Time for some little things.
Isabella is hung up on the idea that someday we may not be together. She says she's never going to leave me and asks me at least once a day, usually more, if I am going to die. She struggles with the idea and the abstractness of it all. We watched Brave the other night and later she asked me if I liked the movie. This is how our conversation went:
I: Mom, did you like that movie?
M: Yes, I did. It was a little loud and crazy though.
I: Yeah, like the volume? It was loud!
M: It had a good message though. Do you know what the message was?
I: What?
M: Well, that you should follow your heart. If there is something that you want to do and it makes you happy, you should do it. Even if other people don't think you should. You should always follow your heart.
I: Oh yeah. Like your heart and my heart. They are connected, right? Me and you, it's like we're pressed together and our hearts are always together.
Insert onslaught of tears....
M: Yes. Just like that, Isabella.
I: Mommy, I don't want you to die. I want you to stay this age forever. Please don't die without me. When you die, I want to die too.
And that all came from watching a Disney movie?
It's on her mind though. A lot. We talk about the cycle of life and she gets it as much as a five year old can. I remember those fears though, granted I was much older when I started questioning death and life. I remember living in Orange, so I was probably in fourth grade, and I suddenly realized that one day I would die. I remember being sick over the idea. It was all very literal and I couldn't think much past the idea that one day I would be without my parents. I remember sitting on the kitchen counter, my mom and dad standing in front of me. I clearly remember a cup of hot tea, probably my mom's. And the two of them trying to console me and answer the questions about what comes next. Never would I have imagined having a very similar conversation with my five year old about the very same concerns. She is so sensitive these days. So attune, so aware and so beyond what I want her to be (or not be) worrying about.
She loves ballet.
She wants to dance, she wants pointe shoes, and she is so excited about her Spring recital. She turns on the music every chance she gets and twirls across the living room. She's serious and graceful. Her hands are poised and she feels like a ballerina.
She wants to play soccer.
She got all excited when she was kicking a soccer ball around at Gen's last weekend. We asked her if she'd want to play on a soccer team and she shouted "Yes!" and proceeded to practice...already. Later, she told me that she had changed her mind because she didn't want a coach. I asked her why, and she said that coaches were mean just like in The Odd Life of Timothy Green...that coach was mean. I assured her that she would have a nice coach and that usually parents were the coaches.
Oops.
Guess who thinks Ryan will be her soccer coach?
So she fell in a fit of tears on mom's dining room floor the other night when Ryan told her that he wouldn't be her soccer coach. She was certain that he would be and that it was just the way things worked since I said "parents are usually coaches."
I forgot about my very literal daughter.
Declan woke up the other morning, took a bath, came back downstairs and told me and Ryan that he wants a girlfriend. I first told him that I was more than willing to take that position and then asked him to explain. He said he had a dream that he had a girlfriend and they went on a walk together. I asked him why he thought he needed a girlfriend:
D: Well, she will help me clean up.
M: Help you clean up what?
D: All the messes that I make.
M: Okay, and what else? Why do you think you need a girlfriend? You know you are only four.
D: She will hug me. When I'm crying and I'm sad, she will hug me.
M: Well mommy and daddy hug you. Isabella and Quinn hug you. All of your family hugs you and loves you.
D: Yeah. But you guys aren't my girlfriend. I want a girlfriend. We'll go on walks together.
All day he talked about this imaginary girlfriend. In the car he made up a song about her. Sung to the tune of Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes, the lyrics went something like this: Declan girlfriend, Declan's girlfriend. Declan's girlfriend Declan's giiiiiiirlfriend......
He loves the smell of lavender. Like, seriously loves it. He found a sprig of dried lavender and one morning on the way to drop Isabella off, he picked every small piece from the sprig, rubbing it between his fingers and dropping it into his cupholder because he was trying to "make our car smell good."
He still wants to play the piano. I told him a long time ago that if he learned to play the piano first, other instruments would be easier to play. He wants to play the piano simply because he thinks that it must precede what he really wants to play: the guitar and the drums. He really wants to play the drums. I can not even wrap my head around that idea.
He loves to eat and would spend the day doing so if he had the chance. He's particular and has difficult taste. He likes things to be prepared according to exactly what he's thinking about at the moment. Sometimes that means he wants pasta and parmesan at 8am and sometimes he's eating oatmeal with cinnamon and brown sugar at 8pm. He loves foccacia and no longer loves pizza. If I tell him that he can pick out a snack from the grocery store, he drags me to the cheese case and finds the biggest hunk of parmesan or pecorino that he can get his hands on. He loves bread and loves any baked good that crosses his path (or his nose). He would eat rice all day long and can finish off a head of broccoli by himself. Berries are his favorite and when organic berries are not in season, we have to avoid that section of the store all together because if he sees berries he wants them...piles of them. Nutella is his weakness and he'll do anything to get his hands on it. He asks for 'roll-ups' most days, which is a whole wheat tortilla, spread with nutella and rolled up. He thinks that anything Taylor makes is something he will love (and he's right). Actually, if I want him to eat something that he says he isn't interested in, I will usually just say "well, Taylor made this you know" and then he'll eat it. Mom buys sausage from Elk Run Farm because she knows it puts a perma-grin on Declan's face...that sausage in particular. Food makes him happy. Really happy.
He is a collector. He has a drawer in the table by his bed, that he calls his "special drawer." It hold things like tiny stuffed animals, ceramic turtles, tiny dinosaurs, gum, lotion that he 'borrows' from grandma, a lavender eye pillow that he desperatly loves, and many other tiny tokens. He loves things that are small.
Quinn wears me out. Her talking alone, is enough to makes me laugh and feel crazy all at the same time. She doesn't stop talking. Ever.
Okay, I take that back.
If we are around people she doesn't know, her lips are sealed. It's amazing really.
But back to reality. She never stops talking. Isabella asked me the other day, when Quinn was unusually quiet "Mom, can you believe she's quiet? Do you like her being like this? She's not even talking."
I have never in my life seen a child who copies as much as she does (and I have been around a lot of kids). When we are sitting around the dinner table, Quinn is one word behind whoever is talking, repeating word for word what the person is saying, hand gestures, facial expressions, and all. It's adorable, it really is. She will let Isabella fill in for me and that gives Isabella a huge sense of pride. She takes her to the bathroom, helps her get dressed, picks her up if she needs help getting something. Isabella and Declan know exactly what to do to send her into hysterical laughter. The second that the older two team up, Quinn's in a heap of tears on the floor until someone comes to "rescue" her. She knows exactly how to work things to her benefit.
She can count to ten perfectly and to fifteen imperfectly. She says her ABC's in a very interesting way with words thrown in, different songs mixed through and sometimes changes the tune halfway through. She thinks everything is black. When we tell her it isn't, her next choice is blue, then pink. After that, she just says "but I looooove black!" She always looks for the black crayon and she will pick up any color item and insist that it's black because she "looooooves black!" If we tell her that it's actually red, she doesn't care because to her, it's black. Because she loves black.
She will not watch a show. She will not watch a movie. Not for five minutes. There is nothing that she will watch for more than maybe 60 seconds. On Fridays, at Isabella's ballet, she will sit in the doorway for a solid 45 minutes, not moving, and watch those girls twirl and plie, spin and tap. Forty five minutes and she doesn't budge. She can't wait to be three so she can "do ballet."
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