Yesterday you brought home a charming Valentine you made at Montessori, which is a picture of you holding a heart and smiling and covered in stickers on a little violet heart. It was mounted on a magnet, so we put it on the refrigerator. You came upon me admiring it, and you said "In Give Mouse Cookie, a drawing, on refrigerator, scotch tape." It took me a second, then I realized you were recounting the plot point in If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, wherein the mouse draws a picture and demands to put it on the refrigerator, for which he needs Scotch tape. What impresses me about this, Succotash, is that that book is in Marblehead, not New York. As as result you haven't read it in almost two months (!).
Your new favorite game combines all the fun of rescuing with the fun of fort building. It's called "nest." In this game we make a little nest for you in the corner of our squishy sofa, with one pillow for a window and one pillow for a door, and dada's old Afghan for a roof. Then you are the baby bird and I am the mama bird, and my job is to ask you what color your feathers are and then fly off and bring you delicious pretend food. Whenever I offer you worms, you laugh and shake your head and ask for cake, and so I fly off and get cake and bring it back to you, and then we pretend to eat it. Then you say "Thank you mama bird," and I say "I love you, baby bird." Sometimes you want nursing in the nest. And sometimes it evolves into hiding and demanding that dada come find us. Nest has a lot of fun possibilities, Sometimes small trucks or other stuffed animals join us in our nest, but not always.
You continue to be a legit amazing dancer. "I listen Gene Kelly!" you say. You also like Snuffy on the old Sesame Street episodes we show you, and Bird Bird. You recently were briefly obsessed with the episodes where Big Bird goes to Camp Echo Rock and learns to play baseball and swim.
Big Bird: I think I'm gonna go bike riding after breakfast! What are you gonna do, Mickey?
Mickey, the counselor: I'm gonna teach you to play baseball. In fact, we're all gonna play baseball.
Parenting lessons from Mickey, circa 1984.
