Daddy-O and Mother Dear

For some inexplicable reason L has taken to calling Stacy "Mother" rather than her previous "Mommy" or "Mom" (or the two-syllable foghorn-like "Mooooo-oooom" when she's yelling for her from another room). I'm not sure where she picked up "Mother." It sounds pretty creepy and it gives Stacy the screaming heebie-jeebies. Especially at the pre-school in front of all the other pre-school Moms.

"Mother, can I go outside?"
"I brushed my teeth, Mother."
"Mother, N is playing with my dolls again."

At first we thought she was doing it as a semi-sarcastic retro nod to the fifties - like she was frustrated at being forced to live in Ozzie and Harriet conditions, but then we realized she's not yet five and probably doesn't have that subtle a sense of pop culture.

N, however, is at least a decade ahead of his sister. I am occasionally referred to as "Daddy-O." I know I'm one cool cat and not at all like all those other square Pops out there, but I'm not exactly sure I'm groovy with the fact that my three year old has become a beatnik.

One of the toys N got for his birthday was a little wooden train set. No batteries, no lights, no whistles, no voices encouraging you to go see some Disney movie. It's an übersimple imagination-stimulating toy that might indeed have come out of the 40's or 50's. I love it, but what I love most is that N loves it. It really has grabbed a-hold of his individual play-quietly-by-himself mentality and will consume him for hours. A year or so ago I bought him a little floor mat with roads and buildings printed on it, designed for matchbox-type cars. It was a little much for him when I got it, but being of the same ilk as the train set, he now loves it. I will be in the kitchen working on the computer while L and Stacy are in the backyard or off in the back of the house and I'll listen to N talking quietly to his cars, sometimes very merrily, but sometimes with this serious concern in his voice like there's some sort of issue that all the little cars are going to have to come together to resolve. I love it. Now he's doing that with his train too.