Liana's Amazing Adventures

The Kindergarten Chronicles - Part 3

2011-04-11T16:57:00.002-04:00

Each school has its own application process, which is just a little bit different from everyone else’s application process. For the charters, there are the mysterious lotteries. Some are public. Some are not. One emails you the lottery results results. One writes back in the self-addressed stamped envelope you were supposed to enclose with the application, but I saw dozens, if not hundreds of parents hand in applications at the open house without the self-addressed stamped envelope. One, after a public lottery, writes you a letter giving you your number weeks after the event. The new one promises to get on the phone and call if you get selected.

Lotteries take place early to mid April. Results stagger in. You need to pre-register at your zoned school (during school/work hours) in Jan/Feb/March, and then you need to show up in person, with your bored or bewildered child to fill out pages of forms and present folders of documents during the first two weeks of April. Also, during school/work hours.

Liana did not attend any of the open houses or orientations with me. When I first started discussing potential schools with her, she became angry and obstinate. “I WANT TO GO TO THE RENAISSAINCE SCHOOL!” she proclaimed. The kid never forgets a thing, and she remembered that long ago day when I took her with me to vote at Renaissance, and said she might go to school there. That is the school that, last year, accepted 40 out of 1495 applicants.

After listening to me sing the praises of the various potential schools, and after overhearing dozens (or more) adult conversations about kindergarten possibilities, she has become resigned to the reality. We don’t know where you are going to kindergarten. It will be a surprise!

At an early-March birthday party, one father proclaimed that he was going to attend all of the open lotteries, record the names of the lottery winners, and publish them on a community forum. I didn’t really know him well, and I was not sure about the idea of publishing the names. But as the first public lotteries approached, I weighed the pros and cons of leaving Liana with a babysitter to attend, (I never leave her with a babysitter) or trying to get someone who is attending to tell me if her name was called.

I approached the dad and asked him if he really planned on attending the lotteries and reporting on the results. He said he had revised his plan. Although he was going to attend, he would just report on the names of children whose parents requested that he do so. He told me to email his wife (who I really know only to say hello to), but after running into her in the street and accosting her on the lottery topic, she invited me to email her Liana’s details, and I did.

In the meantime, I had gotten notice from our zoned school, PS 212. They wanted me to appear on April 1 (less than a week after receiving the letter), between 9-11 AM, with Liana and gobs of paperwork. I had an important meeting scheduled at 9:30 in Harlem that morning, which I had no intentions of missing. I called to reschedule, hoping that I would have lottery results before hand, and that I would be able to blow off the registration all together. I was scolded, told that it did not sound like I was very interested in getting my child into kindergarten, reminded the NYC public schools do not guarantee a kindergarten seat, and assured that they had a huge waiting list already. I stated that the NYC Department of Education Website said that I had until April 15 to register after having received the letter. The voice on the other end clucked, and grudgingly agreed to allow me to come in on April 11.

Wow. I have a more flexible work schedule than most, and it seemed like an unreasonable burden for me to take off two work mornings in two months to register my kid at a school I did not even want her to attend. How many parents lost pay on those two days? Or just pissed off their bosses? In these tough fiscal times, this does not seem like a great policy. Or perhaps it is. Parents unaware of the complex procedures, or unable or unwilling to take off work, might not burden the public schools with the presence of their kindergarten aged children, in a year in which thousands of teachers are slated to be laid off. Quite a few kids might just be staying with grandma until first grade.

The Kindergarten Chronicles - Part 2

2011-04-11T16:42:00.004-04:00

By mid-winter, it was rare to have a conversation with an adult that did not revolve around the kindergarten application process. There was the gifted and talented exam. The “Meet the Principal Nights.” The open houses at the charter schools. My schedule was booked.

The Renaissance open house was a nightmare. The line to get in wrapped around the block. It was freezing rain. So many of the parents I met on the line did not even seem interested in the concept of a progressive education. I stood wedged between two families, each of whom were hoping for financial aid to a Catholic school, but Renaissance was their second choice. Ummm. Their first choice is the most structured, conservative possibility, and their second choice was the school where the kids call the teachers by their first names and pursue a broad, liberal arts education in an environment of loosely controlled chaos? K-12 is a huge plus.

Fell in love with the principal of Growing up Green. Constant student assessment, and classroom activities based on student interests. An onsite garden. Ecology theme. Lots of field trips. I feel like Liana is really drawn to the natural sciences. A great option for her. K-5.

Our World Neighborhood is more structured. Social studies theme. Each month they focus on a part of the world, and a value. Values include kindness and honesty and citizenship. The walls of the school are covered with student projects. Student writing is evaluated, not graded. A hallway was transformed into our solar system, with black walls spotted with stars, and balls transformed into planets hung from the walls. A parent asked if it was a permanent exhibit. The principal said no. The hallway would be transformed into a rainforest the following month. K-8.

Academy of the City hasn’t opened yet. They don’t even have a building. But also a real progressive education.

Neighborhood public schools were in the process of redistricting, and there was great confusion about where the district lines fall now. I don’t like PS 212, my districted school. It is across the street. So easy. Beautiful building. Crowded classrooms. Traditional instruction. They watch videos for recess. It is a “magnet school” for “literacy and technology.” Whatever that means. I know wonderful parents who love the place. I don’t. Kids districted for PS 69 can also apply to some other schools, including a bilingual program for K-2.

One thing was for sure. The wonderful community of friends who play together at Travers Park, who have attended pre-k together, would not stay together. They would be scattered to the wind.

The Kindergarten Chronicles - Part 1

2011-04-11T16:16:00.005-04:00

The Fall of 2010 was a more innocent time.

I took Liana with me to my polling station to vote, and as we walked through the Renaissance School, I stated that Liana might go to school there when she was big. Big, as in kindergarten. It seemed a lifetime away.

I had always imagined sending my child to the Renaissance School. A few short blocks from home and work, leaders in progressive education, they have been integrated into the fabric of the community for more than a decade. They have a pretty diverse student population (20% white, 20% black, 42% Hispanic, 18% Asian), and their students can be seen on youtube doing interesting theater projects or having huge meetings in which students and teachers together work to set the school’s agenda in face of budget cuts .
They offer a strong K-12 liberal arts education, with emphasis on project based learning rather than test preparation. They have linkages with National Geographic, a rooftop greenhouse, Spanish and Mandarin instruction, strong parent involvement.

Of course any child of mine would attend the Renaissance School.

Then reality set in.

The top of the admissions page on their website states that 1,495 students applied for last year’s 40 lottery openings. Go ahead and read those numbers again. Do the calculations in your head. Within weeks of the innocent trip with Liana to my polling station at the Renaissance School, reality set in. And the frenzied kindergarten application process had begun.

2010-08-24T22:40:00.001-04:00

“So mommy. Are you going to adopt another kid, or what?” Liana asked me earlier this summer.

I’d certainly thought about it. I thought about adopting two before Liana was even home. But life gets busy and routines get comfortable and I am getting older and the world of international adoption changes, and it had fallen to the back burner.

But Liana’s words gave me the push that I needed.

Most of you know this already. But it is official. I am paperchasing for adoption number two. I would like to adopt a little girl, one or two years younger than Liana, from Ethiopia.

Liana is BEYOND excited.

I have explained to her that it is going to take a very very very long time for her little sister to come home. I am sort of thinking Fall/Winter 2011.

Liana nods stoically, and says “Ok mommy. I tell you what. I’ll go to school on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and you bring my baby sister home on Thursday. Ok?”

That is a very very very long time indeed. But it will actually take even a little longer than that.

Liana is a social kid, and she is happiest when she is with a group. In a clan. In the middle of something busy and noisy. I know that sisterhood will ultimately be great for her. But there will be difficulties too. She promises she will share her things generously. We have talked about the fact that she will get less individual attention. That if both she and the little one are crying, I’ll pick up the little one first.

She nods, stoically.

I asked her what she would do if her little sister broke her favorite toy. Without missing a beat, she proclaimed “I’ll put her in time out.”

Ummm. Liana has been in time out about 3 times in the past year. And certainly never for breaking something. I suddenly felt very insecure about my own parenting, as my daughter’s words seemed to contradict my basic philosophies.

We reviewed the fact that time out is only used when mommy asks Liana to do something once, twice, and then three times, and Liana still doesn’t do it. We also established that mom, not Liana, will be responsible for enforcing household rules with the little one.

Liana agreed.

So I asked her again. “What would you do if your little sister broke your favorite toy?”

She thought about it, and then said:

“At first I’ll be angry. And then I’ll be sad. And then I’ll forgive her. Because that is just what little sisters do.”

And I hugged my beautiful, bright, amazing little girl, and regained my parenting confidence again.

On with the paper chase.

Friends

2010-04-21T13:35:00.007-04:00

I love Liana's preschool. I love the philosphy, and the way in which community input is incorporated into practice. The teachers are exceptional. And I love the camera in the classroom that lets me peek in and see how Liana is spending her days.

But most of all, I love the friendships that Liana has developed. Her peers have become so central to her being. She tells stories of things that they do. She speculates about how they might respond to challenging situations. She misses them when they are sick or on vacation. She craves their input, and weighs the pros and cons of their suggestions. But mostly, she enjoys their company.

2010-04-21T13:00:00.002-04:00

Combinations

2010-04-21T12:05:00.003-04:00

Liana proclaimed she wanted a snack. I made the usual snack suggestions. A granola bar? A banana? Trisket crackers with peanut butter? Some blueberries? We've avoiding yogurt and cheese because of a nagging cold or allergy. Almonds? Raisins? Each of my suggestions was met with disdain.

So Liana announced that she was going to decide herself. She went into the kitchen and started opening cabinets. She was delighted to find rice cakes on a low shelf, and took them out and stated with absolute certainty, that she was having rice cakes as a snack. She held the package, and thought about it. She then said she wanted peanut butter on the rice cakes. Thought about it some more, and went on to state that she wanted blueberries on top of the peanut butter on top of the rice cake.

It seemed odd at first. But not in a bad way. And the more I thought about it, the more I decided that it was sort of like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. But even healthier.

_______________________________

We had a bad weekend. Liana had a fever on Saturday morning. We went to the doctor, spent an hour and a half in the waiting room, by which point the fever was gone and she was starving, so we went out to eat at Jahn's on the way home. Then we both took a tumble crossing 37th Ave. I skinned my knees. She banged her chin. On the same place that she banged her chin last month getting out of the tub. My sweet little girl, with yet another boo boo on her beautiful face.

Sunday I decided to have a calm, neighborhood day, just to make sure she was really ok. She woke up in the morning, and took her new safety scissors, and starting cutting up some scraps of paper. She announced that she was going to make a flower, and that we would have to go to the store to get glue. Seemed reasonable. So we did. We got home, and she took two popsicle sticks, (which she had hidden after eating popsicles the day before), and some pine needles she had collected, and glued the cut paper and pine needles onto the popsicle sticks.

I was impressed.

She went on to take an empty paper towel holder (I am so NOT artsy! I swear this was ALL her doing) and wrapped the paper towel holder with paper towels from another roll, and then announced we needed to visit Antonia to get tape. (Note my lack of basic art supplies.) So we took the flower and the paper towel holder to Antonia's, and she taped the flower to her paper towel holder vase.

Antonia and I enthusiastically praised her creation.

And she announced that when she grows up, she is going to be an artist. And that she is going to paint pictures and cut bushes in to the shape of chickens and giraffes, and make sculptures out of ice too.

_________________________

This morning Liana announced that she wanted to wear one pick sock, and one white sock. In order to keep her feet "really warm."

I almost said yes. I like the odd combinations that she is making in so many aspects of her life. Sometimes I fear that she has a real conformist streak, and I've been delighted with this creative risk taking. But I decided that if I sent my kid with the bandage on her chin to school with mismatched socks, my parenting skills might seriously come into question.

So after some debate, we settled on pink.

