Conversations with Daughters *
#1 — The day I realize I have spawned Baby Groot
My youngest daughter, Faora, is two years old. No, her name doesn’t have a deep, meaningful family history. It didn’t come to me in a dream. It’s not Celtic in origin, though I’ve gone along with people who’ve suggested it.
I’ll let you and Google sort it out. (1)
Her favorite things are dirt — both wet and dry forms, she’s not picky, and chocolate, which has a similar enough color that some days I’m unclear which she’s covered in, and unwilling to do a taste test.
She is my pint-sized version of Dennis the Menace. Or, Baby Hulk, which incidentally was her costume last year. This year I’m thinking I should just let her go as that baby from the movie The Croods, (which I can’t in good conscience recommend torturing yourself through…) since I am absolutely positive that she would save us all in the aftermath of an apocalyptic event.
Or, Halloween could end up as another evening where I run out of diapers and let her have all the chocolate she wants…
Faora doesn’t speak much, yet. She communicates plenty, but words that can be considered English are fewer, and further between. Her language is one I like to call “Frenchinease”, since it’s a bit like French/Japanese/English, and Pig Latin rolled into one. More recently she’s gotten even lazier, and has taken to using the same “words” for everything.
Yesterday, I took her to the park with her two big sisters. She says something that sounds like the English word “Hi!”, but could just as easily come across as the Japanese word “Hai!”, especially in her annunciation.
While walking up the hill to the park, she says “Hi!”, as in Hurry it up people! Don’t you see that park down there?! When we took a different path it quickly changed to a more urgent “Hi!”, which obviously meant Wait! Don’t leave me in this scary group of tree strangers!
“Hi!” can also mean: move your ass and go down this slide with me!, put me in that tire swing, but don’t swing it too fast!, and also no, I don’t want water, why the hell didn’t you bring some juice!
I have turned into Rocket the Raccoon, aka, Baby Groot’s personal translator.
(And yes, she is constantly cursing at me in exclamation points.)
This morning she wanted to play another super fun game, where she agrees with everything I say just to fuck with my head. I asked her if she wanted milk or juice, and she responds with a bright “Uh-huh!”, not bothering to look in my general direction (no one messes with Curious George).
Attempting to clarify, I ask again.
“Milk?”
“Uh-huh!”
“Juice?”
“Uh-huh!”
No coffee had been consumed, making it already a small miracle that I managed to find an unused sippy cup to fill with milk. Since of course the other 3,265 are under the bed/couch/rotting in the van.
After being scolded with what I’m 100% certain was a profuse string of obscenities from the planet she originated from, Faora rips the cup from my hand and tears off to the dining room, where she proceeds to “hide” the milk underneath the table.
Next is the silent treatment, which clearly means God, Mom, what were you thinking?! You should have known I don’t want milk first thing in the morning! How long have you even known me?!
To which Mom translates:
She’ll grow up to be a typical, impossible-to-decipher American woman.
No hope for this one.
*Inspired by Jack Herlocker’s wonderfully funny series “Conversations with My Wife”, which you should go read, pronto.
(1) How was I to know that the only incidence of the name Faora is an evil villain from Superman who is literally known as the “Man Killer?” Oops. At least she likes Zod.
“A good death is its own reward.” ~ Faora Hu-Ul
Indeed.
