Scenes from the Circus: Overheard

Madeline, sitting on the potty before nap time, is reading her birthday card from her grandparents. She calls it a book and she insists on reading it to me. Herself.

"Read story, Mama? Read story?"

"Please," I respond, "please read it for me, Madeline."

She smiles and then recites rapid-fire, "Pretty flowers, doggie, ever, ever, ever!" With barely a breath, she says, "Again?"

And without waiting for an answer, she reads it again. "Pretty flowers, doggie, ever, ever, ever!"

"Again?"

And though I really, truly wanted to get her into her crib for naptime, I have to admit that I let her read the card five more times, just to hear "ever, ever, ever!"

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The girls still want a dog. Badly.

Yesterday while riding in the car Kathleen told her Nan that she was getting a dog soon, and that she'd take it for walks. And feed it. And name it Lady.

I merely raised my eyebrows.

When they're not using the power of positive thinking to get themselves a dog, the girls seem to enjoy pretending that one or the other of them is, in fact, a dog. They call each other "Puppy." Madeline in particular will breeze through a room, asking, "Puppy? Where my puppy go?"

A few mornings ago the girls were playing in the backyard while I did chores in the house. I could see and hear them through the big living room window. At one point I looked up and saw Madeline trotting across the lawn with a frisbee hanging from her mouth.

"That's right, Puppy!" Kathleen called, "Bring it here, Puppy!"

Madeline ran right to her. Kathleen took the frisbee, patted Madeline's head, and then tossed the frisbee across the yard. Madeline took off after it.

Fetch. My daughters were playing fetch.

Maybe we do need a dog.

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Kathleen and Indy have just woken from their naps. I'm on the sofa nursing the baby while Kathleen dances in the middle of the living room. She stops abruptly and announces, "I would like to move where we live again."

"Really?" I ask, "You mean like where we'd pack everything in boxes and leave this house and go someplace different? And live in new house, in a new place?"

She nods.

I'm surprised. When the post had been full of moving trucks earlier this summer, Kathleen had seemed concerned that we'd need to move again. I'd begun to worry about the drawbacks of being a transient Army brat. But maybe I don't need to. I'm curious about her train of thought.

"Where would you like to move this time?"

"Where they have monkeys!" She beams as she answers.

I look at her quizzically. "You mean the zoo? You'd like to live at the zoo?"

"No, Mama," she replies, drawing the first word into two lengthy syllables. "Not the zoo! Where they have monkeys!"

I'm not any less confused.

"It's so wonderful! It's so great!" She punctuates her proclamations with little hops, waving her arms for emphasis. She must sense my confusion because she continues, "Would you like to see?"

I nod and she runs to the end table and hands me this photograph.

Apparently our daughter wants to move to Gibraltar.

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I'm on the sofa nursing the baby. (Again.) Kathleen and Madeline are pushing the doll stroller across the living room, laden with every toy purse they own. Each purse is stuffed to the gills with, well, stuff -- wooden food, lacing beads, bristle blocks, and who knows what else.

Kathleen looks up and notices me watching her.

"We're going to China," she announces. "See you later."

"Really?" I respond, interested in this new game, "What's in China?"

"Food." She says it as though it's obvious -- as though that's why everyone travels to China.

"Well, I suppose that's true," I concede. "What kind of food?"

Without hesitating, Kathleen answers, "Sticky rice. My child named Madeline needs sticky rice. So, we're going to China. Bye."

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The baby's diaper is dirty. And I'm too lazy to carry him upstairs to change a diaper that I'll just carry downstairs to throw out, so I'm changing him on a makeshift changing station on the living room floor.

As I lay the little one on the changing mat, Madeline races to get the diaper and the wipes for me. She's quiet as I clean him up, but when I transfer Indy from the dirty diaper to the clean one, her eyes fly open and she starts jumping up and down.

"Mama! Mama!" she yells, "Indiana has a tail! Indiana has a tail!"

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