When you've been gone for a month, you have to come back with a strong headline ...

MJ and I have been having some interesting conversations lately, and I kind of have to make time to share at least one of them, even if both my children are trading fevers of 102 degrees every other day at the moment and the inside of my head is screaming a scream that only my tired, tired bones can hear.

(SIDEBAR: Actual discussion between Randy and I: "I'm so tired." Him: "You could have gone to sleep 30 minutes ago instead of reading that book." Me: "No, I don't mean sleepy tired. I mean bone tired. You know, the kind that's like, stuck in your marrow and never coming out. When do you think it will come out?" Him: "In another 15, 16 years.")

Anyway ... Tonight I was making pasta sauce, and MJ picked up a box of frozen parsley flakes from the counter.

"Mommy, what it smell like?" she asked.

"I don't know, peanut. Why don't you tell me what you think it smells like."

"OK."

[Flips top open, sniffs from about two feet away.]

"Smells like friends," she tells me.

"Like friends?"

"Yeah! Friends."

[At this point, as in all examples of her comparisons of what things taste, smell or look like of late, I had to bend down to her level and ask her again to make sure I heard her right.]

"What are friends?" I asked her ... because I don't know, it's possible she has confused them with some type of food, like Goldfish crackers. She is 3, after all.

"You know! Kids!" she said, with much glee. "It's very stinky, Mommy."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. I very like it."

She later "counted" the individual flakes in the box ... which she called a jar ... and drew this picture of them. I think it's the best picture I've ever seen. I kind of very love it.

Back when I was a diligent blogger, i.e., when I rarely took time to clean house and my car was always late for an oil change/inspection/etc., things would happen that I knew I'd want to write about, and I would scramble for a notepad to write it down before I forgot. (I still have to write EVERYTHING down, mind you, and here's a sampling of what appears on my kitchen calendar right now: "clean oven," "rose bush trellis," "philosophy." Yes, I have to remind myself to clean my oven, as if the crumpled pizza carcinogens smoking from its bottom aren't reminder enough. And don't get too excited about that "philosophy" bit; I have not taken up higher studies just as my beloved fall television schedule gets underway. That refers to the skin care company philosophy.)

ANYWAY, as I was clearing out some junk today, I came across a little mini- notation I made several months ago, little bits of dialogue MJ and I had shared. Without further ado, and so I can cross something off my to-do list (which feels so great to-do, ahem), I present "The Tale of the Boon" and "Perfect," two slices of life with MJ:

MJ has a ridiculously good memory. A month or two ago, she got a green dolphin balloon at a birthday party, and toted the thing around the rest of the day. She also toted it out onto our deck, where, predictably, inevitably, she lost it to the clouds. Today, we were sitting on the deck, and she looked up at the sky and said, "Mommy, where's the green 'boon?" It took me a very long time to figure out what she was talking about, and when I did, I reminded her that we'd lost it when she'd let go of it.

"Oh," she said, "Maybe the air took the 'boon to the boys to play with."

I have no idea who the boys are.

And on that same day, she had been sprawled out on the kitchen floor coloring with markers -- a little bit on paper, mostly on herself. She hopped up, ran past where I was standing at the stove and into the bathroom. A few minutes later she came out -- inexplicably wearing her backpack -- and said, "There Mommy. I washed my knees. All the marker's off. I'm all perfect."

"You're perfect?" I asked.
"Yeah, I'm all perfect," she said. "I'm all clean and fluffy."

The cutest. Just the cutest.

... or, "What Happens When a Little Girl Mixes Her Toys," aka, "Why I Love My Toddler: Reason #3,675," a photo essay in four parts:

Despite his rusty exterior, Mater likes to sleep in a fluffy canopy bed in a pink room. He keeps his potty chair nearby, though, for emergencies.  













Even cars get tired sometimes, as these minis show. Or, as MJ calls them, "baby cars." And where do baby cars belong? In cribs, of course.

