More Two-Year-Old Stuff

We’ve just wrapped up our second week of school and things are already looking up. Zoe still clings to me as we go into the school, but we’ve started this ritual where she will stand at the front window and we will make funny faces at each other as I leave. This of course means that I have to walk away as she watches me with her big, sad puppy eyes (because I’m really the only one making funny faces). It tears at my heart so much I can barely bring myself to sit peacefully at the coffee shop and catch up on my reading. I’ve been told that after I leave she no longer cries, and seems to have fun. I, of course, imagine her sitting despondent in a corner, quietly waiting for my return. If I discover that she is actually having fun while I worry I really will be very annoyed.

I’ve noticed a couple of details that I believe are going to define the next umpteen years of my life as both the kids weave their way through school. The first is crust on sandwiches. Already Zoe has declared (“Zoe no like.”) that she does not like the crust. So now when I make her sandwich in the morning I have to cut off the crust. (And she doesn’t like the skin on fruit, so I’m peeling peaches and plums for her, although I draw the line at grapes.) Another thing I have noticed is that no matter how early I am up, no matter how prepared I am, no matter how cooperative Zoe is, every day I have to tell Zoe to hurry up because we’re late. I mentioned in a recent post that Zoe just does not understand urgency. If a herd of elephants were bearing down on us she would stop to examine some gum stuck to the sidewalk.

Although Zoe is a ‘big girl’ now, going to school and sleeping in a real bed, she is only two and a half, and sometimes (okay, most times) she acts exactly her age. Usually it’s irritating, but it can be really sweet and cute as well (which is important, otherwise there would be a lot more child abuse out there). For instance, she had a bowl of cereal the other day, and while she ate Cheerios out of the bowl with her right hand, she was swinging her spoon in the air like a conductors wand with her left, oblivious to the milk running down her arm. There is also the cute obstinacy.
  Dad: “Zoe, don’t forget to put the cover on the marker.”
  Zoe: “Okay.”
  Dad: “Did you cover the marker?”
  Zoe: “No,” and walks away.
There is also her ability to completely ignore us. I could ask her a question a dozen times and she won’t even twitch. I think it takes amazing control and focus to ignore us so utterly completely. Zoe definitely has what my mother called selective hearing. And my favorite, her complete oblivion to my use of sarcasm, such as, “Zoe, what a great job cleaning up.”

Zoe is no Pop*

Warning: the following paragraph contains egregious sexist and stereotypic comments. The author has already been reprimanded and is currently in the next room being spanked (although the author of this blog does not condo corporal punishment).

Here in Berkeley (and elsewhere) it is considered inapproprié to raise your child strictly in line with their gender. If a male child chooses to wear pink dresses than the understanding parents will stand proudly at his gay side. If a female child chooses trucks over tutu’s than good for the little dy… construction worker. But here in the Glass/Savitz household that is not our problem. Zoe, without any prompting (okay, maybe just a little) has adopted some very girlie attributes. She only wears dresses. The only pants she will put on are pajamas and leggings, tight, shin-length pants that make slides a little more bearable. She has developed a girl-like aversion to any insect big or small, and she will actually squeal when I dangle a mouse, a gift from one of our cats, alive or dead, in front of her (yes, I still have a little of the ‘younger brother’ in me). She also frequently wears her tutu, will carry around and feed her baby doll, likes to carry around a purse, and most telling, the most girlie attribute about her, is she sits down to use the potty. Ah-ha! (Okay, now I’m just getting silly. Zoe is still in diapers, so her sitting on a toilet is just conjecture.) Maybe our sending her to a school named Gay Austin will bring out some of the man in her.

I see myself as a fairly organized and punctual individual. I don’t know if others see me this way, but having children has really put a strain on my efforts to remain so. Having children completely alters time; forty minutes will be over in five minutes and alternately five minutes will take forty minutes to complete. Let me explain by example. On Mondays Zoe has a swim lesson at the YMCA. We have to be in the car at 10:00 am to have time to drive downtown, park and change. So we sit down for breakfast at 8:30 and five minutes later I’m pushing Zoe out the door because it is 10:05. Alternately, sometimes I will be corralled into reading Zoe some tedious book about some furry animal or whatnot, or playing some game in which every few seconds she will yell, “Myself,” which means I would like to do it without your assistance, thank you, except without the thank you, and this will go on for about an hour, except when I look at my watch only five minutes will have passed. This inconsistency of time explains how I went from no gray hair to a few (possibly a dozen) so quickly (quickly is up to the readers interpretation of time).

Did you know that if you leave hummus on the floor for twenty-four hours it forms a semi-firm putty-like texture that can be picked up by hand?

*keeping-the-sex-of-a-toddler-secret

See Zoe and Calder photos at picasaweb.google.com/dbglass