You are full of ...

leader follows
Originally uploaded by toyfoto.

Before you answer, read the following ...

The average human body contains enough sulfur to kill all fleas on an average dog, carbon to make 900 pencils, potassium to fire a toy cannon, fat to make seven bars of soap, phosphorus to make 2,200 match heads, and water to fill a ten gallon tank.

I found this factoid here and immediately thought: 'WOW, this would make a great children's book.'

How frightening is that? (I guess I won't be quitting my day job any time soon.)


THE YAYA REPORT
What's happening at the other mom's house ...

THE TROUBLE WITH TROLLS
It is quite possible, considering today's Yaya Report, that we are raising a bully.

A little background ...
Over the weekend, Annabel's yoga buddy, Maya, gave her a Happy Meal, complete with Toy Troll from the venerable MickeyDs. She was estatic. It was a toy to covet.
Soon, she was trying to wheedle Maya's toy away from her when her big-hearted friend wasn't looking. Oh sure, she pretended it was all in the name of consideration, using as her ruse (or cover) the phallacy that she was actually bringing the doll back to its rightful owner. ... I knew better.

Flash forward ...

For the past few days, for some mysterious reason, Troll has been personna-non-grata. Annabel played with Pooh, the kittens and dogs, the Playmobils and virtually every humanoid and non-humanoid plaything she could get her mitts on. Everything, that is, except THE TROLL.

The need for intervention ...

Lori, trying to show Ittybit the error of her ways, took the Troll under her wing and gave it a voice. When they played "House," the crazy, redheaded bridge dweller came a-knocking with Lori's help. Annabel let her in, finally, but when Lori's back was turned, out she was put as if she were the trash. Eventually, Annabel abandoned the House and got out the "Schewl Bus." Soon everyone got a chance to get onboard. Everyone except for you-know-who.

LORI: Why can't Troll go on the school bus?
ITTYBIT: There's no room.
LORI: But Kitty and Doggie are on the bus, and you said before NO PETS!
ITTYBIT: Oh (takes K and D off the bus).
LORI: OK. Now there's room on the bus for Troll. Can she go on the bus?
ITTYBIT: No. You Cain't GO on the bus.

The moral of the story ...

LORI: Somebody's always got to be the bad guy, I guess. Otherwise there wouldn't be much of a story. ... Come to think of it, I wasn't too nice to my trolls, either.

Rest assured, we'll be working on an affirmative action for trolls.

Superstitious minds

I am Irish, which by heritage, according to my mother, means I am
genetically predisposed to believe in superstition.

I can tell you, with only a modicum of shame, that I don't walk under
ladders, I am careful when handling mirrors and always - ALWAYS - throw salt over my should should any spill unexpectedly from the shaker.

I've probably already mentioned it here somewhere, but I don't care,
I'll blame "mommy brain" for the repeatition. Shortly after Annabel was
born a bird somehow got into the house.

I was recovering from the abdominal surgery of a C-section, and was
laying on the couch with the kiwi, as we called her back then, when a
blur of gray and feathers flew past us.

My heart sank.

For those of you unaware of the omen: A bird in the house is a sign of a death. If a robin flies into a room through a window, death will shortly follow.

I can't really blame hormones for the panic that followed. I ran
(holding my steri-strips and all) to find Jed. I can't believe he
understood a word I was jammering about until he saw for himself the tiny starling that had made its way inside.

"We have to get this bird out of the house unharmed," I cried, desperate to back ourselves out of this very bad thing that had happened. I surmised that a bird in the house was one thing, and bad enough as it was, a dead bird in the house would be a thousand times worse.

Somehow, Jed managed to accomplish the task, telling me all the while not to panic.

So with that bit of background in mind I must ask why then, yesterday, did I allow a pink (breast cancer-fundraising no less) umbrella be opened and held overhead inside the kitchen? I mean is there a person alive who does not know that opening an umbrella inside the house means bad luck ... and worse luck if it's held over their head?