My daughter, the New Yorker

2010-02-24T14:07:00.007-05:00

I was getting really tired of the snow, and the boots and the snowsuit and whatnot. So one day last week I announced that we were walking to school in our sneakers, rather than our boots. Liana was dubious, but she agreed.

So once we got out on the sidewalk, Liana exclaimed:

"There's no snow on the sidewalk! If there was snow on the sidewalk, we would have to wear our boots."

Ummm. While I was delighted with the complexity of the sentence, I was a little surprised to hear the NY syntax. You KNOW I don't say "if there was." So, it is clear. My role as primary influence in her life is fading already. And she talks like a New Yorker.

And just to prove that she is a real NY'er, here she is taking the train to see Elmo Live at Madison Square Garden.

A marvelous time was had by all.

Oh. And they were just pretending to be asleep on the subway.

2010-01-17T08:43:00.002-05:00

Liana loves rhymes.

Well, she doesn’t quite get the concept of rhymes. But she knows she loves them. We’ve done the “Jack and Jill went up a hill. Look! Jill and hill rhyme” stuff. Fox and box rhyme. Pat and sat rhyme. She loves it, and is currently searching for examples of rhyming words all around her.

But she also seems to think that any words that contain the same sounds rhyme. For the past couple of weeks, she has pointed out, for example, various words starting with the SH sound, and exclaiming that they rhyme. I nod, and point out that the beginning of the words sounds the same, and that we call that alliteration. “Can you say alliteration?” I go on to explain that rhyming is when the end of the words sounds the same. She rolls her eyes, or sometimes even stamps her foot in frustration, and proclaims “Well I think they rhyme!”

Another day:

“Mommy! Person and purple! They rhyme!”

Wow Liana! Person and purple both start with the “per” sound, and they both start with the letter P. Want to find other words that start with the letter P?

“But they RHYME!”

Earlier this week, rhymes took on a new life of their own.

“Mommy! Mouse and cheese! They rhyme!”

“Liana, mouse and cheese go together, because a mouse likes to eat cheese. But they don’t sound the same, so we don’t call that a rhyme. Mouse rhymes with house. Cheese rhymes with please.”

My explanations have been met with frustration on her part. Which of course, is the last thing I want to do. She is finding connections. Thinking. Reasoning. I want to encourage this thoughtful exploration of the world around her.

But when I say that a pair of words don’t rhyme, she folds her arms, stamps a foot, turns away from me in frustration and says “Well I think they rhyme!”

I think I missed the memo on how to deal with this aspect of parenting….

Sleep and bedtime continue to be high drama at home. So the other night when she got out of bed and came barreling into the living room to announce in a loud, animated voice:

“Mommy! Pato and shoe! They rhyme!”

I responded with a cold and cranky instruction to return to bed.

But she was very excited. She kept repeating it. “Pato” waving her left arm with palm facing up, “shoe!” waving her right arm with palm facing up. “See? They rhyme.”

“Liana. It is time to go to bed. I want to see your head on that pillow.”

“Pato! Shoe! See?”

“Liana. Pato and shoe don’t rhyme. And you need to be in bed so that you get enough sleep so that you don’t get sick and so you have lots of energy at school tomorrow, right?”

As I am escorting her back to the bedroom, she tries one more time. “But if I say saaaa pato they do rhyme! They do!”

And then I realized. Saaaa pato. Zapato. Zapato is shoe in Spanish.

When she was a baby, and spoke more Spanish than English, she called her shoes “patos.” In the past year or so, she has rejected Spanish almost completely. But clearly a lot of it is still there.

What amazing things are going on in this little girl’s brain.

2010-01-02T12:01:00.011-05:00

So we bid farewell to the 00’s. The decade in which I became a mom. The decade in which I became an orphan.

The momentous events of the decade will always be classified in my mind into three categories. Before my dad died. Before my mom died. After I adopted Liana. There was a painfully blurry time in the middle of my adoption process in which I was dealing with my mom’s sudden, unexpected death, and unexpected bureaucratic delays in my ability to complete my adoption. But that time will forever remain an uncategorizable blur in my mind.

I rang in the year 2000 on a suburban driveway in Cabo Rojo Puerto Rico, in what seems like another lifetime. The pre-teen boys who were setting off firecrackers in that driveway had never heard of ipods or blogs or youtube or social networking. And neither had I. No one, other than my father, talked about global warming. He was also obsessed with the dangers of religious fundamentalism. My sweet gentle father lived long enough to see some of his bizarre and quirky fears become part of the mainstream consciousness.

September 11 will be the defining moment of the decade for most. Then there was the blackout. The president who was not elected by the majority of voters. The wars here and there. Both of my parents died during the Bush years. I mourn that they did not live to see the election that was to follow. My daughter may be a tween the last year of the Obama administration. Maybe not. But maybe.

The ouster of Aristide in Haiti went almost unnoticed by the mainstream. As did the comically failed ouster of Chavez in Venezuela. Weapons of mass destruction failed to materialize. Genocide on Darfur got some attention.

On a personal note, the decade started as my beloved Adult Education Program (affectionately know my thousands as “The English School”) was deemed to fall outside of my agency’s strategic plan. But I fought hard for the program’s survival. My mom was begging me to send off resumes. My staff kept asking me if they should be sending off their resumes, and I kept answering honestly “I’m not sending off mine.” We did more than survive. A decade later, we are thriving. We serve 650-700 adult immigrants per day, as a proud program of the Queens Community House.

I lost two peers. Alexandra and Abby. Amazing women who died ridiculously young.

I lived in Guatemala for two months. Liana and I spent our days in the company of humming birds under the shadow of volcanoes spewing ash and smoke, speaking Spanish together while those around us often spoke in Mayan languages that may not survive a generation or two. Then we came home together to live in the nation’s most diverse zip code, surrounded by more languages than even I can name.

I became a mom. Later in life than most. Baby bottles replaced pool cues. Late nights in bars were replaced by early morning trips to museums and zoos. Kim Stanley Robinson was replaced by nostalgic Dr. Seuss and colorful board books with soft and bumpy things to touch. Early morning phone chats with mom were replaced with frantic attempts to create morning routines involving putting on socks and getting out the door with a dry diaper. Extensive potty training rituals replaced gaming. Ridiculously long work hours gave way to “learning how to delegate.” And a full night’s sleep became a thing of the past.

The decade ahead, I imagine, will be filled with dance and music and art and star gazing and chapter books. And the incomparable joy of watching beautiful Liana grow and learn and experience the world around her. Holograms? Check points at which we need to show our national ID cards? Space Tourism? I think the next decade will offer a small window of opportunity to bring Liana to see glaciers while they are still grand, and coral reefs before they are bleached beyond repair. Perhaps the Obama years will usher in a renaissance of sorts. Or perhaps the damage is already so deep that the decline of the empire in inevitable.

The one thing I can predict with certainty is that any predictions I make here today will look ridiculously naïve a decade from now.

2009-12-30T18:01:00.003-05:00

This is so huge for me, I can’t even believe that it is real.

So here is the story.

I’m pretty sure that my earliest childhood memory is of being with my mom and dad in a place with big dinosaurs. No, they weren’t bones. They were big, huge, “real” dinosaurs. It was outdoors. It was sunny. There was dirt, or dust or some such thing on the ground. And the dinosaurs were SO BIG!

I asked my parents about the memory several times during adulthood, and both suggested museums. Or fantasy. But I knew that wasn’t right.

When my dad died, and my mom and I were packing up the home that they had shared together, somehow we came across IT. THE PICTURE. The picture of me, in my father’s arms, and the dinosaur in the background. In the picture, I was about 3 years old. My mom looked at the picture, puzzled. She did not remember it. We traveled a lot. It was clearly somewhere we had been. Somewhere that made a huge impression on me. She suggested some Midwestern stop. The world’s largest pencil, the world’s largest cornstack. A few dinosaur statues on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere. Certainly it was not a destination. Just somewhere we must have been on way to somewhere else. We later found yet another dinosaur picture. This time of my mom holding me in front of a stegosaurus. But it was the huge tyrannosaurs, and a brontosaurus that does not appear in the photos, that are permanently imprinted in my memory.

I’ve thought a lot about this memory over the years. About traveling. About how much I enjoyed the adventures I had with my parents. I’ve thought about it even more in the past year or so. I am now the mother of a three year old. She is a good traveler, who has already started to build up a set of experiences that will be the base for future travels. I’ve wondered if she will remember anything of these recent trips, of if they will all fade into nothingness.

So on the winter solstice I was pulling out old pictures. I pulled THE picture out again. There I was. A little girl my daughter’s age, being held in my dad’s arms, a huge tyrannosaurus rex right behind us. I dug deep into my mind. I am certain that this is my very oldest memory. I mourned the fact that I would never know where we were, my parents and the dinosaurs and I. But I celebrated the fact that I had the photo to confirm my memory. And I ran images of recent trips over and over again in my mind, trying to divine which images Liana might carry into adulthood.

A few days later, ironically on Christmas Eve, we went to the Hall of Science with some friends. Afterwards, we stopped in the shop where I hoped to buy one last minute present.

And then I saw it.

It was THE picture. No, I was not in it. But it was the same picture. From almost exactly the same angle. On the cover of a book on the 1964-65 World’s Fair.

In Flushing Meadow Park.

Hundreds of miles from my toddlerhood home, but only about 2 miles from my current home. My daughter’s toddlerhood home. Jackson Heights.

Flushing Meadow Park! Where Liana and I spend sunny weekend days riding the carousel and walking through the Queens Zoo and eating ice cream outside by the big fountain. Where Liana and I spend rainy/cold weekend days, running wild in the Hall of Science. Where Liana and I certainly spend 2-3 days a month.

My earliest toddlerhood memory, as if it were a surreal premonition, is of a special place where Liana and I have spent much of her toddlerhood together.

And as Liana grows up, she and I will walk together, literally and metaphorically, in the footprints of long-gone dinosaurs.

2009-12-13T10:52:00.010-05:00

What a ridiculous summer to fall to winter it has been! I was sick in August/September. Then by October Liana had the flu. Then I got pink eye. And a sinus infection. And an ear infection. Then Liana got an ear infection. Then my sinus infection came back. Then we had a late night emergency room visit. And now it is December. I missed enormous amounts of work, and I feel like I’m treading water with my personal life. But somehow, in between all of the insanity, we’ve managed to fit in some of the stuff that pre-schoolers are supposed to do!

Liana’s fever broke just in time for the Halloween parade. We made a trip to the Brooklyn Zoo and a trip to the Farm Museum. And the Queens Zoo, of course. And a couple of trips to the Hall of Science. And Travis Park. But most importantly, we made it to Virginia and then Nags Head so that Liana could be pampered and spoiled and just loved up by cousins and a doting aunt.

So here is a pictorial retrospective of Liana’s autumn holidays and weekends. In between fevers.

Liana Turns Three!

2009-09-26T20:32:00.010-04:00

Liana’s big birthday weekend continues. Yesterday she got to wear a birthday hat at school all day, and I brought all sorts of stuff to class and they had a little party there. No cake, so I brought watermelon. But there were noisemakers and pretty plates and birthday napkins and birthday cups with twisty straws and they sang Happy Birthday and she blew out a candle.

Then Gwennie came home after school and we had cake and more Happy Birthday and the kids played and had fun. Then lots of presents.

Today we did my big birthday present. We went to see the Lion King on Broadway. We’ve been watching videos of it on youtube, and she was excited. I loved it. For her, it was a bit too grown up. The opening scene was so amazing, with all of the animals appearing from every corner of the theater, the big Circle of Life number, and so much emotion, that she spent a big part of the first act asking when the animals were coming back. She cried when Simba’s father died. Given that she didn’t seem to be paying a lot of attention to the plot, I was surprised by her reaction. And then she was very worried about Simba, and wanted to know where he was. When he grew up, she refused to believe that adult actor was Simba, and she spent most of the second act arguing with me as I insisted that it really was Simba. Then I made a big deal when his father appeared to him, and told her that the people you love are always with you, and that was lost on her completely. As we were approaching the finale, which I knew she would enjoy, she kept insisting she had to use the bathroom. I held her off, we enjoyed the finale, and then were approached by some VIP in the theater. He was holding my camera, which apparently I had left by where we bought snacks during intermission. He had looked at the photos, and instructed staff to look for a little girl with black hair and a pink shirt! Now how great is that?

