Magic and Make Believe

Gillian gives me a lot of credit. She thinks I have magical powers and can conjure anything in the universe. When I point out a butterfly she says "More! More! PLEEEASE?!?". Or flowers. Or ants. Or helicopters. Or Airplanes. When another one crosses her line of vision she gets that satisfied little smile that says "I knew you could do it!" Really, she loves just about anything, and usually, the last thing she does as she watches these things travel out of sight is blow a kiss and tell whatever-it-was "bye-bye _____[fill in the blank]." Like the playground today, and every day. "Bye-bye playground!" with a amiable wave of her little hand. Then a kiss blown in the direction of the beloved swings.

Which brings me to the make-believe part. Today Gillian insisted that I push a Goldfish cracker in it's own swing. Not just one swing, but the one next to her. And she had to swing in every swing at the playground. So, we picked up the Goldfish and he got to swing on lots of swings like Gillian did. And she looked over to make sure he was swinging high enough and having a good time. Unfortunately for him, he didn't get a chance to express his gratitute before she ate him, but such is life.

When we don't have anything else to swing, she insists that I push all the swings at one time. Empty swings are friends too. Like many toddlers, Gillian has a great imagination and everything is alive, and her friend. (e.g., "Hi ants! (blow kiss)"). But the swing thing isn't the first time that has happened. Her ball, her shoe, her sippy cup, her Lamb, and her baby have had their own swings for months. Every one of them is alive to her, and it is endearing to see her attribute human qualities to things. This morning she was on the little horse at the playground and I showed her a ladybug, which fascinated her, until she kissed it and it disappeared in the mulch (knocked loose from its perch). Then she looked at me, quite solemnly, and whispered "More ladybug?"

When we read books, and she hears that one of the characters is sad (like Gossie the Gosling who loses her red boots that she likes to wear every day) she gets very empathetic and gives the character a kiss and strokes them gently. The first time I showed her that Gossie was sad and cried, she held the page from being turned for a long time looking and feeling sad for her. She is really quite fascinated by Happy and Sad right now. If she hears a baby crying she says "Baby Cry..." and points to her own eye. If she is crying, she seems not to differentiate what is happening and what she is making happen. She seems to stop, observe herself crying (as if it is happening to her and not that she is actually doing it herself), and mournfully says "Gilly cry..." At this moment, I suppose most kids don't have much control over their emotional reactions, but it is interesting to observe her reacting to her own sadness.

Imagination (besides general cuteness) has always made me love the young, so I watch her sometimes, transfixed by what she perceives as real or what she is pretending is real. I mean, it's obvious to her that when she takes a drink out of an empty cup or pretends to eat and says "Mmmmmm!" that she is pretending. I just wonder where the line is between real and imaginary for her. My favorite part of her imagination, at this exact moment, is her singing. She subsitutes words in familiar melodies. The first of these was "No" to the tune of the ABC song (this is when we decided to make a real effort to use NO as little as possible). Another example is "This Old Man" with the lyrics that go something like this: "Ma Ma Papa, Ma Ma Papa, Ma Ma Ma Ma Ma Ma Papa (and so on)". But, I have to say, we are thrilled that her ear is developed enough to sing recognizable songs, correct lyrics or not.

I think one of my important focuses as a parent is to allow her the latitude of imagining and to do my best to cultivate her creativity. Where would the world be without the beautiful things contributed by the artists among us? And what kind of society would we have without those who appreciate beauty?

Reflecting....

I forgot how much I loved this movie...we caught the tail end, and I have had a lot of time to think these past five days. I have watched Gillian running along the beach. Gillian in Sean's arms, mouth open, rushing toward me in the water, utterly delighted. Gillian, sleepy, just waking up, hungry for a haven in my arms to rest her innately sweet, incandescent self. Gillian squatting on the ground looking for shells to toss into the ocean. Gillian, so beautiful and pure and in love with everything...and I can't stop thinking that one day that won't be the case. She won't be here at this place anymore, and all I will have is these memories of her in times where she loved us like this.