All I can guess is I must be slipping, or perhaps my horizons are opening up or my blood is being thinned of its celtic origins by the delight of a toddler unencumbered as yet by such tales.

As she danced around the kitchen island swirling the pastel-colored bumpershoot, I paid no attention. It was Jed who took it away and told her that there would be none of that indoors.

So outside we went, she and I, for a walk in the rain to test out the new umbrella.

As luck would have it, It stopped raining.



THE YAYA REPORT
What's happening at the other mom's house ...

A telephonic transcript

"Hello, mom? (Holding the reciever to the back of her head) Mama? (a bit louder) ... two and three and purple and baby found sumpin' ... MAMA?!! you there?"

Lori tries to adjust the receiver so the earpiece is somewhere near her ear. ... she backs away, holds up her index finger and gives her a stern look.

"One minute, peas. ... Okay? Just one minute. ... OKAY?"

*** picture a little girl face all grown up.

Let's call the whole thing off, OK?

I've been reading a lot about the so-called "Mommy Wars" lately.

Most interesting to me was a review in the Atlantic Monthly (which in my humble and unlearned opinion has been treading water since it made the move from Boston to D.C.) by Sandra Tsing Loh entitled "Rhymes with Rich." on "The Mommy Wars: Stay-at-Home and Career Moms Face Off on Their Choices, Their Lives, Their Families," a collection of essays edited by Leslie Morgan Steiner.

In it Tsing Loh (I love saying her name as I type) mints the term "Aflufemza," wherein the problems that come with affluence are recast as the stuggles of feminism.

Basically, it calls out women from both camps -- the SAHMs and the Career Women, all of whom were highly educated and often writers for prestigous journals and publishing firms -- and castigates them for being rich and having choices yet still complaining as if they were women who are really struggling with the daily trials of life.

The piece singles out several silently egregious exerpts wherein writers bemoned their lots:

In the "Mommy Wars," Sara Nelson of Publishers Weekly describes her battle so:

"About half of the mothers of kids in Charley's class are working at least part-time. There's Maria, who designs handbags; Lauren, who works in advertising; Paulette, who writes children's books. The mother of Charley's friend Nick is an independent management consultant. And for the most part - and I gather this is unusual in the fiercely competitive world of New York private schools - there's little conflict between the employed mothers and the ones who stay home. ...

Still, there is some tension bubbling under the surface. One morning one of the stay-at-home mothers referred to herself, quite pointedly, as a 'full-time mom.' Those three words made my blood boil. I've been a mother every second of every day for the past ten and a half years, whether I'm researching an article or pushing a swing. Would anyone dare to suggest that a woman who worked in a factory, or as a cop or a firefighter - a woman who worked at least partly so that her children could have food and shoes and the occasional trip to Toys 'R' Us - was any less a mother than my school acquaintance, who'd had the privilege to opt out of the workforce?"

Tsing Loh's response:

"No, but apparently someone would dare to suggest that elective employment in the upper reaches of the publishing world is on a par with wage slavery and required-second-salary public-sector work. Which got me thinking how wonderfully refreshing it would be for Nelson to transfer Charley right away into a racially and socioeconomically mixed New York public school, with the children of mothers who actually are the factory workers and cops and firefighters she so admires."

I think the point Tsing Loh makes is interesting, however, in that these woman -- who have the microphone as well as the means to hire baby nurses and nannies, and get the best of everything for their children, instead of likening their struggles to those of women who are in abusive relationships or struggling to put food on the table or fearing that when they send their kids into the Classroom they may wind up picking them up from the Emergency Room -- are squandering their ability to make a real and substanative difference.

I know a lot of affluent people believe that just because they are well off doesn't mean their kids should suffer the dangers of low-performing schools just to make a point. Yet, perhaps, the point they are missing - the point we are all missing - is that if they stayed and used their voices and their influnce to improve those schools (arguably for their own children's sake) they could make a significant and tangible difference for all children.