We then had a loud dinner at Planet Hollywood. I saw my first Jonas Brothers video, and Liana saw her first Michael Jackson video. Kind of suspect the Jonas Brothers won’t stand the test of time. But I could be wrong. Then we hung out in Times Square. Went to Toys R Us again. Nearly got arrested there last week because I buzzed on the way out and the cashier had not given me the receipt, and I got to meet the head of security who escorted us back to the cashier, who fortunately had the receipt right there by the register. Then back to Times Square. Liana loves sitting outside at the new little tables. Thanks Mayor Bloomberg. Then we kept all the dozing people awake on the 7 train home, as Liana kneeled on the seat and looked out the window and squealed with delight at the sights.

Much to my suprise, when we got home, Liana asked if we could go see the Lion King again. I said yes, and she was pleased. I think next year it will be a more meaningful experience. And I know I would enjoy seeing it again! But sometims I think she is wise beyond her years. She knows that it will mean more to her a little later on. Or maybe it is just that toddler/preschooler thing. Read it AGAIN!

Tomorrow Saya is coming over for yet more cake and one more round of Happy Birthday.

And so the terrible two’s are over. They actually weren’t terrible at all. It has been a wonderful year. I have enjoyed watching Liana transform from a cuddly, charming, joyous baby, into a bright, precocious, curious, caring little girl who is just so much fun to be with.

I love being Liana’s mom.

Things I've Read About President Obama

2009-09-05T11:10:00.005-04:00

Our president is a communist socialist nazi muslim who is seeking to use healthcare reform to mask genocide against… I’m not sure. Genocide against some group of American people he doesn’t like.

He was born in Kenya AND Indonesia. I’ve seen the proof. It is amazing, actually.

Oh. And he is under the control of a foreign country. England. I have a pamphlet explaining all about that. Someone at a health care town meeting, waving a picture of the president sporting a Hitler mustache gave me that piece of literature. What distinguishes President Obama from past presidents is that he doesn’t love this country the way other presidents have.

And now he wants to talk to CHILDREN? CHILDREN? He wants to plant subliminal messages in their little developing brains. Indoctrinate them. Turn them into future communist socialist nazi muslims who don’t love America and who want to commit genocide against… someone. Perhaps he will promote the gay agenda. Mock the Bible. Perhaps he wants to use our SOCIALIZED educational system to promote SOCIALIZED healthcare. Turn children against the second amendment. Promote abortion.

I don’t think my daughter’s school will be televising the address. Although Liana did stay up late to see the election results shortly after her second birthday, I have trouble imagining the school successfully getting a bunch of 2-3 year olds to listen attentively and then discuss the content of his address.

Across the country, apparently, parents are planning on keeping their kids home from school rather than allow their children to listen to the president tell children to study hard and stay in school.

Is there a paradox here?

A Preschooler and an Equestrian

2009-08-31T22:59:00.010-04:00

Liana and I went upstate for a lovely trip. We came back, and I promptly got sick and sat like a lump for days, failing to return phone calls or engage in any of the planned pre- preschool activities. And then, toddlerhood came to a close, and Liana officially became a preschooler. Well, sort of. She had a two hour day at the school today. First full day tomorrow. She clearly loves it. She is so ready to have her world expanded. But she asked me if I was going to go to the spa while she was at preschool. I said no, I was going to go to work. And she laughed and said “No mommy! You go to work when I go to Beatriz’s house.” So I guess in spite of all of our productive discussions about preschool, she does not realize that this new reality actually replaces the old reality.

Or perhaps she thinks I’ve retired and that I’m going to dedicate my life to spa treatments. Who knows?

Upstate was great. Liana does not like bugs. She was unimpressed by woods and mountains. I tried to drag her on nature walks, and she demanded that I remove ants from the path. However, I discovered yet another Liana-talent.

We all know how she loves animals. And the first thing she announced when we arrived was “I’m going to ride a big giant horse.” Awww. How sweet.

I called and arranged a pony ride. I suspected that we might get close, pet the pony, cry a bit, and then talk about how it is ok to be afraid. Ummmm…..

But Liana spoke the truth. She did ride a “big, giant horse.” Daily.

At first she was a little afraid of his face. But she had no fear on top of him. She rode Fresno as if this is something she does everyday. The F train. The 33 bus. Oh. She also rode Comanche, who was a pony, while she was in daycamp and I was at the spa.

But we will never forget Fresno, the big giant horse. Liana’s rite of passage, during he last week of toddlerhood.

2009-08-20T06:44:00.004-04:00

“Hold on tight mommy. Otherwise you could fall down and then you’ll be sad,” my daughter advises me as we sway back and forth on the standing room only bus.

Otherwise? Did she really say otherwise?

Passengers smile at her. She chatters. Looking out the window, she says “Look mommy! That cloud looks like a big rabbit!”

Mommy, if you see a dandelion, will you pick it for me?

Yes, Liana. If I see a dandelion I will pick it and give it to you.

And if you see a white one, will you pick it? And can I blow on it? Can I make a wish?

Yes Liana. If I see a white dandelion, you can pick it and blow on it and make a wish.

Mommy, I’m going to wish that you get me a surprise, ok?

Passengers giggle. At least two or three times a week on the bus, someone asks me how old she is. When I say 2 ½, they always gasp in disbelief.

2009-08-03T18:15:00.001-04:00

Liana got a new puzzle last weekend. She loves puzzles, and can put together a 24 piece puzzle with a little help the first time or second time, and then she can put it together by herself. I am awed by her visual and spatial orientation. Certainly not one of my skills, but for her, it is second nature.

In any case, the puzzle had pictures of farm animals. We put the puzzle together the first time, and talked about the animals. There is a cow, a sheep, a chicken, a duck, a pig. They all live on farms.

Later, we were talking about the puzzle. Was there an elephant in the puzzle? No! Elephants live on the savannah! Was there a dolphin? No! Dolphins live in the ocean! Was there a monkey? No! Monkeys live in the rainforests or the jungles! Was there a cow? Sure! There was a cow! Cows live on farms!

That was fun for a while, and gave us lots of content for a nice discussion.

Later, Liana was playing with the puzzle by herself, and I was sitting at my computer. Liana finished the puzzle herself, and called me over to admire her work. She was looking at the puzzle, and something clicked. She got all excited, and told me to “Stay right here, ok? Don’t go away. Stay right here!”

She disappeared into her room for a few minutes, and then reappeared with a book. It was a “baby” touch and feel board book, with pictures of baby animals and their names and they had fur or feathers or scales to touch. I had not pulled that book off her bookshelf in 8 or 10 months. Maybe even a year. It was a book she had, in my mind, outgrown.

She had already flipped through the book, and had opened to the farm animal page.

Look Mommy!!!!! Farm animals!!!! See???? A cow! A sheep! A goat! A baby chick! See????

We looked at the animals in the book, and then compared them to the animals in the puzzle. We then turned at looked at the other pages in the book, and there were some of the same categories that we had been talking about during our discussion. Ocean animals. Jungle animals. Pets. Polar animals.

Liana is a city girl. She has never been to a farm. The only goats and sheep and cows she has ever seen are in the petting zoo. But something in her head went click, and she really understood. Somewhere, in the back of her mind, she had filed away the information in that book, and when she thought about the puzzle, she made the connection from so long ago, and went to find the relevant page!

I love being a mom. Watching Liana learn about the world, and sharing her discoveries is so amazing.

2009-07-28T14:07:00.002-04:00

I feel like a jerk.

I’ve been really really mad at Beatriz, my day care provider, for the better part of a week. She has not seemed the least bit supportive of Liana’s newly discovered interest in the potty. One day she yelled at me because Liana had gone poopies in her pull up, and then she sent Liana to the bathroom, unaware, and poopies had gotten all over everything, including the bathroom and Liana herself. I yelled back, and said that if she had been paying attention, she would have noticed that Liana had found a corner, squatted down, rolled her eyes back in her head, and had gone poopies BEFORE she sent her to the ill-fated trip to the bathroom. I was LIVID to find Liana wrapped up in diapers, after more than a week of just one single accident at home.

The next day Beatriz sat me down and gave me the “all children are different” lecture, explaining that some children are potty trained at 18 months, and others are not potty trained at 3 years. She went on to say that Liana was just not ready for pull ups, and that I had unrealistic expectations, and that the pressure that I was putting on her was not good for her. When I countered that Liana had initiated the whole series of events, and pointed out that at home she wore underpants, and I only put pull ups on while she was out on the street and at daycare, she shook her head as if I were being an obstinate toddler myself. I was furious.

And on top of the potty training resistance, I’ve been really cranky about the move. Beatriz’s daycare was a three minute walk from home. I then walked 12-13 minutes to work. This is the way I had arranged my life. In July, Beatriz moved to a new location, which is a 35-40 minute commute to her place, 35-40 minutes to work, 35-40 minutes on pick up, 35-40 minutes home. In other words, I’ve lost two hours per day of my life all summer. And where does that two hours come from? Work? Playing with Liana? Sleeping? There were not enough hours in the day before the move.

So when Beatriz would not get on board with the whole potty training stuff, I was LIVID. Drop offs and pick ups were tense. Our previously warm connection seemed to have disappeared, and I even suspected her of sabotaging our pre-school plans with her lack of support.

And then Beatriz called on Sunday. She is in the hospital. Pancreatic stones? Surgery on Tuesday. Apparently, she has been in terrible pain for more than a week. And I was so much in my self-centered mode, that I didn’t notice. Apparently the other moms knew..

I’m usually more sensitive. I feel like a jerk.

It has been a great year and a half with Beatriz. In September, Liana starts preschool. But since February 2008, Beatriz has provided a loving, structured environment for Liana. Amazingly healthy meals. She has nurtured Liana’s artistic nature, and designed projects in which Liana created amazing pieces of art that I will cherish forever. Lines and circles, Beatriz explained. Too early to start working on letters. Everything comes from lines and circles. And I have seen Liana combine those lines and circles to create animals and people and flowers and buildings and doors, and even a series of pictures of our cruise ship. Apparently they do tai chi in front of the TV. Liana can do tai chi moves that awe me, and that are too complex for me to even imitate. And ballet too. And Liana now dances a mean cumbia. Liana explains to me every night when I pour her a glass of milk, that milk builds strong muscles. She flexes her arm with pride. I didn’t teach her that. Liana could put on her own socks before turning two. I sure didn’t have the patience to teach her that. Liana has learned so much with Beatriz. It has been a good year and a half.

I’m sorry. I’m sorry that our last weeks together have been tainted by sickness, and worse. By ill will.

Warning: Potty Talk Ahead

2009-07-19T16:49:00.002-04:00

I *think* it has finally happened. And it came out of nowhere! I had really started to believe that Liana would go to her senior prom in diapers.

Liana was “sitting” happily on the potty almost a year ago. She liked it. By the time she was 2, she was going pee pee a couple of times a day in the potty. I had friends who were pushing their kids screaming onto the potty. I was smug about my approach. No hurry. Get her comfortable. Lot’s of positive reinforcement, blah blah blah.

By January/early February, I thought we were there. She sometimes asked to go to the potty on her own. She often stayed dry all night in her diapers. Just one more step, and we would be done.

But then the smugness faded. By February/March, she flat out refused to sit on the potty. At all. Ever. The mere suggestion that she use the potty sent her into a rage. In the spring we went out and bought “big girl” panties. She picked them out, and was all excited. She wore them almost exclusively for almost a full weekend, with minimal accidents. And then the refusal. No interest in panties. No interest in potties. She threw the potty training books and videos with an anger normally reserved for those moments in which she is denied ice cream cone she thought was hers, or forced to leave a party that she is enjoying in spite of being overly tired.