 

Grilling in the living room is not advised, but at least Ramone is keeping a safe distance from the BBQ here.

After a nice long nap, it's good to get outside to the playground. Maybe take a trip down the slides.

For the most part, giving MJ a little bribe for going on the potty has worked wonders: She's really responded to getting a reward and didn't complain when we cut out "special surprises" for peeing once she had that task down.

Only one problem. She's turned into a regular consumer. If she sees something she wants, she heads into bargaining mode. It's a little like living on a used car lot. "What's it going to take to get me into that ice cream cone today, Mom?"

• "Mommy, can I have that Charlie and Lola book?"
• "No dear."
• "If I pee? Can I have it if I pee?"

Or ...

• "Mommy, I need a TV."
• "You need a what?"
• "MJ needs a TV. For my dollhouse. For peeing?"

But my favorite request by far was this one, from the other night: We were reading a book at bedtime, and one of the illustrations was a nighttime sky with little stars twinkling in it.

"Mommy," she said, "could we get a star? For going on the potty."

"A star? You mean like a sticker?" I asked.

"No," she said, pointing to the ceiling of her room, "like a real star from up in the sky. MJ wants one of those. For peeing."

It reminded me of that scene from It's a Wonderful Life, the "George Lassos the Moon" bit. At least she knows how to dream big.

     

As he was leaving for work yesterday, Randy asked MJ and me what we had planned for the day.

"Oh," I said, with genuine enthusiasm, "we're going to have lots of fun ..."

He laughed. Not an "Oh, good, wish I could be there" kind of laugh, but rather a cheerful snort. A chortle, if you will. A disbelieving snicker, you might say. Now, give him his due: He had been up since 3:30 a.m. with MJ, when a fake need to use the potty turned into a need for toy cars and who knows what else. So the idea of having any sort of fun when watching this particular toddler for the next eight hours was, admittedly, not a viable notion to him. But I really did have plans for the day. Good ones.

Which is, of course, where I went wrong. Randy had plans to sleep all night, after all, and look where that got him.

So the new read-along book I wanted to do with her ended after two pages, when she figured out this was the same story she could watch in movie form on the DVD player. I used to love read-along books when I was little, so surely she would, too? Nope. Not so much. But then again, what good is a read-along when you can't read yet?

Then there were the muffins that I thought we could make together. Like any kid who hasn't yet realized how much work is involved in cooking, MJ always wants to help in the kitchen. We have a toddler cookbook by Annabel Karmel that makes this task seem like a glorious mother-child bonding moment. Witness the shiny happiness on this page:

But what MJ did instead of pouring and stirring was to make "apple boats":

... which is altogether cuter than stirring and pouring, but was not in the recipe, aka, "the plan."

The day went on like this. I had a vision of how our day might go; she had an altogether different idea -- not worse than mine, just a different interpretation. A different plan. No plan, in fact.

A lactation consultant once told me that women who demanded (or demand) excellence from themselves in the workplace are often surprised or frustrated by the ways in which they can't control the daily tasks of motherhood. It starts when you devise a birth plan that gets shot to h-e-double-hockey-sticks as your labor doesn't behave right, and continues each time you make a plan, big or small. In my workplace, there were rules and etiquette and meetings and benchmarks. In parenting, there are questions, journeys, unknowns. Being prepared doesn't mean crossing off a checklist of to-dos; it means understanding that you might just have a better time at Chick-fil-A's customer appreciation day than your kid, who actually turns out to be afraid of the main attraction: The guy dressed up in the cow costume.

In fact, if motherhood were a job you interviewed for, it would be the only occasion where "I'm a perfectionist" would be a proper response to the question "What would you say is your greatest weakness?"

As a freelance writer, I knew the steps to putting together an article. I could envision the research, the reporting, the transcribing, the brainstorming, the writing, the editing. As a mother, the best days I have are usually the ones where one random activity takes us to another one, when I don't concern myself with entertaining her so much as I let her be entertained.

