Giraffes and Horchata

I only have one single, solitary baby home during the day.  You would think it'd be easy, but given the fact that the baby in question is Tziporah, it's quite challenging. Most days, she is intent on honing skills such as crying her eyes out and winning arguments. She also likes to say no to everything and then come up with a different, far more impossible idea.

"Tizzy, let's go get the kids from school!"

"Nooooooo! Let's go at that place with the tiny giraffes and the tea cups where dad got me cotton candy."

Whaaaaat???

Then she will cry for an hour about tiny giraffes or some such thing, during which time I have to meet people at the violin shop, order food from Taco Time, run into the store and generally carry on with my life, crying soundtrack at no extra charge.  Then there will sometimes be a lull between fits where the little tyrant dozes off in the car. Then I know I have five minutes to listen to NPR before Tziporah's eyelids flutter, she lifts her head, rubs her eyes and says, "Not Empy-Ah!  I wanted a wisten to "in December drinking horchata."

Fortunately, I sometimes know what she's talking about when I least expect to, and I flip to the old Vampire Weekend CD.

Good times, good times. And I wouldn't trade them for anything.  I held the sleeping princess last night and inhaled the sweaty sweetness of her little head. I caught a whiff of impermanence, of each little piece of her struggling to grow bigger. I whispered, "Don't do it." Each strawberry blonde hair answered in unison, "Oh, but we will!"

Intrepid little thing, how I love her.