Clara and the Ocean

     Several slender fingers of foam washed up on the white sands of Brandenton Beach and tickled Clara's little pink piggies.  It was Clara's first time at the beach and her first time seeing the ocean.

     "Hey! Don't!" she yelled down at the foam.  She looked up at the ocean and scowled. "'Dop it!"

     "Are you scolding the ocean?" I asked. "Good luck with that."

     She turned to run from the waves and fell, plop, into a puddle of cold sea-water.  Her shock and fury were tempered some by her interest in the way the water continuously eroded the sand sides of the hole she sat in.  Further up the beach, some little girls were digging in the sand with shovels and pails.  Clara wandered over and helped herself to a shovel.

     "She can play with that," one of the little girls said, meeting my eyes.

     "'Ank-you," Clara replied after a few prompts.  She was already intent on digging, awkwardly trying to mimic the way the older girls dug.  She seemed interested in the way the fine, white sand on top gave way to coarser, pulverized sea shells underneath, and soon became completely engrossed in her work.  The salty wind whipped her hair into her face and she pushed it away impatiently with pudgy toddler hands.

     When I was a kid, growing up on a high desert farm in Idaho, our beach was a strip of black mud lining one of the Snake River's gentler turns.  We dodged big, floating patches of river moss, laced with yellow scum, while we swam.  Dad let the cows water at our swimming hole for several summers and they crapped all over the place.  A calf died in the shallows.  

      You didn't think about what was in the river water while you swam.  It was so murky, you couldn't see your feet. When you came out of the water, most often you smelled like dead fish.

     One time I ran up and down our mud beach in my bathing suit, mimicking a commercial I'd seen on our little black and white TV, where a beautiful-bodied model ran about in the surf of some glorious California shore.  Out there on the desert farm, achieving personhood was always a struggle.  Desert nature and relationships so brutal you better buckle down to survive and not daydream about self-actualization.

     Green-blue water, clear as glass, roared in the background on Bradenton Beach.  Clara awkwardly tried to make the shovel dig deeper, and then suddenly tossed it to one side. With supreme absorption she smashed a face I had sculpted in a wet mound, and then stole a seashell I was using to write her name in the sand.

     "My turn!" she yelled, trying to make the seashell write the way I had.  Putting my hand over hers, I helped her make a picture of a dog.  She giggled--she loves dogs-- and then immediately destroyed the picture.

     Later, after lunch, we came back and built a whole series of turrets and towers using a pail and shovel Popi (Simon's dad) bought for Clara. I have to admit, I was as dazzled by the sand and salty wind and roar of the ocean as Clara seemed to be.  If I had my way, I'd live right on a beach and spend every day swimming in the waves.  Just letting time idle by, not being anybody.  As faceless and nameless to the ocean as a jellyfish.
     Some little boys were building a pit in the sand next to us.  Their parents and grandmother sat next to them in chairs that faced the sun, wearing bathing suits and sunglasses.  The grandmother took off her sunglasses to watch Clara.

     "Her name is Clara?" she shouted above the surf. "What a beautiful little girl.  And so sweet and gentle."

     Simon and I held Clara's hands and brought her into the surf.  This time she had no disdain for it.  Her cheeks were pink with sun as she shrieked and giggled in the waves.  I'd stripped off her soaked leggings and her legs were ruddy-looking in the cold saltwater.
     The ocean seemed to draw Clara in.  She wanted us to bring her out into the waves like the older kids, and we had to keep pulling her back.

     "We have to leave in five minutes," I told her after a long time splashing and playing.  I have no knowledge of oceans, only rivers, but it seemed to me the tide was starting to come in.

     "Yes," she nodded.  But when it was time to leave, she sat down in a shallow pit she had dug and refused to budge.  Promises of candy in the car and hot bubble baths back at Grammy and Popi's failed to sway her. She stared at her plump little feet, coated with sand as white as sugar, and hung her head. Finally we told her she could watch the Wizard of Oz with Popi on his TV, and she reluctantly got to her feet.  Her pull-up diaper was completely engorged with seawater and she was so exhausted after playing in the sunshine and wind that she was compelled to lay her head on Popi's shoulder for a bit.
     I hazarded a last glance at the ornate sand compound the little boys next to us had built.  Not knowing much about oceans, of course, but still understanding it would soon be gone, gone, gone.

