international symbol for...

today sparrow said, "i love you." well, she signed it, anyways, as she imitated me signing it. i cross my arms over my chest and twist back and forth a little and say, "i love you!" i have folded her arms a few times and shown her how to do it. tonight she imitated me of her own accord for the first time, except it was not quite right. intead of folding her arms across her chest, she folded her hands across her throat, and it totally looked like the international choking symbol. i was sooooooo proud!

imagine all the things you could do to mess with your child, like show them the choking symbol and tell them it means "i love you." or tell them from babyhood on that the color red is "blue," and the color green is "purple." when they get to kindergarten, they will be sooooo confused. he. hehe. all funny in theory. but wait. we all do this on a small scale, don't we? i mean, liz tells sparrow that micah the parrot is "duck!" and, well, i tell her that the rumpelstilzkin in her book is "mitchell." the guy has red hair! it is far more interesting to her to have personalized the characters instead of hearing me read the book all word for word in german. i have to bring it down to her one-year-old level. her little familiar world. and therefore i get to be the queen, and she gets to be the baby, and mitchell gets to be rumpelstilzkin. it all works out!



later (may 20)-- to be fair: it looks like this personalizing her storybook characters has gotten a bit out of hand; the other night we were reading one of her new books and on one page you pull out this full-on skeleton picture from a hospital scene; it's an x-ray. well, she pulls out the picture and pipes up, pointing cheerfully with recognition: "ma-ma!" i guess i deserve it.