February 17, 2016

How did we end up with a child who is a year and a half old? While she’s watching Sesame Street, let me quickly jot down these thoughts.

1. One does not simply “just leave the house” with a toddler.
2. Whoever invented the packaging for cheese sticks needs a very long Time Out.
3. Only here am I allowed to ask, “Can I smell your butt?”
4. If the kid eats food off the floor, she doubles as a pet.
5. So what if her two favorite words are “Dada” and “cracker”? White dads lives matter.
6. If she doesn’t get what she wants she bangs her head against the wall, getting what she wants.
7. She’s very helpful loading clothes into the clothes into the dryer. Along with my tools.
8. This girl is a dancing queen with moves that might be an alien version of crunking.
9. She loves her mama and dada almost as much as she loves Elmo and Ellen Degeneres.
10. If she likes you, she will blow you a kiss goodbye. She likes the checkout ladies at Fred Meyer especially.
11. When she eats an apple, it’s not to the core, it’s and the core.
12. She has her own language which is a mix of Spanglish, ASL and (I’m guessing) Icelandic.
13. There is great joy when the kid sits on her potty and grunts.
14. She was barking like a dog before Hilary Clinton made it a thing.
15. She likes to sweep the floor, unlike her mother.
16. The moment when she took “Wheels on the Bus” off her CD player, put Radiohead on and started space dancing.
17. She thinks the move of Sesame Street to HBO is a complete betrayal of the whole purpose of public television.
18. This baby is not a baby anymore.