A BLOG ABOUT A FAMILY: April 2012

Once again, it's time for our better-late-than-never no-bars-hold birthday kid praise-fest!

As of March 1, Libbie--our youngest for a few months more--is now a precocious, articulate, outgoing (*gasp*) THREE YEAR OLD. Of course she has been precocious, articulate, and outgoing for as long as we remember, and no doubt before that, but never before has the claim been true: Libbie is three! THREE! If anyone is counting, that means she has outlived the last 1000 generations of mayflies, and that accounting is generous to the mayfly. This is one outstanding, growing little girl.

No straightforward description of Libbie will do, although perhaps this comes closest: Libbie is aan innovative team player, which comes as no surprise given that her whole life to date has unfolded in close interaction with a family team. Given the abundant chances one has to revolt in close quarters with two older brothers, Libbie has proven remarkably cooperative to date. She already has the respect and trust of her parents in many things as well as the admiration and appreciation of her brothers, which says a lot. She makes peace among siblings as naturally as she throws herself headlong into their wrestling matches.

Two years younger than her next oldest sibling, she imitates all around her with grace and acumen. Even in her least cooperative moments, she imitates masterfully. The rare hunger- or exhaustion-induced vociferous protest followed by an all-out meltdown, even then she successfully imitates her brothers' most successful breakdowns. She sops up what works (and what gets attention) like a sponge! This is not to say that Libbie simply mirrors those around her--rather she reflects and then revises it to her own liking. For example, it will take only a couple times for the boys to do their homework, or to invite us parents to enter a room with our eyes closed for a surprise, before Libbie will start pulling her own tricks: she doesn't just ask for homework. Instead she fills up her Dora backpack with homework, coloring book, crayons, a stuffed animal, and her favorite white blankie. The backpack, Libbie will announce to anyone who will play airplane with her, converts into an airport-duty suitcase with the lift of a handle. She LOVES playing with her animals and ventriloquizing elaborate interactions for them in indescribably (quite possibly un-recordably) high squeaky voices: she has named some of her stuffed animal friends with imagination: namely, there's "new bunny," "white bunny," and "big bunny," among other bunnies, and "teddy bear," "dolly," "dolly," and "dolly." Occasionally she will decide that one or all of them are named Evie and/or Addie (her cousins' names) but usually this doesn't stick too long. Occasionally she will announce that her name is actually Evie and not Libbie--"I will tell you the last time. My name is not Libbie. It's Evie."

However much a team player, Libbie has a will of her own. She is often the first one in the car and the last one to buckle her seatbelt. Although she does not read text actively, she too seems drawn to spending time with books--and seems especially drawn to handily small books. She can often be seen walking around the house with a little yellow German-language Reclam verlag edition in hand. She loves to gather all the tiny books around the house (usually pocket foreign language dictionaries or a yellow set of German literature in short skinny book form) and "make puzzles" with them, which means lining them up in a straight line or in large rectangles. She colors with crayons dynamically and in her now inimitable three-year old way; in the past week or so, her coloring seems to mingle thorough within-the-line and scribbled-everywhere styles almost artfully. She takes her tricycle for regular long rides in the backyard, at times distancing herself from the rest of the group, at times hanging close and begging to be pushed up the inclines. She unabashedly acquaints herself with the 11-year old girls on the playground. She asks to be swung higher than Tato is tall on the swings; Tato gladly complies. She is beloved, and deservedly so, by her nursery teachers: her enthusiasm for nursery smoothes and speeds the whole family church preparation process. She eats omnivorously, except for when she doesn't, and she naps like a champ, except for when she doesn't.

Like her brothers, her mother, and probably most pre-literate little children but (of course... our bias recognized) more so, she exhibits a formidable oral memory: she quotes back extended instructions in effort to hold you to your word. "Remember," she says, "you said that after '[I] take a nap and we do our chores, then we can watch Mickey Mouse.' Remember? Remember?" (She's actually referring to Fantasia, which has a picture of Mickey Mouse on the front.) Inevitably she gets her quotes right. She also sings songs from memory. Her favorites include "We are a happy family," "I am a child of God," "the ABCDs," and our all-time favorite diddy, a variant of Tiny Tim worth repeating here:

I have a little turtle.
His name is Tiny Tim.
I put him in the bathtub
To see if he could swim.

He drank up all the water.
He ate up all the soap.
And now he's sick in bed
With a bubble in his throat.
....
BURP! Ex-cuse me! (Diaphragm-shaking laughter....)

She loves the word "super." She uses "super" in place of both "very" and "really," as well as as a superlative modifier to any word or phrase, such as "that's a super frog color," or, when hungry, "It's super time for breakfast." Some of her other great words: "muse-mess" for "music," "Ears" for "Eeyore," and "kangaroot" for kangaroo, as in the book title: "What Do You Do with A Kangaroot?" Instead of oatmeal, she refers quite reasonably to "eatmeal," a considerable improvement, we think. She likes to take on a sort of sing-songy, rhythmic tone when reciting things she has said many times before, like when she says, "When I grow up, I'm going to be a mommy, and Tato is going to be a grandpa, and Ima is going to be a grandma!"

She is constantly asking questions, especially origin questions, and she is relentless in getting an answer she is satisfied with, which can be frustrating during movies. Every time I sing a song she asks, "Where did you learn that song?" When I laugh or smile at her, she demands to know, "Why are you laughing?" Anything strange or out of the ordinary gets a "How come..." question. Every baby crying or making an usual face gets, "Why is that baby crying/sad/angry...?" She also usually follows up any form of an "I don't know" response with, "Can you guess?"

The following exchange between Libbie and Kourtney is typical:

L: "Where is that guy going?"
K: "I'm not sure."
L: "Can you guess?"
K: "Hmm... maybe he's going to work."
L: "No. Try again."
K: "I'm not sure. The store?"
L: "Nope. Keep guessing."
K: "I don't know. Where do you think he is going?"
L: "Just keep guessing."
[Repeat ad infinitum.]

Stubbornness and self-willed teamwork included, she makes us laugh everyday, and figured out how just utterly hilarious we think she is a month or so ago, occasionally proclaiming, "I'm super cute and awesome and funny, right?" In the last few weeks though she seems to have figured out that saying she is super cute and awesome and funny doesn't make us laugh and smile nearly as much as actually being super cute and awesome and funny, so she hasn't said that in awhile.

Birthday Interview with Libbie:

On her birthday, March 1:

As usual: interviewer Kourtney in red, interviewee Libbie in black.

What is your name?

Birthday girl

What's your dad's name?

Tato.

What else is he named?

Ben

What's your mom's name?

Ima and Kourtney.

How old are you?