I set the cruise as a goal. No swimming in the pool in diapers. Even swim diapers. We talked about it. She agreed it was a reasonable goal. But she made no effort to be civil when I suggested she sit on the potty.

I took one full suitcase of diapers on the cruise.

And then, last Thursday night, she came home and said she wanted to wear big girl panties! Friday, she wanted to wear pull ups to daycare. She used the daycare potty as soon as we arrived. Out to dinner Friday night, used the restaurant potty, went to the park to play after dinner, and had an accident in the elevator on the way home, less than a minute away from her potty at home. That’s ok. Everyone has accidents.

Brunch on Saturday in Forest Hills. Potty in the restaurant again. Up and down Austin street, in and out of stores. We arrived home with a dry pull up. OOOOH. But the big event was before brunch. I had a HUGE Dora sticker on display in the bathroom, and she knew that she would get it the first time she went poopie in the potty. Which she did Saturday morning! So she proudly wore a one-foot long Dora sticker on her dress all day in Forest Hills. And told total strangers who commented on the sticker that she had “done HUGE POOPIES in the potty.”

Today we did the Queens Zoo and the Colombian Festival in Flushing Meadow Park. Potty at the zoo. Potty near Shea Stadium station. Arrived home with a dry pull up! Happily using the potty herself here at home.

Can it be? Is it true? Are our diaper days over????

We're Back!

2009-07-17T21:02:00.013-04:00

Liana and I have returned from our wonderful cruise. She was 90% my joyous angel-girl, 5% my tired/confused/cranky girl, and 5% the exorcist child. In other words, the trip was a great success.

It was the easiest trip in the world. Cab to 55th street, and we walked on the ship. Cruised to Grand Turk, Half Moon Cay and Nassau. The ship was VERY child-friendly. My hope was that Liana would like the daycamp enough to spend two mornings there so that I could have two spa days. Well, she wanted to go back EVERY DAY, and even asked several times to go back in the afternoon. At dinner, the waiters sang and danced, and one picked up Liana and danced with her almost every night. We had a great table at dinner... two other single moms, (with teenagers!) and a grandma with her grandson. Dinners were tough, because most days she didn't get a nap, so somewhere between 6-7:30 she got clingy and demanding. But not too bad.

Liana loved the beaches. She loved our trip to the aquarium. We did our first build-a-bear workshop on board. We had lots of lunch picnics on our balcony. She ate way too much ice cream, and way too much chocolate. She got her face painted a lot. We hung out in lounges and she sat on quite a few barstools. Oh. And she became addicted to virgin pina coladas.

I'll tell more stories later, but I've waited way too long to get these pictures up. A few now. More later.

2009-05-30T06:40:00.005-04:00

I pick Liana up at daycare, and as we are walking home I ask, “So what did you do today?”

Without missing a beat, she said:

“I fell out of a tree and hurt my wrist and my mom gave me a note to get out of gym class.”

Ummmm. Liana is two and a half. She doesn’t climb trees in daycare, and she has no idea what gym class is.

As delighted as I am that Liana seems to have mastered the pre-reading skill of identifying with the primary character in a story, I continue to be frustrated that she often tells me elaborate things that aren’t true.

One day she told me a long and detailed story about a little girl in daycare throwing food, and subsequently getting a time out. As she told and retold the story, I started to be suspicious. The food, it turns out, was chocolate cake, chocolate cookies, and broccoli. Hmmmm. The next day I asked the daycare provider about the incident. There was NO incident. No food throwing. No cake or cookies in this organic only household. And the child in question had not gotten a time out in months.

After a late winter snowstorm, I picked her up from daycare, and asked her if Beatriz, her daycare provider, had taken them out in the snow. She said yes. I was delighted. I asked her what they did in the snow. She said they made snowballs and snowmen and snow angles. I looked at her pants, the same ones I had dressed her in that morning. She did not look like she had been making snow angels. I asked who went out in the snow. She named two of the kids. I asked if Beatriz had gone too. She said “No, she stayed home.” Ummmm. So my daycare provider is sending two two year olds and a three year old out onto the urban streets, unaccompanied, to play in the snow? And they were so careful out there by themselves, that they didn’t even get wet or dirty!

Then there is Cousin Lily. I have no idea who Cousin Lily is. I thought she was a character in a story she reads at daycare. Or a TV show she watches at daycare. I don’t know anyone named Lily, and apparently neither does my daycare provider. But often in the evenings, we await Cousin Lily’s arrival. She never seems to really arrive, but Liana waits for her a lot. ”Mommy! We can’t take a bath now! Cousin Lilly is coming!” “Cousin Lily is coming, so we have to get ready. She can play with the bear and I can play with the rabbit!” Sometimes she tells me stories about things that Cousin Lily did earlier in the day. Things she ate or said.

Liana has a creative mind, and a fertile imagination. And I want to nurture her creativity. But reality and fantasy blur together, and I often can’t tell which is which!

2009-05-27T13:32:00.006-04:00

Nothing better than Spring in NY! You've already seen Liana's aquarium art, but we had a full and exciting day at Coney Island. Here are Liana and Layla on the beach, and Liana is flying her first kite.

ART!!!!!

2009-05-26T16:59:00.003-04:00

Ok. I know I've turned into one of those moms who thinks that everything my kid does is more amazing than anything any child has done in the history of planet earth. But we went to the aquarium over the weekend, and when we got home, Liana drew pictures of the things she saw.

Here is the otter and the jellyfish.

Now is it just me, or is this really amazing art for a 2 1/2 year old?????

2009-05-08T05:43:00.004-04:00

Liana continues to spend a disproportionate amount of time thinking about and talking about dinosaurs. And worrying about dinosaurs. About a month ago I lost patience with the umpteenth conversation in which I was asked to assess the probability that a dinosaur was lurking in some corner of our home. So out of frustration, I monologued. I explained to Liana in great detail that there were no dinosaurs, and provided on overview of the current theories concerning events leading up to the extinction of the dinosaurs. She seemed to have no interest in my monologue. In fact, she basically seemed to ignore me, and turned her attention to the needs of the inhabitants of her dollhouse.

A few days later, we were going to give our neighbor Antonia tres besos, an evening tradition. As we approached the door out of our apartment, Liana asked if there were dinosaurs on the other side. I firmly insisted, NO DINOASAURS. Liana listened, and as we opened the door, she chanted the mantra, no dinosaurs, no dinosaurs, no dinosaurs. And I guess something clicked in her head.

As we knocked on Antonia’s door, Liana excitedly started carrying on about dinosaurs.

"ANTONIA! ANTONIA! The dinosaurs, they go ROAR! ROAR. They have the teeth, the big teeth. The claws. Go ROAR. And then the big rock come down. It go BOOM. And the dinosaurs, the dinosaurs get cold and go brrrrrrr. And the dinosaurs, the dinosaurs, they leave their BONES on the EARTH!!!!!!"

Ummm. Wow.

Note to self: She is always listening to everything I say. Everything.

Dora Live at Radio City Music Hall

2009-04-14T20:07:00.005-04:00

No one enjoyed the show more than we did. From the moment we stepped out of the taxi and become part of the sea of moms with strollers and bouncing pre-schoolers hugging their Dora balloons, Liana and I were both absorbed into the magic.

Even the men who have been standing on the same corner since my own youth identified us immediately, making good eye contact and asking with feigned concern, “need tickets? Liana, who had gotten cranky during the cab ride and insisted that she wanted to go home by the time we hit Third Ave., immediately got into the spirit of the event, and as I navigated her stroller through the chaos, she bounced excitedly. When she saw the Dora balloons the vendors were selling on the street, her eyes opened wide, and her mouth formed the biggest circle you could imagine on such a little kid. As she pointed purposefully towards the balloons, her body became frozen with anticipation. I shelled out the $10 for the balloon, with no regrets. Her joy was unbridled.

Ticketing was ridiculously easy. We went to the will-call line, and were shuffled to the ticket window in less than a minute. We than had lots of time to kill, so we went for a walk to look at the flags at Rockefeller Center. We ultimately got to our seats with almost a half hour before the show. A walk to the bathroom took a few minutes, but there was a beacon on our seats pulling Liana back. Once we had settled in back in, she knew exactly where we were, and there was no pulling her away. When I suggested we go for a little walk, she said “No, I just want to sit here and watch Dora, ok?” So we sat and watched the seats fill up around us.

As the show started, Boots and other minor characters came on stage, and they were all looking for Dora and asking where she was. Liana was literally on the edge of her seat. “Mommy? Where Dora? Mommy! They no can find Dora!.” And finally, with great concern, “Mommy. Maybe Dora no coming.” At last, when Dora burst through the letter “O’ in her name, the excitement was beyond description. At the end of each song, Liana would turn to me pleadingly and ask if we could see “One more? Please!!!!!!” While older kids (3 and 4 year olds) had reached the limit of their attention spans, and were climbing on chairs and playing with toys and torturing parents who wished the whole thing would just end, Liana followed the plot intensely. When Dora and Boots arrived at a river, and didn’t know how to cross, Liana asked me how they would find a boat. I said I didn’t know. A boat magically appeared, and the joy of the moment replaced the very rational concern of “how” they would find the boat they needed.

The crowd up on the Second Mezzanine was an interesting bunch. I would say about 1/3 black, about 1/3 latino, a sprinkling of Asians, and whites in the minority. Mostly little girls, ages 3-5 being the largest group, and Liana being one of the younger in the crowd. A few babies with their big sisters. A few big girls, 8 or 9, looking dreadfully embarrassed to be dragged to such an event with their younger siblings. Lots of mom/daughter groups. Some large families. The mom next to me talked on her cell phone almost the entire show. Everyone seemed to be making illegal videos of the event with their cameras or cell phones. There was always the sound of a child having a tantrum somewhere off in the distance. I f eared that the tantruming child would be Liana when the show was over. She recognized the finale, and begged, begged, begged for more. But the peer pressure won over, and as the lights went on, and everyone was putting on her coats, she sighed a deep sigh, and said in a melancholy sing song voice “time to go home.” I struggled with the stroller unfolding at the stroller check, rolling around with the miserable thing on the floor as passing children tried to grab at Liana’s precious Dora balloon and I tried to keep track the balloon, my child and my purse.

We left beautiful Radio City with the crowds, and headed home… so happy with our first theatrical production together. My sweet Liana, there will be so many more. I promise.

2009-04-12T11:13:00.001-04:00

Things I’ve Learned in the Past 24 Hours

The beautiful parquet floors in my gracious pre-war apartment slope.

Eggs placed on sloping floors roll.

All little things that roll on the floor belong really to my cat, who likes to swat them with one paw, and then the other until they are very very far away from where they started out.

All of the above stated conditions have resulted in Liana’s ability to find 11 of the 12 hardboiled eggs that I hid last night. The last egg may never be found.

There is absolutely no way to “save” chocolate bunnies and chocolate lollypops for later.

Sugar buzzes lead to sugar crashes. Liana is very very calm right now.

NEVER NEVER NEVER go to the Museum of Natural History on a rainy day during spring break.

We are getting ready to go to Liana’s first live theater: Dora City of Lost Toys at Radio City Music Hall. I suspect that my learning for the day has not ended.

2009-03-16T16:05:00.000-04:00

Ordinary Moments from the Weekend:

Mommy, let’s sing a song!

Ok honey. What song do you want to sing?

Let’s sing the “ba-da-ba-da” song.

I don’t know that song.

MOMMY!!!!! You know the ba-da-ba-da song!

No honey, I don’t. Is that a song you sing with Beatriz?

NO MOMMY. You KNOW that ba-da-ba-da song.

Liana, I don’t think I know that song. Why don’t you sing it for me.

She looks at me with that “why are you being so dumb” look that will taunt me during her teenager years… a preview of what is to come. And she starts to sing.

Ba-da-ba-da world so high, like a diamond in the sky…..

