We were looking for Andrea in the grocery store this evening and Clara came up with a brilliant plan.
“I know! Just look for a face with a skirt on!”
Yes. Yes, that sounds like my wife exactly. At least from a very low perspective maybe.
A father's struggle to capture his children's brief moment of youth in words and pictures
Fatherhood. Basically.
I came home from work sick today to crash on the couch. I was laying under a blanket staring at the ceiling when Clara came and asked if I was cold, because she knew of another blanket I could use. I told her I was fine. She ran off and then a few moments later she appeared at the door again slowly dragging a tiny rocking chair. She moved it as far as the end of the couch and then sat down quietly watching me.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“I’m waiting in case you need the other blanket.”
I find it takes a lot longer to walk to the mailbox when you take a tiny girl on a bicycle with you. Not simply because she is tiny and lacks essential motor skills to keep her vehicle out of the ditch, but rather because she insists on stopping in front of every neighbor’s house so she can play the harmonica for their dog.
Lydia got a pineapple hard candy at the store and was enjoying it in the back seat of the car. She was holding it in her fists and became a sticky mess. Then she tried to to clean off her fingers with a napkin and ended up mummified. Needless to say, our neat little girl became quite upset about this and was a blubbering mess. Something from a b-rate 80s horror movie. All this time Clara just sat quitely looking out the window. After about 2 minutes Clara politely turned to her sister and said, “I’m sorry Lydia, but can you please stop crying?” This was uneffective.
“I got a peach from the refrigerator. There were three of them, but I took one and now there are only two.”
“Clara! You just did math!”
The little girl stared at the wall blankly for a few moments before exploding, “Oh Snap! I’ve done math before, too!”
We picked up a little bicycle for Clara this evening, off of Craigslist. We really didn’t think of it, but it thankfully came with a little pink bicycle helmet as well. It’s a good thing to, because not 10 minutes into riding Clara tipped it over and fell down. But she was pretty excited about it when she told us. As she explained, “I fell off my bike. But it’s okay, because I have a very hard head!”
This is true tiny lady. This is true.
Clara fell this evening and skinned her knees. Later she was complaining because it hurt to walk, because she didn’t want to bend her legs. So, I showed her how she can walk straight legged by kicking her legs out in front of her. Now we have a little girl goose stepping around the house.
hehehe… I do think I should be careful though. Rumor has it World War II was all started because someone’s dad thought it would be funny to teach their child to walk weird.
This morning we (and probably half the neighborhood) were all woken up at 6:00 by my car alarm in the driveway. Standing next to my bed in a daze was Clara, visibly in sleepwalk zombie mode. Sitting next to her on my nightstand were my car keys with a big red “panic” button visible. She denied having pushed the button, and had strong claims that someone else snuck into our house, and secretly pushed my alarm button on the keys feet from where I was sleeping.
Although the other option is that someone was actually breaking into my car, I actually prefer this to Clara’s creeper theory.
Yesterday I asked Clara to tell me the biggest number she could think of. I told her to take her time and think hard. After a great deal of thought her response was “B!” In her defense she quickly realized her error and corrected it with, “I mean F! F!”
I laughed until I started to think about the countless hours I have ahead of me teaching her math.
Where Are We Here? 