Uncle'lu

Blog is falling behind.

Uncle'lu (Uncle Alu) and Aunt Michelle visited Vivian back in early March. Days before their arrival, Vivian started preparing and asking about Uncle'lu. She had a great time. She opened her gifts and found her new flip-flops and sweetly said "Thank you Uncle'lu, Aun'Michelle - I looove my flip flops". And then put her hands in the pockets of the matching summer outfit and never stood still long enough for a picture that wasn't blurry.

We went to the Salt Lick on a cold and dreary afternoon. Gordon got some great pictures. These are the best I could manage. Vivian has her uncle completely wrapped around her little fingers. Figuratively and otherwise.

Chocolate Cake

Vivian ate a slice of rich chocolate cake and I snagged a few pictures.

Linguistics

Sometimes it's hard to tell if Vivian is parsing her speech at a semantic level. Or just repeating stuff. So she's at least as smart as Dubya.

Yesterday, she said "Life is so hard" when she was upset. And at the dinner table she said "Whatever, Daddy" when I tried to explain the difference between eating snow peas and eating edamame. In both cases, Jo had just used those phrases herself.

But I do see the progression of complexity in Vivian's speech. Here's how she asked for Dora as time went by:

"Dua"
"Watch Dua"
"I want Dua"
"I need to watch Dora"

And these days, she says: "How about some Dora ?" as she hands me the remote and settles down on her bean bag.

Recent Gems

Vivian's latest thing is talking like an adult. The other day I asked her to come to the table for lunch and she replied: "In a minute, Daddy". Today, she pointed at purple lettuce on her plate at lunch and asked: "Daddy - how about some purple lettuce?"

In the last week or two, Vivian has learned to sing the alphabet more or less correctly - though she glosses over "x", and "l-m-n-o-p" are more like a single multi-syllabic word. And then she surprised the heck out of us by counting to diez in Spanish the other day, and from 10 to 14 in English. And I think she was practicing her antonyms on the changing table last week: "Open. Close. Happy. Sad"

Jo or I can't claim credit for this. If it's Ana, she is one heck of a teacher - cramming all this into 2-3 hours once a week. And we thought they are running around the park or goofing off with Dora on the tube.

SWAT in the 'hood

Last week Jo saw someone getting arrested for PI on our street at 7am. Tonight, it's the SWAT team.

They evacuated the houses on either side and pulled a couple of SWAT armored trucks into the front of this house at the end of our block. That was five hours ago. A few minutes ago it ended with several rounds of teargas and handgun fire and repeated megaphone announcements of "step out of the front door with your hands in the air". The police man told us "it ended peacefully". The word was that someone had barricaded himself with a weapon.

So Robbe and the Noltes and I are standing in our bare feet in the Nolte's front yard and chatting when a fire truck rolls up. A fireman jumps out and asks us if we are 4519 and had we called 'em. As politely as I could, I told him - No. That'd be three houses up. Yep - the one with the couple of dozen cops and SWAT guys milling around in the yard that you just drove past.

Vivian slept peacefully through it all.

Mommy's Dinner

This morning Vivian discovered an almost empty box of chocolate covered almonds from Trader Joe's sitting beside the armchair where I was working last night and said "Mommy - Daddy eat toklate".

The back story: We have a thing for Trader Joe's chocolate covered almonds and no Trader Joe's in town. So Alu and Michelle had got us a couple of boxes.

The back-back story: there was this incident when the Shahs got us a box. Jo was gone all day. When I got to the point where the box was half-empty I thought it would be best to keep on going rather than get into a protracted existential discussion with myself about half-empty-ness versus half-full-ness. But Jo eventually found out about the box of chocolates she never saw.

So this morning Jo expressed her displeasure. Vivian stood there and took it all in. Then she looked accusingly at me and said "Daddy eat Mommy's dinner".

Oh - and happy St. Patrick's Day.

Roman Holiday

I would be lying if I said I wasn't apprehensive when Jo went away on her trip to Italy. A week later and a few hours away from Jo's return, I am happy with how it went.

When she wakes up in the morning, Vivian mixes her "Daddy I awake" and "Mommy I right here" evenly. But after the first morning, she knew which side of the bread was buttered and that "Mommy Grandma vacation Italy". And she strictly asked for Daddy. But when she missed her Mommy she'd say: "I want Mommy come back".

And there were occasional rough patches - like when Vivian wanted lollipops and raisins for lunch. And the meeting with Tina that started badly at Starbucks and went downhill fast - Vivian doesn't like to talk about social networks. And at Opals, when she said she was going home to watch Dora, and I nabbed her just as she was about to walk out the door.

But she patiently sat through a meeting at Rosedale School. And went around and charmed everyone at Dog & Duck and the bar at SoCo Cafe. And was happy to be the center of attention at Gordon's party.

Next time Vivian and I will go on a Roman holiday.

More Americans Plan Trip to Hell

Today Trinity College announced the completion of the 3rd ARIS (American Religious Identification Survey). They randomly called 54,461 adults in one country under God and found out that more people are godless.