…………………………………………………

An ordinary moment. An idyllic mommyhood moment. I’m making a big pot of lentil soup. I’m chopping up onions and garlic and tomatoes and mushrooms and cilantro. I’ve got Liana set up a few feet away at the kitchen table, working with bright blue play doe. Youtube is playing mommy-music for a change… Franklin’s Tower and a 9-minute version of Scarlet Begonias. We are both singing as we work on our various projects. Then the play doe gets dull, and she comes over to see what I am doing with all those interestingly-colored veggies on the counter. She asks to be lifted up, and I lift her up to see. She looks, and I put her back down and continue chopping. She asks to be lifted again, and I stop chopping, lift her again, and then put her down to continue chopping. She is not pleased. She wants to watch me chop. I explain that I can’t hold her and chop at the same time. She walks out of the kitchen with determination. A moment later I hear her dragging something. It is her step-stool from the bathroom. She drags it all the way to the kitchen, and places it next to me. Then she steps up on it, and watches me chop. Now is she a great little problem solver, or what?

2009-03-06T08:11:00.005-05:00

On the topic of monsters and dinosaurs and things that go bump in the night…..

Liana and Carol and I went out to brunch a couple of weeks ago. The plan was for her to pick my brain about social models in utopian fiction, since she knows that it is my favorite literary genre and she had decided to try her hand at some fiction writing. The plan was a brunch discussion, followed by a trip to the book store in which I would introduce her to the work of Kim Stanely Robinson and she would introduce me to the work of Octavia Butler and her ladyship would get some books about… well… ladybugs and whatnot.

But during brunch, neither Carol nor I managed to finish more than one consecutive sentence. Liana DOMINATED the brunch conversation with long, detailed and entertaining monologues about monsters and dinosaurs.

The go ROOAARRRR. The have the big eyes…two eyes. The nose, the ears, the mouth, the teeth. (pointing to each body part in an animated manner) One, two, three, four, five teeth. The have the claws and go ROOOAARRRR. The dinosaur no eat the apple. The crocodile at the apple. He go chomp chomp chomp. Then the go ROOOAAARRRR. The say yummy. He bite it. The teeth. BIG teeth. The go ROOOAARRRR.

And on. And on. For nearly an hour and a half, Liana monologued about monsters and dinosaurs and other scary things.

Kind of anti-utopian fiction, I guess.

Some day, on one of those rare occasions that Liana is actually asleep, perhaps I will read Carol’s work. In terms of discussing it…. Ummmmm…. That does not seem like something we are going to do now.

2009-03-06T07:17:00.001-05:00

“No be afraid Mommy. You stay here. I look for dinosaurs.”

“Ok Liana. I’m not afraid.”

“Ok Mommy. Stay here.”

“Ok.”

So I stay under the blanket “tent” while Liana goes off by herself to explore the deepest darkest depths of the bedroom to find out if there are any dinosaurs lurking in shadowed corners.

She returns, pats my arm, and says “No be afraid Mommy. There no dinosaurs.”

“Oh good. Then I’m not afraid. Thank you Liana”

“You welcome mommy. Want to sing a song?”

I’ve been doing some reading about three year olds and monster fears. Liana will be two and a half in a couple of weeks, but being the advanced child that she is, she seems to have developed this fear early. Or perhaps her strong verbal skills are just helping her articulate them. I don’t know. The books and articles say not to try and be logical, not to belittle the fears, but to just reassure the child. Liana likes to be in control, and so she has decided that reassuring me will help the situation. So I play along.

2009-02-11T15:10:00.003-05:00

Thought I'd share some of the cute things that Liana says.

Holding a blanket that she is about to put over her head. “I hide, you say BOO, ok?”

Arriving at daycare Monday morning, Liana’s 3 year old buddy Layla is arriving at the same time. Liana turns to greet her, and says “Hi Layla. How are you? How was your good day the mommy time?” I guess she was asking about her weekend.

She’s working on a project on the coffee table in the living room. She decides she needs to get something from her bedroom, and starts running to her room. As she passes the cat, who is seated on chair, she slows down, turns to him, and says “I’ll be right back Sage!”

2009-02-01T08:44:00.004-05:00

Remember the opening line of One Hundred Years of Solitude/ Cien Anos de Soledad by Gabriel Garcia Marquez?

"Muchos anos despues, frente al peloton de fusilamiento, el coronel Aureliano Buendia habia de recordar aquella tarde remota en que su padre lo llevo a conocer el hielo."

"Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, General Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice."

I’ve been thinking about that quote a lot in the past few days. Since Thursday. When Liana discovered the ice.

The ice was not on display by traveling gypsies. It was discovered in the form of an icicle hanging from a tree en route home from day care. But the resulting obsession seems no less profound.

Actually, there were a series of icicles. The ice cubes came later. The first icicle was so small that it melted in Liana’s hand before we entered the lobby. She thought that she had lost it, and insisted that we go back and get another. I explained that it had melted, and that we were going to watch the larger icicle melt as well. We ran into a neighbor, and Liana proudly announced that she had a “bicycle” and that we were going to watch it melt. I told Liana that we were going to watch it melt, and that it would get smaller and smaller and that it would disappear and turn into water. But she was not prepared for it to really disappear.

After the second icicle melted, she wanted to go back outside and get another. I was kind of not in the mood to put on hats and gloves and boots and coats and head back out into the cold in search of an icicle, so in a moment of brilliance, I produced an ice cube from the freezer. We watched that melt. And then Liana wanted another. And another.

She woke up on Friday morning, and the first thing she wanted was a “bicycle.” I told her that we would look for icicles later, and asked if she wanted an ice cube instead. She nodded enthusiastically. When we got to daycare, she told Beatriz all about “bicycles” melting, and apparently insisted on tending to at least one ice cube over the course of the day.

As I write, it is Sunday morning, and we are on our third ice cube so far. It’s melting! It’s melting! It’s turning into water! Mommy!!!! Look!!!!

Who knew?

Warning! Spoiler Ahead

If you have not read the book, don't worry about the firing squad. It turns out ok...but not for many many many pages.

2009-01-29T07:55:00.005-05:00

Liana’s evolving syntax is a constant source of entertainment and amazement for me. As someone who has spent decades helping adults acquire foreign languages, I am really in awe of Liana’s language acquisition.

For example, the word “just” entered Liana’s vocabulary a couple of weeks ago. Just is a word that ESOL teachers don’t even worry too much about incorporating into a student’s active vocabulary. But Liana is suddenly using “just” and seems to understand all of its nuances.

JUST: A Tool for Persuasion

“Just one more cookie mommy?”

JUST: A Tool for Civil Disobedience.

“Come on Liana. Let’s put on our coats. It’s time to go.”

“I just sit here play my puzzle.”

“Liana!!! We have to go! Let’s put on our coats.”

“Mommy, I just sit here, ok?”

JUST: An Indicator of Sub-par

We are walking down our hallway, and we hear a door opening. Sometimes, Jonny is on the other side of the door. Liana LOVES Jonny.

The door opens. And Liana says:

“Oh. It just Olga.”

The nuance was not lost on Olga, who knows that Liana was hoping to see Jonny.

2009-01-29T07:02:00.003-05:00

Liana is standing on her footstool in front of the sink, getting ready to brush her teeth. For some reason, she looks at the faucet from a different angel than usual, and sees her blurred refection.

Mommy!!!!!!! A picture of ME!!!!

Yes Liana. That is your reflection.

No flecter. Picture of ME!!!!!

The very next day she found another “Picture of ME!!!!” on the metal trash can in front of the elevator.

Liana’s pictures grace not only the refrigerator, mommy’s computer screen, and her very own picture books, but her images are also scattered throughout the world, appearing randomly on faucets and trashcans and nighttime windows.

Is she truly the center of the universe? It seems that the evidence is clear.

2009-01-21T12:06:00.003-05:00

The other night Liana was watching Miss Spider on TV. It was a flashback episode to the time that Miss Spider first laid her eggs and was waiting for her first babies to hatch. Liana was watching the episode intently, trying to follow the plot. At a certain point she furrowed her brow, turned to me and declared:

“Eggs for eating. Not for babies.”

Oh my. BIG question for so late in the evening.

My head started spinning as I tried to figure out a way to approach the enormously important issues of life and birth. As she waited for my response, my confirmation of the fact that eggs are in fact for eating and have nothing to do with babies, I sorted through my huge internal database of information on the subject, struggling for the simplest way to explain LIFE. Finally, some words came out of my mouth.

“Liana. Some kinds of babies grow in eggs, and some kinds of babies grow in women’s tummies. People and other animals grow in tummies, and birds and insects grow in eggs. But the eggs we eat are for eating, not for growing babies.”

I considered moving on to discuss fertilization of eggs, and the fact that women have eggs in our bodies and that they are similar to eggs that are not inside of animals bodies… but before I could go on, she humored me, as she often does when I give absurd explanations, and responded by simply saying

“Yup.”

And then she turned back to the TV.

Not sure I handled that as well as I would have liked. She’s a bright kid. And she is keeping me on my toes, with increasingly insightful questions about the world around her.

We have so many adventures of discovery ahead…..

Hope I'm up for it!!!

2009-01-14T09:17:00.002-05:00

“My turn read Hop on Pop.”

“Ok honey. Your turn to read “Hop on Pop.”

She opens the book, and turns to a page. She stares intently at the words, and runs her fingers along them. Mimicking me, mimicking the older kids at daycare, she points deliberately at each word.

“House. Mouse.”

She moves to the opposite page. Again, pointing to the words, not the pictures, she says

“Mouse. House.”

She turns the page.

“All tall.”

The opposite page…

“All little.”

I giggle to myself. How interesting. She is focusing on content, “little” rather than remembering the rhyme, which should read “all small.”

She turns the page again.

She frowns. Furrows her eyebrows. Stares intently at the page. Touches the words. Finally, she turns to me, and declares, with both surprise and frustration,

“Mommy. I no can read!”

Awwww.

“No honey. But you can pretend to read. You are still learning the alphabet. But when you get bigger, you will be able to read.”

2009-01-14T09:11:00.004-05:00

Everything associated with bedtime continues to be a nightmare. Even the mere declaration that bedtime has arrived brings on the possibility that my sweet little angel-girl will turn into the exorcist-child, writhing and screaming with a strength and volume that seems impossible for such a little tyke. Sometimes the breakdown happens when the lights go out after we’ve read our books. Other nights she falls asleep without incident, but then wakes up screaming… sometimes from nightmares, sometimes night terrors… and other times just because I have snuck out of the bedroom.

There are safe moments in the bedtime ritual. We get into bed, drink water, arrange the stuffed animals, and prepare to read our books. But for the past couple of weeks, this stretch of the process has been wrought by fear of “ghosts.” As Liana arranged her stuff animals on the bed, she would exclaim that she saw a ghost, and that she was afraid of ghosts. But she didn’t cry or scream, so I just pushed through, insisting that ghosts were make-believe, or asking if it was a nice ghost, or whatever.

Last week, she saw a ghost and jumped on top of me and clung tight, chanting “afraid of ghosts, afraid of ghosts, afraid of ghosts.” So I asked if she could point out the ghost, and she pointed towards her pillow, saying that it was gone. But just as she pointed, she jumped and screamed “there the ghost!!!” I pointed towards the pillow, stating that I did not see the ghost, and as I extended my arm, she squealed again “There!!! There!!! There!!!”

And I saw it.

It was not, however, a ghost. It was the shadow of my arm, being cast on the pillow.

How could I have missed it? For weeks?

“Oh Liana… that is not a ghost! That is my shadow. See?” And I moved my arm to make the shadow move. Intrigued, but not completely convinced, she waved her own arm. When she realized that she had the power to make the image move, she was delighted. So we played with the shadows a bit, making funny shapes and rhythmic motions. She laughed, over and over again.

“Mommy! They just like us!!!”

What a bright little girl. “Yes Liana, that’s right. They are just like us.” The content of her observation… the syntax…. her giggles…. the joy that she felt as she exercised the power of control over the shadows, that were not longer scary… oh… all of it made me just gush with love.

