Yucky

After being evangelized to by multiple friends about the wonders of kale chips, I finally made them today after getting 2 lbs of kale in our CSA.  They weren't too bad.  I was even optimistic enough to think Lucy would like them.  Lucy's response, "Those aren't chips.  Those are yucky."

Try, try, try again

Me: "Lucy, you woke up pretty late today! 8:30 a.m.! Were you sleepy?"
Lucy: "I think I just need more practice sleeping."

Daddy's wife

After Disney on Ice today, and Gaston's song about making Belle his wife, Lucy was curious.
Lucy: "What's a wife?"
Me: "When you love someone very much and you want to spend the rest of your life with them, you get married and become their wife."
Lucy: "Can I be daddy's wife?"
Me: "No, hunny, I'm daddy's wife. Your his daughter."
Lucy: "NO!  You're not!  I AM!  I am daddy's wife."

Fall Fashionista

We went apple picking this week at one of our favorite Fluvanna haunts - Fruit Hill Orchard.  Lucy takes apple picking very seriously.  She carries her own bag and dutifully picks apples without stopping until the bag is full.  That must be Caleb's 'get it done' engineering gene showing through.

Can I claim that as part of Celiac?

After this weekend's bout with gluten-intolerance issues, Lucy is learning that mommy can't eat certain things because she's allergic. But she still has some questions.
Me: "Lucy please stop whining. Mommy can't listen to whining."
Lucy: "Why not? Are you allergic?"

Handy Art Installation

Lucy declared this a piece of art today and insisted I not remove it from her hand.  She calls it, "String around the Rosey."

¿La Vomitaría?

On the way from our house into town there is one convenience store (yes, one in a 30 minute drive).  It happens to be a place we had to stop a few weeks ago when Lucy was throwing up in the car.  Meanwhile, Lucy is in a Spanish immersion preschool, and has recently been asking how to say things in Spanish.  This is how the drive home from preschool today went.
Lucy: "How do you say tree?"
Me: "Arbol."
Lucy: "How do you say flower?"
Me: "Flor."
Lucy: "How to you say throw-up place?"
Me: "I have no idea."

Lucy's 9/11

I had a really interesting conversation with Lucy today about 9/11.  We passed a memorial ceremony happening at the local fire station and she asked what was going on.  In trying to explain it to her, I was stuck by the enormity of fear.  Not just the fear we all felt that day but of fear itself.

Lucy: "What's happening?"
Me: "It's September 11.  They're remembering this day because a long time ago, before you were born, something very scary happened."
Lucy: "What happened?"
Me: "Airplanes flew into buildings and killed lots of people."
Lucy: "Will they kill me?"

Fear.  For the first time, I felt 9/11 in a new way - as a mother.  "Will they kill me?" Tears welled up in my eyes.

Me: "No.  No.  I will keep you safe.  I will keep you safe."

It was enough to ease Lucy's mind and stop her questions, but it's keep me wondering about it all day.  Could I?  Could I keep her safe?  An entire nation was paralyzed by confusion and fear on that day.  I realized that if we were one of the families on Flight 175, and our plane had been hijacked, destined for tower 2, I couldn't.  I couldn't keep her safe.  My one deepest desire as a parent - for my child to survive - would devolve into fear.  Fight or flight.

As someone who has done extensive traveling and grown up as an American abroad, I didn't have the same level of shock on the day of 9/11 as many of my other American friends had.  I was 17-years-old.  I had seen anti-Americanism first hand in South America and knew that while we were unarguably the most developed and enviable county on earth, we also had a habit of acting like it.  Of being the playground bully.  So on an international level, I got it.  I understood why this was happening.  I understood why American foreign policy had left other countries mad at us.

But today, on a personal level, I understood something anew.  I understood the plight of every parent, of every "boot in your ass" American.  I understood fear.  Author and artist Elizabeth Stone once said, "Making the decision to have a child in momentous.  It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body."  The thought of my own daughter being unsafe ignited a primal feeling in me.  And in an instant I understood why so many people reacted the way they did on that day - fight or flight.  Because they believed they were unsafe.  That the attack on those towers was an attack on them and their families.  It was an "aha!" moment for me.  I had never seen it that way before.

The baby warrior game

Me: What did you do at preschool today?
Lucy: We pretended we were babies, and trees, and warriors.
Me: That sounds like a fun game.
Lucy: No! It's not a GAME! It's YOGA!