Conversations with my daughter: The inexplicable.

[rivka]

Alex: (out of nowhere) RK&K.
Me: That's where Papa works.
Alex: What is your work called?
Me: I work at a place called IHV.
Alex: I work at CDA.
Me: You do?
Alex: Yes. CDA is my work.
Me: What do you do at work?
Alex: I eat there. I get the food myself.
Me: What else do you do at CDA?
Alex: I go to CDA on the bus. Mama comes with.
Me: I come with you on the bus, huh? Do I come inside CDA?
Alex: No. You don't.
Me: Are you going to work at CDA tomorrow?
Alex: No. CDA is closed. It's closed on Sunday. It's open on Wednesday.

That was Thursday. Today she continued to maintain that she works at CDA. She pointed out a couple of different buildings in downtown Baltimore where CDA may or may not be located.

Her conversation about CDA is kind of limited, probably because she has no idea what people actually do at work. But when I asked, she did tell me that the food she eats at CDA is "Rice! ...and sago."

I swear I must have the only non-Pacific-Islander two-year-old in America who uses the word "sago" in casual conversation. I have no idea why. I mean, I know where from - it's this page of Beatrix Potter's A Tale of Two Bad Mice - but that doesn't explain why the phrase "Rice - coffee - sago" has captured her imagination to the extent that it has. It's just... one of those inexplicable toddler things.

Comments

[hobbitbabe.livejournal.com]

I love toddler imagination.

When my sister was four, she packed a suitcase to move away from home. Shortly afterwards, there was a knock on the kitchen door, and a little girl with a suitcase asked my mother if she needed to hire a maid. The maid lived with us for about a week.

[wcg.livejournal.com]

CDA is the Center for Data Analysis. It's an ultra-secret government agency, part of the NSA. It's like the NRO, but it's for people with super psychic powers.

She should be getting GS-7 pay at a minimum. Ask her when payday happens.

[tammylc.livejournal.com]

This reminds me of Liam - he talks about his "other house" all the time. It's far, far away, but he goes there sometimes. Or so he tells us - Mommy and Daddy have never been to visit his house.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Sometimes it would be nice if she had another house far, far away, said Rivka on the fourth consecutive day of Alex being sick and extra whiny.

[tammylc.livejournal.com]

*hugs*

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

I'm being sick and whiny by myself (cold). The cats only noticed when I sneezed so hard last night that the desk chair shot back from the desk and ran into a chest of drawers. No damage, but a little surprising for all of us. I guess we're still learning about the power of the new laminate floor.

[hobbitbabe.livejournal.com]

Also, I love it that she has the idea that things are closed on days with certain names. There must be things in her life with that pattern (parents' work? library? nursery school? stores?) so it adds verisimilitude to the story.

[moeticae.livejournal.com]

Umm, we've been meaning to mention that, Rivka: you know that wheeze about Evil Masterminds with plans whose flaws could be seen through by a five year old?

Yeah. Well. About that.

Before you start complaining, it's being run under joint CFR/TLC supervision, which means that it's a) bipartisan and b) pretty much fully funded through to the end of time. She's just in the introductory courses (Elementary Cults and Introduction to Interesting World Geography) as of yet; she should start on Managing Megalomania and Elementary Color-Coding for Minions at about three or so. We're actually hoping to place Moe v4.0 in the program when he's a little older, ourselves, although I'm kind of unhappy with the waiting list for mentoring with Rulers of the Air. As popular as mad scientist-inventors with zeppelin fleets are, you'd think that there'd be more of them.

Anyway, I'm really, really sorry: I thought that somebody would have given you the courtesy of at least a phone call. Or had you fill out paperwork. Or something. Gotta love the government, huh? Even the shadow transnational conspiracy part of it can't run HR worth a tinker's dam.

Moe

[graceo.livejournal.com]

This is a cautionary tale.

When my daughter was 2.5, we lived in Flagstaff, where the weather was nice. Consequently, it was perfectly tolerable and even occasionally amusing when Hanna marched out our apartment door every morning at 10 am looking for Harold. (At the time, I was given to understand that Harold was a baby living somewhere in the Flagstaff downtown area, and that he was having some serious problems with a scary tree.) Granted, it might have been nicer if we'd had fewer days when she collapsed sobbing on the sidewalk because of her inability to find Harold, but she was little enough to carry home, and she napped really well post-collapse.

All was well until we moved to Phoenix. In August. I leave to your imagination the impacts of this move on the habits and constitution of a three-year-old accustomed to a lengthy hike and multiple trips to the park each day. The transition was more than sufficiently difficult on those grounds. It was further, and most unexpectedly, complicated by the airport.

Somewhere in the Phoenix metropolitan area is an airport that is, according to Hanna, "dangerous for grownups, but good for little kids." If you take your child to this airport (as every reasonable parent should) they will fly on a plane with their friends to the North Pole, where they will all dance on a stage. Santa Claus provides transportation home. She was so adamant that we get her to the airport that my husband, in a fit of desperation after a lengthy stretch of unbearably hot weather, loaded her into the car and drove around looking for it. Not only did this not improve anyone's mood, it did not make the slightest dent in her insistence that this airport was real and we needed to take her to it.

In January 2005, I took a group of students to DC for Bush's second inauguration. We got snowed in, and flew back a day later than originally anticipated. I'd never been away from Hanna so long, and I assumed that she would miss me and be glad to see me when I got back. I handed off my students to their waiting parents and was greeted by my husband, who was glad to see me, and Hanna, who was in a furious temper over being at the *wrong* airport. Ultimately, discussions of the airport became so traumatizing to the adults in the household that we stopped using the word. We found ourselves putting off discussions about picking up visiting relatives until After Hanna was asleep at night, and then huddling in a far corner of the house to obliquely describe the airport in hushed whispers. We are not weak people who get wound up every time our children are mildly upset - it was that bad.

My advice would be that this whole CDA thing is lovely and interesting and offers fascinating insight into the way a child's mind works, and you might want to have a plan for Wednesday, in case Alex announces that she needs you to drop her off at work.

[eeyore-grrl.livejournal.com]

CDA could be the Child Detection Agency from Monster, Inc.