Familiar Sounds

Three year olds are a lot of fun. They are so simple and innocent, especially when compared to older siblings. The tantrums I could do without, but the rest is pretty darn cute.

My three year old likes to keep up with her big sister. So we get a lot of "Look at this!" going on around here. She shows us all kinds of wonders of the world, like how she can point her toes, bend over and lean on her head, or jump in the air. Real amazing stuff.

But we always humor her and say "Wow!'" and "Good job!" so she knows that she is not forgotten.

Except sometimes she is sort of forgotten. She will be showing off her talents and I will be in the middle of changing a diaper or pulling dog food out of my son's mouth, and I just can't give her the attention she wants. When that happens, I give the "Uh-huh, that's great! You are doing a good job!" response, withouth even looking at her. I know it's not ideal, but sometimes it's all I've got.

Apparently I do this quite often. And my oldest has noticed.

Yesterday we are in the kitchen and my oldest is digging through the "gum drawer". Yes, we have one, no it's not FULL of gum, yes it's sugarless, and yes I swore I would never keep that much gum in the house that it needed its own drawer, but that is neither here nor there.

So here is my oldest, doing her own thing, and me doing my own thing that I think involved emptying the dishwasher. And my youngest is saying "Look at me sissy! Look at me sissy!" and trying to show her big sister another one of her astounding feats.

And without skipping a beat, while her nose is deep in the search for watermelon Trident, my oldest says "Yea, uh-huh, that's great. Really excellent. Good job," without an ounce of inflection in her voice and not even a peep sent her sister's way.

I totally cracked up. I couldn't help it. When you hear yourself echoed back to you in the voice of a six year old, you just have to laugh. Which then made her laugh. And I had to call her on it, admitting that she must see me do that all too often. Which made us laugh a little more.

And there's my younger daughter, still showing us her trick.

Ah, the innocence.

I'm Not Sure I'll Ever Be Ready

Here we go again. The curiousity around tampons continues to build.

The other day I walk into my bathroom and find my daughters with mischievous looks on their faces.

"What's going on?" I ask.

My 3 year old holds up one end (yes, only one end with no string in sight) of a yellow plastic tampon applicator and asks, "What's this?"

It takes it a second to register what she is holding, and then it hits me like a box of Kotex. I panic as I think she has reached into the garbage to pluck out this little curio. Then I relax a little when I realize that my housecleaners have just left so the garbage is empty.

I ask "Where did you get that?"

"From sissy," she says.

So I ask my oldest about it and she says "I just unwrapped it. She's the one that took it apart."

My mind races. What to do, what to do? Make up something? A little white lie never hurt, right?

Then I think, okay, here's my chance to just put it out there and end the curiosity.

"This is a tampon," I say to my oldest. "Remember when you were asking me about them before? Well, this is it."

"What's it for?" she asks.

"It's for...it's a...they're for...," I stammer.

Oh Lordy. How can I explain this? There is just no way I can spin it that would not scare the begeezus out of her. Let alone her little sister that is listening in. No matter how you look at it, bleeding for 7 days from your vagina (close enough for explanation purposes) just ain't a happy topic.

I mean we just got passed the stage of putting a band aid on every injury, even those of a bloodless nature. Imagine the fright of realizing that she is headed right toward this red sea and there is no way of stopping it from happening to her, and no way to tell when it will appear and become a part of her life for many, many years. Every month, no less.

I can already hear the 2am nightmare screams from her room "Mommy! The blood was everywhere! I was dreaming about perioding!!”

Nope. There's just no way I'm ready for this conversation.

So I settle for this: "It's just something that grown up women need. And you don't need to worry about it until you are a grown up. So please just leave them alone and when you are old enough we'll talk about it. And DON'T PLAY WITH THEM AGAIN. It's not a toy."

I really don't know how I'm going to go about this when the time comes, but I guess I'll have to deal with it sometime. Just not this week.

And until then, I'll be putting that box of tampons someplace a little less obvious, starting next month.

