When I was pregnant and constantly researching babies and children, I often saw parents on forums or blogs referring to their kids as "hilarious." I didn't really know how a kid under the age of 15 or so could be "hilarious," or at least, my version of hilarious. It would be - how should I say? - inappropriate, if they were. But more and more lately, I am beginning to see what those parents meant.
Tuesday morning, I went down to Lillia's new bedroom to wake her for our commute into Anchorage. "Baby, are you ready to get up?" I whispered as I rushed around trying to find her socks and boots, and wondering when I'm going to get a new routine down. Her eyes were still closed, her hair was insane, but she immediately lifted her head up off her pillow and said "I eat all the candy!" Apparently, she is having some pretty sweet dreams.
It's a relief, because we really were quite displaced for those two days we were moving, and for a few more after that. I, the mother who only fed Lillia organic foods for the first year that she was eating solids, got her McDonalds for dinner more than once. The second time will be a cherished memory, however, because as Matt and I sat at the drive-up menu one night trying to decide what we would get and share with the kid, Lillia and I both discovered at the same time that they had STRAWBERRY! SHORTCAKE! TOYS! in the Happy Meals. Just as she softly said "Strawberry!" my eyes drifted toward the picture of the cartoon character and I likely scared that teenage employee when I yelled "I need a Happy Meal!" It was the least I could do for ripping the child away from the only home she's ever known.
The first few days in the new house, every time Lillia went near the stairs that lead down to her room, she would say "Yucky stairs." I still don't know what she was talking about, as they are quite clean and there isn't even any peanut butter anywhere near them. Also, whenever I brought her down to her room to play, she would look around for a few seconds and then insist that we go back upstairs. I thought she must have been picking up some bad vibes in the house, and I considered a seance, but the disdain has since passed. I don't believe the move has even fazed her. She has not once mentioned her old bedroom or the old house. She is sleeping through the night and, in fact, even telling me that it is her bedtime each night at precisely eight o'clock.
Lillia takes visitors around the new house, pointing everything out to them as she goes. "This is the couch." "This is a door." "This is Samson" (daddy's mounted deer). Lillia is starting to learn what sounds the letters make, and knows L, M, and D for sure. Her manners are improving all the time, thanks to a little help from that ol' Strawberry Shortcake. It makes it very hard to say "no" when she smiles sweetly and says "Daddy, I have yogurt pleeeeaaaassse?" When I start singing in the car on our drive to work, instead of shrieking in frustration she now just scowls and says "No thank you! No thank you!"
She's been so good that when I went shopping for new bathroom accessories last weekend, I bought her a little stuffed penguin that she kept pointing out. She carried it around like a little baby all day, snuggling and kissing it and saying "It's OK, penguin." When Matt got home and saw it, she said "Look at my penguin!" He said that it was a very nice penguin indeed, and then asked "What's your penguin's name?" She looked at the penguin, then back at her dad, and said very matter of factly, "Him name Dave."
She doesn't really know any Daves... It was very strange. And hilarious.
