Lily and the Lord

Lily's been very good lately. I don't know if she's been "scared straight" by the promise of Santa, but she's been consistently well behaved all week.

She got a hidden picture calender along with her most recent issue of Highlights and we were on the floor on our tummies looking for combs and paintbrushes hidden in pictures of skiing dogs. After a while, we started singing our questions to each other.

Lily: *singing* "Do you see the crown anywhere?"
Me: *singing* I think it's upside down in the mountain!
Lily: *singing* You do this very well, daddy!

As an aside, Lily's grammar is exceptionally good for her age. That's to be expected, as both of her parents are grammar genies, (I split an infinitive at the dinner table last night and Jen stabbed me in the face with a fork) but I am surprised to the extent to which she's taken it. She uses adverbs better than some adults I know.

The other night she was agitating for more dessert and said, "My tummy hurts really badly because it's so empty", and I raised my eyebrows and said "That's a well constructed sentence, but I think you just want another cookie."

We had a little daddy/daughter day last night. We met my friend the Lord at his job, did a little shopping and then went for dinner.

I mentioned shortly after she was born that the day before she was born I couldn't imagine what she would look like and the day after, I couldn't imagine her any other way. It's just funny, the rituals that arise and take on their own life. We were at a thrift shop back when we were down in Florida and Jen was shopping and Lily and I were mostly killing time. We passed by a mirror and I said, "Look at those people over in the other room!" and now whenever we pass a mirror in a store, we talk about "Mirror-daddy" and "Mirror-Lily". Mirror Lily has very bad manners. She's always blowing raspberries at us. Lily can't let such an insult slide, so she blows them right back at her! She knows how a mirror functions, but it never fails to amuse her.

We went into Target and walked around for a bit. Lily wanted to buy Jen the most gaudy purple lipstick imaginable. (She's getting into makeup, which doesn't thrill me.) Lily was really well-behaved. She had previously expressed interest in karate, and I mentioned that the Lord used to teach it to kids. (Actually Tae Kwon Do, but no point in confusing her with the distinction.) She wanted to take classes him RIGHT THERE! but he had to explain that he doesn't teach the classes any more.

I would not be opposed to martial arts classes. Obviously we don't want to enroll her with the Kobra Kai ("Sweep the leg, Lily"), but I do think it's a good activity for kids. I'm actually rather somewhat more partial to it for a girl than I would be a boy.

When  we were in Target, we saw some nutcrackers and Lily gasped and said "Do they really work?!" and I was like "Well, I'm sure if we put a walnut in it and activated the mechanism, it would crack the nut, but it's not going to come to life and dance, if that's what you mean."

"Oh."

After that it was off the Key City Diner. I had previously mentioned that Mister Dave might meet us, and Lily was getting a little worried, "Why isn't Mister Dave here? Did his car break down?" I was also impressed by her kindness. I had bought her a lollipop at Target and she decided to leave it in a car, "There might be kids in the restaurant, and they would get jealous and feel sad if I had a lollipop and they didn't." Also, when we were driving Jeremy home, she said "Daddy, I want to tell you a secret." Jeremy dutifully covered his ears, and she said, "I forgot your friend's name and I don't want him to be sad about it. Can you remind me?" So I did and we were all happy.

Lily and I split the appetizer sampler and it was really good. The Lord also showed her how to make home made lemonade by mashing down the lemon wedges and adding the sugar that was on the table for the coffee and she quite enjoyed that experiment too.

It was one of those rare outings where everyone wins. Lily and Jeremy and I had a pretty good time and Jen got some time to herself and caught up on her Glee. With any luck, we can make this a regular feature of our week.