The next day we went looking for shadows on the street. Shadows are fun.

And one, little nighttime problem has been resolved.

2008-12-26T15:34:00.005-05:00

Well after a quiet Christmas day at home, we spent today running around being tourists in the city. I had actually planned to go see the Miro exhibit at the MoMA, but the weather was unusually warm, and it just seemed like a day to be outside. We went to see the trains at 51st St, the tree at Rockerfeller Center, and the merry-go-round at Bryant Park. We ran into outdoor sculpture exhibits, fought our way past camera-crazy tourists on 5th Ave, and just had lots of fun.

Liana is such a happy, easy-going kid. She didn't blink about the change in plans, and the only moment that she was a little upset was the end of the merry-go-round ride, because she didn't agree that it was time to get off. But we went and got back in line, and bought another ticket, and saved the day. Life is good.

2008-12-25T13:07:00.006-05:00

Liana's first Christmas in NYC.

2008-12-24T12:29:00.003-05:00

Liana’s first Christmas in NY. And mommyhood is good.

So. We’ve got a small tree. She LOVES her tree. She loves all Christmas trees, and gets excited when she sees one, but each time she says “My Christmas tree at home, mommy!” I’ve explained to her that we honor the evergreen on the longest nights of the year, when all of the other trees have lost their leaves, and cover the evergreen in light and color with the expectation that light and color will return to the earth. Don’t think she’s absorbed too much of my explanation, but she is a bright kid, and when she hears it again next year it will start to click.

I’m trying to keep everything as clear and honest as possible. I’ve told her that many many years ago, there was a very good man who gave gifts to people that he didn’t even know. He was called Santa Clause or Saint Nicholas. I’ve told her that in honor of his goodness, we give gifts to the people we love. And that many people dress up like Santa Clause, to remind us to be kind and generous.

She has no idea that when she wakes up tomorrow morning, her stocking is going to be full, and there will be gifts under her tree.

I am so not consumeristic. But I cannot even believe how excited it am.

2008-12-19T09:08:00.001-05:00

Ok honey. It’s late. Let’s put on your socks.

Ok mommy.

Do you need help?

No. I do it myself.

Ok honey.

…..A few minutes later….I’m putting my coffee cup in the dishwasher…..

Mommy! Mommy! Sage eat the my cheese!!!

Ok honey. You’re right. Sage shouldn’t eat your cheese. Let’s clean up your plate and get ready to go. Liana? Where are your socks?

Liana? Time to put your socks on.

No. No want to.

Yes Liana. It’s time to put on your socks. It is late. We have to go.

Ok mommy.

Do you want help?

No. Do it myself.

Ok. Here they are. Sit down right here and put on your socks. Ok?

Ok mommy.

……A few minutes later, I’m in the bathroom…..

Mommy? I put on cream?

Not right now Liana. Where are your socks?

The don’t know.

Liana!!!! You need to put on your socks.

But mommy. The need help.

You need help?

Yes please.

Ok. I’ll help you put on your socks.

Ok mommy. First mommy go pee pee in the toilet, then I put on my socks.

Ok.

…..A few minutes later…..

Here honey. Let me help you put on your socks.

NO!!!!! I do it MYSELF!!!

2008-12-19T07:44:00.004-05:00

We’re getting better at eating veggies. She has really liked broccoli for a long time. Asparagus is starting to meet her approval… as is zucchini. And she likes the flavor of garlic. If I put fresh garlic in couscous or barley or rice, she likes that. Glad she likes garlic! I can stick tofu in just about anything, and she eats it. She LOVES fruit, and eats it in enormous quantities. I am hoping that the fruits make up for the lack of veggies.

Salads? My daycare provider says that she eats salads at daycare, but I don’t seem to have any luck with them at home. I used to eat a big salad about every other night. I’m not talking about lettuce tomato and cucumber salads. I’m talking about grilled Portobello mushrooms over baby greens with warm feta cheese and walnuts. I’m talking about an overnight marinate with a dozen different cubed veggies, served over crisp watercress and cilantro. I’m talking about those summer days in which you find the PERFECT tomato, and you cube it and toss it with fresh basil, a little cubed mozzarella, and lots of olive oil and black pepper. Or tabuli, marinated overnight with lots of lemon juice and tomatoes and mushrooms and cucumbers and scallions and zucchini and whatever else is sitting around in the fridge, and served over chopped fresh herbs. It has been months since I made myself one of those salads.

I try to make things that we both like. Which means we eat LOTS of pasta. We both love pasta. So we eat too much pasta.

But the one food she loves more than anything in the world?

Black beans.

She could eat them every day. I really used to like black beans. At this point I am so sick of them, that if I never see another black bean it would be too soon. Not pinto beans. Not kidney beans. NEVER lentils. I love lentils. She finds them offensive.

Black beans.

Black beans.

Black beans.

2008-12-19T06:40:00.002-05:00

We put on her pretty holiday dress, black tights, red socks, and dress shoes that were just a little bit too big. She looked at herself in the mirror and said “Mommy? I look like the big princess?”

“Yes you do honey. The big princess.”

“The no be shy mommy. The see mommy’s friends.”

“That’s right honey. We are going to see mommy’s friends. You don’t have to be shy. But it’s ok if you feel a little shy.”

“Ok mommy.”

“Eat cupcakes mommy?”

Uggg. We don’t eat much in terms of junk food. But we ate cupcakes at last week’s party, and now she thinks that’s what we do at parties. Somehow, I suspect that the Asian Fusion place hosting my agency’s holiday party is unlikely to serve cupcakes with pink frosting.

She did get shy when we walked in the door. Then she warmed up a bit. So many people who wanted to say hello. It is overwhelming. Then Rachid arrived, and she absolutely STALKED him. If he left her sight, she demanded that we look for him. He wanted to have a warm reunion with his former staff and colleagues. She wanted him to hold her and play.

I did get some nice photos of her dancing with my boss Mary. And we strutted around the large restaurant over and over again. She loved going for walks. And she really liked watching people dance. She ate a little… not too much. And did not even ask for cupcakes once we got there. We stayed really late. 8:30!!!!! Just as I realized it was getting to be about time to go, she threw herself on the floor, in that pre-tantrum civil disobedience mode. Dennis grabbed her stroller and rolled it through the crowds, and I got her in and tossed her sippy cup and stuffed sheep into her hands while I collected stuff, and off we went.

“Have fun at the party, mommy. See the mommy’s friends.”

“That’s right honey. We had fun at the party. We saw mommy’s friends. We danced. We ate food. And you were such a good girl!”

“Yup.”

2008-12-14T07:42:00.004-05:00

She puts her index finger to her pursed lips. She furrows her brow. She looks off into some indefinite point in space, and says “Hmmmmmm……”

She pauses. Contemplates. Clearly she is considering a complex question of considerable importance. Then, brow still furrowed, gaze still steady, she puts the question into words.

“Which book should we read next?”

No. This isn’t some pompus grad student attempting to appear profound. This is my two year old daughter.

Where on earth did all of that come from? The gestures? The intonation? Well, it had to have come from me. Not that I am even familiar with myself using those gestures. But I must.

She actually looked just like my dad, not my image of myself. My sweet, gentle, contemplative father died several years before she was born. But I guess his gestures and intonation live on in me.

And in her.

2008-12-13T05:35:00.003-05:00

I’m a positive-reinforcement kind of mom. I believe in modeling good behavior, giving lots of praise, and removing temptations and dangers that might necessitate lots of “no’s.” And Liana has always been a pretty agreeable kind of kid, so my natural style worked pretty well with her from the time she was a baby. I remember at 13 months old, when she would do those little baby slaps when a kid would touch a toy she was playing with, I would take her hand and rub it gently on her intended victim and say “suave, suave,” and she would rub the kid gently and I would praise her. When I was preparing my home for her arrival, I did careful baby-proofing, so that she could safely have the run of the place to explore. When she got a little older, and would get that tragic look on her face and raise her arms to be held and start whining, I would say “No reason to whine! You want a hug? Say ‘big hug!!!’” And “big hug” was one of her first phrases. When she started with the “no’s,” I taught her to say “no thank you.”

And then the 2.x age emerged.

And the number of things that I have to say “NO” about in a given day has increased exponentially.

Of course, there are the safety issues. And as she has gotten so much bigger, my initial baby-proofing has become obsolete. And her increasing dexterity has brought forth a whole new set of temptations. Safety issues are firm “No’s!”

But I never imagined how many non-safety things I would find myself saying “No!” to.

“No! You don’t take the top off your sippy cup and pour the juice on your shirt! You drink your juice, you don’t pour your juice out!”

“No! You don’t take the toilet paper off the roll and toss the entire roll in the toilet!”

“No! You don’t take your soup bowl and pour the soup over your head! Soup is for eating, not for pouring on your head!” (She didn’t do this as a baby! Why is she doing it now?)

“No! You don’t draw with your crayons on the wall. On the coffee table. On the bookshelves. On the TV screen. Paper only. We only draw with crayons on paper. Here, draw on the paper. Good girl!”

“No! You don’t put pasta in the cat’s food dish. He has cat food. He doesn’t want to eat your macaroni and cheese. It is nice to share, but it will make his tummy sick”

“No! You don’t throw mommy’s phone on the floor. You’ll break it, and then mommy won’t have a phone.”

“No! You don’t press the buttons on mommy’s dishwasher.”

“No! You don’t put your dollhouse furniture in mommy’s coffee cup.”

And so on. And so on.

Don’t get me wrong. She’s a good kid. An easy going kid. Most of the time. But she is driven by curiosity and experimentation… and it is that very curiosity and experimentation that leads to so many things to say no about.

2008-12-11T08:01:00.001-05:00

My neighbor across the hall came over last week because I wanted to show her something on the computer. Liana, Antonia and I were sitting in front of the computer, and Liana looked at Antonia and said

“Antonia? You drink tea coffee?”

My daughter is offering refreshments to visitors? At two years old, she is a better hostess than I am? She has often seen me make a cup of tea for Antonia, but this was a short visit.

The other new thing is kissing boo boos. Not only that she wants to someone to kiss her boo boos. But she wants to kiss other people’s boo boos. Last night we were in the hallway, and Antonia’s door closed a little fast, and she caught her hand. Not hard. But she said “ouch.” Liana looked at me very seriously and said “Antonia hurt the hand. Get a boo boo. Need kiss?”

Absolutely honey. Go ahead and kiss the boo boo.

2008-12-06T17:09:00.005-05:00

Liana is very interested in bras. I know that this is an odd blog topic. But bear with me. There are two good Liana stories tucked in here. I promise.

When she and I go shopping, Liana likes to sit in her stroller and hold stuff. Diapers, crackers, whatever it is that I am buying. So when I was bra-shopping, it seemed perfectly normal to give her a bra to hold while I was looking for a second one in my size. I heard the salesclerk gasp, and I looked down, and she had proudly slipped her arms into the bra, and there she was… my two year old. Sporting a bra on the outside of her jacket. “The MY bra,” mommy, she proclaimed.

******************************************

Now I’m not the world’s best housekeeper. And last night when I got home from work, I slipped my bra off and tossed it on a chair. A few hours later, I was at the computer, the bra was still on the chair, and the cat was happily sitting on top of it. Liana was not pleased. She called me over, to show me that Sage was sitting on my bra. I told her it was ok. But she would have none of it. She pulled a bit on a strap, but she didn’t have a good angle, and he sat there, defiantly challenging her to do something about it.

“MOMMMMMY!!!!”

“Yes Liana?”

“Sage sit the mommy bra!!!” wagging her finger for emphasis.

“That’s ok honey.”

We went back and forth a few times, and I thought that she had given up. She wandered off to the kitchen, which usually means she is rearranging the alphabet refrigerator magnets holding up her artwork. I returned to the computer.

