BrooklynGirl

Master Manipulator

The Boy sidles up to me and puts his head on my shoulder.  "You're the best mommy," he says, patting my cheek.

"Thanks Buddy, you're the best son."

"I love you Mommy."

"I love you too, Buddy."

He looks up at me and smiles.  Then the smile becomes a smirk.  "Can I watch a show?"

I feel so...used. 

Present Books

The Boy is developing an obsession with the toy catalogs that seem to arrive in the mail daily.  He calls them present books.  He flips through them for hours (okay, minutes, but in toddler time, it seems like hours) and makes demands about what he wants for Christmas.  Right now he's lobbying hard for a $300 ride-on train which he has absolutely no chance of getting unless it turns out Santa really does exist and has his own shopping budget.

The avarice arrived quickly.  He didn't really get Christmas last year.  He knew that there was someone named Santa who had something to do with toys, but he didn't understand the whole bit about asking for presents.  He had started to get it by his birthday in August when he made some gift requests but mostly just focussed on having a party with all his friends--the one thing we couldn't give him since we had just moved away from them. 

I'm trying to deflect the focus on Christmas a little by talking about Thanksgiving, but The Boy's no fool.  He sees the Christmas decorations (already up in so many places) and knows what's up.  It's going to be a long holiday season.

Dad Is Great

All the pre-schools in our new town are affiliated with churches.  Sometimes this relationship seems more significant than other times, and though The Boy's upbringing has been deliberately secular to this point, I didn't consider the God issue very much before signing him up for pre-school.

On our tour, the director told me that the teachers lead the students through a prayer before lunch: "God is great, God is good, etc."  I wondered how I would explain the whole idea of God to The Boy, but other than that, I didn't especially mind the prayer.

Now, The Boy has been pretty tight-lipped about his experiences at school.  He is eager to go and disappointed on the days that school doesn't meet, but he doesn't respond very well (if at all) to my questions about what he does while he's there.  And whenever I asked him directly whether he said a prayer at school before lunch, he ignored the question.  Until today.  

Today I asked him if he knew what a prayer was, and he nodded and explained that you fold your hands together, bow your head, and say:

"Dad is great,

Dad is good,

And we thank Dad for our food.

Amen."

Indeed.

Gender Studies

The Boy and Dora go way back, but recently, he's been expressing a strong preference for Diego as his televised opiate.  So much so, that I started to wonder if it was a gender thing: did he prefer Diego simply because he was a boy?*  I decided to ask some questions:

Me:  Buddy, is Diego a boy or a girl?
Boy: A boy.
Aha--just as I thought.   But then:

Me: Is Dora a boy or a girl?
Boy: A boy.
So much for that theory.  I wonder if he knows the concept of "boy" or "girl."

Me: Is Pablo a boy or a girl?
Boy: A boy.
Hmmm.

Me: Is Tasha a boy or a girl?
Boy: A girl.
Interesting.

Me:  How do you know Tasha's a girl?
Boy:  Tasha's...Tasha.
Good point.

Me: Is Tyrone a boy or a girl?
Boy: <Giggles>Tyrone is....a moose.

*Personally, I think Dora kicks Diego's ass, at least in the old school episodes before the explorer star/super baby ridiculousness.

Sentences I Never Thought I'd Say

Tonight at dinner:

"No, you can't have any more apple sauce until you eat one of your tater tots."

Yes, they're organic, no trans fat tater tots, but they're still tater tots.  Lunchables here we come!

Comparison Shopping

The Boy is obsessed with apple sauce--he can  finish a 23 oz jar in one sitting if  left to his own devices.   I tend to  buy Santa Cruz, because it's unsweetened and organic and because we are always running out of it, I tend to buy it everywhere.  Since it's something we absolutely, positively must have, I have tended not to focus too much on the price: it costs  what it costs.

Recently, though, I started paying attention and couldn't believe the difference.  Here are the prices for the same jar of apple sauce bought around the neighborhood over the period of a month (with the exception of the first place, all these stores are within a 6 block radius):

Fresh Direct:     $2.49
C-Town: $2.99
Union Market: $4.49
12th Street Market: $4.99
Village Market: $5.99

Everyone's a Critic

Yesterday we got home from picking The Boy up at school and everyone was cold and crabby so I suggested a movie viewing.  The Boy looked through my old collection of Disney tapes and demanded The Lion King.

