Musings and Music

There's a lot of both of these - musings and music -in the air here right now.

They're both coming from a certain little Princess too as she flits about from room to room, from this toy to another, from insisting on watching Gram put the makings for spaghetti sauce into the kettle on the stove and from watching her mother feed the little brother too. She zips around sometimes talking about this, that and the other and at other times, she breaks into songs too.

So far today, we've heard one of her first musical offerings and one she knows the melody to quite well - along with usually getting almost all of the words in there too - the lovely "Twinkle, twinkle little star." Two songs she's added since starting school though are really cute but as yet, I haven't been able to pick out all the words to either one of them because she often doesn't sing these in the same "lets-really-belt-the-music-out-for-EVERYONE-to-hear" version as she tends to do with her old, original favorites. One of the new songs is about "My Friends" and so far I think I've figured out it is "One, two, three, all my friends are here with me" and then I gather you're supposed to point to people around while continuing to sing -"You're my friend, you're my friend." Cute, really cute and quite meaningful for an almost four-year-old who's just beginning to learn about having friends and who they are. The other song -we refer to the "Allo song" although it probably really is the "Hello song"- Maya sings it as "Allo, 'ow are you" while waving her hand in front of her face. It's enough there to see and listen to her going through that one that you can, in your mind's eye, envision seven small children, lined up in a row, singing that to each other now, can't you?

The musings though sometimes can be quite amusing too if one happens to notice and tune into what she's saying though. While her voice can take on some really high decibel levels when she wants to let loose, usually when she's playing and talking to herself, it's relatively low and soft. That's a good thing on one hand because she's not breaking anyone's eardrum but it's also a bad thing - especially for me since sometimes my hearing isn't what it used to be - and so frequently I miss some of the words when she's doing her little "musings."

Earlier, while Mandy was feeding Kurtis, Maya was in an "I want more attention for ME" kind of mode and although she wants nothing to do with the potty training scene - nothing that would be constructive anyway -she knows if she mentions anything at all about "Dry pants" it will most likely result in some kind of attention coming her way. So she had started with the whining about "dry pants, dry pants" but because Mandy was busy at the time and couldn't attend to the Princess immediately, she told her to come see Gram and that Gram would get her dry pants. That will work provided she thinks it is her idea to get me to do that for her and getting things to that point sometimes takes a good bit of wheedling around with her.

"Come on, Maya - wanna get dry pants?" and I wait to see if her head turns in my direction to judge a bit on how much I'm going to have to coax her into the bathroom.

She starts out defensive "Wan' see the bigga boy. Wan' see the Mom and the bigga boy." to which I tell her as soon as we go get dry pants on you can come back and see the Mom and the bigga boy. This gets repeated several times before she finally relents and away we head to the bathroom. While I have her minus the pullups I suggest casually that she might enjoy sitting on the potty and maybe trying to do some more there or even better to do some "poopie" while we're concentrating really, really hard and counting to ten on the potty. No way! Huh-uh. It's a give me the dragontails pullups and get me out of here and do it NOW, lady scenario today!

Yesterday, I did bribe her into going in and sitting on the potty though by telling her if she did that, just went and sat on the potty and counted to ten, I would give her "some pink" -translated that meant I would dab a tiny spot of lipstick on her top lip just for sitting on the potty and, if she sat there and actually deposited anything, I would put it all around her mouth. All that got me in the end was that she saw where in the medicine cabinet I kept those things of mine and somehow or other today, she managed to climb up on the vanity and get into the medicine cabinet and removed my lipstick along with my blush stick but where she deposited the blush stick now, no one knows! Oh well, I don't go out often enough that I really use the stuff that much anyway so I'm sure it will surface - someday!

This morning, after her Dad had gone to pick up the his other two children to bring them here to spend the day with him, Mandy and Bill decided to fix a cooked breakfast/brunch - whatever you care to call a meal near the noon hour -bacon, eggs, toast, bagels - but when it was ready to be eaten, Maya was totally engrossed in something else -looking at a book with all kinds of neat pictures -and didn't want to give that up to come sit at the table. So, again - a little bit of bribery comes into play.

"Maya, come and eat." brings an immediate response of "All done, all done. Wan' see the Bratz and the toys and all the other things." To which her mother tells her she can bring the book to the table and look at it while eating. It's then that I discover what book is holding her fascination so well - the J.C. Penney Christmas catalogue with page after seemingly endless pages of Barbie's and Bratz and all the accoutrements any little girl could ever possibly want for either of those doll types.

"Maya, show Grammy what you want for your birthday." and she point to something on the catalogue page - I glance at it and see it is a Bratz computer for kids for a mere $59.95. Right. I'll go running right to the phone and order that, I will, I will and I'll pay for it out of my social security raise -maybe over the next 3-4 years. I'm sure that'll work well. Then Mandy tells Maya "Tell Grammy who's going to get you the Bratz computer for your birthday." She lifts her sweet little face to me and in the softest, shyest voice possible she tells me, "Poppy!"

Oh ho. That's choice for sure. We have all of the next week to keep putting that question out to her about what she wants for her birthday and also, to show her various ploys she can use to get "Poppy" to look at that book and make sure he sees that picture of what she wants too during all of the five days he will be here visiting and getting reacquainted with his little sweetheart of a granddaughter!

My son, who happened to be here for breakfast too this morning began doing imitations then of how he perceived his Dad would receive this information -"Sure, Poppy will get you what ever you want baby. $60! What the .....(you substitute any four letter word of your choice here)? I ain't never spent that blankety-blank much money on anything much less a toy! Hmmph! Ok, baby, it'll be yours from Poppy, for sure."

Yeah and I'm betting right now when Miss Maya does do her begging routine to Poppy that my son's interpretation there will probably play out just about as he had said it would.

Poppy, you see, is a pushover nowadays!

She might have to do a rendition of "Mr Sun, shine down on me" to finalize that deal, but I have no doubt, she'll win the battle and be the proud owner of a Bratz 'puter before the month is out.

Maybe, just maybe, it will keep her little fingers from messing with mine then too. What'd'ya think of that as part of the solution?