Category: Mara Joy

When the frozen chicken nuggets are on 1/2 price sale at Shoprite, I buy them for nights when Daniel works late and I need something quick and easy to feed Mara. She loves chicken nuggets, and she loves dipping them in ranch dressing. She calls it “chicken and ranch” and often suggests having it for dinner.

Well, tonight was one of those nights. The chicken nuggets were in the toaster oven. But Mara was impatient. “Mommeeeee, I want chicken and rannnnnch!” she whined.

I winced. “Mara, don’t whine.” How many times have I said that today?! But this time, her tone changed instantly.

She smiled her signature super-sweet smile, complete with the head-tilt to the side. “Chicken loves me!” she declared, adding, “and ranch loves me!” with the inflection of a junior higher talking about boys in her class.

“Chicken can’t love you, Mara,” I informed her. “Only people can really love you.”

“Ranches can lovvvvve,” she insisted. “And chickens can love too.”

The only plausible explanation for this statement is that she meant “I love chicken and ranch,” and somehow the communication of that concept was lost in her lack of understanding of English sentence structure. But she’s only 2. So I had a good laugh, despite her protests.

——

“Where is the Kitchen Aid, Mommy?” Mara asked, from her high chair.

“It’s right here.” I pointed to it.

“That is not the Kitchen Aid. That is the MIXer!” Mara argued.

“It is a Kitchen Aid mixer,” I tried to help her understand. “See? Right here it says ‘Kitchen Aid.'” I pointed at each letter: “K-I-T-C-H-E-N A-I-D. So sometimes we just call it the ‘Kitchen Aid.'”

She pointed to the same letters I had just showed her.  “It says ‘mixer’,” she contradicted emphatically. Then, plaguarizing largely from ‘Old MacDonald Had a Farm’ and pointing at each letter just as I had done, she “spelled” it out for me: “P-I-P-I-O. Mixer. P-I-P-I-O. Mixer.”

That’s my girl, for those of you who think my two-year-old is smart.

Believe it or not, my “charming” two-year-old can be very insulting. Completely. Unintentionally. Very insulting.  Randomly she will shout things like “Momma!–you need help!” from the other room, and I’m left wondering ‘where did she come up with that?’

Here’s an example from a couple days ago: The women in my immediate family have been blessed with prominent varicose veins. On the few occasions when I have mentioned it to girlfriends of mine, they assured me that their varicose veins were just as bad–or worse. That is, until they actually looked at mine. Then they would raise their eyebrows and quickly retract their statements: “Okay, mine aren’t that bad.”

So when I’m wearing shorts, the ever-observant Mara (who has just discovered “boo-boos” having inflicted herself with her first “serious” boo-boo over Memorial Day weekend) will bend down with great concern and ask dramatically, “Oh, what hap-pened?” She already has mastered the ‘I-might-pass-out-I-just-saw-blood’ inflection, and she is only two.

“They’re varicose veins, Mara,” I say, trying not to be disturbed that even my two-year-old sees my veins as extraordinary. Sometimes “just the facts” are all she needs, but not this time. She’s pretty concerned.

“What haaaappened?” she asks again breathily, still bending over, looking at the back of my legs. ” . . . whyyyyy?”

Flippantly, I say, “I’m getting old.”

She didn’t miss a beat. “You’re not getting old!” she says, as if to clarify.  “You already are old!”

Thanks, sweetheart. First, you insult my legs. Now my age. At this rate, I will be in therapy by the time you become a teenager and start insulting me on purpose.

I have a new rule: Never feel insulted by what your two-year-old says to you, no matter how insulting it may be.