Tomorrow

Today we had Tamara come baby-sit while I went to a doctor's appointment, and the kids were really excited to play with her. Madeleine seems to have reached the end of an era: Tamara is no longer "Snow-no," but has now become "Tomorrow."

When Tamara arrived, Madeleine immediately began serving her from the play kitchen, then, in her giddy excitement about our guest, climbed into the play oven, waiting to be noticed.

"A shut a door? A shut a door?" she asked repeatedly, and Tamara closed the oven door, then put her face up close to the plastic see-through window on the oven, cracking Madeleine up. Tamara's face was still close to the oven when Madeleine decided to forcefully kick open the door, slamming it into Tamara's head. Tamara was fine, but I insisted Madeleine apologize. "I sorry, Tomorrow," Madeleine dutifully replied, then resumed her request of "A shut a door? A shut a door?" Tamara wisely moved her face way out of range of the oven, and Madeleine once again kicked it open, this time avoiding any collisions. "I sorry, Tomorrow," she persisted in repeating, despite not having hit Tamara this time. The game continued, with Madeleine asking for the door to be closed, then kicking it open, and apologizing to Tomorrow for not hitting her with the door. It's interesting what sorts of things are entertaining to a 21 month old.

When I returned home from the doctor, Julia and Madeleine were playing a "puppet show" with Tamara up in Julia's room, both dressed in costume (Julia as Snow White, Madeleine as a ballerina.) Julia insisted on showing me the puppet show after Tamara had left, which involved no actual puppets but instead was a meandering narration from Julia with interjections of harmonica music. Once the story was done, Julia turned to Madeleine and said, "That was a good job waiting your turn, Madeleine. I know that's hard to do when you're just a toddler." After praising her sister's patience, Julia began Madeleine's "puppet show": "There once was a ballerina... (blowing a few harmonica notes..." etc. etc.

In other pretend play, Julia presented me with a rigorous quiz regarding which Little Person was intended to ride in which vehicle. In this video below you can see my sub-par performance answering the quizzers: