Thank you, musical theater.

[Nikki, you're going to be very pleased with the contents of this post.]

Despite having no talent whatsoever for singing or dancing, I have a deep and abiding love for stage and movie musicals. Blame my dad or my sister or the fact that I am truly a gay man in a girl's body (not to feed into old, silly stereotypes or anything), but there you have it. And now I've passed it on to my family.

In order to mix up the toddler music monopoly in our car (which, by the way, I swore that I would never play into, but she really loves those stupid kids songs (and she gets very bossy about and starts playing backseat DJ: "More 'Hello.' No! No 'Hello' no! More 'Joe.' No, no 'Joe!')), I downloaded a bunch of classic musical songs and put them on a CD for the car. I figure at least I'll enjoy some of them and increase her cultural literacy at the same time.

So now I get requests for "Yow!" -- which is what she calls "Oklahoma!" (because the do, in fact, yell "Yow!" after like every other line), "Sit Down" (for "Sit Down, You're Rocking the Boat" from "Guys and Dolls"), "Bye bye, Cuckoo" and "Woowey Gerd" (for "Goodbye, So Long" and "Lonely Goatherd" from "The Sound of Music"), and "Popu" ("Popular" from "Wicked"). Of course, she still gets super bossy about what's to be played: "No! No 'Popu!' No! More 'Sit Down." 'Sit Down' more." Girl needs to learn the rule that you only get to play DJ if you're sitting shotgun... which she doesn't get to do for like 10 more years.

Tonight, this love that I'm cultivating in her kind of paid off. Poor kid has a fever of 101.7 (this is thanks to her starting day care last week; she was there two mornings and already caught the a nasty cough and fever). She napped for 30 minutes today, and was just a glassy-eyed mess all afternoon. She broke down like wet cardboard when I tried to put her down tonight, and after an hour of trying I got her up and let her watch some of the Oscars with me. Do you know what calmed her down and what we watched literally five times in a row? The tribute to American musicals. OH MY GOD Ruby LOVED it (and, truth be told, after watching it five times, I thought it was fairly spectacular too. There was a narrative, it was layered, it had freaking Beyonce and Hugh Jackman). It calmed her down in a big way.

And so the torch is passed to a new generation.

Michie Ford Coppola!

I figured out how to make a movie on my computer! Not really, I just figured how to mesh different clips together, but still... advanced! So please to enjoy Ms. Ru in this little trio of vignettes. In the first she's wearing what she calls her "pretty hat."

Resurfacing (a little)

For those of you who didn't know, we're moving. And I'm increasing my hours at work, which means Ru will be going to daycare part-time. And we're on the trail of the perfect, non-bougie, slightly crunchy preschool for Ruby (and with her at 19 months, we're SO far behind the rest of Westside parents on this one). And I'm recommitted to my writing project. And the million other things that sit on you during the day and mean that you don't have time to do things like blog.

But I think now that we found a house (a real honest-to-god HOUSE, y'all! with no shared walls! and a yard! and THREE bedrooms! and an office! and fireplaces! and no "1/2" in the address to confuse the post office for a year and a half!) and a daycare for Ruby (run by a Persian lady! who'll speak Persian to her! and understand when she calls pee "jeesh" and farts "goozes"! and who'll feed her Persian food for lunch!)... now, I think I feel better and more equipped to handle my life. The preschool search continues -- I've seen three, with varying amounts of like for each (alas, no love yet though), and have five more scheduled for February alone. I'm sure it's out there, something that works with our philosophy and will be fun and safe for Ruby (one that I'm excited about later on this month has built their whole curriculum around the garden that the kids grow).

Anyways, all that to say: Hello! Nice visit with you all in the real world again!

I do not think it means what you think it means.

This was my conversation with Ruby when I got her up this morning.

Good morning Ruru! Did you sleep well?

"No."

No? Bummer. Should we go see Daddy for a snuggle?

"No."

No Daddy?

"No."

OK, so let's just get up out of the crib then.

"No."

Do you want to get some milk?

"No."

Do you want to go get breakfast?

"No."

OK, then let's change your diaper.

"NO!"

Should I leave?

"No Mommy. No go, Mommy. Up."

updates...

I was talking to Nik the other day on one of the few times we connected from Africa, and when I told her that Ruby was asking for "Mommy" she did not even know that Ruby was saying her long E sounds (as opposed to "Mama"). So for Nikki (and the three of you who still read), here are some of Ruby's latests and greatests.

• She's starting to repeat things. Like the other day when someone cut me off in traffic, and I said, "Jesus!" she said, "Deezah! Deezah Mommy!" and continued to say it for quite a while longer.
  
• Ever since she could speak, she called Kermit "Fwavah." FINALLY today she called him Kuhmee. But mostly it's still Fwavah, though she does know that Fwavah goes potty in the front bathroom (even though that doesn't stop her from shutting the door constantly).
  
• This morning she came into our room when she woke up, and told us, "Ruru deam." Ruby had a dream? "Yeah." What did you dream about, Ru? "Book!" I also asked her over dinner what she would name a sister (after a long conversation about how Nikki is Mommy's sister and Lacey is Daddy's sister), and she said, "Book!"
• A few weeks ago, Tasha, our nanny, brought her to campus to have lunch with me, and Ru was looking very cute in a pretty white dress. She was running all over the patio, acting crazy, which was fine since she was where we could see her, and then I see her stand still and grimace. OK, fine, she's pooping. Not 30 seconds later, the diaper seems to unattach itself and fall to the ground with an audible "plop." Ru looks up, grins, and bolts -- stepping in the poopy diaper on the way, thus grinding the poop in to the concrete and leaving little toddler-sized shoeprints of poo all over the patio. It took us 5 full minutes to catch her and another 10 to clean off the poo from all over her legs and butt (not to mention me trying too use wipes to clean off the concrete).
  
• She'd been calling herself Ruru, but in the last few days, it's been "Zizi" for some reason.
• She still loves to do "yoya," and this evening I had to stop her from trying to do it in the bath. As it was she still nearly got her head underwater.
  
• The other day when we were getting ready to go in the stroller, she said, "Stoller. Sit. Go." Which, really, when you think about it, is exactly what a stroller does.
  
• Whenever (and literally I mean whenever) you ask her what she did that day, she will always say "Park." That is probably true 1/5 of the time (though I'm beginning to suspect what sounds like "park" might be "play," in which case she is not a liar.)
• We sing the "Hello" song from her music class all the effing time, and it's one of those songs that you put in the name of people you know (or people in the class). Lately, among Mommy, Daddy, Bibi, Nonnie, Grandma, Grandpa, etc., etc., it is inevitably Nikki and Papa D (what we've called my Dad to Ruby). In fact, there are times that she's all about Papa D. One day last week we called Grandpa (W's dad), and after we left a message for him, we asked her who we should call next, and she said "Papa D!" Mama had to turn away and collect herself after that. Being an adult is HARD.
• Ruby's obsessed with sweeping ("fweet"ing). The other day she spilled a couple of cheerios on the floor, and when I reached down to pick them up, she said, "No! Ruru fweet!" and got the broom that happened to be sitting out to push it around in the general vicinity of the cheerios.

Also, I would post more videos -- really I would! -- but I suspect that Ruby has placed our camera with the video capacity somewhere. Somewhere that I do not know about. I've been taking pictures lately though and will post some soon. Cross my heart with a cherry on top.