Our Bodies, Our Religion, Ourselves

When Maya starting developing more of a sense of self, besides an interest in male oriented characters, she was curious about the human body, as most kids are. When I became pregnant with #3, she was much older than when #2 was growing, so she had many more questions and more of an awareness of how a woman's body changes. She looked at my growing belly one day and said, 

"Mommy, I have a small uterus!"

Later that week she heard the term "booby trap" in some show or book she read and was trying to talk out what exactly that could mean. Before I could give her an answer she said:

"Oh - a booby trap is when you fall on your boobies!"

Kindergarten for Maya was also a time of cultural and religious identity development. Being that she goes to a private Jewish day school, Maya started showing fierce commitment to our religion starting with week 1 there. At Friday night dinner after her exhausting first week of school, we did a quick run through of the Shabbat blessings. Maya became extremely emotional and cried:

"Noooo you can't sing it like that or God will be mad at us!" - definitely came to that conclusion on her own, that's not a thing.

Later on that year she reflected during breakfast:

"Turkey bacon is soooo good! The people that eat pork bacon are missing out!" 😂😂😂😂

Her understanding of the Jewish experience has developed since then, with learning about the slaves in Egypt, and then comes talk and questions about the Holocaust, and being that her great grandparents and even one of her grandfathers were and are survivors, she has learned a little bit about the persecution of our people. Maya came back from the gym's kids club one day and stated:

"None of the kids in the kids club are Jewish, so I asked them where their families came from to tell them what wars they were in with the Jews."

Oy! And now that we've caught up with Maya, we'll move our boychick, Ari. Stay tuned....

 Maya in a family play during Passover, playing the Egyptian Queen

Maya and Ari witnessing the growing uterus

Maternity Leave #3

Took a year hiatus because we procreated yet again! Since we are finally settling in to life as a family of 5...I want to catch up on the stories from not only toddler Maya but toddler Ari, now that they are both making much longer, bolder, and intelligible statements.

A THREE-YEAR OLD IN THREE ACTS:

ACT I:

Flashback to almost 4 years ago in 2014 (because um, 2018!!), Maya had to go to the ENT every so often to get her ear tubes checked. As a motivator/reward, and because it was so close to the appointment, we went to the Dunkin Donuts afterwards. There were lots of people there this one time, and 3 year old Maya looked around and asked, "Did these people all go to the doctor too?"

ACT II:

Bedtime routines are often when we see the comedy come out of our kids. Here is a sample from Maya at age 3:

*I read Maya a bedtime story from Toy Story and at the end I quoted it saying, "Maya, I love you to infinity and beyond!"...Maya said to me, "Mommy, I love you to Bed, Bath, and Beyond!"

*When Ari was a baby, Maya used to talk to his door when he was asleep already. Every night she'd audibly whisper, "Goodnight Ari, I love you, but I don't love you, but I do love you, but I don't. Goodnight!" Ain't that the truth about having a new sibling?

*Mark was using mouthwash and Maya was observing. The bottle was almost empty and Maya said, "You're almost done with your spit drink daddy!" 

*Maya was upset about something around bedtime, then her toothpaste accidentally squirted all over. Maya laughed and said, "It's like a sun shower because I'm happy and sad at the same time." Wow - at age 3 she had more insight into the complexity of feelings than many adults I know.

ACT III:

Insulting one's parents often begins young and innocently, and eventually just turns into tween criticism. I learned fast that with Maya, she was already a pre-teen in her toddler years...without further adieu:

1) "Mommy, your breath smells like turkey poop."

2) After watching a video of a song I wrote and sang called, "Protect Our Ears" Maya said, "Maybe we need to protect our ears from this song."

3) When looking at a callous on my toe. "Look how wrinkly your toe is, it's like Ari's penis."

4) "Focus on your story Mom!" - And I hope one day I can.

THEN...

AND NOW.

.

And scene.

Figurative Language

My eldest truly is the wisest. Maybe she is destined to write more than a blog one day. The way she uses language and is in touch with her feelings, even when she was a 2 year old, was and remains remarkable to me. Her first noted simile was in the summer of 2013 at 2 years old, when I wouldn't allow her to do something that I can't even remember. She looked at me with burning intensity and screamed:

"I AM ANGRY LIKE A DRAGON!"

The next week we went to Old Navy with my mom on a family outing to look for new baby clothes in preparation for her little brother's arrival. Maya looked up at the fluorescent lights and vibrant clothing and said:

"Wow, it's like a party in here!"

The party continued later into the summer when her brother was about to be born and my daughter won my heart once again. As I waddled into the kitchen feeling bloated and tired, she said:

"Mommy, I like your dress. You're beautiful." She then put a stuffed animal inside her shirt to look like me.

It's these moments we should never forget as parents. My mom has said to me that even though my brother and I are standing right in front of her, she misses her babies. The time with our constantly evolving children is so stressful, and beautiful, and fleeting, and insane, and awesome, and exhausting. And I don't want to ever forget it.

Kids say the darnedest things!

When Maya was around 2.5 years old, she started to assert herself and make her opinions known......when she woke up......at 5 AM. My parents, who had me as their first kid - and I was the epitome of a great twelve-hour sleeper - couldn't believe we jumped into getting pregnant again considering the H - E double hockey sticks Maya had been putting us through with her sleep, or lack there of. 

One morning, around the 5:30-6:00 am range, Maya found her whistle and began running through the kitchen, blowing it as much as her little lungs could. Our windows were open with the great spring weather. 

Me: "Maya, you're going to wake up the neighbors blowing that whistle so early." 

Maya: "I'm not worried."

At the same time that our daughter was beginning to be her tough self, she also began to spontaneously display and profess her affections to her family. In May, 2013 out of nowhere and again in our kitchen while Mark was making her dinner and she played next to him on the floor, she said:

"I love you daddy."

It was the first time she said this to him unprompted. He looked at us both with almost tears in his eyes and pure joy. And as he was about to respond with words of fatherly love and devotion, she emphatically stated:

"I love you floor."

End scene. 

Clothes make the man. Or the woman. Or the girl. Or whatever you want to be.

Personality and temperament emerge earlier than most parents expect. When Maya was just 2, she decided that dresses were not her thing. As a matter of fact, neither were princesses, dolls, n or the color pink. That's not to say she isn't nurturing. Her dolls are stuffed animals instead...like a zillion stuffed animals (thank you Grandparents) and she cares for them like the attentive mother she will become. But at that early of an age she decided that she liked sports, "boy" clothing, and her favorite characters were the strong males, such as the Beast from Beauty and the beast, Chase from Paw Patrol, knights in armor, Batman, you name it. Have you ever met a three year-old girl with a Batman themed birthday party? Well, that's my kid! And I'm proud of her. And I also was NOTHING like this! I was the girl who put on my grandmother's clip on earrings, played with my mom's lipstick and loved clomping around in oversized 80's high heels. I loved Barbie and literally thought my hair would become blonde when I was all grown up. After all, those were the role models of the 80's. 

Almost blonde right?  This is me in 1987.

Anyway, back to my different little prince/princess. She has always marched to the beat of her own drum and I pray the tween years doesn't beat those drumsticks out of her hands!

But just because people identify like the opposite gender doesn't mean they aren't aware of who they are. In July of 2013, Maya, almost two and a half, looked at me when I was changing one day and asked, "when am I going to get boobies?" 

"When you are much older" is what I think I told her. But it's really not so far away, and I want to make sure I appreciate my little beast/power ranger/knight/superhero kid in the meantime.

BEAST!!!!!

Wow was I busy. I forgot the update my blog for the last FIVE years! Silly me. All my wittiness, charm, and charisma have dwindled from the continuous sleeplessness, addition of another child, home ownership, and private practice building. Since I'm old and boring and my word retrieval skills are just not, what's the word? Well anyway, I am rededicating this blog to my children and the witty things they say. I have been tracking both kids' humorous observations, questions, and stories since they began talking. As a speech pathologist, we call this a language sample. As a mom, it's just payback for the torture they put me through. Enjoy this future 16 year old Maya and 14 year old Ari!

Back in 2013, when Maya was just 2, she had an odd focus on her knees and an interesting way of expressing that interest. On a trip to Florida that winter, she was put in shorts with no memory of wearing shorts in the past. She stared down at herself and said, "my knees are outside!" And they were. Smart kid. In synagogue later that month, she then said, "my knees are in shuel!" As was the rest of you, my child. What's up with your knees?

Then the spring before her brother arrived, two-year old Maya sat with her dad and me at the dinner table. She leaned over and let a HUGE adult volumed fart rip. We call a fart a "flootsie" (floots is the Hebrew word). Maya laughed and looked at us and confidently stated, "Maya big flootsie, Mommy big flootsie...." Drumroll...."Daddy big penis!" I think this anecdote might embarrass my husband more than her, but I think it indicates her understanding of anatomy and how the body works according to gender. Boys have penises and girls fart. Both true.

Pictured: Maya and her knees on that Florida trip, Spring 2013

Flip Flopper

“She’s an angel all day, but at nighttime it’s war!” -Quote from my husband.

It’s amazing that almost all babies are born with their nights and days switched. Our little girl is 7 weeks old and can sleep almost every minute of the day (although I’ll admit she is having more alert hours while the sun is still up), but at night we have to trick her into sleeping. This requires putting her in a food-induced coma, rocking her, playing lullabies, singing to her, swaddling her, playing a sound machine…anything that the books, the doctors, the family, and the friends say will work.

It seems like the bouncers and swings and cradles that jostle her around, not only put her to sleep faster, but KEEP her asleep. So why haven’t they invented rocking or vibrating cribs? I should be calling my patent attorney right now and get this thing going. Well, I’m sure there is a medical or developmental reason why cribs shouldn’t move, but it does make sense to me.

So here I am now, writing this entry at 3:15 am, because I just finished feeding my little one at 2:10, then I rocked her and made sure she was asleep for about 20 minutes, and for the last 45 minutes she has been sleeping in her crib! But guess who also has her night and days switched now? That’s correct! I used to crash as soon as my head hit the pillow and now I want to sleep all day with her and stay up writing blogs at night. Oh wait, I hear her kvetching right now…gotta go do some mothering! Until we meet again….