Deconstructing Toddler

We took the girls to the park yesterday. It was a cool, humid day, and everything looked lush and green. We went to a local city park that is popular with gardeners, and played on the spiffy new playground equipment.

Az pushed Sweetpea in one of those swings made for babies. I pushed JellyBean in another one. JellyBean has an avid interest in plant names (She really does. Our potty-training reward lately has been, “If you tinkle, Mama will let you hold Daddy’s tree book,” a guide full of colorful illustrations for identifying trees.), so I started naming the trees around us.

“That’s a sycamore tree,” I said.

“Zaccheus!” JellyBean said.

We pushed and swang some more. A family with a little girl came and used the swings next to us. I named a few more trees.

Then JellyBean announced, full voice: “Daddy will throw me into the maple tree and break all my bad bones!”

I think I mustered a nervous chuckle and tried to say something witty, looking at the other family out of the corner of my eye. They moved off toward the slide.

It could have been worse. She could have hollered, “That man is not my daddy!” But as she gets older and more creative, her potential for mortifying us increases.

Here is what I think went into this announcement:

1. VeggieTales Silly Songs - Larry the Cucumber plays with a ball outside his house and accidentally kicks it over the fence into the neighbor’s property. He sings, “Can I have my ball? I kicked it into a tree…”

2. A story I tell her while I comb her hair about Arabella, a little girl with a ponytail, who climbed the maple tree after her mother told her not to, and had to sit in time-out.

3. My warning to my speedy little girl about parking lots: “You do not run away from Mommy in parking lots. You could get hit by a car and it would break all your bones and give you a very big owie and you would die.” She repeats this verbatim as we walk through parking lots. I wish it meant that she never ran from me. That kid is slippery.

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