We can't stop the marching of the seconds, and minutes, and hours, and days that are rushing past us. We can't have these days ever again. So they have to count, each one. I won't be able to scoop Gillian up, smelling her baby smell and burying my face in her sweet head, forever. I desperately try to preserve every moment like that, so aware I am of the ticking of time. How sweet and how sad, and how heavily to take this thing of raising another human being... all I can wish for her are all these angels to guide and keep her and all the love on earth to give her peace and build her truth.

"It’s hard to stay mad when there’s so much beauty in the world.
Sometimes I feel like I’m seeing it all at once, and it’s too much.
My heart fills up like a balloon that’s about to burst.
And then I remember to relax and stop trying to hold on to it.
And then it flows through me like rain.
And I can’t feel anything but gratitude for every single moment of my stupid little life."
-American Beauty, 1999

Febrile Seizure #3

At 1:30 this morning, Gillian's Tylenol wore off and her temp shot up to 105 degrees. She had another seizure, which I am sorry to say, we didn't witness (i.e., she was all alone convulsing, which is more than scary to me) because we only heard her strange monotone moaning afterwards in the monitor. We ran in, and she had vomited in her bed, was covered in sweat and blazing hot, unresponsive, and unable to move her limbs or head on her own (she really didn't move on her own until she woke up this morning). We called the doc on call at the clinic and talked about whether or not we should take her in to the ER, and decided if we could get her temp down we would avoid the scariness and hassle that the ER is.

I guess the really question is DO I NEED TO PUT HER IN A HERMETICALLY SEALED BUBBLE UNTIL SHE OUTGROWS THIS PHASE?!?! Maybe not that dramatic, but she definitely DOES need to be kept away from kids that have an illness involving fever (inasmuch as that is even possible). But really, with the potential for exposure to a virtual petri dish every time we go to the playground with fomites galore, it's anyone's guess how you begin to protect your kid from fevers. And given the fact that Tylenol wears off after 4 hours, there's a pretty good chance for Gillian to have a seizure over the course of the night. The lesson is that we will necessarily wake her to dose her from here on out.

Now I will turn my sights toward begging the Powers That Be to let her feel MUCH better before setting foot on the plane on Thursday. I still have the audacity to hope for an uneventful, stress free vacation.

SENTENCES!

The past couple of days, Gillian has started putting words together! The monotony of the word "More" is being peppered with more complex word patterns, like "Mama sit, too" as she points to a spot next to her, or "Gilly go playground", or "MY Mama, MY Papa". This new step in communication makes her feel so accomplished, and at times it almost feels like an honest-to-God conversation (with words in lieu of words and gestures).

Those baby days are speeding quickly by, and we have a full fledged little girl. We watched some videos of her when she was much younger while ruminating on Fatherhood yesterday, and marvelled at the time warp the past two years have been.

In other news, she had a fever last night and has the beginnings of a nasty cough. This is particularly irritating because a) we are travelling to Florida for a family vacation in a few days, and the only thing worse that travelling with a toddler is travelling with a sick toddler; b) this will make yet another visit where Gillian is not feeling well for Bill and Suzi (the past two she has been sick as well); and c) WHY ARE WE STILL GETTING COLDS IN MID JUNE?!?

Other than that, we couldn't be more deliriously happy with the weather, we have so enjoyed the beach with Gilly the past two weeks, and there is absolutely no place like Chicago in the summer. I can barely remember the pain of February.

Technobaby

I believe it is no exaggeration to say that Gillian's has to be the most overdocumented generation in the history of the world. I can honestly say I have hundreds, maybe thousands, of video tapes Gillian since about a week after she came home from the NICU, and have photographs beginning the day she was born. It's obscene how many photos we have. Probably many thousands.

I think about my pitiful collection of photos growing up, and it doesn't even fill half of a 20 page photo album...most likely because I was a third child AND because it probably cost my parents as much as dinner would have to develop a roll of film... A roll of film that required you to buy every photo, whether or not they were under exposed, over exposed, a close up of your thumb, you name it. How simply uncivilized. What a waste! How many millions of pictures of unidentifiable media are piled in landfills across the world because we didn't have digital cameras?

