Izzo: MAKE SOME NOISE!

A week ago ...

Fam, friends, felines and foodies.

Yo.

After some consultation with her Daddy and her Bobo, we've decided that, this week, y'all can know that, among her other advancements and achievements, Izzo isn't always the glittering, glimmering good girl we've become so accustomed to over the past 22-plus months.

As was expected, predicted and braced for, the gradual change in our daughter has to do with her starting to not only have strong opinions about things -- like what she wants (and DOESN'T WANT*) to wear, where she wants (and DOESN'T WANT**) to sit, what she wants to (and DOESN'T WANT***) to listen to -- but now having the ablity to strongly express all those specific desires.

(* She DID NOT want to wear the pretty floral dress to Tatik's Easter dinner, prefering her funky floral skirt and a striped shirt that tried to match, but didn't. Daddy wasn't having that, though, and Izzo, jeering in agony until she glimpsed just how adorable she looked in the mirror, got put into the pretty floral dress, anyway.

** She DID NOT want to sit in her high chair at Easter brunch, and this time I didn't put my foot down, compromising for the sake of peace at my attempt to recreate one of Abba's grand Easter breakfasts for Ham, Izzo, Kit, Caitlyn, Bobo and Suzie. Scooted on over so Izzo and I could share the same grownup seat -- which worked out fine.

*** Tried to mix it up, put on the Dave Matthews Band concert instead of the thoroughly played-out Sia show from a past SXSW fest. A big, bellowed "NNNNNOOOOOOOOO!" was all it took to get Sia back on the screen. Again.)

And so it goes. Negotiating with a near-2-year-old, we're learning, requires more energy than did getting an almost-always-chill babytoddler to play along.

Still, I contend that Izzo remains basically a really good girl who doesn't actually have to worry much about Meshuk Papik coming and turning her into bologna, as Daddy and now Tatik have started to mention on occasion. Her screams of protest, while real, are hardly an epidemic around here. She's much more likely to be smiling than pouting, and even when she's upset, chances are she'll be all smiles again within a minute or two, so long as you can deliver an impression of Angry Her with enough gusto to crack the Angry Her exterior.

But, OK, I'm admitting and recording that she does have THOSE moments. Moments when she seriously doesn't want to have her hair put up in a pony tail! Or her bottom teeth brushed! Or for the door to escape and the world beyond closed! It's that she's figured out, yes, how to tell us as what she does and does not want, but because somehow that doesn't often change the situation or get her what she wants, well, that's even MORE frustrating, and so it goes without saying that she, like all of us did at one point or another, is getting better at relaying the following message: "I am PISSED!"

Just ask our neighbors.

Gigi, we hear, had a chance to express "pissed" this week, as well.

Imagine the never-especially-quiet-herself Nalbandyan doggie barking seriously unhappy complaints at Izzo, soon after being saved by Tatik from a new game Izzo instituted and might've called, "Ner-ne-ner-ne-ner-ner..."

This is how it, apparently, was played: Gigi outside on the balcony. Izzo inside, at the glass door. With Gigi wanting to come inside, Izzo shut the door on her, effectively locked her out -- and, the story goes, then she pointed and laughed. Izzo allegedly followed up by opening the door a few inches, as if she were going to let the little champion maltese in, before slamming it again in Gigi's surely confounded face -- and then presumably cackling. Gigi barked, pleading to be let in on a blustery (for Glendale) day. Izzo, again, opened the door a little bit, just enough to get Gigi's hopes up before slamming it shut on her again -- and, yes, possibly cackling agin. Finally, Tatik let the frazzled doggie inside and Gigi, as legend now has it, had no problem letting Izzo have it.

Not that I totally believe that entire story. And not that Izzo's got anything at all against animals.

We made it to the zoo for the first time in too long Saturday. Got there early, strode right in as the doors were just opening with our just-renewed year-round pass and made a beeline for the "gilla, gillas!" That's what Izzo had been singing from the backseat when we rolled into the parking lot. And Mommy (as I'm now called a good 80 percent of the time), being chronically slow on the pickup, was like, "Huh? What? Gillas? What're you saying, Izzo?"

It wasn't until I'd transferred her from her carseat to the umbrella stroller and pointed her toward the busy entrance that I saw displays everywhere depicting the zoo's beloved kid gorilla, Glenda. And only then did I realize that the chant still coming out of my daughter's mouth was, duh, "GILLA! GILLA! GILLA!" As in "GorILLA!"

So, yep, as usual, that's who we headed for first. And, as we have in the past on occassions like this, we got a few private moments with the gorilla family. And Izzo seemed really to dig it, announcing, yes, "Gilla! Gilla!" when she laid eyes on the active morning gorilla collective, following each other from one side of the yard to the other, and then back again. Izzo even shouted "Daddy! Daddy!" when the big (no, really, BIG) silverback made his way across the space, and then she waved hi to the "Baby! Baby!" when 4-year-old Glenda popped up in front of us.