    

     

Flying with Clara

    While boarding a plane in Phoenix, Clara reached up a small, adorably dimpled paw and gently cupped the denim-covered butt cheek of an elderly lady right in front of us.
     It was Tuesday, and we were on our way to Tampa to spend Thanksgiving with Simon's family.
    "Clara, we do not touch strange people's bottoms," I hissed as the row we were passing twittered with laughter.
     The woman hardly paused. "Don't worry.  I got three grandkids," she tossed over her shoulder.
    Our seats on the plane were behind a tall man with a glorious mane of white-gray hair.  He looked like a silver-back gorilla.  Clara spent much of the trip from Phoenix to Tampa standing on her seat, trying to stroke the man's deliciously decadent hair.  He was having a double vodka tonic and so was unaware of the flurry of emotion his tresses evoked in the tiny traveler behind him.  At least, I thought he was unaware. Suddenly, he shot us a nasty glance over his shoulder.  Whether it was because he finally sensed the little fingers flittering above his mane or because Clara had started to push against the back of his seat with her feet, I couldn't tell.
     "Okay, you need to sit still," I told her.  "That man doesn't want his hair touched or his seat pushed."
     "Oh, hi man," Clara said, waving breezily in his direction.
     I tried to think of something to occupy her.  We still had three hours of flight, and she'd already watched both Elmo's Potty Time and Curious George on her portable DVD player, had a few bags of Annie's gummy bunny snacks, and scribbled in all the in-flight magazines with a pen.
    Before the first leg of our trip, from Boise to Phoenix, Clara had experienced nerves and claustrophobia ("Dit out!  Dit off!  I wan' out, Mommy!" she had yelled while we boarded the plane).  She'd squeezed Pooh Bear, panda bear and one of her favorite babies tightly as we sped down the runway, but gasped in delight when the front wheels lifted off the runway. After lift-off, there had followed a hushed conversation filled with reassurances between Clara and her stuffed animals ("Don't be stared."), and then she'd wedged them between the edge of the seat and the window so they could watch the scenery disappearing below.
     Now, however, half a day later, flying and planes in general had long lost their glamor.
     After old Platinum Shag gave us his disparaging look, I brought out a small container of chocolate milk. Clara leaned back against Simon's chest so he could administer the sips.  Ah, chocolate milk.  The warmth of Daddy's chest.  The proximity of her stuffed animals and both parents.  She wiggled her naked toes in delight (she'd long since shed both socks and shoes).  She tried to hold the chocolate milk in a puddle at the bottom of her mouth to better savor the taste.  It spilled over her bottom lip and dribbled down the front of her shirt.
     I got out the Wet Wipes, but she tore one from my hand.
     "No! My turn! I cleaning.  I washing.  Wash, wash, wash," she said, scrubbing the backs of the seats in front of us.  The woman sitting next to the man with the hair had her elbow on the armrest.  Clara reached through the gap in the seats and began to industriously scrub it.  Startled, the woman turned around part-way. We earned yet another sidelong glare from Silver Fox.
     "I am so, so sorry," I murmured, wrenching the Wet wipe from Clara's hands.
     "No, Mommy!  This is mine! I cleaning 'eats!"
     "Those seats are clean enough."
     Clara stood up again in her seat and began playing peek-a-boo with a young guy that sat behind us.  He and his girlfriend humored her for the rest of the trip.  I wondered if it was bad manners to let your child, no matter how charming, continue to engage people who clearly had better things to do.  Magazines to read.  Naps to take.  Especially since, being on a plane, these other people had no means of escape.  Luckily the young man and his girlfriend didn't seem to mind.
      I took advantage of the opportunity to slump with exhaustion for a few minutes and stare blankly at the gray seat-back in front of me.
     "Yay! I'm yanding!" Clara shouted as the plane finally touched down in Tampa.
   