Safety First

Apparently my 3 year old daughter is teaching the safety class at the School of Mom. Here is the sage advice she offered me today. Yes, this was all in the course of a few hours.

While driving in the car, I reach to the back seat and hand her an animal cracker.

“Thanks mom. But don’t look at me, mom,” she says.

I wasn’t actually looking at her at the moment, just handing her the cookie blindly. Thinking that she said this because she was doing something 'bad', which is usually when she uses this sentence, I ask the obvious follow up question: “Why?”

“Because you don’t want to get in an accident,” she states.

Oh, of course.

And she follows it up with “You can look at me in the mirror if you want.”

What a smart idea, wee one.

Later on, while playing in the family room where her little brother was busy at work taking things apart and generally making a mess, she exits the room, goes through the room I am sitting in with her older sister, and goes to the bathroom.

A few seconds later, I hear her little voice from the potty asking “Mom, can you check on little brother for me?”

Why yes, that would be a good idea too.

And still later, while I was helping my oldest fix something with staples in it, I put a staple in that always-available spot for holding things when your hands are full or you don’t want to put something on the floor. Yes, in between my lips. I just wanted it off the floor and out of reach from little hands.

My 3 year old sees this and says “Mom, don’t swallow that. You could choke and that would be bad.”

Yes, that would be bad, oh-wise-one.

Learning from you well I am.

Goose Bumps Schmoose Bumps

This was the second week in a row that I used a Friday morning to have time with just my 3 year old daughter and myself. If we go to our athletic club, I can check in my son at the day care. Then we can swim and hang out, just her and me. Our activities are a little limited to the pool, but that's not too bad if the weather's nice. And the water is always warm.

It’s sad to say that I could have been doing this MUCH sooner, but hey, better a year late than never. And even if it is only one hour, it’s all hers. Which says a lot when you have three young kids (oh, and don’t forget the dog, like I usually do).

Unfortunately my younger daughter hasn’t had a lot of one-on-one time in the last year. She had a lot when she was an infant and her sister was in preschool. And then that whittled down when she turned two and started preschool herself. And then it pretty much turned to dust when we had our third child a year ago.

Plus, I wasn’t going to be caught dead in a swim suit last summer after having a baby in May. No way, no how.

Anyway, back to the pool. We aren’t having the greatest weather around here lately, although I really shouldn’t be complaining. But the mornings are in the 50’s and overcast, which can make for chilly weather for bathing suits.

After we change out of our long sleeves and pants and into our suits, goose bumps start rippling over my limbs and I am beginning to dread this commitment. The joy and fun from last week’s outing are a distant memory and I am thinking that I’d really rather be reading a magazine exercising all by myself with both kids checked in to the day care.

Then I see a fellow mom friend who remarks that I am brave to take my daughter out in this weather and swim with her myself, without a lesson lined up.

As we get to the pool, one of the instructors in the middle of giving a lesson also calls me brave and says she wouldn’t be here if they weren’t paying her.

These comments are not really building the anticipation for me. Now I really don’t want to be swimming. Bless my daughter’s heart, but it’s not personal. I just want to be warm and lazy. And alone. It’s the end of the week and I’m ready to start a weekend of ‘daddy time’.

But I use my own best advice and buck up.

My daughter and I shed our towels and dip our toes in the water. We agree it’s not bad and then gradually enter the pool.

The 85 degrees washes over us and we swim for shelter in the warm water.

Then the giggles begin. And her radiant smile beams as we swim and splash and play.

I get unsolicited nose kisses and lots of hugs. I smile and laugh as I watch her unhindered love and enthusiasm reveal itself on her face.

She sings made up songs and laughs. She laughs so loud I have to actually tell her to try to laugh a little softer because it’s making an echo and might distract one of the other kids getting lessons.

Then we follow that play time up with a hot shower and a snack.

Perfection.

Yes, I remember why I said I would do this.

Because it’s a great way to start your day.