Meet the Fall Guy

His name? Well, according to the Official Ugly Doll website, it's Secret Mission Ice Bat. He can live in the freezer and steal your noms. Be that as it may, according to our daughter, that is Wombat. It is her lovey and God forbid you ever do something like forget him in the doctor's office on a Friday because then you'll have to invent a story about how he was sick too and he had to stay for observation. Over the weekend. But isn't Fishcakes nice? (Don't ask - it's another lovey, second best.)

Ahem. So anyway...

With A's imagination in full swing these days, wwe've discovered that she has adapted to her single-childhood well. I grew up with two younger brothers that were close in age (and later, a baby sister who's 10 and a half years my junior, so she missed out on this...) and M grew up with an older brother. That meant that we always had a Fall Guy.

The Fall Guy was the one you pointed to and said, "HE DID IT!!!" while you were standing in the middle of a pile of broken pottery and your brother was playing innocently across the room. The Fall Guy wrote on the walls, made the mess, jumped on the bed until it broke.

Sometimes it worked, most times, our parents gave us the hairy eye and then a good talking to or, more likely than not, a sore rear and sent us to bed, even if it was only one in the afternoon.

Single children, however, don't have that luxury. Or do they? Wombat, as he is lovingly known,

Level 1 Prohibitory Monsters - Do You or Don't You?

Lately, I've been reading a lot of Terry Pratchett. So much so, in fact, that I'm sort of wondering myself when I'll pick up a different genre again. I suppose it has a lot to do of being immersed so deeply in the rather humorless work of the government grind - I need someplace fun and satirical to escape to when I read. Yet I find that, not only is Terry Pratchett funny, he's also extraordinarily intelligent. So I was rather excited to get my mitts on a copy of The Folklore of Discworld, wherein he and a British folklorist, Jacqueline Simpson, explore the myths of Discworld and Earth (and the remarkable cross between the two worlds). It's both entertaining and educational - and being in the throes now of a time in our daughter's life where there can be no doubt that Magic and Monsters exist, one section gave me a lot of pause to think and wonder.

In several chapters, particularly on races (dwarves and trolls featuring highly here), Elves, and the Nac Mac Feegle, our own ancient myths and legends through the years are dissected - and discussed in terms

No Other Mother's Day Gift Like It

On Friday when I picked A up from play-skool, there was a "gift" on top of her cubby. The kids had planted bean seeds and their teachers had stapled their picture to a popsicle stick, which was then stuck into the soil. It was accompanied by a rather silly ode to mothers, signed with the individual child's handprint in paint.


I remembered making these things when I was little and mocking them when I was large. I never imagined that I would ever be the intended recipient of the same someday, nor had I dreamed that my heart would actually melt when I received it.

Truly though, my real gift from her has been the change to revel in her recent explosion of language and imagination that's happened in the course of the last couple of months.

Her teachers tell me that she excels in both emergent writing and dramatic play (for daycare, this is really more like pre-school given the concepts they're being taught). We see it every day. She's often offered imaginary popcorn by Woozles (see Winnie the Pooh if you're unfamiliar) that seem to follow wherever she's got a craving for popcorn (which she's only ever had once, ages ago). Friday, on the way home, she was being offered imaginary lollipops by the mermaid sitting next to her in the back seat. Last night, she raided a store under the sea on an impromptu oceanic adventure in the bathtub. Naturally, mermaids helped.

She sees monsters in dark parking garages and the woods as we drive by. Some are good, some are bad. The ones currently under bed are her friends. Same for the ones residing in the closet.

I knew life was going to get interesting a few months ago when I had cleaned out her playroom closet and left a shallow, dish shaped basket on the floor while I contemplated it's fate. I walked in one night to check on her and she was sitting in it. She looked up at me and said, "My nest!" Under her bum were 3 bug-mobiles that were vaguely egg shaped. She was "hatching them" and then placing them reverently in a box.

I hadn't realized then how interesting, and funny, it was really going to become.

What better Mother's Day gift than a happy, healthy, giggling, playful, imaginative daughter could there be?

The Trouble With Monsters

Before she started daycare, A came running out of her playroom and nearly bowled me over, shrieking, "MOSSTURS!!" "Monsters?" "YETH! MOSSTUR!!"

Since then, she has shown me where she sees the monster by the ceiling or in her closet or under her crib...and we don't know where she picked this up. Being Irish and therefore naturally superstitious, I have decided that the house is haunted. M is a little more pragmatic and has declared me silly.

Haunted or not, silly or not, the fact remains that A sees monsters. Everywhere. Except lately...