If there is such a thing as Mommy Wars, perhaps it's time to call a truce. What is it solving anyway? It seems to me, at least, that it's a battle we are fighting in our own minds. A skirmish to ease our fears and feelings of inadequacy. There's more to us than that, isn't there?

THE YAYA REPORT
What's happening at the other mom's house ...



I can't believe this ... Really. Really.

A visit from Beelzebub

show me the lurve
Originally uploaded by toyfoto.

06.06.06 ... the number of the beast ...

Ok, so it's 2,000 years late, you know some demons like to be fashionable.

Ours certainly does. So much so that it makes me pine for the days when I could dress her in anything I wanted and there wouldn't be so much as a peep out of her little rosebud lips let alone a low gravely roar destined to erupt into a bone-chilling scream if she-who-must-be-appeased is not.

Oh, how I wasted my opportunities all those months by just throwing on whatever was next in the pile of clean zips. It is my penance, I suppose, that she carries on like a flailing banshee every time I try and exchange her worn purple shorts and too-small purple onsie (her absolute favorite ensemble) for a stylish girly outfit I myself would never wear but LOVE, nonetheless.

The first time I witnessed what I thought of as a tantrum, I laughed hysterically. For a split second, her body pulsed with 10,000 volts of excess energy and her fists pummeled the air with every ounce of her weight. In no time it was over. From the perspective of a new mother marveling at the size and shapes of the residue in her diaper, I can assure you, it was the cutest thing ever.

Of course I knew they'd grow in magnitude these emotional shock waves, but I thought my Richter scale of tolerance would grow, too.

I never expected to be holding her bedroom door closed while she stood on the other side, trying to rip it off its hinges in a fruitless effort to knock time off her "Time Out." What else could I do? The figurative door had already closed on any "time off for good behavior" once she'd climbed out of the crib, opened the door and ran to the television room, not once but THREE TIMES.

So after a loud, mother-daughter standoff (probably not our first, but definitely the most climactic to date) she finally got off to a fretful sleep without the usually pleasantries. I wondered what I was going to wake up to this morning; the day of the proverbial BEAST.

It sounded a little like the tinkling of windchimes in the cool, just-about-summer air:

"Oh, hi mommy. You see this? It's my binks. I'm AWAKED now. I'd yike some hot milk, peas."


THE YAYA REPORT
What's happening at the other mom's house

Oh, my. It would appear Annabel has gone deaf.

LORI: "Annabel, we don't color on the couch. We only color on the coloring book. ...

.... Anna-Bel? Are you listening to me?"

Or maybe she's just practicing to be an attorney

ANNABEL: "I'm yus cheuking to see if it works."

Of course, she might also be a private eye

LORI: "Oh, you're listening now, aren't you? Now that I'm talking to your mom on the phone, huh? Yeah, I can see you're little wheels turning up there: 'Un-oh, your telling mom all that stuff?' Yep. She's watching me like a hawk right now. Guilty conscience."

I am still recovering from the weekend's excitement

Our town has been atwitter about the Hannaford Supermarket opening on Route 9 since rumors of its impending pounding of the bucolic landscape started fluttering around these here parts a few years ago. There have been fights over traffic patterns, roundabouts and the furtherance of suburban sprawl. Endless letters to the editor and editorials pro and con. But to be quite honest, we were as ready for a good supermarket that was clean and offered a healthy selection of organic comestibles as an evangelical for the second coming. "If they are willing to bag groceries," I said, "we are willing to let sprawl be damned."

So, when it opened its doors officially Saturday morning, Jed was there (we needed milk) salivating to get a look around. He happily reported back that the evil, unnamed grocery-with-no-previous-competition's parking lot was empty. Better still, he gushed upon his return, despite the megalith's market being packed to the rafters with shoppers he still made it through the line in two minutes (yes, dear folks, he timed it).

