MamaStories

- Amie, what’s the opposite of short?

- I don’t know! [she even pfsh-es, with an attitude already!]

- If you’re not short, what are you?

- Naked.

“I don’t know” (with the attitude) is now a favorite, as well as “why?”, “why?”, “why?”.

She is also afraid of wolves, now, suddenly. She doesn’t want to read Peter and the Wolf all by herself. But this morning she woke up giggling and when we asked what was up, she replied, shaking with glee:

“The wolf jumped out of the sea!”

Amie drew “The People” today. 4 of them. 1 big person and 3 tiny ones:

She also signed her name on the back:

We’ve been working on letters, and this is her first full written word (besides “8oo”, i.e., “Boo”). The A she has down pat. The M still tends to flatten out and go on at length. For the i and the e she needs a reminder in the form of a verbal description: “a line up with a dot on top”, “a line up and three short lines across”.

She has been very keyed up lately. Very repetitive, anxiously so sometimes, swallowing sounds and whole words in order to get it out as fast as possible: a song sung for the tenth time, a statement made the fifth time around. She talks and sings nonstop. She can’t fall asleep because her mind is racing. Her head hurts when you comb her hair. “Growth spurt,” we call it.

She has also been very imaginative, making up songs and stories, some cute (”Yesterday there was a dinosaur here and we played well together”) and some quite outrageous (”Mama pooped on the floor yesterday and I had to clean it up!” - so not true!).

Toddler life. Nonstop. Breathtaking.

Amie has been having nightmares about a dinosaur coming into the bedroom at night. It has spurred us to investigate whether she understands the difference between what is real and what is not, or “fake”. It is a good idea - we agree with several child developmental specialists - to make sure she does understand.

Baba was convinced she knows the difference already, but I wasn’t so sure. It’s not because she knows the words that she knows what they mean. So he asked her.

- Baba: Amie, is Monsters, Inc. real?

- Amie: Yes.

- Baba: Okay, yes, the movie is real. But is what happens in the movie real, or fake?

- Amie: Fake.

- Baba gestures triumphantly: See?

- Amie adds spontaneously: Boys are fake too.

Ha!

The next morning at breakfast we broached the subject again.

- Baba: Amie, am I real, or fake?

- Amie: You not real and you are not fake, you are just a boy.

We have a lot of work ahead of us and I so look forward to it!