Interpreting the World

     Yesterday I was putting in my contact lenses, when Clara reached over the counter and nabbed my toothbrush.
     "Brush teeth, Mommy!" I turned in time to see her little Pull-up-covered bottom disappearing down the hallway.  Later I would find my toothbrush underneath Wilbur.  He saw fit to nap on it.  I can't imagine it was very comfortable. Sort of the way having furry teeth because someone took your toothbrush is uncomfortable.
     After she did away with my toothbrush, Clara came running back into the bathroom.  She expertly finagled her hand past the toddler-proofing on the top drawer under the sink and wiggled it around to find a treasure.  Out came a pair of tweezers.  She carefully pointed the ends at her tiny chin and scrunched up her face in concentration.
     "Are you tweezing your crone hairs?" I asked.
     "Yes, Mommy."
     After a moment, she tossed the tweezers on the floor.  She pressed a little hand against one of her eyes.
     "Oh! 'ontact yens is stuck!"
     "You don't wear contact lenses," I pointed out.
     "Yes, Mommy!  My 'ontact yens is stuck!"
     "Okay, but this stuff is expensive, so only a tiny bit," I replied, squirting a few drops of contact lens saline solution into her little palm.  She slapped it against her closed eye like a man slapping aftershave on his face.
    Later, while we were sitting in the rocking chair in her room, reading stories, I noticed she had a hang nail on one of her toes.  I casually reached for it and pulled it off before she could react. (Had I gone for the nail clippers, she would have had time to mount a defensive, or at least to collect enough air in her lungs for a piercing scream of indignation).
    She saw the hang nail in my fingers.
    "It's a booger, Mom."
    "It's not a booger, it's a hangnail," I replied.  "It came from your toe, so how can it be a booger?"
    "It's a booger," she said with certainty, as I enclosed it in a Kleenex.
     The mailman came as we were piling bags of leaves in the back of the SUV to take to the landfill for recycling.  He handed the mail directly to Clara.  She scrutinized him with great suspicion and then, clutching the mail possessively in her arms, ran to the back of the garage.  "It's mine," she muttered.
     Before leaving for the landfill, I made her a grilled cheese with ham and spinach for lunch.  While I was cooking, she ripped open one of the letters, a survey of employee satisfaction from my work.  I had already completed the survey online, so I wasn't unduly worried that Clara was manhandling the paper version.  Inside was a blue envelope in which to return the survey.
     Clara carefully opened the blue envelope and looked inside.
     "It's dark in dair," she said.
     "I think what you're trying to say is that it's empty," I said.
     "Yep.  Is empty."
     I reached for a slice of bread to butter and saw her little fingers sneaking over the top of the counter. The little fingers felt around until she found the package of deli ham.  She pulled four slices over the counter.  I guessed what she was doing and intervened.
     "You may not put deli ham in the envelope."
     "YES! Put it in dair!"
     "We do not put deli ham in envelopes because it makes the ham taste bad."
     "No! No taste bad! Put in dair! Mommy!"
     "Let's find something else to put in there.  How about a balloon?"
      I sighed with relief as she accepted my offer.

