Anja, a whale ready to attack.A few weeks ago, Anja and I started playing a new game - the Turtle and the Whale game. This is truly a "Dad's game." I simply huddle up on the floor (as the Turtle) and Anja hurls herself over me (as the Whale). Fundamentally, I lay about while she expends all her energy jumping over me. Anyone with a toddler should recognize the genius in this game. This game repeats itself until Anja is distracted by another potential game or she hits her bean on one of the surrounding pieces of furniture. These may seem like advanced animals for a two year old. It's certainly beyond simple piggies and cows. Her animal recognition is mostly due to watching the combination of Diego and Dora. The two of them have become constants in the house despite a drastic reduction in the amount of TV Anja actually watches.
She's also managed to learn some songs from the shows. The piñata song is one that happens to be rather cute. She'll start singing, "Piñata, my piñata," then whack something with a stick. While less cute and more hopeful, she also sings a rendition of "Rain rain, go away." Instead of the standard, "come again another day," which has never made any logical sense to my adult sensibilities, she continues with another verse of "go away, rain rain." Apparently, the traditional second clause makes no sense to a toddler either. Pay attention illogical nursery rhymes: your days are numbered.
Lately, there has been much more need for singing the "Rain, rain" tune. It rained very heavily on Saturday and Sunday nights. The sirens sounded and the wind made the type of terrible noise that justifies a look out the window. The rain on Saturday was bad enough to justify sneaking into our basement. We keep up a guest room down there and so the entire family snuggled into the bed and waited out the weather. On Sunday, we were already annoyed by the frequency of the sirens. We readily prepared to ignore the suggestion we head to the basement yet again. Settling into a comfortable half-sleep state, Susi and I were awakened not by anything outside but by a call for, "Mommmmmy!"
The noise was a bit much for Anja. Ian was perfectly happy to simply stay in his crib. He remained blissfully unaware of the goings on out side of his bed.
Ian, blissfully unaware.
We hustled her into our bed and calmed her down. Susi's tactic was a stroke of brilliance, the scary thunder is simply the clouds playing a very noisy game of Turtle and Whale.
