Because there is more than just Stella.
Tonight at dinner Steve managed to gain Stella’s undivided attention long enough to ask her what she is thankful for. We all sat quietly as she pondered this heavy question and waited to see what she would divulge as the one thing that really makes her life complete. She looked down at the table and lost herself in thought for a good 15 seconds before raising her head and emphatically announcing “my placemat.”
Us too Stella, us too.
Had a conversation with Stella lately? No? Unless you have a copy of the Super Secret Stella Decoder Book, you might want to rethink it. A conversation can go from zero to “Huh?” in about 2.2 seconds if you haven’t yet studied up the chapters titled ‘Older-and-Older,’ ‘Get it at Target,’ ‘Come on, be sad with me,’ or the more lengthy chapters of ‘Whyyyyyy?’ and ‘The Downsides of Soliciting Input From a 2-year-old’ Other chapters in the early stages of development are tentatively titled ‘Be careful what you suggest,’ ‘Get your finger out of your nose’ and ‘Frankly Stella, it’s about your hair.’
With her verbal skills progressing at a rapid pace, it is about all we can do to keep up with Stella’s interpretation of the events that make up her life. It is like a person who has all the pieces of a puzzle but isn’t exactly sure how they all fit together. And in Stella’s case, she has a pair of scissors and is not afraid to use them.
Lately, she has determined that most things are best found at Target. Last week when I was telling her that we need to get her some good everyday barrets that will actually stay in her hair she quickly piped up that we should get them at Target. [NOTE: this is NOT a call out to all grandmothers to race out and buy barrets.] When she recently requested white juice, and I informed her that we don’t have white juice (what the heck is white juice?), we only have berry juice she suggested that we just get our booties on down to Target and load ‘er up. I really do think that she has somehow gotten the impression that everything in her life was somehow ascertained at Target, and it is for this reason that I know it is only a matter of time before she will suggest that we go pick up her new baby sister or brother at Target.
Speaking of the new Walston unit, when I pressed her on the issue of what we should name her new baby sister or brother she emphatically put her bid on the table: Golly-Golly-Ga. I am all about making Stella part of this new process, but I think I am starting to realize why most parents do a dry run with a pet or two before handing over such a monumental task. I don’t dare ask if this is a first and middle name all rolled into one, or if this is simply a first name. I am at a total loss as to what would be just the perfect name to provide a good flow to Golly-Golly-Ga Walston. And to be honest, I am a little afraid to ask.
Stella recently has begun making proclomations about what she will do when she gets ‘older and older’. Most, although comical to hear her proclaim, follow a certain amount of logic. There are others that take some serious interpretation. According to her, when she gets older and older she will drink wine and beer, have a baby, drive a car, eat spicy food, go to work, be a big sister, the list goes on and on. These interchanges usually take place on those rare occasions where we are able to tap into that deep, deep, DEEP well of logic buried inside her brain and inform her that no, unfortunately, she cannot drill holes in the window moulding and she, in her ultimate wisdom, decides that she can live with that knowing that when she gets older and older she will drill as many damn holes as she wants. It is a fairly liberating experience to know that we have finally reached a point where telling her no doesn’t necessarily guarantee that she will melt down into an emotional pile of goo. I get giddy just thinking about it.
And if you are wondering about the chapter titled ‘Come On Be Sad With Me,’ it is a new game we play (entirely created by Stella, natch). The rules are simple: Stella makes a sad face then instructs you to “Come on, be sad wit me.” You respond by making a sad face. Stella comes over and gives you a big hug and tells you she loves you. It is my favorite game. Ever.
…and will probably be on sale at Target before the end of the year.
It was okay that Stella was addicted to my Crystal Geyser “blue water” – after all, it was just regular old non-caloric water with bubbles in it. However, I can’t bring myself to get her addicted to my juice (my secret diversion from plain old water that I treat myself with once or twice a day). Yes it is 100% juice mixed with sparkling water, but it somehow brushes up against that soda pop line a little too closely, and I just don’t want to have to start explaining why one thing is okay to drink all the time and another is just a special treat. I know you know what I am talking about. So, I have done what any parent faced with an ever smarter and more inquisitive child would do and I stealthily pour it into an opaque cup, and hope she doesn’t notice it and ask for a drink. Which, as anyone who ever reads this site knows, is a deeply flawed plan.
It became ever so obvious how misguided my plan is today when I was sitting at the computer with my covert beverage at my side, and Stella looks at me and points at my cup asking, “What dat?” To which I respond, “It’s water.” To which she responds:
“Why it taste like juice?”
