Wayne and Rebecca Madsen

Paela tells jokes from time to time. Sometimes she will be playing a game of hide-and-seek/peek-a-boo with a toy. Suddenly, she will get a trickster glint in her eye and will put the toy in plain sight on her lap and ask, "Where'd-it-go?" We'll promptly point to it and with a sparkle in her eye and a grin on her face she will shake her head and inform us that there is no toy on her lap. Let the jokes begin.

Her latest joke is a bit of a knock-knock joke, somewhat akin to the infamous interrupting cow joke. She begins by saying "Pig is sad." We ask her back "Is the pig sad?" and she quickly says "Nah!" and then laughs.

Paela has become more aware of how others are feeling, particularly when they are sad. At nursery yesterday, she turned to me for a bit of comfort when another little boy had started crying hysterically (junior nursery...they miss their parents). "Sad!" she declared over and over.

When she woke up from her nap later, Camilla and Victor and Cameron had just arrived for a visit. I went in to tell her this, and she looked up at me with a worried look and asked "Is he sad?" I had to think back to remember that yes, he had just cried a few moments ago! 

I'm a little late with this story, but better late than never.

A couple of weeks ago, Wayne, Paela and I were on a walk with Camilla, Victor, and Cameron. At one point Wayne started running ahead and hiding behind trees. I'd ask Paela where in the world her daddy went as part of the "game". She thought this was a riot and giggled like crazy trying to run after him. And then she said the clearest full sentence we'd heard yet from her:

"Daddy's so funny!"

And I tend to agree with her.

Today we had to take the cat to the vet. She needed her paw looked at, and we thought to catch her up on shots and get her health certificate so she can come on the plane with us in May. We're attached to this cat, and want the best for her.

Paela does too. And apparently, that does not include being locked up in a cat carrier. As soon as Paela saw Star get put in the cat carrier, we had a worked up cat on our hands and a worked up Paela. Neither one was happy about the situation. Paela kept crying "stuck stuck stuck" as she tried to convince us to free the cat. And Star tried her crying meow as well. But since we are pretty set on taking Star with us to Boston, we callously ignored both of their requests.

Paela likes to run. One day, I caught her running around the table, into the living room, to the patio door, to her room, to our room, back around the table. Over and over. Screaming "RUN! RUN! RUN!" as she went.

Another day she ran up to the patio door, slapped the glass with her palm, and shouted "FUN!"

She likes to run for fun, and fun is good.

Normally Paela will go down for a nap between 11 or 11:15 at the latest, and she's usually very excited that she gets to go "nigh-nigh!". She typically falls asleep in five minutes, ten minutes tops. Then she sleeps until 12:30 or 1, and we do lunch. This is our usual and has been for a couple of months.

Today, she talked to herself for over an hour before I finally went to go "rescue" her, thinking perhaps she was just strangely not tired today. As soon as I went in, she excitedly pointed to the window, wanting to see outside. I complied with her request and opened the blinds; we both could finally see the guy with the chainsaw patiently hacking away at the bushes right outside her window. Curiosity sated and a small lunch under her proverbial belt, we tried naptime once more. Out like a light.

I, for one, am glad curiosity only delayed today's nap, and did not kill it.