Thanksgiving

     Yesterday we went down to the farm where I grew up for an early Thanksgiving dinner with my grandparents and extended family.  Since the dinner was at 2, we did some shopping before heading down.  That was how I came to be squatting in a bathroom stall at PetSmart, rolling Clara's pee-soaked tights down her legs while she chit-chatted with her stuffed animal, Mingo, and the woman in the stall next to us worked out some serious issues with her intestines.  Always pleasant, the vagaries of public restrooms.
     Anyway, we got Clara changed.  I convinced her to let herself be strapped into her car seat by promising we'd see some cows out in the country.
     Simon and Clara have sometimes watched a Youtube video of cows dancing to electronica when she is bored with her toys or getting ready for bed.  Therefore, Clara thinks that all cows dance.  When she saw angus heifers dotting pastures near the highway, she excitedly said, "Dance, tows! Dance!"
     "In real life, cows don't dance," Simon said. "Just in pretend."
     "No.  Dancing tows.  Dancing tows!!"
     "Sweetie, if I could make those cows dance, I would," Simon said.
     I indulged in a brief mental image of Simon playing a fiddle, hoedown-style, next to a herd of holsteins.
     My grandparents are around ninety.  It takes about an hour and a half to get to their house from Boise. They still live at home and my grandma still keeps a tidy house.  They have the same recliners and chairs around the living room that they had while I was growing up twenty-five or thirty years ago.  They also have the same toys in a small cabinet near the inside bathroom.  There is a big schoolhouse with a bell, and little toy children that are actually wooden pegs with their hair painted on.  The wooden children pegs fit in a plastic swingset and merry-go-round.  There is also a pair of monkeys that hug each other with velcro-ed hands.
     When we arrived, Clara made a beeline for the toys, even though we haven't been down for nearly a year and it's unlikely she remembered where they were.  She probably used her crazy child toy-intuition to find them.
     At dinner, we used my grandmother's big red kitchen stool for Clara's chair.  Pulled up to the table, it put her at roughly the same height as everyone around.  She combined my silverware with her own and attempted  a few bites of baked squash with brown sugar crumbles using two heavy, silver spoons and forks.  It was predictably disastrous.
     My mom sat on the other side of her and lavished her with affection.
     "Give Gramma a kiss," I instructed Clara.  She tilted her head slightly towards my mother, as if to say, "Yes, you may bestow a kiss on my cheek."
     Clara ate two bites of a homemade roll with butter and jam and demanded to be helped down from her stool.  Then she emptied my gramma's crochet basket of all its yarn and filled it with toys.  She hauled the toys back and forth, from one side of the room, where the toy schoolhouse and toy cabinet were, to the other side of the room, where I was positioned to place forkfuls of pumpkin cream cheese roll and ice cream into her mouth.  Such a decadent existence.
     She soon found the piano and the organ and provided an un-melodic, yet merry backdrop for everyone's conversation.  She also discovered the bathroom on the front porch. To the lay person, it's nothing spectacular, but Clara is somewhat of a bathroom connoisseur, having spent so much time in them during these potty-training days.  She liked that the sink was low enough for her to reach the spigot.  She has never yet been able to reach the spigot on any sink.
     When it was time to leave, Clara said, "I don't wannu doe home."
     Though she will probably utter that phrase many times in her life (hopefully she will eventually learn to say "go" instead of "doe"), it was the first time I'd heard her say it.  That was significant to me.  I'd often felt the same way when leaving my gramma's house after Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner.
     The long chain of generations gathering together is comforting, and I wondered if Clara had sensed that. My family have a knowledge of each other that allows us to pick up old conversations where we left off several months, or even years, ago.  There's a family shorthand.  We say "up on top," to mean the fields that lie on the rimrock hill near my grandparents' house.  We say, "It's all," rather than, "It's all gone."
     It's a simple house. Outside there's a gravel driveway and fields all around.  We had eaten at a long table, where everyone could see each other.  There was singing in four-part harmony: "Great God the Giver" before the meal and "America the Beautiful" afterwards. My mother has an exceptionally beautiful voice, and I saw Clara watching her sing with fascination.
     In such a place, with such company, the things people wear seem rather irrelevant.
     Yet, what I found growing up out there, and what Clara doesn't yet know, is that on the deserty, isolated farm, personal change seems hard to come by.  The struggle for it is almost always externalized, sometimes rather violently.  A big old elm tree along the highway is abruptly chopped down.  A toppling house, having spent decades in various states of disrepair, is finally, suddenly dismantled and the ground underneath leveled and plowed to become part of a neighboring field.  These tangible changes soothe a farmer's inner turmoil.  The farmer has not been taught to change herself.  She has learned that the landscape is the thing to change, the weather the thing to fight.

Huggies

     Clara had a meltdown yesterday because she didn't want to sit in her carseat.

      I had bundled her up, but the seat was cold from being in the garage. In general, Clara hates to be tied down.  She also lately likes to be very close to me.  As in, in my arms.  She would very much like to sit on my lap and steer the car.
     "I know you're upset," I said softly while she thrashed and kicked the back of the passenger seat in front of her.

     "NO! NO KNOW MINE UPSET!!" Clara screamed.  It was the baby equivalent of, "Don't you dare condescend to me!" Then she dove like a small seal out the side of the carseat and into the depths of the back seat, where I had to fish her out by her legs, thus enraging her even more.

     Clara has one or two tantrums on a daily basis now.  Usually because she wants me to hold her while I do all my housework. Much like an Orangutan holds its baby as it swings through the rainforest.  Sometimes she also tantrums because she wants another serving of ice cream, or because she isn't ready to get out of the swimming pool down at the Y, or because one of the cavalry of stuffed toys, plastic animals and blankets are missing from her crib.

    Simon and I recently read a book on parenting toddlers that posits that toddlers are at the emotional maturity level of a Neanderthal.  Therefore, the author said, you must speak to them as you would a Neanderthal. When a child tantrums, validate their feelings by repeating back to them what they are feeling and then reflect their emotions. I tried this once while Clara was throwing a fit: "Oh!  Clara mad!  Clara real, real mad!!" I grunted.

     "The books says to use simple language like a Neanderthal.  You don't have to grunt, omit verbs and make your voice husky," Simon patiently coached. "Also you can use the proper adverb."

     A friend of ours uses the technique described in the book to great success, but I am so far unable to master it.

