Scarlette is tugging at my pants leg saying “Shad. Shad! SHAD! SHAADDD!!!!” and bewildered, I respond “I have no idea what you are trying to tell me. Show mommy what you want.”
So she runs to her room and starts pointing at her bookshelf saying “BOOKA! SHAD! BOOKA BOOKA SHAD!”
And I’m still at a total loss here because for the most part when she wants me to read a certain book to her, she tells me at least one word in the book’s title. Like how every single night at bed time she starts yelling “YAMA! YAMA!” after we brush her teeth and then when I pull out Llama, Llama Red Pajama she jumps up and down with excitement yelling “CHIT-UN SHINK!” For some reason, she is very obsessed with the page where Mama Llama is washing dishes in the kitchen sink.
Probably it’s a fascinating concept to her, seeing someone use the sink in the manner it is intended for, rather than piling it with dirty dishes until there are no more clean plates and you’re forced to load the dishwasher.
She’s all, “What a novel idea, WASHING the dishes in the sink! I should repeatedly ask my own mother to read this book so that she can learn exactly what it is that mamas are supposed to do around here. I mean, the llamas have it figured out, for Pete’s sake!”
Scarlette is very into cleaning, as evidenced by all the days where she walks around behind me with a dishrag and a squirt bottle filled with water and pretends to clean the furniture. Or all the times where she fishes the toilet bowl scrubber out of the stand and runs it around the inside of her potty chair.
It would be super cute if I thought she was just imitating what she sees me do throughout the day but seeing as I have no illusions about the standard of housekeeping I maintain and my general lack of domestic skills, I can only assume that she is attempting to fill a void here.
Anyhow, since I could not figure out what “SHAD” was referring to, I began holding up one book at a time. Each one was met with a trembling lip and a “NOOOOOO!! NO BOOKA!” until I reached Dumbo and then she bounced up and down and said “YA! YA NUMMO!” and I was all “I DO NOT UNDERSTAND YOUR LANGUAGE, WEE ONE!”
A few pages in she pointed to a photo of Dumbo with a big tear rolling down his cheek and said “Oh Mama, Nummo shad. Shad, shad, shad.”
And then the proceeded to do a few fake sniffles.
And THEN she leaned over and kissed the book.
And it was the very first time in my life that I have ever enjoyed the story of Dumbo.