Most of the time, I know this; I've learned it through months of practice. But there are days still when I have to relearn it, relinquish control, rewrite the plan, and make apple boats instead of apple muffins.

Pop quiz time! What do you see in the following picture? (Hint: You're a TODDLER.)

a) a tea bag;

b) a "dwink" envelope (or "mail-ope," as MJ says);

c) a letter of the alphabet;

d) a bag of cookie seeds

Well, it's d, obviously. This happened to be sitting on the counter while we were making chocolate chip cookies this weekend (mmm ... chocolate chip cookies), and:

MJ: "Mommy, this would grow good cookies."

Me: "It would what? Grow cookies?"

MJ: "Yeah. You could grow nice cookies with these. These are seeds you can grow some cookies with."

Me: "Yeah?"

MJ: "Yeah. You put them in the ground, and ... and ... and they grow cookies!"

She slays me, I tell you. She just slays me.

So, we've been reading this book called The Mixed-Up Chameleon by Eric Carle -- very cute story about a chameleon who tries to be many different animals, but in the end, finds he is happiest as himself. A great message.

But when we reached the page in the book where the chameleon looks "gray and dull" because he's "cold and hungry," MJ disagreed. Her take-away message: "He looks that way because he's old."

Nice one.

Now, for the record, I'm not teaching her that older folks are gray and dull. I blame this guy: That's Fred from Cars -- yes, more Cars; this is getting to be such an obsession it will have it's own Bunker blog category soon. Fred is one of the lesser-known characters, but when you're collecting all these little guys like she is, you have to start slow. Work up to Tow Mater and Sally and Doc. Give her something to look forward to. Anyway, she asked me why Fred's body was all bumpy and beat up, and I told her it was because Fred was rusty.

"Why?"

"Well, because that's what happens when cars get old," I said.

I sincerely hope she doesn't tell her grandparents they're rusty next time she sees them.

I once gave a donation (OK, two or three) to the March of Dimes -- because I like to help keep babies safe -- and they sent me some nice address labels as a thank you. Thank you, March of Dimes. Ever since then, I get a packet or two of labels per week from various charities. I suspect you don't have to give to anyone to get these puppies in the mail, but I know that I never got quite so many before I became semi-charitable.

I have flower ones and birdie ones, some with teacups and Gerbera daisies, and others with pink ribbons for breast cancer awareness (they're my favorite). I have some with frogs and some with Ziggy; some with purses and some with high heels (which I can't imagine putting on a piece of mail, because I haven't worn such things since the late 1990's, when my feet informed me that they were going nowhere with me if I put them in a pair).

I also have the entire seasonal collection: Christmas trees and poinsettias, winter snowflakes, Valentine hearts, summer seashells and sailboats, fall leaves and Halloween pumpkins -- which is great, because one of these Halloweens, I just know I'm going to haul my carpal tunnel down to Hallmark and buy up all their ghoul cards to send to my friends.

All in all, I have 855 address labels. I use e-mail. We pay our bills electronically. At our current rate of consumption vs. collecting, we would probably finish up the last of our label stock in 2028.

Luckily, we won't have to wait that long. MJ found the label drawer this week, and it turns out that they make excellent pretend "boo-boo band aids." I myself have had the pleasure of wearing six or seven of them on my forearms every day -- "No, Mommy! You can't take them off! They won't work if you do!" -- and I must admit I do feel better after having worn them around the house, in my backyard and -- ironically -- at the post office. My arms now are virtually hair-free, and if I were to become disoriented and begin to wander around the neighborhood lost, I feel confident that someone would look at my wrist and take me back to my home.

Little L also has benefited from MJ's gorgeous imagination. Yesterday, she was sitting on the floor, crying her little "I'm tired" cry, and MJ intervened. She got a little address label -- a boo-boo band aid with Mommy's name printed right on it -- and stuck it over her heart.