Izzo Is Always On Stage

Fam, friends, fans of Izzo. Tap-tap-tap. Ahem. Drummmmmrrrrolllll, please.

The Princess wants to know: How you feeeeeeelin'?!

(Pause.)

I said, FAM, FRIENDS, FANS.

PRINCESS IZZO WANTS TO KNOW: HOW YOU FEEEEEEELINNNNN'!!!!!

(That's better.)

Now.... throw your hands in the air, wave 'em like you just don't care, lemme see your armpit hair!

Let's just say that, most naturally, Izzo provided the entertainment at Hamlet's little birthday party over here on Monday.

It started with Momom's not-so-unusual request: "Izzo, go play some guitar!"

And Izzo's very typical response, which was to make a beeline for Daddy's acoustic, set up in its stand in the corner of the room, where she proceeded to pluck a few notes and then peek back out from behind the easy chair for a reaction.

Because there were a few of us there at that point -- and because, dare I say it, Izzo's "playing" gets kinda better (more strings, more chords, more confidence) all the time -- the reaction in the room was particularly boisterous.

And Izzo LIKED that.

So she headed right back to play her little song again, and then, again, poked her head out for a round of affirmative applause, which came her way in a small roar.

And, ooooh, Izzo liked THAT.

So she headed right back to play it again, and then, again, appeared before us to receive her due props. Which she got, mixed, this time, with some hearty chuckles at just how much this toddler of ours was loving the attention, her face lit up in pure glee.

And, yes, Izzo very much appreciated our response.

So she headed right back to play more, and then, again, reemerged, ready for her coronation, which came happily, mixed, this time, with burgeoning belly laughs from an audience tickled by this burgeoning performer's self-congratulatory routine.

Izzo loved the love, no doubt, and so she headed right back... again, and again, and again, and so on and so on and so on. Fifteen or 20 encores later, Izzo had officially worn out Uncle Ty, who was visiting from Portland for a few days.

He didn't clap, and just sat.

He didn't boo or throw tomatoes or anything. And the rest of us clapped. But, for the first time in the process, one of us sat still on the couch, probably exhausted from all the cheering and clapping, hootin' and hollerin'.

And Izzo froze.

She stared directly, icily at Ty for a moment before she absolutely... combusted.

She started shaking her head no-no-no-no-no-no-NO-NO-NO! (She still doesn't actually say, "No," in English, but she's gotten good at shaking her head to indicate as much, and she does surely say, as she did yesterday, "Che, Daddy.") Her eyes filled all the way up with tears. She started running aimless circles around the living room rug, still shaking her head no-no-no-no-no while mixing exasperated, forlorn glances at the rest of us with angry looks at Ty, and then, finally, throwing herself on the ground in a sobbing heap.

The sobbing heap pulled itself together momentarily, distracted by a cracker or a tickle from Uncle Rob or a television commercial, most likely. But for that moment we glimpsed what appeared to be -- oh my, oh my -- a diva in training.

............

I read that 17-month-old's are supposed to be great at throwing tantrums. Izzo's had a few in her time, but now that I've stopped to think about it, I realize she hasn't had all that many. And the ones that have come through haven't done to me what I once imagined they might've.

There haven't been many in public, for starters, save for those that come about when it's time to come home from the park -- and in those cases, I just deal with it. She'll be buckled unhappily in her stroller as we roll through the masses, but I know, in a minute or so, that she'll be distracted by something she sees and she'll forget what she was wailing about in the first place. There was the one time, of course, when she was so offended she cried for the first couple blocks home, at which point I did the irresponsible but not untrue thing and promised her, yes, ice cream for dessert that night. That, not surprisingly, turned the frown upside down in a nanosecond: "IceCream?!"

Those tantrums that've come at home have been easier to deal with: I let her cry it out for a minute or less, then I flop down on the floor next to her and bury her in kisses, and hard as she tries, she can't keep crying when she's being smooched uncontrollably by her crazy mom. Then, when she's calm, or, well, happier, we try to get to the bottom of the fussing. And let me say, there isn't much that a cup of juice -- "Chew!" says Izzo -- can't fix around here.

...........

Went to the library for Story Time on Friday, thinking it was definitely about time, actually. Got there and found that Story Time "starts in January." Which is almost as weird a statement as hearing the person who rear-ended me ask why I backed up into HER. Weird because, well, how can Story Time be starting when it's been going on since I was a little tyke, and, surely, long before that? Anyway, we'll be back for Story Time in January. Meantime, Izzo really dug the library, even without Story Time.

