Izzy asked me this one day as we were walking around. Since she hears this from me or Mrs. Narrator about 70 times a day, I really wasn't surprised when she asked me how to spell it.
Daddy: "B-E. C-A-R-E-F-U-L...Be Careful.
Isobel: "Soooo....I won't ever remember that."
When I was younger and pictured myself in the role of a parent, I supposed that I would be the father of a boy or two and that I would probably teach them all of the things that you would expect a father to teach you. All things sport, beer drinking, the birds and the bees and flatulence. I played hockey for roughly twenty minutes as a kid and sports as a whole bore me to tears. The mysteries of the birds and the bees, I confess still confounds me more than a little. I am fairly confident however, in my ability to impart wisdom on suds and burping and farting.
I wasn`t disappointed when I was handed a baby girl. I had said (like most delusional parents) that I didn`t care the gender of the baby, so long as it was healthy. That or I wanted circus freak deformities like a beak or flippers so we could start exploiting it from the get go. I figured if a girl came out then I could still teach her the ways of the grunting male, I might just have to alter the lessons slightly.
As we have seen by past demonstrations, there were no alterations...
I don`t know why this week in particular has been all about the bodily functions for Isobel but it has...in spades. I thought only little boys embraced burping and farting with such vigour and zeal, I know I did (and still do!) but Izzy is right up there with the best of them. The student is fast surpassing the master.
We were sitting at the supper table the other night and she rattled the windows with a burp that was followed by shock and awe from The Boy and I.
"Wow," she said. "that was weird."
"What do you say?" I asked, trying hard to conceal my pride and act fatherly.
"You swine." she replied.
It has all been about farts and burps and burping and farting. Burping elves and farting preachers and 'thank you Jesus for farting like that' and 'Daddy what does it mean when the wind breaks?' We have also learned the valuable, albeit painful lesson that if you swallow huge gulps of air you can make yourself burp but it will often result in painful, endless hiccups...You know you try to explain it but they really only learn by experience. I expect her to start reaching for the stove any time now.
I walked past her the other day and for the smell that hovered around her, there should have been a green cloud.
"Oh my god Isobel. Was that you?" I asked, my eyes beginning to water.
"Nope." she said and glanced around the room. "Brooklyn!" she hollered at the cat. "That stinks."
"That's my girl." I said.
It was bedtime and I was lying with her while she was dozing off, when from out of the ether came a sound like a lamb playing a slide whistle. A kind of "Wheeeelp" sound. Izzy fell into hysterics.
"I fahted." she said and continued to howl with laughter.
"Really?" I asked. "Me too."
"For real?" she asked suddenly very serious. "Eww Daddy, that's gross."
"The best thing about boys is they get to pee standing up." Isobel announced one day and it should have registered something parental in me somewhere but alas it didn't and I'm sure I mumbled some sort of agreement.
Now Izzy has seen me come out of the shower and seen me use the bathroom any number of times and there are the obvious questions that always arise but she always comes back to peeing standing up.
"Mummy says you should sit down to pee, it's easier on everybody." Izzy said.
"Mummy is probably right," I said. "but I have been peeing standing up for a long time. It's a hard habit to break."
Now I didn't really think beyond the simple inquisitiveness of the five year old brain, though with Isobel there is nothing typical...or even five years old about her.
"Daddy!" she screamed from the bathroom. "Daddy, come quick!"
I ran thinking something terrible was happening to her and my eyes fell upon a sight I am not likely to forget anytime soon...There, naked from the waist down, was my daughter. Straddling the toilet and peeing standing up. I had heard from Mrs. Narrator that she had done this sort of thing before but I don't think it registered in my brain...or maybe I didn't listen. Maybe it was just years of conditioning that says little girls pee sitting down. Unless they are drunken punk rock girls who win bets by writing their names in the snow...but that is something else entirely.
"Look Daddy! I'm a boy, I'm peeing like a boy!" Wee-haw!" she exclaimed.
I turned and walked out without a word...what could I say?
"Make sure you flush!"
Ding-Dong the Biebs is dead...
There was a television blurb about Justin Bieber a couple of days ago and normally Izzy will drop what she is doing and run to fawn over the television.
"Izzy, your boyfriend is on T.V." I said.
"Who?" she asked.
"Justin Bieber, he's your boyfriend right?"
"No." she said. "I don't love Justin Bieber anymore."
I remembered a conversation with the babysitter from earlier this week, when she had mentioned that her son kissed Izzy and Izzy said she liked it. But Izzy said she didn't love little D anymore either. I asked her if it was the boy we had met in Mexico, the boy who's hand she held and told everyone that this was her boyfriend.
"Nope." she said. "I don't love him either. I have a new boyfriend now."
"Who is it?" I asked.
"HIM!" she said pointing at the computer screen. "I love him now, he has a good voice and a white face."
The him in question is the bass player from a Norwegian Black metal band...he has a very white face(thanks in no small part to the make-up) and he looks like a viking...he very likely is a viking...he does have a lovely voice...ding-dong the Biebs is dead...
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