The Expanding Universe

When I remember Lu's tiny babyhood, the recollections have a glow around them. Perhaps the glow of all the late-night television I watched while I nursed and paced and nursed and paced. Or the fog of not enough sleep. Whatever light I cast those memories in, they contain just the two of us: a newborn baby and newborn mama learning how to be in the world.

She is two now, and her world is way bigger than just me. She told me today in the car on the way to school, "I love my friends, Mama," then named all these strangers, the first of so many she will know and love beyond me. I had a sad, territorial feeling about it. The kind of feeling that makes mommies into weird and smothering creatures who need to be discussed in therapy.

The realization that she had "friends" was nothing compared to the total rejection I'd been experiencing over the past few weeks when she ONLY wanted Jason. I picked her up at school one day last week and she greeted me with, "I need my dad." She was not even content to let me make her cereal, the ingrateful little Electra. I pushed you out of my vagina...for this kind of treatment?

After a weekend away snowboarding, I am back in her favor. Me and broccoli. Last night, while Jason was working late, I fed her and got her ready for bed without so much as a mention of Dad. She snuggled onto my lap while we read Babar's Museum of Art, which has all these funny reproductions of major works of art featuring elephants instead of people. She pointed to the elephant version of Mary Cassatt's "Mother and Child" and said, "That's a baby and a mama." Then she lay her head on my chest and, thumb in mouth, said, "You're my mama." And the big cosmic view narrowed to our little world. A baby and a mama, if just for the moment.

"I want to wear a different shirt, Mama."

That is a complete sentence, uttered today. With a pronoun and an opinion. Her sentences are clear enough now that I can practically hear the punctuation.

For a while it was like the island of Elba at our house. This little Napoleon had come here to rule us, only we spoke mostly Italian and she spoke French. Lots of demanding, babyish French. We understood her tone and angry gesturing more than her actual words. And we did whatever she wanted because even though she was small, we were afraid of her. Like those poor people on the island of Elba.

And then, right around 15 months, her words became clear and her vocabulary large (mostly nouns and a few swear words). It was amazing. The list I was keeping topped out at about 225, and that was months ago. But, meh, just a list of words, right? Now we have...sentences. Logic. Memory. Concepts. Personhood! It is amazing what animals these babies remain to us until we can see the connections they are forming. As in recently when a stoplight changed, but I failed to notice because I was putting on lipstick in the rearview mirror. "Green means go, Mama." Backseat freaking driving means you are a PERSON.

The New New School

Did I mention that we had to change schools — again — because we found out that they were regularly letting the kids watch TV? Up to 40 minutes a day, to occupy them during transition times like going potty and making lunch. Which is not evil or anything, and is, in fact, exactly how we use television. But I am not a professional. I am a parent.

The Old New School neither hid nor volunteered this detail. And of course, I did not ask about because TV was such anathema to my idea of school (unless you count the obligatory after-school specials in health class and that one time we watched "Gandhi" in the fifth grade and I was the only kid who stayed awake to watch it. Just me and Mrs. Green, weeping at the end).

For those of you keeping track, the Old New School was the one we had originally rejected because we thought it was too rigid, and we'd heard a rumor they wouldn't let the kids watch any TV at home. Ha! Those kids probably know what languages they speak in Canada from watching reruns of "You Can't Do That on Television."

We'd only ended up there because they called us and had an earlier opening, and it was good timing and convenient, and ultimately...crappy. After much hysteria and contemplation (thank you to Mary Ellen and everyone else I called up to affirm my gut feeling), we decided to change Lu to yet another school — the Original New School, the kinder, gentler school — after only 10 days.

She might someday be talking to her shrink about those two worst weeks of her young life. But in the meantime she is in the New New Schoool, a very sweet little Montessori joint where she is learning a lot. Like how the sun is not a planet. And the days of the week in Spanish. And to stand in line with her hands clasped patiently behind her back (sounds fascist, but is cute, I swear). All without the help of TV.