solo ascent
The other day, as she and I came home from the playground together, Olive made a request of me: she wanted to go in the elevator all by herself: "And daddy go not in the elevator! Daddy, go up the stairs!"
The fact is, she's been pressing the correct buttons without prompting for at least half a year now, and within our building, there isn't too much trouble she can get into... so I said yes. She arrived at the top before I did, which wasn't unexpected; I wasn't hurrying. What I expected at that point was that she'd ring the doorbell, and Christina would let her in1. What actually happened was that she exited the elevator and then started calling for me: "Daddy! Where are you! I was in the elevator all by myself2! You went up the stairs3"
She's requested the same thing a few times since then; there's still some novelty in being allowed to operate truly independently, even if only for a minute at a time. Still, I expect this to be old hat fairly quickly, as other horizons open up.
One recent development that I'm particularly pleased about is her growing appreciation for wordplay. She hasn't really started to pun on her own yet, but she's started to grin and giggle occasionally at the more egregious examples of alliteration and rhyme when I speak to her.
I say that she's not punning yet, but that's not quite correct. It would be more accurate to say that she's not yet intentionally doing so. Last week, she learned that the little box on her nightstand is called a "babyphone," and immediately started holding it to her ear and speaking into it. Last night, she took it a step further, having a complete pretend conversation with one of her friends: "Hello <FriendName>! How are you? Come to my house! I want to play with you! Ok, bye!"4
That friend and one other both know that they comprise the guest list for Olive's upcoming birthday--or at least, their parents know that. What the parents also know is that we have no idea how to have a party these days, or if it's a good idea at all to. The best idea that Christina and I have had is to just bring a bunch of food to a nearby playground and let the kids all run around outdoors for a few hours. It's not much of a party--the previous birthday in her friend group, which happened before Covid, took place in an air-conditioned indoor playground with several times as much to do as in the outdoor playground we're considering--but of course, the indoor place is closed right now due to the virus.
I've recently been considering a parenting adage whose origin I don't remember: "the days are long, but the years are short." The older Olive gets, the more I think I agree with the sentiment. It doesn't feel like three years have passed since we got to meet this kid. She's just part of our lives.
This is another thing she's known how to do for ages, and sometimes does unprompted, including when all three of us are standing at the door and Christina and I are both fumbling for our keys.
There's some friendly translation going on here, because for reasons which she hasn't divulged, Olive always pronounces that phrase as "all my by-a self!"
Yes, she does speak entirely in exclamations at this point, with the only exceptions being when she's sulking or hiding. It's actually a pretty charming affect.
Olive has hinted fairly unsubtly that she wants a cell phone just like Christina and I have for her birthday; little nudges like "I want a little phone, for me! For my birthday!" This is one of the few requests of hers which we flatly deny; she's not getting a phone before, at the very soonest, she knows how to read.