The toddler genius

Yesterday was just a bad day. It started with very little sleep due to me staying up too late watching Glee. I'm the type of person who is very low functioning on small amounts of sleep. 8 hours a night is the bare minimum for optimum results. More is preferred; less is discouraged. Lilah was great all day, but I was virtually assaulted by angering things. Friends being ridiculous. People complaining constantly about stupid things. My news feed was full of whiners. Practically all my blog updates were negative. I got a text from someone I know just to let me know he'd be having dinner with my family in Nashville this week. It was the type of day that causes you to dredge up any hurts or wrongs from the past 10 years and want soul-crushing restitution.

I was keeping an eye on my nephew Ephraim for a couple hours while Kim was at the YMCA. I decided to make cookies with him and Lilah as a productive way to work out my feelings, which had evolved from annoyance and frustration to full-on fury in a matter of hours. It was like the metamorphosis from an ugly caterpillar to a giant hate-butterfly in all its angry glory. I was pounding dough vehemently. My eyebrows were knitted together. Jaw set. Knuckles white on my rolling pin. My phone was merrily buzzing away on the counter. 7 texts that only served to remind me that humanity was lost and God had been brilliant for destroying the world with a flood. Also some texts from Rob telling me Glee was coming in concert.

I wasn't receiving the normal amount of catharsis from baking that I usually did, so I set to work on making egg salad for lunch and bourbon chicken for dinner. Throwing spices and herbs in my pan, splashing bourbon and vinegar, dumping brown sugar. Those things started to lift my spirits a bit. Ephraim was good company, talking to me while carefully cutting shapes out of the dough I rolled out for him. Lilah was mostly just eating the dough.

Dano got home from school and I verbally attacked him and poured out (loudly) everything that had gone on in the day and informed him I had consumed not only my allotted 2 cups of coffee from the press but his 2 as well. I was a 5 foot 4 inch bundle of rage on a caffeine high convinced the world was out to get me. Dano thought it would be prudent at this point to have a heart to heart.
"Can I just run something by you? I don't want you to take it the wrong way." My eyes narrowed as I violently rolled out more dough for Eph to cut into hearts and flowers.
"That's a great way to start a conversation. I'm not sure I want to know where this is going." He just laughed. I got angrier. Who has the balls to laugh when I'm having a bad day? Assholes. That's who. I married an asshole.
"Well, I was just wondering if it would be okay with you if I got another wife. Just for the mornings. You aren't a morning person. In fact, you're kind of mean." I just stared at him. "Just for the mornings."
"If you want another one so badly, you're about to find yourself on the market for more than just a morning wife. "
"You just need a lot more sleep than me. I thought it would be a good compromise." He thought he was so wildly hilarious.
I closed my eyes and counted. When they snapped open again, I addressed my cheerful, handsome, youngest nephew. I might have been yelling a little. "Ephraim, what do you do when everything makes you crabby? You're mad at the whole world and everything is making it worse and you just want to scream?" He considered the issue while cutting out a star cookie. "What makes it better?"
"Well, sometimes Mama gets me a special present that I can open right then and it makes me happy again."
"Really? So that's what I need?" He nodded and we both looked at Dano. I repeated Ephraim's sage advice. Ever the comedian, my husband grabbed the coffee cream from the fridge and handed it to me.
"Here is your present."
Ephraim said, "Go get her a real present Untle Dano." Dano put on his coat and left the house. I told Eph he was a genius. "I know," he said.

Dano came back with a box of amazing chocolate-covered coffee bean clusters that I had been coveting since Christmas. Ephraim smiled proudly. I told him he was the best little buddy I could have asked for that day and asked if I could kiss him. He kissed the air near my lips without actually touching them.

On a day where everything was getting under my skin, the wisdom and love of a precocious, happy 3 year old not only made me smile, but made it better. He and his equally amazing older brother are going grow up and run the world some day, and I know I'll be in good hands.

"Stories, Mama!"

About a month ago, Lilah finally started to notice books. We've read to her since she was born. Before bed we'd usually get in a few pages of Lord of the Rings, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, or a Wrinkle in Time before her little eyes would drift closed. As she got older, we'd barely make it a page into her board books before she completely lost interest and said, "All done," slithering away. Then last month, something clicked in her little brain. She started bringing us stories by the armful. She wanted them read cover to cover, and she quickly picked out her favorite.
What's more, she had her favorite parts of each book. In "Welcome Fall" she likes the page with the leaves that crinkle and crunch, and she says, "Crunch, crunch, crunch," as the little boy jumps in the leaf pile. In "Barnyard Dance" she likes "Scramble with the little chicks. Cheep cheep cheep!" She cheeps right along. In "Moo Baa Lalala", I get to the page "Rhinoceroses snort and snuff and little dogs go..." and Lilah says "RUFF RUFF RUFF!"
I'm amazed at how quickly she memorizes whole pages and stories, and even songs. I'll hear her singing to herself while she plays and she really does know the words. It's making my watch what I say more and more. I wonder how much memory she can actually store now. It's a little scary.