At any rate, I can click click click away until the cows come home, or until my camera is full (which takes a really long time). I can take 300 pictures to try and capture the perfect minute, and delete 299. I can take 300 pictures, and it costs me $.19 to print the perfect one at a kiosk and no one ever has to see our pictures but us. I like that a lot. Luxurious privacy. 'Cause I use to work at a photo lab and lab people would look at pictures people ordered. Sometimes we would even make duplicates of ones we really liked (like trips to places we had never been). For real. I had this idea to make a book of photos and call it, "The Book of People I Have Never Met" and make up stories about every person in it. I would get the pictures from the reject pile at my photo lab. (alas, I never got ambitious enough to do it, but I could have done it in the time it took me to think about doing it).

Not only do We Parents of the Most Overdocumented Generation in the History of Humankind photograph and videotape our children ad nauseum, we then blog about it. I like to say this isn't all self-indulgence. I also think we live a lot farther from home, often settling in different states or parts of the country from our families than previous generations did. So, many of us blog to keep those family and friends in the loop that we don't get to visit every day.

In addition to all of that, some of us go that extra ridiculous mile and have video telephone calls on the internet a couple of times a week. Let me be clear: WE LOVE SKYPE. Skype is amazing. If you and someone at the other end of the phone have a webcam, then you can have face to face conversations over the internet. and it's free. Yes. FREE. We have found that the sound quality and the continuous stream are pretty excellent, and are thrilled with what we get for literally nothing. So, Gillian sees Nonni and Grandaddy twice a week on Skype. Nonni teaches her songs. She gives them hugs and kisses (she kisses the monitor. soooo cute!), she shows them her new shoes. They get to watch her play, and talk, and grow up, and when they come to visit or we go to visit, there is no awkwardness and she doesn't skip a beat with them. She acts like she saw them yesterday. And sometimes it was yesterday. On Skype!

Exhibit A:


Oh, and here is just a cute dancing video. Note how she changes the style of dance with the music, and how she clogs when she hears the banjo. That is no mistake, by the way. We dig the clogging!

Sweet little heathen

OK, ya'll. I admit it. Gillian thinks she owns the playground. And the things she thinks are hers she is very hard pressed to want to share. In fact, she doesn't like to share a few things: slides, swings, playgrounds, shoes, and balls. These things she covets. Like a rat. A very sweet, cuddly, chatty, kissy rat. It is a little embarrassing to have the kid that waves her arms and shakes her pointer finger at other kids and sternly says, "noooooooooooooooo no no!" when she sees a kid trying to climb her stairs to get on her slide. Other days she gestures to her swings (no matter how many there are), and does the same thing. Even if there are kids in it. Especially then, really.

Luckily, there are kind moms in this neighborhood who aren't too proud to admit that their kid has a touch of the plague of selfishness as well. Such kind souls empathetically say, "God, I DON'T miss that phase. It will be over soon!" But, the weird thing? Secretly I kind of think it is adorable watching her wag her finger and chastise kids who are sometimes old enough to be her parents. Of course, you bite your lip off not letting them see that you think it is adorable, but still. You have to be proud that your kid has that kind of nerve.

I don't think Gillian is inherently selfish. She is quite sweet and shares lots of things. The other weekend, she even let Adele (a little girl her age we see all the time at the playground) play with Baby. And not just the cloth baby, the French Baby that Nonni bought her that smells like vanilla. She let Adele play with her for an hour, every now and then peeking over to make sure Adele was treating Baby right. But the thing about Gillian is that she has to WANT you to have something she likes, and she wants to be the one to give it to you. When other kids think they have the right (hrrrmpphh! the nerve. in a public park, of all places!) to just get on any old slide or swing they want without asking permission, THAT is when she puts her freakishly tiny foot down.

But, she does it with style. As when she gets caught doing anything she knows we don't exactly approve of, she says, "HI!" with as much charm as she can muster at just the right moment. Like this:



An aside: She was all about "NO" for a few weeks a couple of months ago. But then she discovered "Hesh" for YES and "Aye" for Yeah. She says something ("Bass?") , I repeat it ("Do you want to run your bath?"), she says "Hesh" or "Aye" ((emphatic nodding) "HESH!"). I think she gets so excited that we understand what she's saying that she almost combusts. I'm not sure where she gets the Scottish thing from, but it sure is sweet. Here is an example of a game she likes to play where I ask her a million questions and she gets to answer "NO!" over and over (and of her showing off her singing skills when Nonni and Grandaddy were in town a month ago!).