Conscious Mom

I don’t have time to write a post. I don’t even have time to go through my iPhoto files and upload a picture for Wordless Wednesday. Nor do I have time to tell you why I don’t have time. But life passes quickly, and kids phases, stages, and games change weekly. If I don’t record what Maia’s up to right now I risk losing it all to history.

The little blue wagon: Maia likes to pile a random assortment of items into her blue wagon and push it around the house. At any given time there could be stuffed animals, blocks, a colander, measuring cups, pot lids, shoes, books, and raw potatoes in the wagon. Once one of my bras ended up in it. Our living room, kitchen, and dining room make a circle, and Maia does lap after lap with a fully loaded wagon, humming to herself, sometimes stopping to gather more items. She does this every day and I’m ticked pink every single time.

BANG!: Whenever Maia falls over she has one word to let us know she’s been hurt: ‘BANG’. She starts saying it with a tearful face and a wimper, ‘bang, bang’ pointing to the injured part. Then she makes sure we know exactly what happened by reenacting the event and yelling ‘bang’ at the point at which her head strikes the coffee table, or knee scrapes the floor. Eventually she asks to be picked up and gently hits her forehead against mine, laughing, ‘bang, bang, bang.’

Dinner theater: Once Maia is finished eating, she’ll ask us to entertain her by moving her arms back and forth and saying ‘row… row’. This is our cue to sing ‘row, row, row your boat’. If one of us is slow to join in, she’ll point at us like a professional conductor and say ‘mama’ or ‘dada’ over and over until we’ve joined the song. At the end of every verse she bursts into applause. Bossy, yet appreciative.

Other random eccentricities: Our neighbor’s boy is the same age as Maia. She says his name, Liam, without opening her mouth. When she is in her car seat she practices laughing; we’re the only car I know that has its own laugh track. She will only listen to Aimee Mann. Whenever we put on another CD she will say Ma, Ma, Ma over and over until will put on Aimee Mann.

Being an only child…..: Last week both Bodhi and I had to be out one evening. Maia stayed with friends who have two children, 5 and 6 years old. When we picked her up, Maia was curled up in bed with the six year old. She looked so peaceful and happy sleeping next to another child that I felt enormously guilty taking her home to a house where she’s the only one. She seems happy enough, looks peaceful and happy sleeping next to us, too, and she certainly gobbles up all the one-on-one attention, but still….