So by Sunday he was ready for the BIG SHOP. And off we went as a family for a big adventure at the supermarket.

Stop me when this gets pathetic. ...

Too late, huh?

*sigh



YAYA REPORT
What's happening at the other mom's house: Road Trip

Lori: "If we go to E's house you have to leave when I tell you to, OK? If you say no, we won't be able to go back there."

Annabel: "OK."

Gets there and plays for a while. ...

Annabel: "I want to go home now."

Lori: "Are you sure?"

Annabel: "Yeah, I go home now."

on the walk home ...

Annabel: "Yaya ... I didn't say no."

Thinking about it for a while ...

Lori: "That's right, you didn't. You are so good. We can go back there whenever you want, you sweet and precious boo."

Witness zombification

"Well, to begin with, nobody, and I mean nobody, can talk a junkie out of using. You can talk to 'em for years but sooner or later they're gonna get ahold of something. Maybe it's not dope. Maybe it's booze, maybe it's glue, maybe it's gasoline. Maybe it's a gunshot to the head. But something. Something to relieve the pressures of their everyday life, like having to tie their shoes.
... All these kids, they're all TV babies."

- Drugstore Cowboy

For this interest of historic accuracy, I must admit this photograph, by all rights, should have me seated behind the glowing rays of the cathode tube just to the left of our ittybitty TV baby.

It's not a pretty picture, and something of which neither of us is proud.

Babies, all the books say, should NEVER watch TV before they are two. NEVER!!!! And we introduced her WAY too early. Her first friend was Elmo (who she quickly jilted for Ernie).

Sure, there are a lot of hazards one might surmise that might come from television viewing; the least of which include eye strain and an insufferable urge to pester parental units into purchasing a veritable fortune of otherwise forgettable merchandise.

There's THIS frightening problem, made even more fearsome because the study shows that 85 percent of the parents whose children were injured in this manner didn't know it was a common occurrence.

But let's face it, few of us are worried about a 40-lb hunk of plastic, metal and glass flattening our kids. We're concerned with whether television viewing will lower their IQs while increasing their wastelines and violent tendencies.

According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, however, we're also worried about whether we'll have to miss Sopranos because of Sesame Street.

This just makes me want to throw out our TVs ... All seven of them.

Jed puts his adult television addiction squarely on the shoulders of his mother, or more accurately his upbringing, which forbade television viewing early on and restricted it later in his development. Yet, he is proud of his resourcefulness in overcoming the boundaries keeping him from pre-teen zombification -- ruses which included writing a paper on "Why he should be allowed to watch television for the good of his education" and fashioning a replacement cable when his mother removed (and hid) the power cord while she was at work.

I, on the other hand, hail from a family of television connoisseurs -- hearty people who relished every second of "Barney Miller," "St. Elsewhere" and "My So Called Life." Our television was on non-stop whether anyone was watching or not. Oddly enough, television doesn't often hold my interest. I find myself turning it on as background noise so I can safely get lost in the warm glow of my computer. (However, unlike my husband, I don't credit my parents with my predilections.)

The truth is, neither of us is good at pulling away from any form of media once our interest is caught.

... But we're working on it, I promise.

Veruca grew up to be a very lovely woman, right?

I dread explaining this one ...
Originally uploaded by toyfoto.

Last night as we sat around the television watching Wallace and Grommit's "Amazing Adventures" for the 400th time, Annabel's primary interest turned to "mountain climbing."

Or more accurately, clamoring up to the back of the couch and announcing: "I'm a mountain, mommy. I'm weary, weary TALL!"

I know she was wired, perhaps overtired, and as she continued to treat the couch like a playground I sat there like a drone, thinking WWLS (What would Lori say). And then she toppled head over heels, tumbling over throw pillows to land on the floor, miraculously, feet first.

