Vocabulary

Dear Bird,

Today you picked up my clipboard with the grocery list on it, and started marching around the living room, shouting, "Emma! Jack! Get over here! Change diapers!" with your brow furrowed and your hand on your hip, just like your daycare teachers must do a hundred times a day with their clipboards full of sign in sheets and daily reports about what you ate, when you pooped, etc.

It astounded me, your ability to soak up your surroundings and then imitate with what I suspect is such accuracy. I'm delighted by your perceptiveness and I'm heartbroken that people are likely speaking to you and your friends so sharply when I'm not around. As my little apology for leaving you most days with someone I hardly even know, we went to Staples and bought you a little clipboard that is more your size, and you love it. You scribble on it for a minute and go back to barking your orders.

Then, while we were eating our lunch, you looked at me and said, "That bitch crazy." While your dad and I are hardly G-rated in our vocabulary, we really do keep it clean around your ears, and you don't watch television outside of Teletubbies about once a month. And besides, we're more likely to say "motherfucker" or "asshole"-- this business about crazy bitches is a phrase that's new in our home. Where did you get it? Somebody with a clipboard?

I wish we could stay home together more days.

Love,
mama