Thursday, January 30, 2014

My Cup Runneth Over...

My daughter is obsessed with "The Cup Song" from Pitch Perfect.

And so, my husband and I have jumped aboard the bandwagon. We know the words, we sing the song, play it on the guitar, you name it. A regular ol' Swiss Family Robinson going on.

Watching my daughter sing along and strum the guitar with my husband the other night was one of those moments I wanted to freeze forever in time. It was a truly perfect moment - no screaming or tantrums, no attitude, no tears, no drama (my two-and-a-half-year-old is full of all of those things).

Even when it all went to hell (complete with my daughter scratching my husband's face in anger) the moment I told her it was time to go to bed, it was a magical thing. A beautiful thing.



Sure, she might have her toddler moments (see list above), but don't we all? I mean, I can't tell you how many times I've kept a calm facade, while inside I'm throwing stuff, crying, and stomping my feet. I'm willing to let those episodes slide. She's learning boundaries and rules and I get that.

And she says the most insanely hilarious, oddly adult things.

Aside from being able to clearly sing the Cup Song lyrics (mostly in-tune, too), she has often regurgitated much of what I say to her, and has delivered it with amazing accuracy. For instance:

This morning I was bringing her to Grammie's for the day. This CD of her "kid songs" plays in a loop, and there's this one I cannot stand, so I skipped ahead. The one about the Kookaburra - you KNOW it. Immediately, she asked me why I skipped the song. First I told her I wanted to hear "Skip to My Loo" instead, but you know she called my bluff on that.

"Why?"

"Well, I don't like the other one," I said.

"Why, Mommy?"

"I don't like the way it sounds."

"Why?" (I'm having Louis CK flashbacks about now.)

"Because that's my opinion - I don't like the music and that's what I think of it."

She repeated the word to herself, memorizing it, I'm sure. Then she promptly said, "Mommy's onion." She said it slowly, deliberately. Sarcastically. Then she laughed.

My daughter made a funny, and it cracked her up. How could I not laugh, too?

Another time we were in the car again, listening to the radio. As I flipped through stations, she told me she didn't like whatever song was playing, until I got to one I liked and told her we were keeping it on.
She replied with, "Nice try, but no."

Woah. When my mother asked where that phrase had come from, I raised my hand, guilty as charged. To have your words parroted back is one thing; to have them delivered to you and used correctly is another.

She loves arts and crafts, and recently I purchased a number of little goodies for her to create with, so now she asks me, "Shall we make some art, Mommy?"

My two-year-old says, "Shall we..."

My goodness.

My husband has taught her to respond to the question, "Who's your favorite Bruin?" with: "Bergeron!" But she's upping the ante. Now when he asks her, she'll answer, "Goalpin," the name, apparently, of her favorite imaginary player. Because she knows it makes him laugh.

Each day, I feel time whizzing past me, and I struggle to hold onto these little glimpses of the person she's becoming. I want to preserve them, but each day she says something new, hilarious and amazing, and older nuances and events slip away. So I'm going to write as many of them down as I can. Someday, we'll look back and tell her about these things she said and did, and how it made us laugh and love her even more.

Yes, my kiddo pronounces scissors like she's spent some time south of the border (say it with me - sEEsors). She loves to ice skate like Dora (or she tries, at least). She notices the little things, like the fact that fallen leaves might be now covered by the snow. I love the way her little mind works.

And I can't wait to see what she'll come up with next.