Sometimes when I have conversations with my 3 year-old, I have to wonder if I’m hearing her right. The shit she says is so odd and random, the points often so unrelated to each other, that if you transcribed it and handed the script to Richard Foreman, you’d have one hell of an avant-guard play.
Part of what makes it all so odd is that she has taken to spending most of her free time in the bathtub, soaking in water, like Daryl Hannah in Splash! Whenever she’s got a minute, she asks to take a bath, and I don’t protest because frankly, it’s the safest and least stressful option for fun as far as Sec is concerned., If she’s not in the tub, with her goggles on, searching for Disney princesses she’s tossed to the bottom, she is climbing on top of the dresser, tearing up her brother’s artwork, writing on the wall with my lipstick or terrorizing the fish. The other morning, she was laying on her belly in the tub, propped up on her forearms like a mermaid, when I came in to the bathroom to brush my teeth.
“Are those your pajamas you’re wearing Mommy?” she asked, smiling under her shark goggles.
“Yes, I just woke up. So I’m wearing my pajamas,” I replied, putting toothpaste on my brush.
She tilted her head back a la Marilyn Monroe and began to giggle: “Oh you rascal!!!”
I was left wearing the quizzical look I often don when interacting with my daughter in the morning: “What are you talking about?”
She titled her chin back down and looked serious: “Ok, Mommy, why don’t you tell me all about it?”
It is like some computer program generates random catchphrases for her to use in response to what I thought was a regular, logically-progressive, content-oriented conversation.
I rather like the eccentric quality of her verbal volleys but its not for everyone. It drives Primo flat-out crazy when she gets goofy like that.
“What are you TALKING ABOUT? That doesn’t MAKE ANY SENSE! You are so ANNOYING!!!”
Isn’t it just like a man to want a strict linear narrative?
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