We stopped at Starbucks on the way for a treat. Clara was wearing a new dress that her Grammy bought her. It doesn't quite fit yet, but it is still very cute on her.
"Stand still Honey, so I can take a picture for Grammy and Popi and Gramma and Grandpa," I said when we got out of the car and onto the sidewalk. "That's right, just hold still for just a second longer..."
But she looked off to the side at the last possible second. And then she put her fingers in her mouth. I asked her to remove them. So she grinned impishly and then put the fingers of her other hand into her mouth, too.
"Do you know why I asked you to take your fingers out of your mouth? So I could see your pretty smile!! I love your pretty smile! I don't like it when you hide it behind your hands," I said.
And that enticed her to do this:
"Okay, okay, I get the message," I said. I put my phone away and we went inside for some banana chocolate-chip coffee cake.
When we arrived at the library, we found that the librarians had set up a play pizza stand in the children's section, complete with cut-out, laminated sauce, cheese, broccoli, pepperoni, and mushrooms.A little girl wearing a pink T-shirt with a pink flower in her hair was playing chef and asked what Clara wanted on her pizza.
"Broccoli. Cheese," said Clara.
The little girl carefully made a pizza for Clara and handed it across the counter.
"Tanku," said Clara. I was sitting on a nearby couch and she brought the pizza to me.
"Mommy's pizza," she said.
It had sauce, broccoli, black olives and pepperoni. Not exactly what Clara had ordered, but it still tasted great.
After playing at the pizza stand for awhile, Clara made a beeline to the puzzles and the box full of toy dinosaurs. She did several puzzles, and then instructed me to help the dinosaurs do puzzles. I imagine a stegosaurus has a rough time completing a puzzle under the best of circumstances. But when he's miniaturized, made from hard rubber, and his toes are worn to nubbins from years of play, finishing a puzzle is next to impossible. Even when a dexterous adult such as myself is manipulating his limbs.
Clara soon became frustrated with the dinosaur's slowness and ineptitude. His punishment was to take a sip from my Starbucks vanilla steamer. Further punishment was to give me several kisses on the mouth. I discreetly sucked in my lips to keep the germies from the toy dinosaur's mouth from gaining access to mine.
We left the puzzles to get some new music. The last CD we checked out was Mary Poppins. We listened to it for two weeks straight. There was no respite. There was no succor. In the car, the choice was simple: Mary Poppins or sustained shrieking. I heard the songs in my head at two and three in the morning. Simon and I memorized all the lyrics, and replaced some of them with the name of our dog, Wilbur (or 'Bur, as Clara calls him):
"It's a lovely holiday with you, 'Bur! Gentlemen like you are few! Though you're just a diamond in the rough, 'Bur, underneath your blood is blue!"
(In the movie, Mary Poppins is actually singing the song to Bert, the chimney sweep)
Also, we sang, "Feed the 'Bur," in place of "Feed the Birds."
In the library this morning, Clara and I picked out the Lion King soundtrack. We put it on as soon as we got into the car. I pumped up the volume. For about thirty seconds, there was only silence from the backseat. But then, just when I had decided we'd found a viable replacement for Mary Poppins, Clara's distinctive bray sounded: "MEDICINE DOWN! MEDICINE DOWN!"
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