"painting"

The time: Sunday, lunchtime. The place: our dining room. Casper is happily, if messily, feeding herself yogurt. I slip out to check my email (oh, the shame). I return to find Casper has put her foot - clad in a purple sock - on the table and is carefully daubing the top of it with yogurt. She has achieved an excellent amount of coverage. After the meal is concluded and new socks have been donned, Casper is very reluctant to put the dirty sock in the laundry basket. She wants to chew on it.

I also don't think I discussed the Sunday shirt melt-down. I dressed Casper Sunday morning in a red t-shirt with a polar bear on it that she has worn many times. She protested mightily, but that's hardly new. I went in to do some dishes as mr. flea drank coffee, and 3 minutes later Casper showed up at the gate into the kitchen holding her Osh Kosh shirt, worn the previous day. "ON!" she said, trying to get it over her head. We let her wear the dirty shirt. I don't think she's especially attached to that particular shirt - rather, it's assertiveness time. So we're trying to offer clothing choices in the mornings (only two choices). She spent the rest of the day occasionally clapping a hand to her chest and saying "mine."

what is Casper like?

I've been thinking about this question a lot lately, because as I look back through this journal there is a great deal about what she does, what she says, how many teeth she has, how many times she woke up in the night, etc., but not a great deal about who Casper is - what is she like, and who will she become? It's an interesting question to me in part bnecause my mtoher's journals of my and my siblings' youth are full of observations about our characters and personalities, and I wonder to what extent they are clear-eyed observations and to what extent they are distorted by whatever issues she was having in her life at the time. For example, was veejane the world's best, most contented baby, or was my mother particularly happy during that time? Was Brother of flea especially clingy by nature, or was he reacting to the considerable stress in our family during his infancy (my parents separated before his second birthday)?

So, if only to look back and see how wrong I was, or so Casper can have something to talk about in her twenty-something therapy sessions, here is how I see Casper.

She's a happy child. I think that's the first thing, and I think it's true. The nanny says so, and while that may be partly in comparison with Ellen, who was born grumpy and scowling, I think it's not just in contrast. Her cup is half full. (God, I hope so.)

She's friendly - when we go on walks she waves from the stroller and makes eye contact with those we pass, and she's done so since she was quite small. She's always enjoyed being out and looking at the world and seeing all the people. When she was a tiny baby I took her to the park not only so I could get out and see some adults but also because she liked to watch the children playing.

That said, she's fairly self-sufficient. At the park she is content to play by herself and is more likely to do her favorite things than follow other kids around. If she wants to play in the sand, she'll head down there, even if the kids we see all the time are clustered around the swings. I think this is partly an age thing, and partly a first-child thing, but partly a Casper thing. If so, she certainly comes by it honestly - both mr. flea and I sometimes have trouble playing with others, due to shy and contrarian streaks.

Despite the fact that we're in a phase of assertion of independence, testing, and wanting her own way, I don't think she's unusually stubborn. She pitches fits but doesn't hold a grudge. So far.

I don't think she's developmentally unusual in any particular way, but I think she's more advanced verbally than physically. She's not much of a climber, isn't much interested in throwing or kicking a ball, isn't great at stairs yet. But she loves to be read to, and I think has just hit the tipping point of language acquisition. (This last, obviously, facsinates me - 15 months ago this little squirt started to recognize her own hands, and now she learns new words every single day. It is really incredible.)

In other news, I have achieved new status in my neighborhood - the park mommies have added me to their email list of monthly events (evenings out)! I am, I hope you can see, of mixed mind about this - it feels a bit like high school, and I worry about being sucked in to some vortex of American competeivie style mothering, but on the other hand I like those of them that I know best, and respect them, and I am certainly trying to be more social. (In American competetive mothering anecdotes, mr. flea and Casper and I were all at the Kroger together a couple of weeks ago and ran into one of the park mommies with her two sons (both under 3, eeek!). Later, when we saw them at the park, she said to me, "It was nice to see you at the Kroger - I feel so much social pressure to only shop at the Whole Foods!" To which I replied, "If I only shopped at the Whole Foods I'd need to take a second job." I am so glad I feel no social pressure to only shop at the Whole Foods. May I remain so.)