Monday, March 26, 2012

"I scared, Mama."

This weekend, we went to the zoo.  That's a fairly frequent occurrence for us.  The zoo has animals, which Emmy loves, and it provides an opportunity for exercise, and it isn't nearly as muddy as our backyard (which is a whole different topic).

This, however, was the first time we were able to try out the new dinosaur exhibit.  We were pretty excited about this.  Emmy knows about dinosaurs, from books and TV.  She knows they say "rawr," and she seemed interested in seeing them.

So, we bought our tickets for the "Dinosaur Trek," and got in line.  Emmy was sitting in her red wagon, and we pulled up to the first dinosaur and stopped to let her look.

"See the dinosaur, Emmy?"

"Emmy, look at the dinosaur.  What does the dinosaur say?"

And right about that moment, the dinosaur (I don't remember what it was called) spit water right in Emmy's face.  I imagine it is supposed to hit around people's waists, or maybe the chest, but poor Emmy in the wagon got it in the head.  She squealed and started crying.  

I grabbed her out of the wagon and lifted her up and turned away from the offending dinosaur, Emmy clutching my shirt with both legs and fingers for dear life.  And I turned right into the second spitting dinosaur, which got both of us.

We moved away from that one, and Emmy told me, "I not like it, Mommy."

"But Emmy, you like dinosaurs."

"I scared."

Emmy clutched my shirt for the rest of the Dino trek.  The animatronic dinosaurs terrified her.  The only ones she did like were the tiny duck-billed ones coming out of their eggs.  She didn't like the mother, though.

We walked through as fast as we could, but the walkway was fairly narrow, and we often had to wait for the kids in front of us to get done oohing and aahhing at the "awesome" dinosaurs.  Which meant that we could hear all the dinosaurs, even if we couldn't see them.

We finally got to the end, where the largest dinosaur, the T-Rex, was waiting.  I tried to shield Emmy's eyes, as I darted by, but she wouldn't let me, and just as we passed by, it roared.

On the way out, we got our hands stamped, so we could re-enter.  The lady asked us, "Would you guys like to go back in?" as she held out the stamp.

I laughed, mirthlessly.  "No," I said, gesturing to the barnacle-child still clutching my chest. "But, Thank you."

Later, Tom asked her what she thought of the dinosaurs.  She whimpered and said, "I scared, Daddy."

Tom said, "You don't have to be scared, Emmy.  Daddy's here."

So, she patted him on the back and said, "Don't worry, Daddy."

Thursday, March 15, 2012

Tom's Birthday (slightly out of order)

I forgot a really cute thing that Emmy did on Tom's birthday.

Let me start by explaining my (and Tom's) philosophy about birthdays.  We don't really care about surprise parties (well, one of us doesn't... ahem, Tom), what we care about is cake.  Birthdays are the only time that no one makes you feel guilty about cake.  I've always loved cake, especially the frosting part.

When I graduated from high school, mom and I bought cakes from every grocery store bakery to decide which (frosting) tasted the best.  I believe, at that point, Walmart won.  That's because we didn't have a Publix in 2001. 

So, anyway, for Tom's birthday, he requested a cheesecake, which Susan made for us. (Using her recipe, instead of mine, which makes the cake much taller than the one my mom taught me to make-- New York style, I think?)

And I made a gluten free cake (my favorite S'more cake), mostly so that I would have cake to eat.  And, on top of that, I ordered a cake from Publix-- Tom's favorite, vanilla cake, raspberry filling, and buttercream icing.

So, on the night of Tom's birthday, we took him out to eat, which was a disaster.  We tried several restaurants, which each had almost an hour long wait, and ended up at Tom's LEAST favorite restaurant (Cracker Barrel), which had NO wait.  (Apparently, it's everyone's least favorite).

But, this was all okay,  because waiting for us at home, we had THREE cakes to eat.  So, when we got home I set them all out on the kitchen table, one candle in each (one for each decade) and sang Happy Birthday.

While Emmy waited for someone to cut the cake, she pointed at the Publix cake and said, "That's Emmy's."  Then she pointed at the gluten free cake, and said, "That's mommy's."  Last, she pointed at the cheesecake, and said, "That's Daddy's."

We all stopped and goggled at her for a moment.  Then I asked her if Grandma could have a cake.  Sadly, since there were only three, Grandma was left cakeless.  But Emmy was willing to let her have a slice of any of the cakes she wanted.  She pointed out which cake belonged to whom a few more times, then proceeded with eating her slice (she requested the publix cake).

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

My Incredibly Considerate Child

In February, Emmy got sick two weekends in a row.  We think she must have just been coughing so hard that she threw up, but we'll never know for sure.

On Saturdays, she usually lets us sleep in a bit, and when I hear her talking to herself, I go check on her and get her out of the crib.  Both these days, I walked in, got her out of bed, got her diaper changed, and then noticed that something was amiss.

Both Saturdays, everything was piled up on the far side of the crib away from Emmy. 

I looked at Emmy and I asked her, "Emmy, did you throw up?"  She nodded at me.  "Well, sweetie, why didn't you call me?"

To which she, understandably, had no answer.  Her vocabulary is steadily increasing, but I didn't really expect her to answer my question.

But it's the oddest thing.  I know that when I was a kid, if I threw up, I screamed for my mom until she came and cleaned it all up.  (By the way, thanks for that, mom.)  It wasn't even that I needed someone to clean it up, I probably could have pushed everything aside until the morning-- but when I threw up, I wanted sympathy.  Right then.

But not my daughter.  She just moves it out of her way and moves on with her night. (There's no way to tell when she's throwing up.  It might be happening first thing in the morning anyway.  All I know is, it's not there when we check on her before Tom and I go to bed.)  It's just another in the catalog of ways that she is different from me.