He's seen bits of it before, but I had to ride the fast forward button pretty hard to get past the scary parts (and there are A LOT of scary parts). I reminded him that it was a scary movie, but he was set on it.

So, we watched it. I hit fast forward a lot on my own, but sometimes he would ask me to fast forward, saying, "This part is TOO scary." 

Finally, we  get  to the middle of the movie--the  love scene between Simba and his  long  lost love as "Can You Feel The Love Tonight" swells in the background--and I thought this would be a good, non-scary opportunity to sneak off and deposit The Girl, whose nursing session had been the real reason for this little film festival.  As I'm tip toeing out of The Girl's room, The Boy comes barreling towards me, screaming, "Mommy!  This part is TOO sing-y!"

Walking Right Into It

The scene unfolds over dinner...

The Boy: Can I have some chips?

BrooklynGirl: Some what?

The Boy: Some chips.

BrooklynGirl: No, no--we don't have chips.*  Chips are a treat, not dinner.

BrooklynGirl continues spooning pureed carrots into The Girl's mouth when she notices The Boy's not eating.

BrooklynGirl (exasperated): What's the matter?

The Boy: I'm sad.

BrooklynGirl: Why are you sad?

The Boy: I'm just sad.

BrooklynGirl: I'm sorry.  Is there anything that would make you less sad?

The Boy: Chips might make me feel better.

*We have plenty of other junk; chips are just not my junk food of choice.

Christmas Revisited

As I have mentioned before, I am a badly lapsed Catholic so until we sort out a religious philosophy, Christmas seems to be about presents, Santa, and evergreens.  Right now I'm okay with that--and The Boy marked his first Christmas as a sentient gift recipient being very okay with that.

But, as we took down our decorations, he got sad.  "Christmas is over," he announces somberly whenever we see old Christmas trees waiting for recycling on the curb.  He is ecstatic when we pass a house that still has its decorations up--including, most recently, a giant inflated nativity scene:

"Who's that?" The Boy asked, pointing at the manger.

Hmmm.  The only begotten son of God, who died to take away the sins of the world?  Too much information?  I decided to go with, "That's baby Jesus."

"Who's that?" He asked,  pointing at Mary.

"That's Jesus's mom."  Easy enough.

"And that?" Pointing at Joseph.

"That's Jesus's dad."   Basically true.  Sort of true.  I looked around for lightning bolts or mortified neighbors.

He was quiet for awhile looking at the nativity scene, and I wondered if he was thinking about the Big Question: Who is baby Jesus and why is he so special that he gets his own inflatable form?  I hoped he wouldn't ask because I wasn't ready to go there.

"Okay," he said, meaning that he was ready to go.  He took a few steps away and turned around to wave goodbye.  "Bye Donkey!  Bye Sheep!" He said to the heretofore undiscussed animals on either side of the Holy Family and trotted down the street.

Huh.  I guess I've got  some time.

Gone to the Dogs

I have come to the realization that I am not a dog person.  In particular, I am not a city dog person.  There is a woman who lives across the street from us who, several times a day, walks her dog across the street so it can pee on the sidewalk in front of our apartment.  Then she walks  back across the street where she lives and goes inside. 

There's no question that dog pee is less disgusting than dog poo, but still.  Ewww.  The sidewalk smells like dog pee when it's hot or when it rains, and when you have a toddler who loves, loves, loves to color with chalk on the sidewalk in front of his apartment (even if that is a crime), well, there's not enough Purell in the world to make you feel clean.

And, of course, there are the charming individuals who won't deign to clean up their dogs' shit.   May they be sentenced to a Dantesque hell in which they spend eternity covered in the droppings they leave behind.

Nonetheless, the Boy, has all the makings of being a dog person.  He loves them.  Or is at the very least dog curious:  he likes to look at them and excitedly yell, "Dog! Dog! Dog!" while wrapped tightly around the leg of a parent.  One of his favorite things to do is visit a spot in the park known as Dog Beach, where dogs can swim in a little man-made lake and children can watch them and/or feed  the ducks.  Last week sometime after we left that area, a large dog attacked and nearly killed a small dog. 

We have not been back.

But dogs are everywhere, and it doesn't really matter to me whether they're small balls of fluff or large masses of sinew--I tense whenever we get close.   And I'm not sure whether it's the dogs I mistrust or their owners because, really, if you think  it's a reasonable thing to let your dog pee in front of your neighbor's house every damn day,  how rational a person can you be?