Bavo

Who is Bavo? 

The short answer is, I don't know. The long answer is, we are all Bavo. Bavo is us.

"Bavo" is the name you like to apply to dolls and stuffed animals. This has been the case for a couple of months. My favorite part of this phenomenon is, each time we ask you the name of an animal or toy, you give it serious thought.

"Hmmm," you say, looking critically at said toy. Then all at once, it comes to you: "Bavo!"

You have a Bavo who is a baby doll with braids, and today you took a Bavo to school, who is a little ambiguously sexed and raced doll from your Montessori play kit subscription, who was wearing a Hawaiian shirt over the regular outfit, which you informed me was Bavo's jacket. In the taxi you told your dad that this was Bavo's first time in a taxicab (casapab). A stuffed dog is Bavo, and I think maybe Panda has also been Bavo. But a Panda Bavo.

There are some stuffies who have their own names. Baby Faff, aka Charles Faff, and Mama Faff and Daddy Faff. Wolfie the wolf, though I suggested that name, so maybe it doesn't count. Panda, who is sometimes also Bavo. Sometimes your Fisher Price Little People also get to be Bavo.

I'm not sure if Bavo comes from "Bravo!" which I occasionally say to you as means of encouragement. But Bavo is here, and we are Bavo, and also I love you.

You are also two days into being a hardcore scooter rider. You are philosophical at the occasional wipeout, which I really admire. You are lighting fast and getting good at steering and your helmet looks like an enormous yellow puffer fish, which brings smiles to the faces of the most dour morning commuters in Manhattan. Especially when paired with your deadly serious mien.

Bravo, Bavo.

Farm

We were on our way to Marblehead for the Easter holiday, which was well documented in pictures, and which featured not one, but *two* egg hunts, and also the unfortunate discovery that if you eat too much chocolate you won't eat any regular food, and if you don't eat any regular food for an entire day you become a challenging hose-beast who hits your mother in the head with a Lincoln Log, causing your Lincoln-Log-hating mother (at the best of times) to angrily close said Lincoln Logs and hide them in the closet, possibly never to be seen again. BUT. Before all that happened, and before we also had a completely charming afternoon dyeing eggs in the garden, and taking bubble baths, and snuggling, and reading copious Easter books, and going to a soft opening dinner at the yacht club, and having a nice morning with your uncle and afternoon with your godparents, before all those things, we were all driving in the car on our way from New York, and you needed a snack. I passed you a pouch of this organic pureed veggie and fruit space food that you love, and which I have finally caved and begun to buy, and am ashamed at how convenient I find it, and even though they're like three bucks apiece I, like all other yuppie parents who have caved on this issue, justify it to myself by thinking "well, at least this way he's definitely eating some kale."

Anyway. Where was I?

Oh, yes. You were in the back seat, enjoying a pouch of tasty organic space veggies, and your dad was driving, and I was in the front seat.

"That says 'farm,'" you said.

"What says 'farm'?" I asked you.

"That." You pointed at the word, which is part of the brand of the space food pouches, and which, to my knowledge, you had never had read to you before. "That's farm."

"Whoa," I said. "You're right. That *does* say farm."

And the following morning, as we sat reading books on the toilet after waking up, you said "That's Dog."

The title of the book was "dog," which you knew, and we'd read it before, but even so. Just for fun, I asked, "That *is* dog! Do you know what the letters are?"

You pointed at each in turn, and said "D. O. G. That's dog."

Is vintage Sesame Street teaching you to read, Succotash? Your dad thinks you might be reading for real by three. Either way, color me impressed, my brilliant baby.

But no more chocolate Easter eggs for you.

St. George

You are obsessed with the story of St. George and the dragon. I found a picture book version of it that's nevertheless very closely based on the Faerie Queene, and we read it almost every night now, and most nights you fall asleep on the page that ends with the dragon rushing to meet his newest victim. It has taught you what a "red cross" is, and what "straight and narrow" means, and what a hermit is, and what angels and fairies are. I do expurgate a little - I skip the gorier details of the dragon's death, and instead say that when he sees the Red Cross night rise again for a third day he gives up and lies down, never to rise again. You love the part where the knight lies down and rests in a cool stream while Una, the princess, puts a blanket over him. And you love the part where the knight lies under an apple tree that rains down healing dew over him. Now when you see pictures of apple trees you exclaim over the healing dew. I managed to find a little travel train set that is medieval themed, and that is provisionally very close to the story. There's a princess and a unicorn, and a king with a horse, and a dragon, and a stream, and even apple trees. I love watching you play out the narrative with your "toot toot," which is what you still call trains.

Last weekend we took you to the Met and determined we would search the Medieval wing looking for St. George. We found a couple, one of whom was standing on a dragon. You were disappointed that each instance of St. George didn't also feature Una in her black cloak and white veil. In the book Una holds a toddler while they are celebrating the dragon's defeat, and you like that Una has both a mama and a dada and also that she seems to like toddlers. I appreciate your sense of completeness and attention to detail.

I tried to find women in Medieval art that could possibly qualify as Una, but you - like me - are a very particular person. No, mama, that's not a black cloak, that's blue. That's not Una. 

You have lately begun referring to us as "Mommy" and "Daddy" instead of mama and dada. I'm not sure where you picked that up. Maybe at school? I get the sense that you think it sounds more sophisticated than "mama" and "dada," but it makes both of us a little wistful. 

In general you are getting much more into imaginative play. You put on a hat and tell me that you are a fire fighter keeping everyone safe, and then you are a police officer keeping everyone safe, and then sometimes you're St. George and I'm Una. We drive imaginary fire engines made of sofa cushions and pillows, we ring sirens and rescue imaginary cats and sloths. You carry you stuffed panda and announce that he is your baby and you are rocking him to sleep. You put on my high heeled sandals and announce that you are me. You are a "baseball kid" in your baseball hat, "I hit ball with a bat and it go SO FAST!" and the next minute you are a "sailing kid." When we are at the Harvard Club for dinner, which is still basically the only place we hang out other than the apartment when we're in New York, you ride the elevator and pretend to be Eloise, and I am Nanny. You were very troubled the other evening that the elevator doesn't go to the fifteenth floor, because Eloise goes to the fifteenth floor, but the real elevator only goes up to nine. 

You also enjoy having taper candles at every meal. On Saturday we had waffles for breakfast by candlelight and you delightedly told us that you were having "a nice dinner." The two tall candles are mama and dada, and the small scented candle I dug out from somewhere is the you candle. I like that you look for our family everywhere. That our family is an organizing structure as you make increasing sense of your world. 

Of course, you also love snuggling on the sofa and watching endless Muppets on rainy Sunday afternoons, and you like to shout "hey everybody come play with me!" to summon us to your room after dinner. 

Meanwhile, your dad and I have figured out that private kindergarten in New York is going to cost sixty thousand dollars. I don't know when, or even if, you will ever read this, but presumably by the time that happens the solution to this conundrum - if there is one - will have presented itself. Suffice it to say, we are trying to plan ahead. I knew it was ludicrously expensive, but maybe I didn't know *how* ludicrous. Maybe I should start a Go Fund Me on this blog? Ha. 

Anyway. We'll see. You are George, England's friend and patron Saint, Saint George of Merry England. And on Friday you will be two and one half years old.