A minute later she came back out, and announced that Sage’s food dish was empty and that he needed food and agua. Ok. So I got up, and his dish was pretty low on dry food. I poured some more in his dish, and of course, the sound got him all excited and he dashed into the kitchen to inspect the quality of my work. As I was putting fresh water in the other dish, Liana came strutting into the kitchen triumphantly, with my bra in her hand.

“Sage no have the mommy bra now mommy.”

“Ummm. Thanks honey. Will you put that in the dirty laundry for mommy please?”

“Ok mommy!”

Now does this kid have exceptional problem solving skills, or what?

2008-12-06T07:52:00.002-05:00

Liana and I have passed a milestone of sorts. When she was 13 months and 4 days old, I took custody of her forever. Now, she is 26 months and more than 8 days old. Which means that from this point forward, more than half of her life has been with me.

I feel in love with the beautiful pictures of her at 3 months old, and I met her at 9 months and really really really fell in love. (There we are in that picture the first week we spent together when she was 9 months old.) But we did not start living together until she was 13 months old. And we moved to NY when she was 15 months old.

The first two months of our lives together were in Guatemala. At first, locked in the Marriott as we awaited the election results, hoping that violence would not take over the streets. After the successful, peaceful elections, we moved to a small apartment in the beautiful city of Antigua, around a central courtyard, with hummingbirds and lush plants greeting us as we walked out the door. A majestic volcano greeted us as we walked out the front gate of the complex.

It was a good two months.

The first half of Liana’s life was spent with a marvelous extended foster family, who showered her with love and support and nurtured her curiosity. I am so lucky. Liana is so lucky. During these 13 months, Liana learned what it is to love and be loved. She learned to crave cuddles. She learned to share!!!! She learned to laugh. Everything that I have taught Liana is building upon the strong foundation that she developed with this loving family.

2008-12-01T08:45:00.008-05:00

“My turn read Moon mommy! My turn!”

“Ok honey. You read Moon.”

“Ok mommy! There. The big green room. Telephone. Balloon. The cow jump the moon. Two bears sit the chairs. They no eat mommy. They all finished.”

Every night before bed, for months, we have read the same three books. Goodnight Moon. Hop on Pop. Pajama Time. We have lots of books to choose from, and if it were up to me, we would vary our selections. But Liana likes this selection. And she decides which order we read them in. That, at least, varies every night.

Recently, Liana has decided that I read one book, and then she reads one book.

Obviously, she doesn’t read yet. She hasn’t even mastered the ABC’s, and does not understand the concept of letters making sounds and combining them into words. But she loves reading, and she insists on doing EVERYTHING that I do.

Those of you who know the Goodnight Moon story are aware that there are three bears sitting on chairs, and no indication that they have been eating. But she is quite insistent about the fact that they have just finished. Every night.

She has her opinions. And she has her desires. And she makes them all quite clear.

“My turn, mommy!” is one of our household mantras.

Of course, she does not perform for the camera. I tried to record her “reading,” interspersed with her commentary. And what did she do when I turned on the camera? She insisted that it was my turn to read Hop on Pop. And here is the 5 second video of that declaration.

2008-11-29T08:25:00.002-05:00

Holidays are tough. I really want to provide festive, memorable traditions for my daughter. But it is also really important to me that holidays and traditions make sense, and that they are consistent with our values and beliefs.

So there is Thanksgiving. A commemoration of a shared harvest feast between the indigenous people of the Americas, and the first wave of European immigrants. A few generations before the British European immigrants attempted genocide against the indigenous populations, and the Spanish looted the great indigenous cities, destroyed their temples and homes, seized their lands, and ultimately enslaved the local populations, creating a semi-feudal system that continues today in my daughter’s country of birth.

Hmmm.

I remember the Thanksgivings of my childhood. Loud, chaotic sit down dinners for forty plus people at my Aunt Joannie’s parents’ home. And then hot dinners packed up and shuttled around town, delivered to dark rooms where the homebound sick and elderly sat in unbearable silence, and received their meals with gratitude. I remember trembling ancient hands touching my face and asking who I was, as some adult unpacked the multi course meals.

Those were good holidays.

Liana and I did the Macy’s Parade this year. Perhaps that will be our tradition. And perhaps when she gets older, we will do something to help others.

We did the Halloween parade. Not the big, rowdy Village parade. The second largest parade in the City is the Jackson Heights children’s parade, which passes just two blocks from home. We marched in the crowds, and when we got to the end, Liana received her goodie back from Christine Quinn, the speaker of the NY City Council. I wanted to take a moment to thank Quinn for her actions exposing dirty City Council actions with public money and not-for-profits that get public money and don’t provide services, even though she became the center of the scandal, for having exposed it. But my miserable City Council Rep was standing right next to her, and I knew if I started talking to the Speaker, I would go off on Helen Sears for sending money that was targeted for our community out of district. And this night was supposed to be all about Liana, not about politics. So I said “thank you” and Liana said “thank you” and Quinn’s handlers had her lean down and pretend to give Liana the bag again so they could take pictures. The we went trick or treat in all of the local stores. Then I raided Liana’s little bag, carefully taking out the little hard candies she could choke on, and I let her eat more junk in one evening than she had ever eaten in her life.

Hmmmm.

I tried to explain that Halloween was the halfway point between the fall equinox and the winter solstice, and Liana nodded her head knowingly in that way she always does when I am rambling about things that make no sense. She is very interested in the changing of the seasons, and perhaps next year she will understand some of my ramblings.

And I have a full year to work on better preparing for those holidays.

Onward to Christmas.

I actually think I have that one pretty well worked out. I’ll tell you all about it soon.

2008-11-27T18:46:00.002-05:00

Happy Thanksgiving.

Well we braved the cold and the terror threats and headed off to the parade. Liana was very excited about the idea of seeing the “big big big balloons” but she got a little scared when we pushed our way into the roaring crowd and watched the first set of balloons go by. So she insisted on being held for the entire parade. Ask me if every inch of my body hurts. Once she got into the spirit of the event, and decided that the screaming crowds were having fun, not expressing fear or anger, she had a blast. We had a very loud multigenerational Puerto Rican family squished right next to us, and there were a bunch of big girls who were squealing and carrying on, and Liana was almost as enchanted by them as she was by Kermit, the Big Dog and all of the music. Shrek was kinda scary. Missed Dora. But a great time was had.

Did I get any pictures, you ask? No. As I explained, Liana was bouncing in my arms the entire time. For those out of town blog readers, here is a link to the event that you missed.

http://www.ny1.com/Default.aspx?ArID=89717

2008-11-26T12:40:00.003-05:00

Privacy is one of those things that you can take for granted. Until it ceases to exist.

I remember privacy.

For example, Liana always followed me into the bathroom. But now that we are seriously working on potty training, her increasing interest in all bathroom-related activities has increased exponentially. And my privacy, and dignity, have decreased exponentially.

Here is the scene. I creep into the bathroom, hoping that she will not notice. But there she is. Right behind me. She watches me sit on the toilet, and perhaps places one hand on my knee, looking deeply into my eyes. As she hears the splash of urine in the toilet, she nods her head encouragingly, and proclaims “Good job, Mommy!”

2008-11-26T11:48:00.004-05:00

One of the greatest joys of motherhood so far has been the process of watching Liana develop her verbal skills. Although she continues to follow complex instructions in Spanish, she is speaking almost exclusively English at this point. Well. Liana-esque English, that is.

She has created this unique syntax, which is so delightful that I find myself speaking Lianaese, rather than modeling appropriate American syntax. I know better. But I can’t help myself.

Liana uses the word “the” a lot. And she inserts it into odd places. Often, it precedes a possessive pronoun, or replaces the apostrophe “s” to demonstrate possession.

No touch the my cookie!
We go to the mommy office now?
I put my head the Liana pillow.

Sometimes it replaces the subject in a sentence.

The finish my juice, mommy.
or
The need more juice mommy.
or
The ready to go now mommy.
or
The no want to put on my shoes.

Another related variation is when “the” seems to precede a proclamation of sorts. The sorts of things that I say to her repeatedly, and she chants like proverbs.

The floor wet, mommy. The be careful. The no fall down.
The put my shoes in my room, mommy.
The no pull the Sage tail. (wagging the index finger for emphasis)
The NEVER draw the crayons on the TV. (also wagging the finger for emphasis… though we have had a few repeat incidents after the initial proclamation.)

Other times, the definite pronoun is used when we would normally use the indefinite pronouns.

I build you the big house mommy! (with her blocks J )

I promise to write down some more Lianese soon, before it disappears and normalizes and becomes standard English. And before I forget this brief moment in time.

2008-11-25T09:07:00.004-05:00

Well after 6 years as my Assistant Director/Night Manager, Rachid has left me.

I've loved working with Rachid. He brought this great combination of skills to the job. Smart, creative, forward thinking, he was also really into creating protocols and sequences and offering more structure to compliment my much more free-form style. Of course, he brought exceptional technical skills. And he made me laugh a lot. And recently, both of us got to share the joys of becoming parents.

Rachid is GREAT with kids. Liana LOVES Rachid, and he loves her too. Liana is going to be very dissapointed this evening when I have to take her to the office and she discovers that Rachid is not there. Even though she did get her Rachid fix on Saturday.

Rachid and Kate and their baby daughter Layla took me and Liana to the Metropolitan Museum of Art on Saturday. Liana loves art, and she had a very good time, even though we stayed too long for the kids. Layla was, of course, a little too little to appreciate anything other than the occasional mirror, and of course the sights and sounds and chaos seemed to agree with her. So long as the stroller stayed in motion.

Liana loved the sphynx especially. But perhaps the highlight of the trip was when she approached a large statue of a naked woman and put her hands on the statue's feet. As security guards started moving forward to protect the statue, Liana loudly exclaimed "Mommy! She has no shoes!" Laughter ensued, from friends and strangers alike, and even the security guards smiled. I lifted her up to show her the entire statue, starting with the eyes and nose and mouth, but at that point Rachid was moving on, keeping Layla's stroller in constant motion, and Liana's attention was drawn away to the statue, and back to the job of keeping track of Rachid.

On the ride home, Kate and I talked about art and religion and politics and morality and traditions and customs and child-rearing. I really value her insight and perspective on so many levels, and whenever we talk, I find myself re-visiting her words and finding fresh wisdom. Rachid and Kate and Layla... I hope that our families continue to be friends over the years as our daughters grow up in this exciting little corner of planet earth....

2008-11-20T20:14:00.004-05:00

Ever looked at a sleeping baby and wondered what she was dreaming about?

I’ve wondered since I first held Liana in my arms.

But this little girl, who is so full of joy and belly laughs and curiosity and genuine verve during her waking hours, is haunted by nightmares every night. And night terrors. She wakes up screaming at least once per night. Sometimes twice. Or three times. Or more.

It is a battle to get her to sleep. And given that it seems terrible things happen to her in her sleep, I do not wonder why.

As her vocabulary has grown, she is suddenly starting to tell me about the content of her dreams. So far this week, I held her in my arms at midnight while she buried her little face in my shoulder and screamed “NOOOOOO!!!! Sage is coming. COMING. COMING. NOOOOOO!!!” The cat? Chasing her? She is the one who chases him. But I guess he gets his revenge in her dreams. Poor Liana. Poor Sage. Honestly, I guess I understand why he inhabits her nightmares. An aging indoor cat, with a simple life before her arrival in the household, he is the first living being who has ever been really mean to her. As she was learning to walk, she would barrel over to him and try and hug him. Or press her finger against his little nose. And he would hiss and swat with his declawed paw and run away. And she would weep. But that was at first. They are friendly now. She likes to pet him, and he tolerates it. Mostly.

The second nightmare of the week that she has been able to tell me about involved a toy robot who was trying to steal her orange. We don’t have a toy robot. We saw the movie Wall E, about a robot. And we have a book about a robot with a pet hedgehog. No oranges involved in either story. And no one tries to steal stuff from her. Well, maybe at daycare. But she worships the big kids, and they are very kind to her. Oddly, though, she is very possessive of her stuff…. often clutching a toy or treat, and exclaiming “NO! MINE!!” if someone comments or comes close.

