Theledge.net

Angie and Alphie did an “Ages and Stages” questionnaire today. Alphie was attentive, responsive and brilliant.

In fact, Alphie was so excited to complete all the tasks that, when she was done, she told her mom “I want to do some more homework!” We have doubts as to whether we will ever hear that phrase uttered again.

Anyway, Angie decided to do a little math with Alphie, since it is something we have not emphasized and is a skill she might someday need.

To coach Alphie a little bit, Angie used small tokens from a board game to illustrate the numbers. She started easy, asking “If I have one and I add another one, how many do you have?”

Alphie responded “Two” in a distracted way, without glancing at the visual aids, as she moved dragged a chair over to sit next to her mother.

Angie, sensing that she was undershooting, asked “If you have three and I add another three how many do you have?”

Alphie looked at the little tokens and counted “four, five, six!” as she balanced on her chair next to her mother.

Angie decided to try subtraction. “If I have five and I take two away, how many to you have left.”

Alphie looked at the remaining pieces. She looked at her mother. She carefully counted “One, two, three.”

And then she looked back at her mother and said in an earnest and forthright voice “Mom, we don’t take things away from our friends, though. It is not nice.”

Math and morality are sometimes hard to reconcile. And subtraction is rarely fair.

Your Grannie and your mother found the deal of the year at a garage sale. They bought you a little hand-held educational game system with a Dora game (and a few others). You find it fascinating.

You aren’t addicted to it, though, which is good. I am pretty sure that with today’s parenting climate we could be hauled off to jail if we admitted to sticking you in front of the TV or a video game when we need to get something done.

Of course, we don’t do that. Instead we let you wander around the open spaces adjacent to our neighborhood, where all the coyotes live, with a bb-gun, a sandwich wrapped in saran wrap and only the dog for company. He is completely smart enough to run back and let us know if anything untoward happens to you.

Anyway, you have this little video game that you are trying to figure out. You have seen video games before, but never one that is your size or, more importantly, has Dora the Explorer in it.

I promise that it has a point.

The other day I was cleaning my ears with a Q-tip. I believe I am fairly normal in this activity, both in frequency and technique. It had been a few days since I had cleaned them, but not a particularly long time. And I wasn’t doing anything fancy; just a quick cleaning before I went to bed.

So I wiped the swab around the inside of my ear canal, not too deep, and pulled it out, only to find that it was completely black.

I was a little concerned.

I looked at Angie across the room, who was quietly reading on the bed while Alphie bounced around the room doing everything possible not to seem tired.

Alphie seems to believe that appearing tired is a sign of weakness. She would rather, quite literally, get rid of all her worldly possessions and live the life of a nomadic orphan child than appear as if she needs to go to bed.

Anyway, Angie looked at me.

I asked her “Do you think that is normal?” and motioned with the Q-tip. Angie said “No!”

So I took the other end of the Q-tip and swabbed my ear, a little deeper this time. When I pulled it out I had something that looked roughly like this attached to the end:


It was kind of gross. It was very large. It was completely black. It should not have come from my ear.

I showed it to Angie, who was aghast and perhaps a little dismayed.

I began to throw the Q-tip away when Alphie bounced over and said “Can I see?”

I told her “OK, but then I need to throw it away...” and held it out a little lower for her to take a quick look.

Alphie stared at it. Then she leaned forward and peered at it it.

And then she said, with a breathless little voice, “What the fuck?”

And Angie and I struggled not to laugh. Against all odds, we managed to keep our composure.

And Alphie bounced off to display her un-tiredness else were in the room.

So, there you have it. A gross story.

I’m not sure if I have mentioned this before, but you have a pretty strong sense of fashion.

Whether it is purses, shoes, lipstick or just the clothes you are wearing you have a strong opinion and usually it points directly towards looking “good”.

But last week sometime, you really wanted to wear two shirts and two pairs of pants to school at the same time. You said it was cold, and you were not concerned if the ensemble looked a little weird.

Then this past weekend your mother was getting you dressed in the morning and you refused to wear her choice of pants. She wanted you to wear these particular pants because they match the pink shirt you were wearing. You have often shown extremely good taste in matching clothes and have always seemed acutely aware of whether you were dressed in all one color. Usually pink.

But this time you pushed back against the idea.

And when your mother finally said “Alphie, these pants match your shirt;” you responded immediately with “Mom, they don’t have to match.”

Fashion for fashion’s sake may have already taken a backseat to utility.

Except in the case of shoes.

So, we finally hit the part of the Terrible Twos that I have been dreading. You are starting to experiment with being mean.

I saw it coming a couple of weeks ago when I took you to school. You walked in as normal, went straight to wash your hands and then sat down at the table for breakfast. There were an unusually large number of kids at the table that morning, but you were nonplussed and sat quietly waiting for your turn.

A little girl sitting two seats down, who is a good friend of yours, turned to you and yelled “Alphie you’re silly.”

You didn’t react, really, you just sat and waited.

She yelled it again “Alphie you’re silly.”.

And again “You’re silly, Alphie .”
The emphasis was a little more on the silly each time.

And again she yelled it, “Alphie you’re silly.”.

You didn’t get it. You looked at her puzzled. I could see you trying to figure out what action you had taken that was so silly, but you knew you weren’t doing anything silly.

I knew as soon as I saw it that you were headed into new territory. Previously all of your experiences were grounded in a physical realm, with nearly direct cause and effect.

Here was a behavior that had nothing to do with what you were specifically doing. And the other little girl sure looked like she was having fun!

Then the other night you used the word “poopy-head” in front of your mother. You grinned at her because you knew it was forbidden. She impressed upon that it was not nice, and we have not heard it again.

And then last night you were walking about the house muttering to yourself, which is slightly unusual. I asked you what it was you were saying and you didn’t answer me, but just kept walking.

A few seconds later you said “You stupid” to no-one in particular.

I told you that was not a nice word, and that you should not use it and you again said “You stupid”. And again, it was to no-one in particular.

This time your mother said “Alphie, that word is not nice and if you continue to say it you will go in timeout.”

At this point the dog ran away and hid, because he hates confrontation.

But you again said “You stupid”. Again it was not directed at anyone in particular.

So your mother picked you up and set you on the stair and told you that you were in timeout for using the bad word “stupid” and that you must apologize to come out of timeout.. You burst into tears and began clamoring for your mother, but made no move to apologize.

So your mother again told you that you must apologize.

When you apologize it is nearly heartbreaking. You say “I’m sorry!” with such downheartedness that it feels like we have threatened to abandon you to the forces of nature, with only the dog to take care of you.

And so, with this broken voice and with tears swelling in your eyes, you grabbed hold of your mother’s leg, peered up into her face and said “I’m sorry, stupid”.

I know you were just upset and you got a little confused, but do you see how that doesn’t work?
But it is a pretty good illustration as to why we don’t want you using that word.