Yesterday morning before going off to day care and work, Clio and I spent some time watching the airplanes out the window. What this really means is that Clio and I knelt together on the couch, eyes peeled to the sky, and every time an airplane floated into view between our house and the apartment building across the street, I would lift her up, point, and say "Clio, look!" And she would look invariably in the wrong direction, in every direction but the airplanes', and as it glided over the rooftop and out of sight, I would say "bye bye airplane," and Clio would cock her little wrist the way she does, and say "Airplane where?"
Tonight she answered her own question when coloring with crayons. (She specifies the mode of artwork production, so I might as well, too.) She drew these two pictures (simultaneously), and at several intervals, drew a swoosh, pointed, and said "Airplane here!"
You can see them, can't you?
Incidentally, she did finally see an airplane- the fifth that I spotted for her. I'm not sure who was more excited about this success.
And who knew so many airplanes flew over our house?
This morning we had an excursion to Home Depot.
We wanted to get Clio out of the house, and after debating all of the structured indoor-play options (most of which are untested and cost money), we figured Clio would like the play opportunities afforded by our local DIY superstore nearly as much (plus, we could get something accomplished in grown-up land.) Little did I know, Home Depot is basically Clio's idea of nirvana.
Why? Well, I'll tell you. Not only are there wide-open aisles to run along ("running!"), large carpet samples to roll against ("soft!"), and plastic deck furniture to rearrange, but there is an ENTIRE DEPARTMENT of kitchens, all with cabinets and drawers to open, none of them restricted by annoying rubber bands or other child-proofing measures. I think Clio opened EVERY drawer and cabinet in EVERY kitchen (discovering along the way where the department's staff keeps their coats, work gloves, and, occasionally, snacks). Her most emphatic gesture of love and happiness these days is to say "more" several times, while doing the sign for more with her little hands. Needless to say, we witnessed a lot of this at the Home Depot. In fact, Clio has an appetite for drawers that seems insatiable: it's lucky we discovered the bathroom aisle when we did.
Sadly, I didn't bring my camera to Home Depot (and Clio was a sight to behold: in addition to her pale pink and taupe camo pants, she selected a sweater of pastel-rainbow-hued tie-dye, radiating out from her belly like a bulls eye. With her hot-pink boots and tendency to dash across the all-gray aisles, she was pretty hard to miss).
I do, however, have pictures from Heaven vision #2. Let's just call this Clio's House (aka the Best. Christmas Present. Ever.) of Joy (aka animals and "babies").
Once she got the brilliant idea to invite Relaxing Bear inside, she realized what a great spot this would be for all the animals and babies, and started doing that "More" thing again. After creating a stuffed menagerie, somehow she found room to cram Daddy in there, too.
I was not invited. (Look at Dave's hand, closing the door. Traitor.)
(How can there be a Heaven with no Mommy, I ask myself?)
After my own recent ramblings about the choices for women in America, I was interested to happen upon this article in New York Magazine, The Bad Mommy Brigade, which takes as its starting point the relief many mothers apparently feel from watching Britney Spear's failures with her own little boys. The author, Aylet Waldman, had her 15 minutes a few years ago when confessing in the Times that she loved her husband more than her children- and was vilified for her "selfishness" by all the "perfect" mothers of NYC.In researching her article, Waldman takes a casual survey of her peers- middle class women in their 30s and 40s- asking them to define Good and Bad mothers and fathers. I recognized the saintly Good Mother answers for all the unrealistic, but somehow commonplace, expectations they conjure: “She remembers to serve fruit at breakfast, is always cheerful and never yells, manages not to project her own neuroses onto her children, volunteers in the community, remembers to make playdates, her children’s clothes fit, and she does art projects with them and enjoys their games. And she is never too tired for sex.”One of the common threads through the article is this idea that a Good Mother not only sacrifices all for her children, but she loves doing it. As much satisfaction as I get from making life good for Clio, this picture of perfection is never going to be me. (It's never going to be anyone I know.)You know what? I wish someone had asked me to describe these roles, the Good and Bad parents, before I read the article and got someone else's ideas into my head. I have plenty of failings and insecurities, but I truly think I am a good mom, that Dave and I are good parents, despite sending Clio to day care, never cutting her fingernails, letting her out of the house without mittens, and sometimes just letting her have what she wants (even if we shouldn't). The disturbing thing is--and Waldman gets at this--if I had been part of her survey, in describing the Good Mother I bet I wouldn't have described myself. Read the article and let me know what you think.
This weekend, Clio discovered her shadow.
Dave and I each (coincidentally) spent some time outside with her in bright sunlight, and showed her the shadows we cast on the ground. For my part, I would wave at the shadow over and over, so Clio could see my actual arm, then my shadow arm, to wrap her head around the connection.
There are two large apartment buildings across the street from our house, and Clio chased her own shadow all along their surfaces; when she turned around to walk back up the little hill (casting her shadow behind her) she would cock her wrist, look at me, and ask "Where did shadow go?" making me think of Peter Pan and the lost boys, trying to recover his shadow.
I wished I had the video camera on me at the time, but we did manage to capture a few stills on the boardwalk at Coney Island: 
It's so amazing to watch Clio as she begins to encounter more abstract concepts. This weekend we also went into the basement and used our webcams to talk to Nonny, Papa, Finn, and Lucia (my mom's excellent idea after Clio continued to talk about the Minnesota crew for several days running-actually, it's still going on). Clio was a little shy about the whole computer-conversing (webcams sort of blow my mind, I can only imagine what this toddler must think), but now, on occasion, she'll say "Papa, downstairs." And in a way, yes, that's where he is.
This morning we had a family outing to the New York Aquarium, just off the boardwalk in Coney Island,
with mixed results.
The first tank you encounter upon entering is a large, lovely, tropical display, with elaborate coral and fish in every color of the rainbow, and Clio did the appropriate shrieking, pointing and squealing. When we pointed out the beautiful (And big!) cownosed rays (like giant sting rays, but not that big), she was really into it for all of five seconds, until one of them did its graceful glide right towards us, and Clio started saying "I don't want it. No ray." over and over again. Chanting, really.
And this became a common refrain: The walrus (huge, magnificent) and its calf (pride of Brooklyn, advertised all over the subways): "No want it. No Walrus."
Furry seals? No.
Adorable family of penguins? A dozen varieties of sea horse? Billowy, ethereal jellyfish? Not even they.
And forget about the sharks, giant turtles, and other large swimming things.
You know what Clio did like? A murky tank of tiny, tiny snails.
I kid you not. These things were so small, at first I thought they had just forgotten to put the "exhibit closed" sign behind the glass. But there they were. The tiniest snails, with the tiniest shells, I have ever seen.
Clio hung out in front of that tank for quite a long time, and it seemed to break her of her "No want it" mood: she ran around this last exhibit with gusto, insisting we take off her jacket so she could get comfortable, stay a while. She grabbed us by the finger and led us through the darkened corridors. I think the kid's got a thing for subtlety: after the snails, the showstopper was the sandfish display, with little wisps of nearly-transparent white fish that skim the water's bottom and cover themselves with sand to blend in. This sophisticated camoflauge was no match for one eagle-eyed toddler.
My favorite? The moon jellyfish. There were giant tanks of them, backlit in neon colors, in a portion of the exhibit called "Alien Stingers." I wouldn't want to encounter them in the wild (see Starring Sally J Freedman as Herself - okay, so those were man-o-wars, but in my childhood mind's eye, they all got clumped together into something very scary), but they do make a beautiful sight to behold.
You can see them, can't you? 
