Childhood Joys

Bill Watterson, the emminent creator of the Calvin & Hobbes comic strip, wrote a strip in which Calvin eagerly eyed the chocolate chip cookie dough batter made by his mother. When attempting to acquire a taste of the batter, Calvin's mom replied, "No dear. You could get salmonella poinsoning." Dejected and fuming, Calvin walks away saying, "Another part of nostalgic childhood goes pppbbbbtttt!! in your face." Perhaps I might think otherwise if I knew all of the debilitating effects of salmonella poisoning, but my first response was to think of the impoverished childhood Calvin would have.

I remember the different occasions when my mom baked cakes or brownies for our family, and, as a child, there were three unforgettable sensual experiences involved: the smell of the baking cake, licking the batter from the bowl, and eating the cake. While it is possible that I'm mistaken, I have a sneaking suspicion that those three experiences are universal for children. Calling upon my memories of nostalgic childhood and armed with a box of brownie mix, I decided to test my theory with Miriam.

I first asked Miriam if she wanted to help me make some brownies. In her mind, brownies = chocolate, so this is a no-lose situation. She ran into the kitchen and immediately point to her purple and white smock hanging on the hall, proclaiming, "Daddy, that's for making cooookies!!" This of course means that I needed to retrieve it from the wall and help her to put it on. As you will see in the following pictures, she certainly needed it.

While mixing up the batter, it was quite obvious that Miriam wanted to dive in head first, but she showed remarkable restraint. She also provided a great deal of assistance in mixing up the batter in the bowl. After pouring the batter into a pan, she eyed the bowl. I told her to go ahead and lick the beater and wipe the bowl with her finger. This wasn't an opportunity that she would pass up, so she didn't need to be told twice. As is obvious from the pictures, she relished the opportunity to clean the bowl, resulting in a chocolate goatee.


Miriam helping Daddy make/eat brownies


A proud "brownie face"

The rest of her actions followed my own childhood experience. She occasionally came into the kitchen to watch the brownies in the oven, chiming, "Mmmmm. Something smells gooood!" For anybody who has a child over 1 year of age, you know how the brownie eating expedition ensued--sheer joy, and crumbs falling over the floor as if the brownie was occasionally exploding!

So from this experiment in joy, I was able to accomplish two I tasks: 1.) I reaffirmed my theory on childhood experiences, and 2.) I learned the incredible value a a body-szed smock for a three-year-old.

Fwiends

Miriam insisted I take this picture.


fwiends

I love Katie's bushy hair.

Horsie Ride!

Miriam is her mother's daughter. (Mrs. Pickles used to ride the heck out of a horse like this when she was Miriam's age -- Grandma B. has some great blurry photos of it.) :)


horsie ride

It may be too small to see, but Miriam has a HUGE bug bite on her foot. She got eaten alive during our weekend away, while I didn't get a single bite -- as a little furnace she was such a mosquito magnet!

Road Trip!

A couple weeks back we went on a little road trip to visit Grampa E., who was staying with some relatives about 3 hours away. We hit some traffic, were forced to take a detour due to construction, and had to make a couple stops (toddler bladder), so a trip that should have taken 3 hours took 5. Sigh. At least the drive was pretty -- our unplanned detour took us alongside a scenic river. The girls were pretty good. Katie isn't used to spending a whole lot of time in her carseat, unlike Miriam who was a veteran roadtripper by the time she was six months, so she spent a good part of it fussing in the beginning, when she wasn't asleep (which wasn't for very long). But once she resigned herself to being imprisoned, she managed to entertain herself pretty well. This was her favorite way:


road trip

A couple times she & Miriam would set each other giggling -- it was SOOO cute to hear the two of them chortling at each other in the back seat.

We had a great, relaxing weekend (i.e., Mrs. Pickles didn't have to do any housework) :) and the girls had a blast with Grampa. All in all a success.

The trip home was MUCH better -- the girls took extra long naps and the drive was much shorter, although we all had to make an emergency pit stop 1/4 mi. from home -- couldn't last 2 more minutes!

