Mirror Image

It's so funny as my child grows I see more and more of myself. Sometimes, the not so flattering, sometimes the funny, sometimes the good stuff. We took Piper camping this weekend for her first time - more on that later.... As we were "pine cone hunting" I realized, once again, how observant my child is. After a couple of minutes and several miraculously appearing pine cones(NOT - there were about 15000 in a five square foot radius) Piper started saying "(GASP!) PINE CONE!!" The gasp was one of "surprise". I guess I was doing that to make pine cone hunting a little bit more exciting than it sounds. Not sure if that was for me or her.... Anyway, now everything is a miraculous appearance: "GASP! SHOE!", "GASP! STAIRS!". Ok, so maybe I try to make mundane things interesting with a GASP of surprise. Is that so wrong?

But sometimes, the mirroring tells you you're doing somethings right. Like when she looks at me and says "Mommy's eyes, pretty!". Awwww, melt my heart. I'm glad she knows what it sounds like to get a compliment. Or when she tells me she loves me without me telling her first. Or when she gives her mommy a kiss out of the blue. She is completely loved and now she's able to reciprocate a little, and that's nice.

It helps that her vocabulary is just booming at this point. She is really into naming possessions: ie, "Piper's shoes", "Mommy's shoes", "Daddy's coffee". She even makes up her own words sometimes. "Piper-sault" (Piper somersault), or "Piper-gurt" (Piper's yogurt). I see her daily and I can't keep up on all her new words. Her Dad and I often have to consult on what she means because one or the other will have been there when she discovered this new word or phrase.

She's also starting to sing. Well, it's more like chanting at this point. She gets the words, but not so much the tune. My friend Wendy, who is a beautiful vocalist, said that her son who is 18 mos is getting the tunes, but not the words. Well, as she said, "That's the difference between a child whose mommy can sing and a child whose mommy can't sing!" Yeah, mirrored again.

And does that child love to dance. She's got a new move. I call it her Bill Cosby move. You remember, the black guy who couldn't dance (or at least who's character couldn't dance). Ok, maybe mirrored again.

Despite the beginnings of temper tantrums and aggressive attempts at independence, this is still a fun and magical time. She makes me laugh daily. And a lot of the time I'm laughing at myself.

Did you ever have the feeling....

....there's a geeling on the ceiling? Or a wasket in your basket? Or a zlock behind your clock? Sometimes I feel quite certain......I'm losing my mind! Because more often than I think should be normal, Dr. Seuss authors my inner thoughts. Damn him and his witty prose. Rhyming words no one else would ever even dare to TRY to rhyme. Coming out with these poetic rhythms that could stump even the greatest orators on their first try. But once you master them, you can't turn them off. Sometimes I feel quite certain there's a Rainman in my head. Does this happen to everyone? Maybe it's the heat. Or hormones. Who knows?

What I do know is that no one can say it like Seuss.

If you need a reminder, here's a link:

http://www.seussville.com/main.php?section=home&isbn=&catalogID=&eventID=

I do, actually get to read books other than Seuss. In fact, anyone who knows me knows I'm an avid reader. Currently, I'm reading the famous "In Cold Blood". It's the chilling true story of a quadruple murder in po-dunk Kansas written by Truman Capote. (The movie "Capote" was based on his writing of this book.) I had seen the movie Capote before starting this book. In the movie, Capote seems to go mad, really. After starting this book, which reads like fiction, I can understand why. Not only was it tortuous, I'm sure, to make four people's deaths your life until the book is completed, but the labor that must go into making this book what it has become, I can only imagine. His character development of the victims is unreal when you consider that he never met the individuals themselves. I haven't finished the book yet, but so far I'm impressed.

I love reading. Whether it be Seuss or Capote. To be transported to another world, whether you'd like to live in it or not, is priceless some days. Don't get me wrong. I love my world, it suits me well. But everyone needs a vacation from their lives, don't they? I had this discussion with a friend of mine who is not currently working by choice. She was feeling guilty because she had told her husband that she needed a break. He didn't get it. I do. Whether you work 70 hours a week and get paid, or stay home with your kids working 24-7 and don't get paid, or just stay home because you don't need to work right now. Everyone needs a break from their every-day. And when you don't have the cash to go to Fiji, you can read.

I attribute my love for reading to my mother. She has always been a passionate reader. She stayed at home with us girls until I was 10. I can't imagine why she ever felt the need to escape??? But she did apparently. Mom and I seldom read the same books, but our passion for that escape is the same. My sister and I both took that from mom. And as it turns out, my sister and I both write for a different kind of escape. I hope Piper catches that passion of reading. I think she will. She loves to "read" now. She will happily sit by herself with a book and babble and, more often, will crawl into my lap or Brooks's lap with a book for us to read to her. She even recognizes a few letters. And my time reading with her is another sort of escape. Smelling her freshly washed hair, feeling the warm weight of her relaxed body on mine, hearing her generous giggles at my attempts at silliness while reading (Daddy is much better at the voices than I am). It's the best. It'll turn any day around.

So, here's to reading! Do it for pleasure, do it for growth or knowledge, do it to escape. And enjoy!

Read on Dudes.