Smell

Things are about to get all Snowpocalypse on us here in Massachusetts. Eliza is praying to the weather gods for a snowday so we can hang out together.

She loves her sister but she misses it being just us. At bedtime, I crawl in bed with her to read and she clamps on to me like an octopus and tells me she doesn’t want me to leave. I promised her a slumber party when we go to Texas next week. I’m still trying to figure out the logistics, but she is looking forward to it so I had better deliver.

Each kid accepts love from me in a different way. With Eliza, the thing she wants, has always wanted, is knowledge and experience. I lay pearls of wisdom at her feet and I show her things that will intrigue her and when they show up in her plays or conversations later, or in “Remember when we…” stories, I know she’s accepted the gift I’ve tried to give her. She wants books, she wants to see theater, she wants to meet predators, she wants you to tell her the words for what you call a story with hyperbole and exaggeration and explain to her how the fourth wall functions and why snakes are that way.

We have conversations as we walk hand-in-hand, in the car, sprawled out on the sofa. One of us, or maybe both, gesticulates wildly about whatever subject. We are alike, even more than we look, sometimes.

***

Lucy has a lot of opinions, but mostly, she just wants to be close to you. At daycare she snuggles with her favorite people, and sometimes Jim has a meeting and has to leave her for longer than usual and I can tell because I come home and pick her up and she doesn’t smell like me anymore. I don’t like that. She sleeps tucked up against me side and that’s good because then she smells like my baby again.

It makes cooking difficult when she wants to be on me all the time but she runs at me with her arms up, yelling, “HUG!” and go ahead, try to say no to that.

Also she has made her peace with bed-coverings. Anything that is square-ish is deemed a “NIGHT-NIGHT” and she sits down and efficiently unfurls whatever it is that she’s claimed — be it blanket, bandana, dishrag, napkin, whatever — over her legs and lies down with a satisfied air.

To wit: