I'm overcome with a sense of regret and a time-slipping-though-my-fingers feeling that I haven't been better at documenting Thora's various stages. They come and go so quickly. I'm reminded over and over how all-consuming each parental phase seems until I'm out of it and eyeball deep in the next one. In fact, each phase seems determined to be with me for good and not a phase at all. "Surely, I'll never sleep again," I think. "This is it; this is my life now." But then a week later, we're all sleeping through the night, but I'm not noticing because all I can see is that my clothes, while never exactly fancy, have become wearable napkins, and I think, "Well, that's it. I'll never again walk around in public with a t-shirt that does not reveal what Thora ate earlier in the day. That's just my life now, until when, she's 16?"
Anyway, regardless of how it feels, the phases don't swallow me whole, despite the sucking sounds that come from my legs as that pull them out of the murk that's up to my knees. Raising a toddler feels more like I'm walking up to my knees in some unspeakable substance, walking until I think I can go no further, when out of nowhere, I walk into a swarm of bees. I haven't realized that the swampy ground has dried up and is in fact a nice mossy surface. I'm too distracted, debating if I should remain perfectly still or break into a full sprint. You get the idea.
So here's an anectodal snapshot of Thora in this moment, before she moves on to the next big thing. I think we're in a pretty good place on the metaphorical terrain. The ground is pretty smooth, the weather pleasant, with only the occasional hidden geyser to watch out for. Thora seems to spend about 90% of her awake time narrating all that she sees and knows. And she knows a lot. She points out all the objects that she knows. "Cuh" for cup, "Nay" for rain, "Vrreh-wa" for umbrella. She identifies parts of her body, "Toe" where she currently has an "Owwie," her "Knee," and she's always telling us where her "Ha" (hat) goes. She anticipates putting on her "Shees" (shoes). There's the food that she likes: "Ahh Jiss" (apple juice); "Nana" (banana); "Coo Coo" (cookie); "Cee Cee" (cereal); "Wa Wa" (water). But right now her favorite word/concept is "On" (light). "On" is her word for light and it means all lights, whether they are on or off. It takes us FOREVER to walk anywhere, since she points to almost all of the porch lights and says "On! ON! ON!" Any and all light fixtures receive her attention. As do many key holes on car doors. She walks up to the parked cars saying "Cahh" (her first Bostonian accented word, sigh) and holds her hand out clutching an imaginary set of keys and says "Key."
Her vocabulary is growing each day. However, some words that she'd mastered long ago, have now taken on additional and unexpected meanings. For example, "mama," which always just meant me, now means "chair" or "seat." This transition originated, I think, from a time when she started telling me where she wanted me to sit. We'd be at the park, climbing into the small playhouse, and she would pat the bench seat across from the seat she normally takes and would say, "Mama," as if to say, "Mama, I want you to sit here." However, recently, Sean and I watch her pat any seating surface, the couch or chairs in our living room or kitchen, park benches, curbs, and say "mama," whether I'm there or not. How do we interpret this? Does she think I'm always sitting on my ass? Hardly! Also, the simple word "hi," which she uses like a professional--she says "hi" to almost everyone we come across!--now has been attributed a new meaning of "here, take this."
While her growing linguistic dexterity is not her only trait right now, it is probably the one that we revel in the most when Sean and I are comparing parental notes: "Guess what she said today?" etc. More to come soon about all her other brilliant-seeming (to us, of course) and totally silly characteristics.
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