fairy
learning to be
Monday, June 28, 2004

parental pride

I was secretly worried that Sage was color-blind, because she can name and identify the colors blue, red, pink, black, white, and orange, but not purple, green, or yellow. So I hauled out my mommy-bible, What to Expect the Toddler Years, and found that the only thing wrong with Sage is that her mother is too damned demanding.

Listen-- according to the book, children from 28 to 30 months old (Sage is only 28 months old)...

should be able to:
-identify one picture by naming (Sage can identify dozens of pictures!)
-put on an article of clothing (Well, if you don't count putting both feet through one pant leg...)
-jump up (like it's going out of style, let me tellya. The bed is about to give way.)
-name six body parts (I think she knows all the body parts a non-biologist can be expected to know!)
-identify four pictures by pointing (Please. She was doing that ages ago.)

will probably be able to:
-identify four pictures by naming (Ha!)

may possibly be able to:
-draw a vertical line in imitation (Not only can she draw lines on her own initiative, she can even sketch a vaguely fish-shaped shark-- which is about as much as her mother can do.)
-balance on one foot for one second (Again, please. The only time limit on this is her level of boredom, not her balance.)
-identify a friend by name (She can name all her friends, TV and movie characters, even the guy who works at the construction site across the street.)

may even be able to:
-balance on one foot for two seconds (Again, ha!)
-identify one color (To think I was fretting that she could only point out six.)
-describe the use of two objects ("No, Mommy, toys are for playing; forks are for eating...")
-use two adjectives (She has a plethora of adjectives, including her self-created portmanteau word, 'heavigat', which presumably means really, really heavy and mabigat.)
-broad jump (somewhat alarmingly, into the swimming pool more often than not)

So she really is extremely advanced, which I probably should have known since most of the toys she likes are actually intended for three-year-olds. Did I already say that she's a genius?
Thursday, June 24, 2004

self-medication

Like parents everywhere, Dean and I kiss Sage's injured spot whenever she has an 'owie'. She's a pretty brave kid, so in most cases, this placebo is enough to comfort her and get her past the worst of the pain. Last night, though, she stubbed her toe on our bedroom door, which everyone knows is an excruciatingly agonizing experience. The poor girl burst into tears, flopping down onto our bed and wailing, "Kiss my foot, kiss my foot!" I kissed her foot and Dean kissed her foot, but apparently it wasn't enough.

So she reached down, grabbed hold of the afflicted foot, brought it to her lips, and kissed it herself.

She's not only self-sufficient, but flexible, too!

Sage's milestones
At only 24 months old, she's started regularly speaking in complete sentences, including "I'm Sage Alfar", "Daddy, what happened to you?", and, of course, "That's my pillow!"
Tuesday, June 22, 2004

speech effect

Yesterday, I bought Sage a little press-and-play voice recorder. She was asleep by the time I got home, though, so the Big Kids (a.k.a. Sage's parents) fooled around with the toy for a while before setting aside to give to her in the morning.

By the time I remembered to show it to her, Dean had already gone off to work, which explains the round-eyed look of awe that crossed our little girl's face when she pressed the 'play' button and heard her father's voice saying, "Sagey!"

The first thing she did was look all around her, searching for her unseen father: "Daddy!" Then she looked at the toy again. Then she got to her feet, turning a full 360-degree circle, calling, "Daddy?" When she didn't see him anywhere, she even went to the bathroom, attempting to peer under the closed door. "Daddy..."

As I was trying to explain to her that it was only a recording, she looked at the toy again, apparently deciding that it was without question the source of her father's voice. She therefore surmised that it could only be some sort of cell phone, and put it to her ear, settling in for a nice chat with her father. "Hello, Daddy, it's Sage."

She figured out how it worked later, and spent the rest of the day commanding her nanny to sing, speak, and make various animal noises for posterity.
Thursday, June 17, 2004

drama princess

I guess I was wrong when I said "no ham" in the last entry...

Just tonight, Sage was playing 'gunman' again, gleefully firing off round after round from her index-finger-cum-imaginary-gun. When she 'shot' me with her customary yell of "bam bam!", I obligingly pretended to be hit and keeled over onto the bed.

To my surprise, she quickly threw herself across my body and dissolved into a fit of pretend-weeping, pitifully sobbing, "My mommy, my mommy!" She got so into the act that pretty soon she apparently forgot it was an act, as a real tear found its way down her little method actress cheek.

Her father ended up having to reassure her that neither of her parents is going to leave her anytime soon. This kid, I tellya...

She is an actual princess, by the way. Her father is a Muslim prince, and her grandmother is the first princess of Marawi. I don't know if Sage fully comprehends this yet-- she certainly acts like she knows she's royalty!
Monday, June 14, 2004

orange eggs, no ham

For some reason, Sage decided at lunch today that it would be fun to dip her boiled egg in her orange juice. I tried to stop her, but she gave me one of her most forbidding looks, saying, "No, Mommy." Well, Dean and I believe in letting her experiment and experience things, so I let her be. She seemed to vastly enjoy herself until she was about halfway through eating her citrus-soaked treat. Then she frowned again, looked critically at the egg on the end of her fork, and put it back down on her plate, explaining, somewhat reproachfully, "It's yucky, Mommy."

I rolled my eyes. She thought that was terribly funny, and went around copying it for some time.

Mommy is trying out this photoblogging thing.
image by Daddy
Wednesday, June 09, 2004

playing horsey

Sage likes to make me get on my hands and knees, whereupon she climbs on my back and orders, "Gee-yap, Horsey!" I, of course, am expected to bounce up and down, humming that song from The Lone Ranger... you know how the game goes, right?

Just this week, though, she's added a new dimension to it. When I get tired out and tell her, "Sage, Horsey's tired," she obligingly slips off my back. Then she gets on her hands and knees beside me and commands, "Horsey, Mommy, horsey!" I am then expected to 'climb' onto her back for a ride of my own! Mind you, this little girl is just three feet tall and weighs only 29 pounds, while I am 5'8" and weigh never-you-mind pounds. Yet there isn't a doubt in her mind that she can give her mommy a ride-- she's already humming the music as I pretend to sit on her back.

And her name while in horse-form is, of course, 'Horsey Alfar'.
Saturday, June 05, 2004

my sleeping child

When Sage was a tiny baby, Dean and I would sometimes have her sleep with us in our little double bed. I would curl my body around her, one arm thrown across her sleeping form to keep her from being crushed by her father, a notorious night tosser and turner. But all those nights, Dean would just go to sleep on his side and not move. Not an inch, nary a centimeter the whole night long; it was amazing. Even in his sleep, he knew to watch out for our daughter.

These days, of course, she's a big little girl. And even in our now-queen-sized bed, she's the one most likely to push everyone else off-- intentionally, at that! She'll just shove her mother or father off the side of the bed, then turn to the other parent and cry out, with a look of wide-eyed consternation, "Oh, no! Let's help!". Then she reaches over to 'pull' Daddy or Mommy back into bed... only to start pushing and shoving once more at the earliest opportunity.

The little drama queen.
Tuesday, June 01, 2004

the name game

Sage has known for some time that her full name is Sage Alfar. She knows that her parents are (in her words) "Daddy Dean Alfar" and "Mommy Nikki Alfar". So it's really quite logical that she has now officially christened her favorite toy puppy "Dog Alfar".

Which probably means that the toy octopus is named "Oppopus Alfar"...