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Mar. 6th, 2006 10:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rivkaAlex isn't walking yet, but she has clearly developed the toddler nature.
Exhibit one: I am combing her hair in the morning. She takes the comb out of my hand and runs it over her head a few times. The angle isn't right, but still, the message couldn't be more plain: "No, Mama, I can do it myself."
Exhibit two: I am putting on my coat to leave for work. She crawls over to me, crying, and pulls up to cling to my knees. Then she reaches frantically for her snowsuit, high above her head on the coatrack, as if she might convince me to let her come along. Baby Alex went happily to her nanny on Mama's workdays. Toddler Alex is inconsolable until I actually leave the house - at which point, fortunately, out of sight = out of mind.
Exhibit three: I am stacking her nesting cups. Once I have the first three stacked, she picks up the fourth and places it carefully on top. Then she finds a little plastic half-dome and balances it on top of the nesting cups. And here I'd been impressed to see her stack one block on top of another block, just a few days before.
Exhibit four: She brings me Max's Breakfast, with an emphatic "Da!" I read it. She brandishes it again. "A-geh!"[1] I read it again. In the next ten minutes, I will read Max's Breakfast a total of seven times. If I try to evade, she protests. Then, at the opening words, she settles back with a big grin. "Eat your egg, Max, said Max's sister Ruby." Alex has no sister. She has never eaten an egg. She has never been coerced or even wheedled to eat something. What's the attraction? Only a toddler knows for sure.
[1] Is she really saying "again?" It sure sounds that way to me, and yet at the same time it seems so implausible.
Exhibit one: I am combing her hair in the morning. She takes the comb out of my hand and runs it over her head a few times. The angle isn't right, but still, the message couldn't be more plain: "No, Mama, I can do it myself."
Exhibit two: I am putting on my coat to leave for work. She crawls over to me, crying, and pulls up to cling to my knees. Then she reaches frantically for her snowsuit, high above her head on the coatrack, as if she might convince me to let her come along. Baby Alex went happily to her nanny on Mama's workdays. Toddler Alex is inconsolable until I actually leave the house - at which point, fortunately, out of sight = out of mind.
Exhibit three: I am stacking her nesting cups. Once I have the first three stacked, she picks up the fourth and places it carefully on top. Then she finds a little plastic half-dome and balances it on top of the nesting cups. And here I'd been impressed to see her stack one block on top of another block, just a few days before.
Exhibit four: She brings me Max's Breakfast, with an emphatic "Da!" I read it. She brandishes it again. "A-geh!"[1] I read it again. In the next ten minutes, I will read Max's Breakfast a total of seven times. If I try to evade, she protests. Then, at the opening words, she settles back with a big grin. "Eat your egg, Max, said Max's sister Ruby." Alex has no sister. She has never eaten an egg. She has never been coerced or even wheedled to eat something. What's the attraction? Only a toddler knows for sure.
[1] Is she really saying "again?" It sure sounds that way to me, and yet at the same time it seems so implausible.
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Date: 2006-03-07 03:57 am (UTC)But you're right, it's cute doom. At least there's that.