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?
Recently, my 2 year-old has a fixation on affirming her gender. She just says, “I’m a girl!” all the time, and I know that she means it in contrast to a boy, rather than in contrast to a hippo because she will say it to me too, “Mommy, you’re a girl!” and she regretfully informs her father, “You’re not a girl!” I don’t know what it means to her to be a girl, but I like how much she enjoys being what she is so I usually reply, “Yeah, I’m a girl too – hooray for us!”
She’s right too, that I’m a girl. Not just a woman, but a real girly girl. I wear lots of pink and plenty pf makeup and Chanel perfume, and haven’t seen my natural hair color since I was knee-high to a grasshopper. I love my woman parts even if they aren’t what they once were, I love to dress up and shop for shoes and drink champagne and fruity mixed drinks.
But I’ve tried, to some extent, to shield Seconda from my relentless girliness because I live in fear of the day she’ll go all “princess” on me. Am I making enemies here? I know a lot of great, smart little girls who’ve succumbed to princess mania and it doesn’t mean they’re not formidable forces in their own right, but I have to say, the princess shit drives me nuts.
Its not that I don’t like the movie Cinderella – hell, it was one of my favorites as a kid, and we let Primo watch it a bunch of times – but with Seconda, I’m a little more hesitant. I don’t want to inject her with the parasite of putting pretty before everything else. What’s so great about Cinderella anyway? I mean, she’s compassionate and beautiful, but not terribly interesting. Not terribly bright or self-reliant. Ditto for Belle, although she’s got a bit more fire in her. And the Little Mermaid is fun, she’s a redhead after all, and feisty, a rebel even, but it does bum me out that she gives up her voice – I mean, could there be a more literal metaphor for the danger here? – to be with some guy who is, when you get right down to it, a total borefest. The interesting female character there is Ursula – she’s got a slamming voice and some great rhyming skills and is incredibly powerful. What power does a princess really have, at least the Disney variety? My daughter right now, is a powerhouse. She may not be the most well-behaved kid or the most generous yet, but she’s smart as a damn whip and funny, the kind of kid you’d like to spend an hour talking to. I will just perish the day she begs me to buy her a poofy princess dress and matching glass slippers.
So, when she looks really cute, and every girl instinct in me threatens to call out, “Oh you’re my little princess!” I instead exclaim, “You look like the queen of the fairies!” I don’t know how much good it does, but at least a queen has power and fairies do magic, and anyway, it’s a reference to Spenser, which mitigates any harm.
Now she’s started to proclaim the same thing, so after we slip a flouncy three-tiered sun dress on her, she’ll run around the house yelling, “LOOK AT ME - I’m the QUEEN OF THE FAIRIES!”
We can only do our best, right?
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