From there, it was on to relatively private, ahead-of-the-Saturday-crush viewings of the zebras, the typically sleepy, lazy lions, the just-fed chimps, the breakfasting bear, followed by the forever pacing jaguar and a few of what we'll call rally monkeys. Somewhere in there, Izzo took over.

Demanded out of the stroller, and because I'm a pushover, she ended up pushing the empy stroller herself the rest of our stay, pushing it where she pointed it, and leading us on a pretty logical, wonderful circle around the zoo, leaving the stroller only when we arrived at another animal, which would get her to rush forward and point and wave and make sure, too, that I was seeing what she was seeing. Because I was on her tour, this time.

Good times, good times.

Even in bad times -- such as the latest, blind-siding round of layoffs at my place of employment last week, which came right on the heels of an announced 2.5 percent pay cut -- we've got good times going here with Izzo.

Izzo, who was born a Lakers fan, a Lakers fan who appreciates the importance of the playoffs, which kicked off today, with the Lakers cruising past Utah in the first game of the first round of the 2009 postseason.

She's a big Manny fan, too, to be sure, but today when we were huddled around the living room, snacking on crackers and tortilla chips, clad proudly in our four Lakers jerseys, she was in full Lakers mode. So every time Daddy went and changed the station to see what was happening with the Dodgers, Izzo would, without fail, raise her arms, palms facing upward, and implore, "Where Lakers? Where Lakers?! More Lakers!" sometimes adding, for emphasis, "Kobe! Kobe!"

And Bobo and I would dutifully echo her complaints until Hamlet turned it back.

So I guess it goes without saying, that we're all pretty much wrapped right around Izzo's little finger. And so when I decided it wouldn't hurt and might be fun to head out with Barnus and her girlfriend to see a fruitfully interesting artwalk in Downtown LA and maybe grab a bite and a beer afterward Saturday afternoon, I knew I was doing the right thing, even as I had to talk myself into having fun, even as I had to convince myself that going out and having a blip of social life beyond work had to be healthy ...

I'd been OK leaving, actually, until I felt compelled to call home and inform Hamlet that it might be a little longer than the two hours I estimated, 'cause we hadn't yet left to find food. Called and immediately heard Izzo whining fiercely in the background, and in the foreground, Hamlet telling me, point-blank, that whatever, he didn't care, but Izzo did. I snapped back at him, I'm pretty sure, telling him that I managed to find a way to entertain Izzo while he'd been gone all morning playing music and that he should do the same. But really, I was bummed (and only five-percent pleased, at the most) to hear Izzo outwardly missing me so.

And, so, this is what happened when I hung up (I hear): Hamlet sat down Izzo and had another one of his serious, grownup conversations with her. Like the one that successfully persuaded her to go to bed on time from then-on-out. This one, apparently, went like this: "Mommy is out with her friends for a little bit. Daddy got to play with his friends this morning, and now it's Mommy's turn. When you get bigger, you're going to want to go play with your friends, too. So now you have to be a good girl and let Mommy have fun with her friends, because this is Mommy's time to do that. We all have time when we get to play with our friends, and this is Mommy's time. OK?"

And that, Hamlet swears, is all it took. I got a text minutes later, actually, informing me of as much.

And, so, when I got home nearly -- gasp! -- four fun hours later, opening the door and being darn-near tackled by my princess daughter squealing happily, "Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!" it was clear, in an instant, that she wasn't mad at me, and that neither was Hamlet, and so I was glad I'd gone out. Well, mostly. I felt refreshed today, but I definitely don't want to do anything with my free time that doesn't involve Izzo for at least another few weeks!

Hey, onto more important matters. Izzo's latest catchphrase is a good one. Ready?

Here it comes...

... "Ooops!"

Oh, and to everyone who's been wondering and/or asking: Still no Natty sighting.

(Honestly, because not going to the park Saturday evening meant there'd be no chance of meeting up with Izzo's little friend that day, I, again, had to talk myself off the ledge, tell myself there was no point stressing about a phantom meeting that probably wasn't going to happen anyway. This mommying stuff makes ya a little more than a little bit crazy, I think.)

(And then I totally mis-timed our trip to the relatively shade-less park playground today going way too early for how hot it was, a fact that had us turning around about as soon as we got there, missing out on the usual half-our of swinging AND any potential meeting with Natty, or any of Izzo's little familiar friends -- including, after last week, a beautiful little Iraqi boy named Shaheen ...

... who fell right in love with Izzo, trailing her around the whole playground with these puppy dog eyes and then asking her, in his own toddlerbaby language, not to leave when we were headed out...)

And so the story goes. Izzo making it easy to keep our heads up, EVEN during those instances when when she's screaming her head off.

Scream it loud, scream it proud: Lots and lots of love!

Us