Minky & Me

Papa and Gigi sent Coco three presents this week. The other night I opened them up and put them under the tree. It just so happened that right after I had done that, the Minkster started down the stairs for one of her nightly apres-bed visits. Daddy told her to go right back upstairs but I said, oh, no can’t she just look under the tree (consistency in parenting is something I need to work harder on). He gave me a you-are-crazy look and the rest of the way down she came.

She was very excited to see presents–and they were addressed to her! She has taken to carrying the smallest of the three gifts around. She carried it up to her room last night against my wishes….and this morning when she came into our bedroom, as she does every day, she was carrying it along with Willard.

Going to bed has been somewhat of a trial lately. We say goodnight, tuck Coco in and leave the room. Not too many minutes later, a combination of things happen in a different order each night. There’s the “I’m firsty!” Or the I-had-come-down-and-see-you-once-more. The “I’m hungry!” And the “Rocky, come!”

Tonight Cokie came downstairs while Daddy was showing me some short movies on his computer (did I ever write that she used to call it a “puter?”). She climbed into my lap and started watching too. We demanded–after 15 minutes–that she go back upstairs. Once there she started throwing a ball around. After she heard the printer across the hall, she fetched my papers and delivered them to me in the dining room. Then she complained that her tummy hurt and she needed someone to rub it, which Daddy did. When she finally went back upstairs again it was quiet for a few minutes–always a suspicious sign. Then I heard her say “hello.” It wasn’t an indoor hello, in fact, it sounded exactly like what saying hello out an open window would sound like. I went running up like a lunatic, scared she might fall out before I got there. I slid into the room like Scooby Doo. She heard me arrive and calmly turned away from the window and told me she was talking to “that boy,” pointing to our new adult neighbor next door. He had obviously just gotten home from work and was kind enough to say hello back. I closed up the window and looked down at her bed. There was the New Yorker magazine lying open. She excitedly picked it up to show me what she had been reading.

Good God, Gerty!