     I tend to have the best success with selective ignoring.  Today Clara woke from her nap like a bear from a five-month hibernation.  She was terribly grumpy and also very hungry.
     "Huggie!  Huggie peese, Mommy!" she said as I put her down to make dinner.  Throughout the day, I'd given her lots of huggies, and even carried her around on my hip for awhile. Since her nap, I had already given her five or six servings of huggies, to say nothing of a protracted snuggle while she regained her waking senses.
     "Honey, Mommy's cooking.  No more huggies right now.  It's not safe with all this boiling water."
     She shrieked.  As I stood at the counter trying to whack a spaghetti squash in half, she stood on my feet and tried to climb up my legs.  Screaming, she hung off my pants 'til they nearly came off.
     "HUGGIE! HUGGIE! HUGGIE!"
     Then she threw her tupperware tub full of crayons across the kitchen.  The crayons scattered across the floor. Midnight Blue and Burnt Sienna rolled under the stove, forever gone to a purgatory of dust and stale Cheerios.    
     "HUGGIE! HUGGIE! HUGGIE!"
      She pushed her play table across the floor and banged it into the kitchen table.  She slapped the top of her play table repeatedly with her palm and then bellowed in pain and buried her head in my legs.
     I alternately stroked her hair or shoulder with one hand, offered to hold her hand, and told her I loved her.
     The tantrum lasted thirty-five minutes.  There were moments when her face held the vulnerability and quiet suffering of Sally Fields when she pricks her finger on a cotton boll in Places in the Heart.  At other points her eyes were filled with frantic neediness, like Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction.  At one point she let her saliva run out of her mouth while she sobbed.  I'm pretty sure I've seen Laura do that while Pa is comforting her on Little House on the Prairie.
     I hurriedly fixed her dinner.  Then I picked her up, gave her a quick hug and a kiss, and put her in her booster seat.  The sobbing and screaming of baby obscenities subsided into hiccoughs as she tucked into a plate of ham and cheese rotini.
     I sighed with relief.  It had been very, very hard not to pick her up and hug her while she was having her fit.
     Then Simon walked in the door from work.
     "Daddy!" Clara said.  Her eyes were glassy and her nose was rosy and running from crying.
     "Hi, Baby!" said Simon. "Can I give you a huggie?"
     "Yes.  Yes, Daddy.  Huggies, Daddy."
     "Okay, just let me get a plateful of dinner and then you can sit on my lap while I eat."
     "Oh, yes, Daddy."
     She situated herself on his lap with a sumptuous sigh and together they watched the election returns while he ate.  Having just gotten home, he was blissfully unaware of Clara's tantrum.  Therefore he was rescuer Daddy and generous Daddy, willing to give unlimited huggies.  And I was miserly Mommy, stingy with her affection.
     As Simon likes to point out, there are probably lots of reasons Clara wants huggies all the time.  Sometimes she's bored, or cold, or hungry, or in pain for some reason.  From a baby's perspective, a huggie is one of the most delicious things around.  I am warm, I usually smell pretty good (like Secret deodorant or Dove soap), and I have these soft pillowy things on my chest that make it comfortable to lean into me.
     But I think mostly Clara wants huggies because she is like me.  She is sensitive and tactile.  She holds her baby dolls or bears all day, is concerned that they eat dinner and have blankets when she thinks they might be cold.  She is empathic to other kids, and most of the time, to Wilbur the dog.
     For some reason, it bothers me that Clara is like me.  I think it's because, having spent my lifetime trying to unspool the tangles the world tied in sensitive, empathic me, I dread having to see the same happen to her.  I fear I won't be able to teach her to protect herself.  I worry she is too vulnerable.
     Of course, Clara is not yet two.  And though she seems to resemble me, she is not me. Thank heaven.  Her journey won't be mine.  I'm encouraged that I'm aware of this, at least.
     I'm also encouraged when I see her punching other kids on the playground.
     Just kidding.  

    