I ignored Jed's glare as I waited for her reaction. I thought any second she'd be bawling her eyes out with the shock and indignity of falling unexpectedly. But I was wrong, she climbed back up to the top and yelled, "Look at meeeee, I'm Willy Wonka," referring, no doubt, to the part of the movie where Gene Wilder fakes infirmity and performs a flip after a near pratfall.

And then the UNTHINKABLE happened. (There's MORE you ask?)

Oh yes, it's not enough that she's allowed to run roughshod over the furniture, or that she's commited movies to memory, she's also chosen favorite characters and songs that make us cringe.

She confirmed a parent's worst fear when she climbed back up to the top of the couch, threw back her head and belted out,
"Don't. Care. How. ... I want it NOW."

THE YAYA REPORT
What's happening at the other mom's house

A subliminal game for parents ...

Originally uploaded by toyfoto.

Remember playing that juvenile game of adding "in bed," to the end of every fortune plucked from the cellophane-wrapped cookie that is read aloud? Now I'm kind of doing the same thing in parenthood, only sadly what's in parentheses isn't as funny. Here's an example:

Forever we've been battling personal hygeine wars with the chicklet. Nail clipping among the least reported here on Ittybits & Pieces, but nevertheless a problem of insurmountable proportions (for me). I have to thank Lori profusely for clipping her nails lo these couple-a years since her birth (because I suck as a parent and can't manage to do it myself). I'm not sure how you do it, but now I know: You have exponentially more imagination and communicative powers than I.

Never in a million years would I have thought to go through a ritual as girly as a manicure to interest her in the must-do task. (I knew I should have been born a girl!)

I don't even have to say "use your powers for good," Lori, because I know you wouldn't think of doing anything else.

I'm NOT throwing rocks, mama!

Ok. Someone tell me that the propensity for perjury is normal in preschoolers. Tell me that your ittybits routinely tell you they are NOT doing the very thing that you can see for yourself they ARE doing, even while you stand there watching, pleading with them to stop.

I thought I'd have at least a few more years before having resort to hidden cameras to find out just who did rip up the phone bill and flush it down the toilet: the dogs, the dear or the disgruntled dad.

I know all parents think their kids are the most brilliant animals on Earth and I am no different. There's a WHOLE Internets' worth of blubbery blob here attesting to this notion; extolling both the the virtues and vices of our toddling wunderkind. But really, I ask you, do we have a precocious liar on our hands or just a normal tiny tot?

Because I'm thinking, perhaps, instead of Yale we should be saving up for bail.

Another bad mommy moment

This is the look of victory
Originally uploaded by toyfoto.

Don't be fooled. This is not the face of sweetness. This is the look that says "I win" in no uncertain terms. It is the thin-lipped countenance of determined celebration; the knowing gaze of understanding.

The expression of delight in a job well done: she's successfully trained her parents, (*ahem, cough-sputter* read: mother) to acquiesce to her desire to keep her hair from EVER touching water.

Oh sure, she will get in the tub. Constant work and ample bribery have guaranteed her willingness to splash around with an ever-growing army of bath toys, combed from all four corners of our humble abode before each and every submersion.

By the time I've coaxed her in by telling her that I'm not going to wash her hair "right now," her mental time clock starts ticking. She washes between her toes and scrubs behind her ears, but when it comes time to wash the back of her neck she starts to squirm for the towel and an end to "baftime."

Obviously this is a "mommy matter ... a maternal failing," as I am routinely in charge of cleaning up the kid -- proof that I am unable or unwilling to deal with a struggling-soapy-squealy squidlet yelling 'I’m ALL DONE here!' as she scrambles out of my grasp.

The man in our life, after all, has it all down. He was even able to talk her out of taking home a pillow-shaped bag of Fruit Loops from the grocery store, averting a disastrous outburst by simple substitution.

When he handed me a happy toddler carting a box of plain-jane Rice Chex instead of sugar-packed puffs, I had to ask: "How did you manage that?"

"I said 'NO'."

