Parasaurolophus at 3:00

3 Years:
“Um, Mother? I’m a tiny baby parasaurolophus who needs to sleep right next to her mama parasaurolophus in a tiny little nest-bed. And I need to snuggle next to my mama parasaurolophus in case there are troodons who want to eat me.”
“Are you saying you want to sleep in my bed?"

“Um… yes?”

It was 3:40 in the morning.

At 3:40 in the morning, absolutely nothing makes sense, even when it’s condensed into short, accessible words that an average kindergartener would know.

At 3:40 in the morning, I was forced to decode a long string of scientific words behind a paleontologically themed make-believe game that I hadn’t been privy to.

At 3:40 in the morning, I arrived at the most likely conclusion about what was being said, since there are only a few things that a three-year-old is likely to need at 3:40 a.m. It didn’t involve request for water or bathroom help, so it must have been a request to sleep in my bed.

It turned out I was right. I allowed it and, hours later, woke up to a snuggly little kid, who was still convinced that she was a baby parasaurolophus, in my arms.

Sometimes parenthood would be made simpler by a child whose imagination is less active and whose vocabulary is a little more limited, at least at 3:40 in the morning. But simpler parenthood isn’t always rewarding parenthood. I’m more than happy to have the kind of kid who will wake me up late at night with a string of hexasyllabic words and a request for cuddles.

Liopleurodon

3 Years: “I have a bunch of little toy extinct reptiles. I have… a Parasuarolophus, a Brachiosaurus, an Apatosaurus, a Compsugnathus, a Maiasaur, a Pterosaur, a Dimetrodon, and… OH MY GOD. I don’t have a toy Liopleurodon!” 

My daughter’s second-longest-lasting obsession was with dinosaurs. For the better part of a year, she lived and breathed dinosaurs, and it took only a month or two before her level of knowledge outpaced mine. She could tell a Chasmosaurus from a Triceratops, a Deinonychus from a Velociraptor, and a Stegoceras from a Micropachycephalosaurus. (The fact that she could say “Micropachycephalosuarus,” alone, was enough to amaze me.)

Of course, the thing that made this phase especially amusing and adorable was the number of scientific-sounding Latin syllables she blurted out in what was, to her, completely normal conversation. This one little gem of an observation arose when she was playing by herself and taking a census of the creatures in her toy collection. I ordered her a toy Liopleurodon that day, even though I first had to use Google to figure out what it was and how to spell it.

Just a Groundhog Day

2.5 Years: “I had a Groundhog Day.

Groundhog Day 2011. I dragged my toddler, who wasn’t nearly as excited about Groundhog Day as I thought she should be, to the children’s library for a kitschy activity where little kids made groundhog puppets that poked their heads out of Styrofoam cups. She was one of many toddlers sitting boredly through the activity while their parents, essentially, did it for them. When it was completed, and when the librarians sang a song about Groundhog Day, my daughter’s face showed the amount of enthusiasm and excitement that you would expect from a cat with a bowl of spinach.

Despite my earnest attempts to make her genuinely excited, I took her to an indoor playground after our unremarkable adventure at the library. Then, seeing no more excitement, we swung past the children’s museum to pass the time. She stared at me blankly and unimpressed. Finally, I offered her a trip to visit her great-grandmother up the road, who was always eagerly awaiting a visit from her youngest relative.

When we got there, my grandmother’s face flashed a million shades of joy and she happily asked the toddler, “Have you had a good day, sweetheart?”

“No,” my daughter said, “I had a Groundhog Day.”

Since then, “just a Groundhog Day” has been my own internal synonym for an unremarkable, unexciting day. Sometimes we all have days that try to be exciting but, ultimately, are just Groundhog Days.

Blame the Cat

2.5 Years: “Pookie pooped in my diaper.”

My best friend, known to my daughter as Aunt Sarah, has a cat named Pookie who, for many years, was the subject of my daughter’s constant attention. She drew pictures of Mama Pookies with baby Pookies. She named two toy cats Pookie. She played with, snuggled, and petted an invisible version of Pookie. And, apparently, when she did something bad, Pookie was to blame. Even for the messes in her diapers.

There were many times that my daughter would grow quiet for a few suspicious moments, then toddle to me and tell me very matter-of-factly, “Um. Pookie pooped in my diaper.”

If I corrected her, and said that she had in fact pooped in her own diaper, she would respond argumentatively, sometimes with a foot stomp, declaring that Pookie was to blame. When asked how Pookie traveled four hundred miles, climbed into her diaper, defecated there, and then vanished without a trace with no one noticing, my daughter’s only response was another firm declaration of “Pookie did it.”

Pookie eventually must have gotten in the habit of using the litter box, because at some point—miraculously around the time that my daughter started consistently using her princess potty—the mysterious poop in my toddler’s diapers ceased its regular appearances. I am very grateful that Pookie eventually decided that there were better places to poop than in the pants of a toddler hundreds of miles away.