Post-Halloween Trauma

     Today Clara woke me by yelling, "Mommy, I need you!" over and over.  If I don't go get her out of her crib right away, she usually starts to jump on her crib mattress.  You can hear the, "Thunk, thunk, thunk," all over the house.
     Her hair was a perfect replica of the satellite image for Hurricane Sandy.  Parts of it were stuck to her face with dried, crusted drool.  As I picked her up she moaned, "I need my dog!"  With my free arm, I grabbed her beloved stuffed dog.  "I need my meow-meow," she whimpered, and I managed to also grab her sippy cup (Clara often calls her sippy cup her "meow-meow" because the first one she ever had had a picture of a cat on it).  Lastly, she muttered, "I need my baby."  I picked up the baby doll and wedged her head between us to keep her from falling out of my arms.
     My right arm was numb-ish from the elbow down, and I hadn't yet attained my post-sleep sense of balance.  I moved like Frankenstein down the hallway and down the stairs into the kitchen.
     "I need a snack, Mommy!  Toast! Cheerios!"
     "I need a Ferrari," I said.
     A strange feeling suddenly hit me in the pit of my stomach.  What am I feeling? I wondered.  Focus...
     "No! No small tair! I want big tair! Baby sits in small tair!"
     I plopped Clara down on a big chair and crammed her baby doll into the highchair across from her so she could "feed" her.
     Am I hungry?  Maybe.  It is breakfast-time.  My hand wandered to the bowlful of Halloween candy.  No! Not that kind of hungry...Am I lonely?  No, I just--
     "Ban-ket! Ban-ket, Mommy!!"
     "No, you don't need your blanket while you eat breakfast," I intoned, struggling to get the toaster out of the cupboard.
     "No, no toast!  Apple!  No!! Not this apple! No apple pieces!!  Big apple.  Mommy, huggie! Huggies, Mommy!!"
     It was like being pecked to death by a baby chick.
     "Clara, I can't give you huggies and put the toaster away and wash your apple all at the same time!" I said.  Then, remembering Simon's sage advice from the night before, I skillfully averted a tantrum by amending: "I will give you lots of huggies as soon as I wash your apple.  Just let me get this apple washed and I will give you many huggies.  And I won't cut the apple into pieces."
     That satisfied her.
     I gave her the whole apple, minus a sliver where her small mouth might find its initial purchase.  That's the way she likes it.  I reached down to hug her and she clung to me for a moment like a little monkey.
     I just woke up, so I can't possibly be lonely, I continued my line of thought.  Do I have to pee?  No, did that already.  Am I irritated?  Yes, but that's normal.  Hmmmm....Thirst!  I'm thirsty!
     I got myself a big glass of water and the fog of sleep finally began to dispel.  I put two eggs on to boil and sat down across from Clara.  She was taking small bites of apple, chewing it up, and spitting the skin back into the cup we use to measure Wilbur's dog food.  It happened to be on the table because Simon had hurriedly fed him before leaving for work.
     After a few moments, the apple looked as if it had been attacked by a tiny shark.
     I'm going to boil up those eggs, and have me some bread with butter and honey, I thought excitedly. (Like many women I know, my inner voice intermittently has a Southern accent).  When the eggs had finished cooking, I peeled them and got out the bread and honey.
     "Mommy! I want this!  Baby wants egg!"
     I gave her part of the white of one of the hardboiled eggs.  It was warm, and fell apart.
     "Oh! Egg boke! Egg boken!"
     "It's okay, you can still eat it," I said as she tried to put it back together.  She put her stuffed dog next to her and covered him with a paper towel.  She put a dish cloth over his head.  Then she offered him a sip of water and wedged the hard boiled egg under his fabric snout.
     "Mmmmmm...No.  Dog eats egg.  Baby no egg.  Honey, I want honey an' bread," she said after a weighty pause.
     "How do you ask nicely?"
     "Peese!  Peeeeeessse?" She smiled winsomely.  She'd pulled up the tablecloth and situated Wilbur's measuring cup underneath it.  Under the tablecloth, the measuring cup made a small hill, with an outline for its lip.  She put the rest of her gnawed-up apple on the outline.  Then she muttered and made the apple shake a little.
     "Apple cookin', Mommy."
     "Must be a burner under that tablecloth."
     "Yes, Mommy."
     Later, as we were driving down the leaf-strewn street where we went trick-or-treating last night, I said, "Hey, do you remember dressing up last night for Halloween?"
     "Yes.  Daddy wearing Mommy bwa."
     "Wha--?" I was so surprised I almost swerved into a parked car.  Simon had, in fact, gone as Lady Gaga, a decision that had necessitated wearing one of my old brassieres, as well as a corset.  Clara had been underfoot, playing in her lion costume, while I strapped him into it.  I certainly hadn't thought she'd been paying attention.
     "Yes.  Baby wants wearing Mommy bwa, too."
     "Oh, Honey, you don't need to wear a bra yet.  But someday you will be old enough to have bras of your own."
     "Yes. I have bwas of my own."
      The thought was alarmingly painful.  It gave me the same choking feeling I'd had when she first started wearing underpants, about a month ago, and I knew my days of seeing her little diapered bottom running around the house were numbered.  I had to remind myself we still have a solid decade until she actually needs a bra, and at least two decades until I'll allow her to date.
     Tonight I kissed her little apple-firm cheeks and rejoiced in her chubby toddler thighs and gave her many, many huggies before I put her in her crib.