"Let's go SWIM!"

Pretty much ever since it stopped snowing, Miriam has been asking to swim in her kiddie pool. No, that's not true -- she asked even WHILE it was snowing. But anyhow, the point is that Miriam loves her pool. A few weeks ago the weather warmed up enough to play with water outside, but since the pool was buried in our basement behind several stacks of boxes (and therefore Mr. Pickles' job to get it), I decided to fill a large bucket with water and let Miriam go to town. She still insisted on going swimming.


swimming

I still don't know how she fit.

Meanwhile, Katie, although enjoying being outside, tried her hardest to avoid touching a single blade of grass. (note left arm)


outdoor babe

...Unless of course she was attempting to eat it.

Putting toys to bed...

After her bath one night, Miriam insisted on putting her bath toys to bed (with blanket and all).


toys sleeping

Not exactly sure what's up with the red guy...

Dancing Queen

Miriam looking pwetty so she can get mawwied and dance (see post below)


ready to dance

Love her smile.

Musical Miriamisms

Miriam has a thing for Julie Andrews. She has all the songs from both Sound of Music and Mary Poppins completely memorized. Of course, her versions are all in Miriamese (see previous post), but still! Whenever she's feeling content with life she'll burst out with, "DO ME ME, ME SO SO, RE FA FA, LA TI TI" (with the last three syllables up in the stratosphere somewhere) and then sing it again in double-quick time, like in the movie.

But in addition to that perennial favorite, her new fav is the Advertisement for a Nanny song from Mary Poppins. She'll come up to one of us and say, "I need something to sing!" So we'll give her a sheet of music, and she'll stand and proceed to sing the entire song, including Michael's side comments ("I put that part in too!") and the little head-nod they do at the end (see "what Miriam's singing," sidebar). I think we've already caught it on videotape -- it's just too precious!

The other day she also burst out with "Ohhhhh, it's a jolly holiday with Daaaad-dyyyyyy....."

This was something that impressed me: the other day Miriam wanted me to help her play "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" on the piano (I basically take one of her fingers and attempt to get it to play one note at a time). After that she wanted to play the alphabet song (same tune), and proceeded to sing along, IN TUNE!!! (albeit an octave higher than what we were playing!) Being musically inclined myself, I was gratified to see that already Miriam can distinguish pitch so well. Broadway, here she comes!!! :) (Well, maybe the L.A. Master Chorale.)

Miriam-English Dictionary

Miriam, like most little kids, still requires a translator (usually Mom) to make her intelligible to non-immediate-family members, and sometimes even Dad. :)
Here is a handy reference for some Miriamese with their English equivalents:

hostipal -- hospital
balala -- umbrella
kabuzz -- because
telling phone -- telephone
smanooch -- sandwich
peeta butta samooch -- peanut butter sandwich
tapaytoes or peetoes -- potatoes/tomatoes
bixit -- biscuit
flierfy -- firefly
magnick -- magnet
train tractor -- train tracks
troller (said with lips pursed) -- cross between stroller and trailer
umbalella -- umbrella
applepie -- pineapple
board skater -- skateboard
marshalows -- marshmellows
Mamember -- November
Mamember March 19 -- Katie's birthday
ganooner -- granola
last day -- some time past
last year -- a very long time past -- although it could be last week
lemalade (you can probably guess that one)

More Miriamese added as I notice them!

I swear they make this stuff up...

A session title from a conference for Mr. Pickles' work:
"Regression and Deconvolution with Heteroscedastic Measurement Error"

(I'm having a hard time thinking of a good way to mock this!...) "Heteroscedastic"? Sounds like a psychosis or something. Honestly, I swear they make this stuff up. They have to. Words like "deconvolution" just don't occur in ordinary (sane) English.

(Of course, I'm only teasing Mr. Pickles b/c I could never in a million years understand half of what he does. He's way too smart for me.) :)