Dug the rows and rows of books, most of which she'd stop to simply touch with awe, without dislodging -- quite unlike she does it here at home. Dug particularly, the big-small picture book she found. Had me read her that one, with its brother and sister showing off a big bed and small bed, a big present and small present, a big bus and small bus, respectively, for several pages, a few times over.

Dug the second-story window looking out on the library plaza below. Dug the hollow sounding portion of the department -- hollow when she stomped on it, that is. So she did laps around one particular shelf, delighting every time she got to stomping on the boom-boom-boom hollow-sounding piece of flooring.

Dug the decorations on the ceilings and the wall, the big paper tree and big Curious George. Dug the stairs up to and down from the children's section, but that'a gone without saying.

And, oh yeah, she dug the glued-down toys she found the other girl playing with when we arrived. Actually, she probably dug the little girl more. Went right up to her and said, "Hi, I'm Izzo. I play guitar and love me some vanilla milk from Starbucks. Wanna play?" And the other girl, 27 months I believe her mommy said, recoiled. Used her little body to cover the toy she was playing with while staring at Izzo and talking to her mom, announcing, "Get this little pipsqueak OUTTA HERE!" The mom told her, in Korean, to relax and that it was OK. Izzo, who speaks all languages and no languages simultaneously at this point, turned to the mom: "Hi, I'm Izzo. Your daughter is very pretty, kinda like me. Are you having a nice day?" And the mom, as most folks do, lit up and laughed and answered Izzo in "Uh-huhs!" and "That's rights!" and "Aren't you adorables!" Her daughter, however, didn't seem to like that much, because she started complaining more loudly, which redrew Izzo's attention.

Izzo, I warned, She's playing with that one, why don't you come here and play with this one?

"OK," Izzo said, agreeable as usual. She came and spun the plastic gears on the table near me, the table farthest from the little girl. Played and spun a wheel, one spin causing all of them to spin. "Hey, cool!" Izzo said, with a smile up at me.

The little girl didn't like this either and dove toward the section where Izzo was now stationed, attempting now, impossibly, to cover both sets of toys with her little body.

Izzo just stood there and stared for a moment, unsure what to do until she started laughing, laughing her fake hardee-harr-harr grownup laugh that is entirely a response to grownups in the room laughing, which we were.

Then, after the other mom dimmed the lights and pulled out a flashlight, which she held up to her chin scary-story-in-the-dark style, she told me that her daughter, believe it or not, had been just like Izzo once. But now she had entered a different stage, now she was learning -- dunh-dunh-dunh -- possessiveness!!!

When the lights went back on I tried my best to sound tolerant and agreed with her assessment, "Oh yeah," I said, as if I know, "It's totally natural." Which I'm totally sure it is, but I have no way of knowing that... yet.

Izzo dared to touch the gears she'd been so impressed with again now that they belonged to Miss Naturally Possessive, and anyone wanna guess what happened next?

Miss Nanturally Possessive freaked out, of course!

And as I watched the sweet, logical mom buckle her screaming little one into the stroller, I felt genuinely bad, because it was our arrival that cut short this little girl's library time. If we hadn't come along, she would have had a swell morning there among the books and trinkets. And so I apologized, said sorry for ruining the little girl's fun. Oh, no, the mom assured me, no worries. But still, I felt bad. And, evidently, Izzo did too.

Because as the little girl carried on, tears, arms and legs everywhere, happy little Izzo got choked up too, and before I knew it, my princess was standing in the middle of the room with tears streaming down HER cheeks!

Anyone want to guess what happened now?

Yeah, that's right. We cold-hearted moms couldn't help ourselves, we both started CRACKING UP. It was too funny, these two crazy little girls making themselves and each other cry. It was, well, it was just too cute.

And, it was over quickly. With the whole children's section to herself, Izzo The Explorer recovered in a hurry after the girl and her cries disappeared, and got down to the business or touching and stomping and everything else.

............

I've lost track of the running list of (English) vocab, but here are some of the words Izzo be uttering these days: Shoes; Socks; the aforementioned Juice; Play; Cooking... and, I think I heard her say this enough times late last night that I'm convinced: LOVE. As in, "Love You Momom." Or, most accurately, "LaYa Momom."

