existential conversations with a toddler

Scene: Julia and I, looking in a mirror.

Julia, pointing up at me: Mama!
Me, pointing at her: Julia!
Julia, pointing at herself in mirror: Baby!
Me: Is that the baby?
Julia: nods, laughs.
Me: Are you the baby?
Julia: Nods, laughs.
Me (thinking): Well, not actually. The reflection is an image of you, but not your actual self. Can you understand that, little one, the otherness of the image that is also, well, you?
Julia, pointing at my reflection: Mama!
Me (thinking): Note to self: less caffeine in the morning.

thank you, car

It took a while for my brain to make the connection, but the light went off last night:
Children in the car=captive audience, hungry for any kind of entertainment.
Into the CD player went the audio book of poetry Lucy has consistently rejected.
"Mama, I love these stories!" she said.
"Poems, sweetheart. And I'm so glad."

haven't seen that one on a crayola yet

Lucy: "You know what my favorite color is? Blue with sequins."

the nuclear option

Upon me coming up the stairs:
Dyami: Lucy is pretending to be a clown. And if the children don't cooperate with her, she blows up the whole world.
Lucy: Ready? Three, two, one. (Explosion. Well, a box full of Monopoly money flung into the air).
Dyami: Her name is Toodles the Silly Clown.
Me: (Peeing my pants.)

context

Lucy seems so BIG to me usually; so articulate and capable. And then, we see her surrounded by kids a few years older than her at church, in the celebration for VBS, and I realize: she's just tiny, still. Still just a small person, and so many stages to look forward to.
And then I watch her small shoulders underneath the gigantic camp T-shirt she was wearing, and watch her do hand motions to the songs this morning, and I enjoy the smallness of now.

better than that magic lamp

If wishes = peaches, who'd need wishes?

capture the flag=injure the groin

Notes on camp counseling:
1. Perhaps one should train for it, rather like for a triathlon. Then when you volunteer for capture the flag, you can not injure yourself, or feel like dying afterwards.
2. It is gratifying to play capture the flag against fourth grade boys. Because in fourth grade, they were scary, and you could never have captured the flag. And now that you're twice their size and (even if out of shape) faster than them, you actually have a fighting chance.
3. It's also kind of fun to accidentally take down a group of said boys (not exactly a tackle, more like running into several of them, like dominoes). And I, personally, never would have as a fourth grader, and now I can without worrying about dying or getting injured. (And not injuring them either).
4. One game of capture the flag is enough.