Daddy is more fun than mommy

I'm a tiger
Originally uploaded by toyfoto.

Annabel: "You cay-n't wash my hay-er"

Daddy: "I can't? How about mommy; can she wash your hair?"

Annabel: "Not WANT wash hay-er. I'm all done here. I'm done!"

Daddy: Well, one of us is going to wash your hair. If I were you, I'd pick daddy cause he'll be using a firehose."

Ode to a bad day

keys to the universe
Originally uploaded by toyfoto.

If only the keys to the universe were made out of Play Doh.

We could eat whatever we wanted and never gain an ounce.
We could hide our eyes and whatever it was that scared us would magically disappear.
We could pretend we could fly, and it wouldn't matter if it was a lie.
We could leave the dishes and the duties and know they weren't the boss of us.
We could stop before we said all the wrong things.
We could forgive each other anyway, regardless.
We could take our love and admiration for granted instead of our angst and misunderstanding.
If only the keys to the universe were so pliable.

THE YAYA REPORT
What's happening at the other mom's house ...

Yaya has managed the near impossible (for me), she's gotten Annabel to wear her hair in a "pony tail" for most of the day. But while it does my heart good to see her in the new do, I'd be doing cartwheels of joy if she'd let me anywhere near her hair. *sigh.

All in the family

Mi familia
Originally uploaded by toyfoto.

Just about this time a year ago, I received an unusual gift - a photo frame that looks like a family tree with metal-esqe medallons dangling from decorative limbs. It's just big enough to accomodate seven locket-sized photographs.

This is exactly the type of doo-dad that would stop me in my tracks at the trinket shop. The kind of thing that would have my head spinning with possibilities. I might even pick it up and carry it around for a while before I talked myself out of buying it.

Sadly, I'm not nearly as crafty as I appear. If it takes scissors and glue I'm likely to throw my hands up in the air and call a truce. Sure, I made a photographic Family Tree for Annabel, collecting dozens of images from our families' histories, but the cutting and pasting required was the virtual variety.

The frame has migrated around the house for the past 12 months. Moving from table to table, mantle to mantle. But sadly, it still contains the images of strangers that came ready-made.

As I aimed my camera at Annabel today, trying to capture her "writing a card," to Ama Linda, who will be visiting soon as she makes her way home to Maine for the summer, the tree was foremost in my thoughts (and shallowly in my viewfinder).

It occured to me just how excited I was at the prospect of seeing my mother-in-law, and how lucky I am to have real, honest-to-goodness family (who make the effort to come and see us, gush over our kidlet and sing into the answering machine on our birthdays) and not just two-dimensional reminders of their existence.

There are other things I take for granted, too: I remind myself how nice it is to have my own parents a stone's throw away; how much I miss the people who have their own busy lives and schedules to keep across the country, even though I know they'd like to live nextdoor; and how amazing the Internet is for allowing me to keep in touch with every one of them without even thinking about it.

It's a good thing, too. Because otherwise, I know I'd have to give names to the ready-mades and invite them for Christmas. That's just the kind of gal I am.

THE YAYA REPORT:

Originally uploaded by toyfoto.

What's happening at the other mom's house ...

"Okay, stop everybody stop messin' around!" "Come on everybody, come on!"

She marches around and then very politely offers E. some dirt on a stick.

Seriously, I don't think there's enough dirt on sticks available to the general public. Marketing people, how 'bout we get on that?

Our lives ... now with 33 percent more color

Most of the time Annabel is a play-by-proxy kind of gal. The kind of child who looks at the tub of finger paint with longing for the end product but has no interest in the procedure. "You do it," she commands, directing with the point of a finger - from a clean and safe distance - to the spot on the paper where she wants the color to wind up. "No. Red. Put red here, mama."

But last night another child sat in her place at the painting table. As this stranger baby painted her arm a pleasing shade of purple, raising the marker to her lips and accidentally leaving a mark, it gave Jed an idea. And he joined the stranger baby in becoming her ever stranger parent. I'm not sure if he had really thought it through before the deed was done.