Hmmm.

At some point I’ll write more about sleep. Or lack thereof.

2008-11-20T06:08:00.003-05:00

Liana is great in restaurants. And we eat out at least a few times a week. Once or twice we do a breakfast with eggs and potatoes in a diner. And at least once or twice we do a nice restaurant.

I pack up Liana’s backpack, each time with a few of the same items that are always there, and always a few surprises. So Liana has things to pull out of the bag and entertain herself. We bring crayons and paper too. Or, if it is a fancy restaurant in which we really don’t want to leave crayon marks on the tablecloth, we bring those magic markers and special paper….the ones in which the markers don’t write on anything but the paper.

Last week we took we took Antonia out to Uncle Peter’s to celebrate her 80th birthday. Her actual birthday was on Monday, and friends and family have been celebrating with her all week. Liana and I were the last to share in the festivities.

Let me tell you a little bit about my wonderful neighbor Antonia. She lives right across the hall. Every night, when Liana gets into her jammies, we ring Antonia’s doorbell and the two of them have a little paseo down the hallway to the elevator and back. When they pass the stairwell, Antonia lets go of Liana’s hand, and Liana comes running to me, jumps into my arms, and gives me a big hug. And then Antonia gives her tres besos. It is one of our evening rituals.

And the weekend before last Carol and Liana and I went out to brunch to celebrate the Obama victory. Liana put her cloth napkin on her lap, and requested fresh cheese on her pasta. She really is terrific. But when she is done, she is done. And ready to go.

Now.

2008-11-19T09:01:00.001-05:00

Liana’s a very empathetic little girl. She gets very upset when she hears a baby crying, and wants to be assured that everything is alright. She cares deeply about the characters in her stories, and frequently asks “Is OK mommy? Is OK?” when someone is facing challenges or problems. Her daycare provider comments on the empathy she shows for the other kids, and describes it as “una caractoristica muy noble.” I couldn’t agree more. I love the fact that she cares so much about others.

But sometimes I worry that she worries too much. In one of her Dr. Seuss books, there is the guy whose feet stick out of the end of his bed. Ned, I think. She would get so upset when we got to that page, exclaiming that he was stuck, asking if he was OK, and turning back to the page as we progressed in the story, that I’ve stopped reading that particular book. She’s a lousy sleeper, and the last thing I want her to be concerned about is problems in bed.

Last night we were reading Hop on Pop. When we got to the “Wet, Get. Two dogs get wet. Help. Yelp. They yelp for help” part, she put her hand on the page to prevent me from turning it, and said, “Mommy, I put on my backpack and boots and save the dogs?”

Thank you Dora for the backpack. Thank you Diego for saving all of those animals. Instead of being trapped in concern, Liana has used role models from other stories, and decided to solve the dogs’ dilemma herself.

Have I told you recently how much I love this little girl?

2008-11-16T09:10:00.002-05:00

At least once a week since August, I’ve had the opportunity to spend some quality time with my cable company. You know. The guys who provide me with TV and internet and phone service. They set up appointments. They either come to their scheduled appointments, or I spend 40 minutes on the phone with staff who claim that I canceled the appointment or I wasn’t here or that the appointment was at a different time. Sometimes the appointments are during work time. Other appointments are on weekend days, and I sit around the house rather than grocery shopping or taking Liana to the zoo or the museum. Other times, I get to have very long phone conversations, sometimes with human beings, and other times with recorded messages telling me to crawl around on my floor and unplug things and frequently saying things like “I’m sorry. I didn’t understand you. Can you just tell me if you see the four green lights?”

The months of August, September and October were spent with Time Warner Cable. Five cable boxes later, after a long bout with no internet or telephone, after having missed two of the three presidential debates, I had a tantrum and switched to RCN Cable. They, of course, promised me the world. Three hour time slots for appointments. Evening schedules. And even after the promotional specials expire, the service will still be cheaper than Time Warner.

The initial installation was uneventful for the TV and internet. And the internet has been going down less frequently, so I’m delighted. I seem to have more channels with stuff that Liana likes, which is great. But sadly, we do not have Noggin on Demand, which means that we cannot watch Miss Spider or Little Bear at any hour of the day or night.

The phone was another story. They couldn’t get the phone connected during the initial installation because they needed to get into some room in the basement and it was late in the evening and the basement room was locked. The guy asked me when I wanted him to come back, and gave me a bunch of options. I picked Sunday from 8-11 AM. When I called RCN last Sunday at about 10:45, the woman on the other end of the phone assured me that it was not a three hour time slot, but in fact an ALL DAY appointment. I told her that was not acceptable, and that I had a brunch date. No one called. No one came back. Later in the week I called them up, and said that I’d been spending entirely too much time dealing with cable companies, and that under no circumstances was I going to EVER be available for an ALL DAY appointment, and that they could just cancel my phone service, which had yet to be turned on.

A nice woman fussed and coo’ed and promised that someone would be here this Sunday. Today.

And the guy came. At 8:30! Which was great. However, he ran around looking for my phone jack, which I don’t have because I’ve never had a landline here except for the Time Warner connection. So he said he couldn’t do it. But that someone else could come later today. In an hour.

We’ll see.

I suppose I could entertain myself straightening up the apartment a bit, huh?

2008-11-15T14:50:00.003-05:00

Well we went to see Madagascar 2 today. I LOVED it. So did Liana. This was her second movie in a movie theater. Or her fourth… depending on how you count. We saw Wall E in a theater when it first came out. I streamed the trailer first, and she liked the characters. So I told her that we were going to a theater, with big chairs, and that there would be a big screen, like a TV or a computer, but sooo big. So big. And that we would sit in our chairs and the lights would go out, but it would be ok because we would be right next to each other…blah blah blah.

She was very excited. As we were getting ready to go, and I was packing up, I saw her pulling a folding chair out of her bedroom.

“Liana? What are you doing? It’s time to go to the movie theater!”

She pointed proudly to the chair, and said “chair mommy!”

Yeah, I told her all about the chairs, but forgot to tell her that the theater would be providing the chairs, and that she would not need to bring her own.

She LOVED Wall E. She loved it so much, that she asked to go back the following weekend. And the one after that. We saw it 3 times. So today was her second movie, but her fourth trip to a theater.

I swore that I was not going to let her watch TV or videos until she was three. Ummmm… it was about our third day together when she was 13 months old that I broke down. But I’m very careful about what she watches. Dora and Diego of course. Elmo. Miss Spider. We are on a Little Einsteins kick right now. And some movies too. We both really enjoy Happy Feet. I got the new Tinkerbell movie. And of course, some of the marvelous Disney movies that I have such marvelous memories of sharing with my dad when I was a kid. She has her own little DVD player, and last week I broke down, and got one for the TV too.

Honestly... I'm really enjoying watching the kids stuff with her. :)

2008-11-13T07:07:00.001-05:00

I’ve noticed that when Liana and I are out together in public, I, ummmm, chatter. A lot. I mean, when we are in places like supermarkets and doctors office waiting rooms or even when I am just pushing the stroller down the street, I seem to always be talking. Which seems normal to me I guess.

Look at the box of orzo! Orzo is pasta. Yummm. I like to eat orzo with cheese and butter. Do you like to eat orzo?

Look at the birds! Those birds are pigeons. What are the pigeons doing? They are eating. How nice. Look! Now they are flying! The pigeons are flying! How beautiful. I love to watch birds fly. Do you like to watch birds fly?

Look at that picture. What is the woman doing? She is smiling. See! There is her mouth. Where is your mouth? Right! Where is mommy’s mouth? Right! See… these are her lips, and those are her teeth. Show me your lips. And your teeth. I can’t see her tongue. Can you show me your tongue?

And on and on.

This seems normal to me. I mean… there is so much to see and so much to talk about!

Oddly, however, even when I am surrounded by other parents with their kids in these public places, I seem to be the only one talking. In the waiting room, my voice is echoing over the silence, or the shuffling of insurance papers. In the supermarket, my voice is competing with the background music and the announcements that Jose needs to come to the front. Even on the street, the only people talking are the ones talking on cell phones.

So I guess I am the odd one, huh?

2008-11-12T11:56:00.000-05:00

Independence is a good thing. Self-sufficiency is a good thing. I really really really believe that. And as Liana gets older, she pushes for that independence and self-sufficiency... whether mom is ready for it or not. These days, Liana dresses herself. Not very efficiently or effectively. But she INSISTS on doing it herself. If I attempt to help, she becomes frustrated, and proclaims "NO!!!! My turn mommy!!!"

I know that I should be proud of her developing skills... even if they add a considerable amount of time to our morning and evening routines. So in the spirit of taking pride in my beautiful daughter's achievements, I'm sharing some photos of the "putting on our socks" ceremony.

2008-11-12T10:21:00.000-05:00

Liana continues to try to establish her place in the household pecking order. She would really really really like to be the one in charge, but since I seem to veto that option on a daily basis, well, at least she can boss the cat around. And her developing verbal skills seem to provide the appropriate tools to do just that.

A couple of weeks ago, the cat jumped on the kitchen table. Which of course, he is not supposed to do. But he is a cat. Liana, however, is very aware of the rules, and did not hesitate to enforce them. She jumped up, ran over to the table, and exclaimed

"NO SAGE! Get down the table!!!! No drink the mommy coffee!!!!"

But it is not all about ruling the roost. She is actually a really loving, caring, empathetic human being. The same week as the cat-on-the-table incident, she was rumaging around the linen closet to entertain herself. Guess that is because she doesn't have enough toys, huh? But in any case, she takes a towel out of the closet, walks over to me, and starts rubbing my face with the towel.

"Make you feel better mommy. Make you feel better."

Now how sweet is that?

2008-11-12T09:25:00.000-05:00

I do have to tell you about Liana's first haircut. I kept putting it off and putting it off and trying to pull her hair up in a silly ponytail on top of her head. I had fantasies of long, flowing beautiful hair. But it got to the point at which her hair was really falling in her face, and she looked neglected. So I just did it.

We went to one of those silly uptown places that specialize in kid's haircuts, and I made a "first haircut" appointment.

When we walked in, we were instructed to pick out a video. We went for Dora. Liana was then seated in a chair that was really a racing car with a wheel to turn and buttons to press. A young woman blew bubbles at Liana, and another woman just started cutting as she squiggled around.

Liana enjoyed the whole process. Sadly, it seems that this is what she is now going to expect for future haircuts, so we are now stuck with this place. And aferwards, she got a lollypop... not something mommy allows very often. Or at all, actually. This was a first.

Glad I did it though. The cut is really cute.

2008-11-12T09:12:00.000-05:00

Ok. So I've got lots of catching up to do since I last blogged. I am not going to attempt to recreate the last nine months of Liana's life, but I'm going to have a few posts sharing some highlights. She is walking and running and climbing and dancing. She is talking and talking and talking, and every day new words come out of her that amaze me, and I am really in awe of her ongoing observations about the world around her.

Last night, for example, we were out running errands after work/daycare. The moon was full, and she was so excited, pointing and exclaiming "There it is!!! The moon! There it is!!!!" At a certain point she reached her arms up high, and tried to stand up in her stroller. She then sat down, defeated.

"No can reach mommy. Too high."

"Oh yes Liana. The moon is very very very high, and you can't reach it. But maybe some day, when you are a grown up, you can take a rocket ship to the moon. Maybe you'll be a scientist. Or maybe there will be hotels on the moon that you can visit. Maybe, some day, you will be able to reach the moon."

"Ok mommy."

2008-11-12T07:41:00.000-05:00

Welcome to the new and improved blog! Here, you will hear stories about the lives of one mommy, one amazing little girl, and one cat, as we wander the streets of the nation's second most diverse zip code. And beyond! Learn about our exciting adventures in potty training! Follow along, and find out if Liana ever learns to love veggies other than broccoli! Accompany us to parades and museums! Watch us go stir crazy as winter closes in on us! See Liana grow up in a world in which Obama is the only president she has ever known!