They said: "the percentage of Americans claiming no religion, which jumped from 8.2 in 1990 to 14.2 in 2001, has now increased to 15 percent." And, "Only 1.6 percent of Americans call themselves atheist or agnostic. But based on stated beliefs, 12 percent are atheist (no God) or agnostic (unsure), while 12 percent more are deistic (believe in a higher power but not a personal God). The number of outright atheists has nearly doubled since 2001, from 900 thousand to 1.6 million. Twenty-seven percent of Americans do not expect a religious funeral at their death."

Hey Vivian - is the economic situation getting you down? Hell may be the growth industry of your time.

Happy Birthday Mama

My mother would have been 81 today. Vivian Bina - you arrived a few years after my mother passed away. No matter. Between the DNA and the memories, you will surely know your Didi. Here is the earliest and last pictures I have of Dr. Bina C. You can see that trademark slant of a smile in both.

While I was digging around, I found a rather debonair picture of my dad. Those who know him from his annual summer trips to the US may have a hard time connecting the dots...I did. In this picture, he is a young artillery officer.

Vivian - your grandparents were happily married for over 50 years. If your parents are so lucky, you won't give it a second thought. I didn't till much later.

Happy Birthday, Mama. I'm sorry - I still haven't gotten into golf.

Babe Magnet

Jo took the train from Venice to Rome today. Ask Vivian and she will say "Mommy and Grandma vacation - Italy." On the fourth day of Jo's vacation, back in Austin, we are settling into a nice rhythm. Mostly, things are smooth. But today we hit some rough spots. One was the meeting this morning with Tina - the social networking entrepreneur. It was a combination of the Starbucks and the time of day and who knows what else - but we ended the meeting hurriedly. The second one was when she wanted to eat lollipops and raisins for lunch and I wouldn't oblige. She went to timeout in the corner and screamed for mommy.

This morning's cereal breakfast and this evening's trip to Dog and Duck were in sharp contrast. She was an absolute doll. At D&D Guy pointed out that she was a babe magnet - she was being followed by half a dozen college girls walking on their tippy toes. I didn't get any pictures at D&D. But we sat down for breakfast with a camera. Bliss.

Go Horns

'Tacy did it. For Vivian's 2nd birthday she got Vivian a bona fide Longhorn cheerleader outfit. Vivian put it on and took on another persona. And so did I. Scary - suddenly I was a bit more like that Dallas socialite mother of a prospective Cowboys cheerleader who made the news few years ago.

I have a natural suspicion for business in the guise of sports (ie., college sports; professional sports is easy - I can't be a fan of ADM any more than of the Spurs). And an even greater scepticism for dressing up girls provocatively to aid that business. But while I ponder these deep thoughts, Vivian slipped on the cheerleader outfit and absolutely loved it. Here are some pictures. She didn't stand still long enough for me to capture how much fun she really had. And that's priceless. Go Horns!

Venus, Again

Vivian points to the night sky and shows me Venus almost every evening. And proudly announces "Bright star Venus".

Vivian happens to be at a point in her life where she finds it necessary to assign ownership to everything. Daddy's car, mommy's purse, my Rody, etc. Anything unclaimed quickly joins the "my" group. And Venus hadn't been claimed as daddy's or mommy's or grandma's or Abe's and was up for grabs.

This evening, Vivian dutifully and correctly points out Venus. Then we get in the car and she starts chanting "my Venus". Except it really really sounds like "my penis". I try hard to enunciate the "vee" in Venus between cries of "my penis" - to no avail. So I decide to distract her with a new word. I say "Vivian, you are an astronomer". She repeats "tronomer" a few times.

Then we get to Barnes and Nobles and I get her out of the car. She points to the crescent moon and says "Daddy - moon. I tronomer". Thankfully Venus has almost set behind the trees.

Big Park

We got Vivian a lump of plastic in the shape of a slide for her birthday. It sits in the back yard and looks like it was crafted by a visually challenged designer with bad taste. Vivian adores it and calls it her "little little park". And Ramsey park in now "big park". Vivian, Simran, Jo and I went to Big Park this afternoon. Vivian had fun climbing and hanging and swinging on the play scape. And then she and Simran hugged a tree and made plans to protest the sale of bunny meat at the local farmers' market.

Simran was wearing green sweats from Justice with pictures of penguins on her behind. So Vivian waggled her behind at me from the top of the slide and said "Daddy - penguin - my butt". Charming.

Yoga Dog

There's a yoga place down the street at the Rosedale Village. Amy goes there - and Eleanor has picked up few things. Last month, she passed a favorite pose or two on to Vivian.

So we are strolling down Rosedale Avenue. A couple walks up the street with a nice and friendly pooch. Vivian says "doggie" and the same time I ask her if she wants to walk down to the park. I guess the words "down" and "doggie" were juxtaposed just right. A moment later, Vivian decalres "I show downward doggie" and then proceeds to demostrate the finer points of yoga on the sidewalk. I managed to stop laughing long enough to find my camera.

Strolling Down Rosedale

When I called Michelle and Alu this morning, she let me know that there had been no fresh Vivian pictures on this blog for a while. Yes. Thirteen days to be precise.


To fix the situation, after her nap, Vivian, Abe and I set off down the street with a camera. It is a beautiful afternoon in Austin with the last remnants of winter in the air. We are already out of the house and I realize that I haven't brushed Vivian's hair. I dig around in my pockets and find a hair tie and we do what we can. So she's shabby chic.