As I snapped away while he pretended to be Bobby Brown, I announce that tonight's bath will be brought to you by Daddy. To his credit, his intentions were honorable in completing the soapy mission right up until the bath banshee baby we know and love returned to her rightful place in our humble abode, refusing to go anywhere near the water.

The father we know and love returned, too, handing up a tag-team verdict: "You were encouraging me by taking photos so you're IT," he announced. Then he made himself a SECOND margarita and went into the livingroom to watch TV.

"Well that's all well and good, pal. But if this purple doesn't come off, it's going on your permanent record."

THE YAYA REPORT:

What's happening at the other mom's house ...

The war within.

ITTYBIT: "I don't want binky for naptime."
LORI: *jaw drops. "What?"
ITTYBIT: "I don't."
LORI: "Ok ... you sure?"
ITTYBIT: "uh hhh. .. Not ... I want. No. I not want it."
LORI: "You are such a sweet and precious boo. You are such a big girl."
ITTYBIT: "I want my binky for bed."
LORI: "OK."

The winds of change

windy days
Originally uploaded by toyfoto.

I remember when I felt time was just standing still. Ten years after college ended, I was still wearing my ratty Levis with the worn knees and sitting on salvaged couches. I could move through life as I pleased, or so I thought, even if it wasn't true.

There were signs of responsibility -- there were more bills to pay, pets that needed attention and care, and there was a growing accumulation of things that seemed to own me -- but nothing that quickened the passage of time. It just seemed to drag along from one day to the next.

Then along came Annabel. Even in pregnancy, I felt time speed up. Nine months didn't seem long enough to adjust to this new existence that was headed our way. I spent a lifetime coming to terms with who I thought I was only to have a 6 pound, 2 ounce little girl show me who I could be, and, more importantly, who I wanted to be.

Time is just flying by much too fast now. Weeks are flowing like minutes. She's already half past two, and if I'm not careful to pay attention, I miss the best things.

On the way to Yaya's house today, Annabel demanded "wind."

It was cold. I tried to talk her out of it, but she persisted. She wanted the wind. So I pulled a jacket across my lap, turned the heat to high and acquiessed.

Turns out she wanted me to open the windows of the car so she could liberate a roll of paper towels - leftover from a recent cleaning - one sheet at a time. I had to laugh when she heeded my rear-view admonitions and, drumming her fingers on the roll, asked if she could make "little pieces" dance on the wind.

"Absolutely not," I stiffle a laugh. "That's wasting AND littering. And we don't do either of those things."

I didn't really expect her to listen, but I had no idea how closely she was paying attention.

As we continued to drive she asked me if I "yiked" the wind.
"No," I answered. "It's too cold out today. I have goose bumps."

A few streets later she started to list our differences on the matter: "You no yike wind. I yike wind. Mommy not yike it. An-na-bell yikes it."

Something about the categorization of this new knowledge and the tone in her voice, which was matter-of-fact if not melodic, made me add something else to the list of differences. Something I didn't want to think about at 8 in the morning. Namely our names.

I didn't want to lose my indentity in marriage and neither did my husband, so we kept our respective names. Up until Annabel was born I corrected people who called me Mrs. The Mister, and delighted that during her first days on this Earth the name on her wristband was mine. For those four days in the hospital at least everything about her was mine.

It was stunningly greedy of me, yet I felt she was a part of me; someone I knew better than anyone even if it was only for a moment in a lifetime. When we left the hospital, I left as the person I had always thought I had been and she left with a new name on her birth certificate. Our first major difference, and not likely the last.

As we drove down the road with the windows fully open now and the heat blowing hot against the tops of my feet, Annabel asked the question again:

"Mama, you yike the wind?"

This time my answer was different: "Yes, Baby. I LOVE it - I love the wind."

