.

I'm not sure what he did, but shazam! I'm going to have to sit her down with some crayons and a coloring book to see how well she's retaining this new skill.

I am amazed.

To a T and Beyond

Gaz has drawn her first letter, and guess what it was. Letter #2 was an H that really wanted to be an A but couldn't figure out how to be slantier.

But that's not even the hard work. Far beyond the rigors of language acquisition and such, there's the very important business of "Am I in trouble?" and "What did I do now?" It's not easy for a two year old to figure out the differences between what's weird and okay (strumming her ukulele with one hand while using a calculator with the other), weird and unsanitary (licking people), weird and obnoxious (insisting on being held up on the window sill so she can reposition the seasonal window cling decorations in a big pile for the thirtieth time), weird and messy (planting popcorn kernels on the carpet), and weird and encouraged (singing the Mothra song). That's a lot of work.

Mostly, she's weird. Loveably weird, even when we've both got colds that put us in bad moods. Yesterday she made up a shopping list: four salads and an apple. But to get the salads, I had to take that section of 12" cardboard tube, lay it length-wise along my legs, and type on the inside of one end. It wasn't easy for ignorant old mom to figure this out, but somehow we avoided tantrums long enough to get the four salads and put them all in one imaginary bag. Then we got some apples from a cabinet door in the kitchen, and we ate them right away. The salads were forgotten.

Today Pony, Eunice, and Rubber Lizard learned a valuable lesson about apologizing after you knock everyone over. Now it's time for a snack of "being soup." I'll let you know how that goes.

fresh outta clever titles

Today Gaz exploded out of the bedroom, where she'd been quietly wandering around with the door shut, and announced that she was just like a giant bunny. We haven't even seen Curse of the Were-rabbit lately, but she's got a pretty long memory these days. (Last night, she said she wanted to show the binoculars that Grandma Judy gave her to the boys downstairs, and I'd even forgotten where the binoculars came from.) Anyway, she leaps out of the bedroom and there's that familiar aroma about her. And she says, "I even have a little tail like a bunny!" and turns around to show me the lump in her diaper.

Yes, I know, no one likes a post about poop. But I have to share these stories with someone--I can't embarrass her in front of her future prom dates by myself.

Gaz has also been taking care of Sweetie's brother (that would be the larger baby doll that she got from Grandma Judy and Grandpa Will for Christmas) because he's been crying off and on all day. She comes to me, cradling SB in her arms, saying, "He's crying. I'm taking care of him." She also calls him her brother, and just now, her daughter. But then again, the floor fan is also her sister and best friend.

She's been quietly walking around with the doll, sometimes making him talk with me in a deep voice. But then it was him for him to go to sleep, so she took him into the bedroom, buried him under blankets, and closed the door, so he could fall asleep in the quiet. Very sweet. Then he woke up and had a tummy ache, so he had some tummy medicine and now they're resting on the recliner (she's once again buried his head under her discarded pajamas).

Just another normal-strange day.

And a belated and poorly executed thank you to everyone who sent me their condolences, whether electronically or otherwise. I am sorry I'm thanking youse here, but you know how I am about mailing things. (Those Christmas cards from 06 are still here somewhere. . .)