C'mon, someone give me an "Awwwww...."

............

Izzo has a favorite piece of clothing.

I've been waiting for this for a while. Waiting for her to have a favorite SOMETHING. I read, months ago, to expect her to get clingy with a particular stuffed animal or doll. But she never did. I watched to see if she became especially close with any of the toys that wasn't an animal or doll, but that never happened, either. Her favorite pastime remained making the world around her smile, and everything else was a distant second.

She's so into her clothes -- so into taking them all out of their drawers and either scattering them around the house, putting them in either her laundry basket or ours, or, these days, stuffing them in our drawers (nothing quite like waking up in the morning, digging for socks and finding four of Izzo's shirts and a pair of Izzo's jeans in the mix) -- that I thought she might pick a favorite item from that collection. But no, she hadn't.

Kinda just down with whatever, whenever. And so Momom continued to sit on the edge of her seat, waiting to find out what it would be that would especially capture Izzo's heart and imagination, looking forward to another big clue about the person Izzo will become... and nothing. Nada. Not when it came to objects and things, anyway.

Until this week, when she made a point of finding her little Lakers jersey and bringing it to me again, and again. Holding it up to me, holding both arms up, too, telling me, in not so many words, yep, Put it on, Momom, put it on!

And every time, of course, I'd tell her we had to follow the very strict household protocol. That that Lakers jersey was meant to be worn only during the games. I don't know that she understood what the heck I was talking about, exactly, but she understood enough to slump her shoulders and slink away, dragging the jersey behind her Linus-style until she returned a while later to try, and get denied, again.

Then, finally, when GameTime rolled around the other day, and I called out to her, "Izzo, we can put on your Lakers jersey now!" best believe she came running, with the jersey in hand. She'd been waiting for this! We put it on and I said, "Gooo Lakers!" and Izzo puffed out her chest, and patted the logo and just freaking glowed. Did that every time anyone mentioned the word "Lakers."

So, if THAT'S the hint I was waiting for, as far as what Izzo's favorite objects might indicate about the person she's to become, well, I think we might just be creating a pruple-and-gold monster.

...........

Izzo really loves wearing that Lakers jersey, but she's kinda game to try on just about anything these days. Like, I spread out the clean laundry to fold a couple days ago and she dove right in, which isn't atypical. But this time she fished out one item specifically, put it on over her head and spent the next hour or so -- 'cause her Momom is cruel, I guess -- walking around wearing one of Momom's... bras.

Very proudly, too, I must say.

...........

Uh, duh.

So I got to wondering where the heck all of Izzo's binkies had gone. She really only uses them when it's nanik/naptime or bedtime anymore, but still... the little binkie bowl in the kitchen was darn near empty. Where, oh, where, could she have stashed them all? That bowl had been seriously full a couple of weeks ago. I looked in the usual hiding places. Under the couch, by the TV, in drawers everywhere... and then it occured to me that there really could only be one place where they could be. In her crib!

Well, under her crib.

I pulled the bed away from the wall and JACKPOT! One, two, three.... nine, 10, 11, 12! Twelve binkies set to be washed and reloaded.

Ah, the things that make me really happy these days.

.........

Izzo and I take a walk before heading to Tatik's almost every single morning. And, almost every single morning, as we have for almost every single morning since I became a working mom, we run into David. Sweet ol' David. Older Korean dude who speaks not much English, hasn't a speck of gray to speak of, and who is dedicated, impressively, to shuffling his way up and down the block with his walker each morn. He met Izzo when she was tiny and has watched, proudly, as she grew -- and grew to recognize him. I'll never forget the morning that she sat up in her stroller when she saw him, sat up and grinned and flapped her arms and got him to announce, startled, "She knows me!"

Yeah, well, these days Izzo's doing her own walking. Walking and, ever the good girl, keeping hold of Momom's hand the whole time. Except, of course, when she sees her buddy David. He'll be 20 feet or so away, doing his stretches out in front of his complex, and she'll let go of my hand, forget about me entirely and literally race toward him. He'll hear her coming, turn, give her his patented grin and then...

... the two friends will give each other a most delightful HIGH FIVE ever!

Just about every morning, that's the exchange that makes my day, watching Izzo run up to David and watching those two sweet souls do a solid, sturdy high five.

It's so perfect.






So, high fives to everyone! Rock on. Be well. Peace.

And love.

Us.