I could hear her excitement bubble over: "You yub it? I yub it, too!"

Sometimes all it takes is a little fresh air to remind me what's important.

THE YAYA REPORT

Originally uploaded by toyfoto.

An american idol

Just singing ALL DAY at the top of my LUNGS! About EVERYTHING and NOTHING ... into my SALAD SPOON!

It goes sompin' like dis ...

La, la, la, la. Ya, ya, ya, ya, ya. No, no, no, no, no. La, di, da, da, da, doh.

Who says people don't read newspapers anymore?

can you believe this rag?
Originally uploaded by toyfoto.

Who am I kidding? They don't. I don't even get a paper delivered to the house anymore. Is that horrible or what?

My job, my way of life for the past decade or so, is on the verge of extinction and I don't even have a subscription. Why? Here's the short (and embarrasing) list. ...

7. We get enough free newspapers in the mail, which we use to start fires in the woodstove, line the flower beds and pack away old dishes.

6. I don't have a bird ... ergo no cage.

5. I do have a toddler, which means I have been unable to read anything that requires large pages be turned since late 2003.

4. I can't stand that stories featuring Brittney Spears or American Idol make Page One ... ever.

3. I listen to radio. I read magazines. I surf the Internets.

2. I can't stand that icky feeling I get from newsprint ... and the ink stains my hands.

1. Recycling is not as pleasurable an experience as the other "Rs" - reduce and reuse.


THE YAYA REPORT
What's happening at the other mom's house ...

Let's just say the only good thing that happened today was that Annabel was reported to be a "little angel" while she visited with Miss Sherry (one of Lori's dear friends, who also provides daycare for kidlets) while Lori went to the doctor to see about her lingering cough. Diagnosis: Walking pneumonia.

In other not-so-good news: Lori's other half (whom Annabel calls "No, Honey") broke his leg playing soccer on Sunday. His cast is blue.

This just in ... my tiny patron. During a diaper change Annabel turned her head in the direction of this photograph on the playroom wall and said, "I yike your pisher, Yaya." To which Lori replied, "You know, your mom took that picture. She'll be glad to know you like it."

Suffering fools and learning to share

Somebody once asked me, on a job interview no less, what I would do if I had a magic wand.

"I'd change that question."

"Well, where do you see yourself in five years?" she continued her probe.

"In your job."

Surprisingly, I wasn't offered employment.

So here I sit in sheer amazement that Annabel's favorite thing is a bit of that old "magic" - literally.

Although It took careful prompting at our yoga class today to convince Annabel to share her coveted toy - A Cinderella magic wand she received last week as part of a plethora of costume playwear - when she finally handed over the pink glitter stick with the metalic finial, she did so without animosity.

It is always kind of exciting to see how toddlers react to the world around them. Little people, who sometimes "get" the basics much more forcefully than the big people. It wasn't beyond her understanding that since the wand was her toy, she could have it for always and her friend could only use it for now.

It is also a little humbling to know that this little bean already seems to have ample logic and a healthy dose of restraint.

Quailities I don't often see in myself.

Out of the mouths of babes ... the new and improved, revised Toddler-English dictionary

"Turn yight off, daddy, turn yight off fo' sweet dreams."
(In 20 seconds she will tell him it's dark and scary in her room.)

"I'll be right back. You stay here, OK?"
(The new and nice version of "Don't FOLLOW ME.")

"You yike dis? You yike it, mama?"
(That's great, honey. Now please take your elbow out of my eye.)

"We get shawshege at bank, mama?"
(No, baby. We get 'mondey' at the bank.)

"I'll be right there."
(Translation: I'm going to stay RIGHT HERE).

"I'M HIDING FOM YOU!!!
(Translation: I'm HERE, come find me).

"This has the weary, weary, bad, scary, scary, shark in it!"
(But that's what I like about it.)

"No, you fired!"
(Even she thinks I'm a bad mommy.)