Like Butter

Rosemary used to claim she was "not a fan of butter," which always seemed odd since (and I don't mean to judge here) who's not a fan of butter? To each their own. In recent days that has changed -- her Grandmama Maxine coaxed her to eat some toast with butter, and ever since she has declared herself now a fan. Yesterday I asked her what she wanted for breakfast and she said, "Toast and butter. I like that combination."

Fear Factor

Ok, add another thing to the Things That Scare Rosemary list. Chuck E. Cheese. I tried taking her there today and she was petrified. We stayed maybe 10 minutes, and she was beyond ready to go after 2. She's definitely more of cautious than other kids her age, and certainly more than her friend we met there, who vanished into the overhead duct work of the tube slide in about 5 seconds flat.

Carnivals, and I guess carnival-esque atmospheres, just aren't her bag. We've had a number of bad run-ins with those clown water balloon squirt games at county fairs. Their loud bells and balloon pops send her over the edge. Oh, and she doesn't like loud bells either, now that I mention it. There's a sound art piece by Stephen Vitiello on the Highline called A Bell for Every Minute (with each bell sound recorded somewhere in the city - bike bells, church bells, etc). It's under an overpass and the first time we went under it she cowered and asked me to pick her up. When we approached it coming back she took matters into her own hands -- took off like a SHOT and sprinted really fast to the other side. I really, truly have never seen her move that way.

But me saying anything about irrational fears would be the pot calling the kettle black since as I recall as a kid I was scared of a fallen tree at my grandparents' lake cabin, Guy Smiley, the part at the end of the song "Air" on the Hair soundtrack where everyone starts coughing, and one of my dad's Samsonite suitcases. (It had a funny toxic smell. I think I was on to something.) And anyhow, a lot of people would probably argue that a fear of Chuck E. Cheese can be healthy. (That said, I wish I could have gotten her to stay, since I think once she tried a couple of the quarter kiddie rides -- the exact same ones she loves to do outside the stores on Court St -- she would have had a blast.)

As a side note, this morning when I put on one of her fave episodes of Yo Gabba Gabba she waved me off, telling me, "I'm a little over this Yo Gabba Gabba." Also healthy, I guess.

Saturday in the Park, and the Met too

Bringing the aforementioned purse and stuffed animal everywhere is a liability when we go to the park, since Rosie doesn't want to put them down and so 1) can't climb things very well since she her hands are full and 2) is perpetually fighting off curious kids who understandably want to go through her handbag.

However, when we go out places just the two of us, it comes in handy. She has a fully stocked bag of goodies to entertain herself. On Saturday we took the subway to the Upper West Side and then walked across the park to the Met. On the way there she pulled out her favorite sunglasses and put them on. I didn't think I should take pictures of all the people laughing with her. I swear, it really was with, not at. She got a huge case of the giggles, and kept whipping them off and putting them back on.

(As an aside, these sunglasses made their first appearance long ago at a Memorial Weekend gathering with dear friends on the Oregon Coast. Sometime in the mid-90s. We took pictures of every single person wearing them, and each person looked hilarious in a different way. I never could have imagined they'd somehow be one of the possessions that would kick around for long enough for me to pass them on to the next generation. Anyone out there remember them?)

View at lunch of the boat pond. We sat next to an interesting man who kept calling her piggy stuffed animal a chicken. He said, "What is that, a chicken?" And Rosie said, "It's a piggy." And he said, "What do you call that chicken. Does it have a name?" to which Rosie bluntly replied, "Piggy." And he said, "Oh, Piggy Chicken. I see." Tremendous nod.

Hanging out with Hans Christian Anderson:

And Alice in Wonderland:

Here is the Prickly Man at the Met. Rosie may or may not have been scared of him. It's a fine line between fascination and fear, of course, and she is definitely fasci-fearful of cactuses, porcupines, and anything else that is prickly. We talk about them a LOT. I think he is actually an African power figure? I forgot to write it down.

Big Bambu on the Met's roof:

Looking up at Big Bambu:

Baking with butter and cheeeeeeeeze, ok?

These pictures are misleading as they don't reveal the giant explosion of flour and general mayhem that happened moments later.

As I type this Rosemary is yodeling to herself in bed with one of her favorite catch phrases, "Hey Bulldog!" (Title of a minor song on the Yellow Submarine soundtrack but now just an everyday expression for her.)

Pippi Sanders-stocking

A few notes from late summer...Rosemary keeps me plenty entertained with her kid logic observations about the world. Yesterday we were heading somewhere and she saw an old toilet sitting in front of someone's house -- I think the result of recent renovations, not someone cultivating a hillbilly-chic planter. She said, "A bathroom outside??? THAT's funny."

Less entertaining are the total melt downs and whining spates and general frustration -- usually over wanting to do something on her own, but that's pretty dull blogging so I'll just note for the record that they are a constant and move on. Text book twos. On the plus side, she and her friends now really, truly play together, for short stretches.

At her 2 1/2 year old check up (which went astoundingly well, possibly because of the promise of her first lollipop...no hysteria or tears for the first time in 1 1/2 years), the doctor asked whether she had developed fears. Answer: And how! She's been scared of the doctor for awhile , but her biggest fear du jour is fireworks. I feel bad about this, since I had pushed for us to go to a fireworks display on 4th of July and she flipped out. She and Jason fled the scene. (Our nephew Dashiell, who's about the same age, had a ball. Different strokes.) Now we can't watch a movie that has fireworks, read a book that has pictures of them, etc. We talk about them constantly. I think we will sit out next 4th of July.

There's a lot of discussion about "Yesterday when I was littler" - which can refer to an hour ago, a day ago, or a year ago. Today she said, "Maybe we'll go to sninky again today?" "Sninky? What's that?" "A store we ate at when I was little." "A restaurant?" "No, a store. SNINKY." It took the better part of the conversation before I could figure out that "Sninky" was "Stinky," the name of a cheese store around here. We went there a week ago and I got a sample - she refrained, being (sadly) suspicious of cheese that doesn't come in a stick form or straight from the yellow Tillamook cheese package. It's interesting to see what memories lurk in that little noggin. The other day she said our friend Annie makes "good popcorn" and I think the only time we had popcorn at Annie's was more than a year ago. I think that was the first time she had popcorn so I guess it was formative.

Milady still never leaves the house without "a purse and a friend" -- favorite purse still being pink purse, though sometimes she mixes it up. Purse is stuffed FULL of crap, like Ally Sheedy in the Breakfast Club. Favorite friend changes from day to day but is usually a stuffed animal. (Brown bunny, mousie, piggy, and floppy bunny are some regulars.)