The case of the inquisitive child

'Doing mama?' A small voice asks from another room.

'I am making dinner. What are you doing?'

Cupcake is sitting on the stair into the laundry room with the glass door closed behind her. Next to her is her stroller piled high with bear, ducky and puppy.

Sounds adorable right? The first several times I heard her ask this I got excited. This is where I can see she is starting to become curious about the world around her. Each time she asks the question of me I try to compose my answer with different words to describe the same action. I am hoping that the more descriptive I can be the larger her vocabulary.

But I have something to confess. As much as I like challenging myself to give differently phrased answers to the same question, I am often left feeling frustrated. I don't know how much she is actually comprehending. And I don't mean that I expect her to understand every single word I use. I mean more along the lines that now she has decided she likes this question she asks it non-stop. Let me rephrase that differently for emphasis- she sounds like a continuous broken record. In the space of one hour I could hear this question a million times. It has been difficult not to pull my own hair out. Sometimes I don't even get to finish my answer before she is asking the question. Now where is the fun in that? It is like she is micro-managing my every action!

Bold

Cupcake has a new favourite word. We are not really sure where it came from except we do know that her father said it to her months ago when she was doing something she shouldn't have been.

Imagine this: I am newly installed on my 'kitchen bed', lazing around like Jabba the Hut in Return of the Jedi. Cupcake cautiously approaches Mama and her purple casted leg. She hands me a hair barrette to put in her hair. I am attempting to gather her hair into a neat looking style when she turns and messes up my handiwork. "Darling, you can't move otherwise you will mess up your hair." She turns to me and smacks me lightly on the arm. "Bold, Mama, bold." Husband and I turn to one another with slight incomprehension. Did she just tell Mama she was bold? Where did she learn that word? Oscar was the next target of her annoyance. He was told he was bold, and justifiably so, after he trotted over and stole whatever bread item she was waving around.

I conferred with Nana, who incidentally was similarly puzzled at the appearance of this new word. She had notice Cupcake shouting at the couch in an authoritative fashion, waving her arms and squawking away when she identified she was shouting "Bold, bold!"

Now everything is bold- Mama, Dada, Lulu, Oscar, the table, Mama's bed, the floor, toys, etc. But the worst part is I think it is hysterically funny. Especially when she pairs it with her narrowed eyes "Grandma-Marge-I'll-get-you-later" glare. I do tell her not to hit when she says it and then I ask her why (fill in the blank) is/has been bold. She doesn't really answer that but rather just keeps repeating it like a little parrot.

Now confession time: I have been bold. This broken ankle really got me down last week. I laid around on my kitchen bed with my leg elevated feeling sorry for myself. This week I am trying to change my attitude, after all I have a ton of work to do. Yes this is a weird, random, freak thing that happened to me. And yes I will be spending the bulk of my time at home with my leg elevated. And finally yes it is painful and I have some physio ahead of me. But if I don't stop feeling sorry for myself I will let that attitude infect my whole outlook. I keep saying that when life knocks me down I pick myself back up. Now I have to do just that. I guess cupcake was right, I have been bold!

Language and Gender

When undertaking my masters in Women's Studies the discussion of essentialism vs social constructionism formed the basis of many discussions. I was all for social construction - meaning in simple terms that gender, as separate from biological sex, is asserted by social conditioning - i.e. a girl must wear pink the instant she is out of the womb so everyone knows she is a girl and will treat her as such.

I have really tried my best to counter this by dressing her in gender neutral and boys clothes (sometimes because they are just so much cooler - seriously who doesn't love blue?) You can imagine my surprise when the other day she pointed at this new music box we inherited from my aunt and said "Girl? Girl?" Now that word, girl, is not high on our list of words. Not because I refuse to use it, I accept that I am bound within the limits of patriarchal language if I want to communicate and be understood by other people. It's just I have been talking about horse and bear and Dora and chair. And I certainly never pointed to the dainty little wind up ballerina and said girl. I have used the word dancer but never told her a dancer is a girl. Where is this all coming from? Perhaps it is the little mirror that the dancer turns in front of, symbolising vanity? Or maybe it is the pink satin interior of the box or the little ruffle of tulle that clings to the dancer's waist? Perhaps himself used the pronoun -"She" when referring to the ballerina. I am finding all of this totally amazing and puzzling.

Language Time

Cupcake's words are coming fast and furious now. I've noticed her repeating many of the words that I am saying to her like bib, spoon, etc. Last night we listened in amazement as she attempted "Oscar". She already seems to have a word for Lulu but Oscar is a bit trickier. It came out kind of like "Doscktor" but it was still discernibly his name. I am also a bit blown away that she can tell the two dogs apart. Obviously to me there are very clear differences, male/female, you know those kinds of things. But even my mother- in-law can't tell them apart, maybe because she is the antithesis of a dog lover. If I am sitting on the couch with Lulu next to me and I tell Cupcake to give Oscar a kiss she will walk over to where he is sitting and make her little fish lips face. Sometimes she runs around with her lips permanently fixed into that position passing out kisses to Mama, Dada and the two dogs. Although lets be clear here it is not like she is frenching the dogs it is more air kissing and occasionally whoever is feeling extra loving might give her a little lick back.

Mistaken Identities

I received a phone call from a colleague/good friend that I absolutely had to take. Cupcake, however had just climbed into her stroller and was insisting that we go "day, day". I figured I would wheel her down to the shops while I talked. We had just come to a halt in front of our local convenience store as I was deep in conversation. Suddenly I heard a little voice call out "Dada! Dada!" I looked down to see Cupcake excitedly pointing at a man walking towards us. "Dada! Dada!" she cried. This guy looked a bit worse for the wear- tracksuit, gold rings, bottle of lucozade under one arm, paper under the other. He was probably shaking off his midweek hangover when my darling daughter started screaming her heart out mistaking him for her Daddy. "No sweetheart, that is not your Dada." As soon as I got home I phoned himself at work and told him the news, "Somebody has a new Dada!"

Then last night we rented Duplicity with Clive Owen and Julia Roberts. As we walked home from the movie rental place, Cupcake opened the cover of the dvd. "Mama? Mama?" she was pointing to a picture of Julia Roberts. Oh sweetheart, you know how to flatter your mother.

They say the funniest things...

Today we went to a play group in a nearby community centre. Cupcake was hesitant at first but soon lost her shyness and was trying to run the other kids over with a giant car. A couple moms were discussing baby talk. I mentioned that I wasn't really certain if cupcake said any words other than hello, no and ta-ta. One mom mentioned that her daughter was watching Maury the other day and repeated at random the word 'slut'. Two of us turned to one another and wondered if Maury was the most appropriate choice for a 2 year old.

You'll all be glad to know that I have done my civic duty as a permanent Irish resident and voted in the local elections. As I am not yet eligible to vote in the European elections himself and I agreed which candidates he would vote for. I did try to talk them into giving me the European ballot but alas I was not successful. Oh well  C'mon Joe Higgins! The good news is I have finally send off my application for citizenship. I am hoping to have it by the time the next general elections roll around. I really don't want to miss those!