Thirteen Reasons my Daughter is Cute…

 

I keep a little journal for Maya, and in it, I’ve been writing off and on since she was little…memories of times we have together, updates, cute things, etc.  I looked at it the other night and I realized it’s been a LONG time since I wrote in it.  Like maybe a couple of years, except without the maybe.  I was looking back, and I found some very cute things that Maya said or did when she was very small…she still says and does very cute things, but since she’s older now, she might not appreciate me sharing them now. 🙂

So, 13 cute things Maya said or did when she was young.  Fun memories.

1. When she was little, Maya was obsessed with bumps.  She used to like it when I would furrow my brow for her, so she could run her hand over the bumps.  To ask me to furrow, she would say, “Do it”.  To ask me to unfurrow, she would say, “Do it not.”  It was a fun game.  “Do it.  Do it not.  Do it.  Do it not.”  Boy, kids are easily amused, huh?
2. Once, when I was working on the family genealogy, and hit a particularly confusing part within the family document, I was trying to concentrate, and Maya would not stop talking.  She kept asking me questions, and I kept saying, “Honey, give me 5 minutes, just wait 5 minutes.”  Finally, I lost it, and I told her to shut up.  She was completely flabbergasted, and said, “Hey! You can’t say that to me, I’m calling 911!”  I could hear Ted laughing through the bathroom door on that one.
3. When Maya was 5, her best friend was Chanel. Another close friend was Dominique. One day, we were talking about friends, and she said that Dominique was her number 1 best friend.  I said, well, what about Chanel?  She said, “Chanel is my Zero best friend.” (She had been working on the number line a lot, and what’s closest to home?  Not 1 certainly. Zero.)
4. One spring, we went to San Francisco to see a fireworks display, combined with music.  Maya was terrified, because the noise was SO loud, but finally, after I pointed out that some of the fireworks looked like Jewel’s long blonde hair, she pulled her face out of my neck and started enjoying herself.  On the way home (on BART, our local local transit system), she entertained the people near us by telling them how it was dark dark dark outside, and the fireworks said, “pop pop pop!”  They loved her enthusiasm.  About 2 years later, a woman came over to us at Longs drug store, and said she recognized us, and that she and her husband still used that code word…”Oh, it’s dark dark dark outside…”
5. After a holiday spent at her grandparents house, Maya wasn’t ready to leave.  As we were getting out of the car at home, I told her that I was glad that she loved spending time with her grandparents, and that she could go spend the night with them sometime if she wanted to.  Her shocked reply, “But Mama, I can’t drive!”  I explained that actually, we would drive her there.
6. After mixing the batter and helping me to fill the cupcake tins, we waited for them to come out of the oven.  Right away, Maya wanted to frost them.  I told her that she could, but she would have to wait until they cooled off, or else the frosting would melt.  Very frustrated, she said, “I never get to do ANYTHING!”
7. In 2000, we went to New York and Philadelphia for a week.  While in New York, we took a boat tour out to the Statue of Liberty.  This was when Maya was in full Telly Tubby mode, and afterwards, she kept saying, in Po’s little voice, “Po likes the beast!”
8. Trying to get to stay up late…I told her it was time to go to bed, and she was sitting in my lap, trying to convince me otherwise.  “Mama, can I stay up this much later?” She asked, with her thumb and forfinger about an inch apart. “No, it’s time to get ready for bed now.”  “This much later?” moves fingers a bit more closely together.  “No, it’s time to get ready for bed now.”  “This much later?” her fingers are very close together, and also very close to my face.  “No, it’s time to get ready for bed now.”  Then, in a friendly, helpful little voice, “I’ll pick your nose!”
9. When we moved from our old condo to this one, Maya was about 2 1/2.  We didn’t want her to be in the way while we moved and cleaned, so she went to Lalunas house to play with Chee and Big Sis for the day.  When we went to pick her up, we walked over to the old place, about 2 blocks, and showed her the inside, how our things were not there anymore.  She went right to the refridgerator, opened it, and said, “There’s no cheese in there.”  Then she was happy to go to the new place, and see that there WAS cheese here.  Whew.
10. When learning about U.S. History, Maya checked out a book from the library all about George Washington…she was very interested in him, and was comparing him to our current George, and saying what a good president Washington was, and what a good man as well.  I told her that yes, he was a very good president, but that these things are hard to judge, because while he was a good man in many ways, he owned slaves, and by our current standards, that is not something that good people would do.  She was offended, and said that Washington had no right to be free himself, because he owned slaves.  I never thought of it that way, really.  And that one’s not even cute…just astute.
11. I was once tickling Maya on the sofa, and she was laughing very hard, and in order to get me to stop, she said, “Get your hands off me, you damn dirty ape!”  It worked…we fell down laughing.
12. At one point, Maya took our names and changed them to Manama and Dabado, which, she said, weren’t really our names…they were the names of prisons.  I wonder where the heck that one came from?
13. When she was very small, and learning her letters, she had a definite favorite.  Her favorite letter was W.  When we were driving past Safeway, she’d see the ‘w’ in the sign, and get very excited, “Look Mama, W!”  I think my sister-in-law sent her a little wooden W for her very own after I told her that story.

OK, that’s it.  Sorry if that bored the heck out of you.  Hearing cute stories about other people’s kids pretty much sucks, because they’re not your kids, and hence, really not that cute.  But it’s my blog, so there you go.