Let the tally begin:
Stella: 1
Mom: 0
Tonight, on the drive back from our trick-or-treating excursion on the Plaza, Steve allowed Stella to consume an entire snack-sized Milky Way bar. Refined sugar, cornstarch-laden milk chocolate and nougat is apparently the trifecta that is the toddler equivalent to crack.
During dinner we tried counteracting the effects of the sugar high with some artery clogging cheese pizza and milk (doesn’t milk counteract everything?) but soon realized that, really, there was no way to unring that bell. Throughout the meal, she would repeatedly look at me and say, “What doing, Daddy?” then proceed to break down into fits of giggly laughter. Calling me by her father’s name is the cornerstone to her whole schtick these days, and she just never seems to tire of it.
She refused for a single conversation to take place where she was not front and center stage. Whereas most people use the conventional interjection of “Excuse Me” or “Hey, look at this” or “Over Here! Over Here!” to get one’s attention, Stella has adapted a method that is effective, yet not exactly adhering to common rules of etiquette. Lately, when she needs your full and undivided attention, she will simply cut in by screeching “BEEEEEEEEE!” at the top of her lungs. Basic human instinct is to stop EVERYTHING you are doing when you hear this noise, thereby leaving her with the perfect opening to ask you the highly important question like “What doing, Daddy?” As I said, highly effective – yet not quite adhering to the Emily Post standards manual.
As I sit here writing, I realize that I am living inside Stella’s House-of-Sugar pinball game. She has run back and forth from living room to kitchen about 15 times and demanded that Steve play play dough, read a story, do bath-time (with ALL the toys), read a story, let’s chase Rosie, one more story, BEEEEEEE!
This is the part of the story where I wonder out loud if taking all of my child’s Halloween candy to work and pretending the whole ritual never occurred makes me a bad parent. I mean honestly, by next year my chances of manipulating the situation will have evaporated completely. Just give me this one, last, fleeting chance at control of a situation.
So, as we head off to an evening of sugar crashing, I will leave you all whith a photo montage of the days leading up to and including the year of the ladybug.
Today was one of those days where, for some reason, we didn’t really end up spending any time outdoors. On the days that this happens I often look back in hindsight, and am amazed at my inability to stop banging my head against the brick wall that is parenting a 22-month old, and just shut her outside for an hour. Nothing calms the nerves like making nature take the brunt of my child’s need to destroy. I find it interesting that not only has this solution not sunk into my thick head yet, but it also managed to escape Steve’s consciousness that if we just put her in the hamster wheel that is our backyard, we wouldn’t have to both be on the brink of losing our collective minds.
The threshold of how many messes I can deal with in an afternoon is in the area of about 23. How do I know this? Because my precious, curious, expressive energizer-bunny of a child tests this threshold a minimum of twice a week. There are only so many times a sane person can clean up the lake created from an overturned cat water dish that has then been tracked from one end of the house to the other. Or how about how many times we as humans should be required to clean up yogurt that has been cellularly metamorphosized from a healthy food snack to a finger paint substitute? Not to mention the skill mastery that I have adopted in order to be able to effectively roll 25 feet of toilet paper back onto the roll. If we, as a human race, are given a finite number of times to say, scream, sigh or plead the word “no,” then I am afraid I am going to be fined a hefty sum for single-handedly depleting all reserves. And don’t even get me going on the fact that no matter how much I beg or plead, Stella refuses to stop picking her nose. [Picture it: we are standing at the checkout in Costco last weekend, and Stella is in the cart on the opposite side of the conveyor belt. I hear the bagger giggling and I look up to see Stella’s finger halfway to her brain. I beg. I plead. I do everything but leap across the lurching line of food and forcibly remove her index finger, and all she does in response is look at me as if to say “Make me.”]
Steve has spent the better part of this week fulfilling his civic duty at the county courthouse, and has been lucky enough to be in one of the courts that only runs until noon each day. You’d think that having two of us in the house all afternoon would actually make things easier. Nope. This afternoon, after managing to avoid partaking in any relevant energy-burning activities, we found that we had a rabid wolverine on our hands. Not only was she ready to eat us both alive, but she had somehow managed to turn us on each other. The divide and conquer strategy is not supposed to be put into play until she is at least 6 or 7. The book says so, dammit!
So, really what this all boils down to is that we have a kid who is enrolled in the G.A.T.E. program for the adorably cute yet cleverly deviant. This is SO going on your transcripts, Stella.