Goodnight, Chef

The Wee One has reached a startling new level of maturity lately, one which has me wondering if we have reached the end of the endless screaming/flailing/contorting/destroying/random acts of parental insanity-making. I know I'd better knock on some wood, throw salt over my shoulder or kiss a drunken leprechaun before I state this out loud, but…she is really getting to be fun. She now plays primarily with her sister and the dog, rather than on them. She listens to direction more than 75% of the time. There is more sleeping than not sleeping, almost every night. She makes up insane stories and tells them with a utterly straight face. She has mastered "The Stomach Game," in which she alternately sucks her stomach in and pushes it out to kwashiorker-baby proportions—she plays it for laughs. She puts things away. Let me type that again: SHE PUTS THINGS AWAY. There is no greater moment of triumph for a mother, besides the triumph of the potty which has already been triumphed in a triumphant manner!

Today Wee helped me make red beans and rice, a process that involved pouring of liquids and tiny spillables and stirring of hot stuff. I hovered and nervously twittered over all this, since I will never completely be over The Big Burn and Skin Graft Experience. As she was whisking the veggies, she asked, "Mama, what am I?" "What do you mean, what are you? You're you!" "No!" "You're a kid!" "No! What am I, when I cookin' like this?" "Oh, you mean what's your job?" "Yeah!" "You're a chef!" "I A CHEF!" she bellowed.

When I put her to bed tonight, for the first time in my memory it involved no whining, no desperate clutching and begging for me to stay. There was no last-minute request for a faux potty break, no crying until I threatened to turn out the hall light. "Goodnight Mama, thanks for cookin' red beans with me. What I called, when I do that?" "A chef, baby." "We do that tomorrow?" "Sure." I kissed her, hugged her and covered her up; she yawned, then turned over on her side. And that was that.