Six Things I learned About My Daughter While Visiting My Parents

Summer in suburban Atlanta

I just returned to Brazil after spending nearly three weeks in Atlanta, my hometown and where my family still lives.  It was the first time my daughter and I traveled just the two of us.  She’s four.  Our trip involved an all-night, nine-hour flight that was delayed two hours both going and coming.  I preemptively deployed both the iPad and M&Ms and I’m happy to say that both my daughter and I are going to see our next birthdays.  Although probably with a cavity or two.  Sanity above cavities, I say.

I don’t know if it was being on active parent duty 24/7 or my daughter’s leap in communicating her feelings and interests since last Christmas, but I learned a lot about my daughter during these past few weeks visiting my parents.  Some insights were good, some frustrating, and some have me already looking for methods other than wine to cope with her teenage years.

1. She thinks all kids speak Portuguese.  In her day to day life, the only people who speak English are grown ups, specifically my parents via Facetime, my husband, and me.  All of her friends, all the kids at school, her cousins in Rio, every single kid she interacts with speaks Portuguese.  Naturally, when she approached kids on playgrounds in Atlanta she said “Qual é seu nome?”  Every time.  Even after I’d tell her “Kids here talk like Mommy.  Use English,” she’d continue using Portuguese.  On each playground it took a few minutes of the kids not understanding and my prompting for her to switch over to English.  Then we’d stop by a different playground a couple days later and she’d say to some kids “Qual é seu nome?”  So as far as my daughter is concerned English is the language of authority and Portuguese is the language of her peers.  She’s getting to live her own colonial experience.  I’m sure that won’t be a problem later.
2. She will eat boogers but not pancakes.  And it’s seriously grossing me out. She can’t get enough boogers but she refuses to open her mouth to taste one bite of fluffy, syrup drenched pancake.  It’s not just pancakes she refuses to eat.  It’s also hamburgers, ketchup, creamed corn, macaroni and cheese, cereal with milk, and scrambled eggs.  But boogers she pops into her mouth without a second thought. I’m beginning to think something is wrong with her.
3. She’s never played outside in the dark.  I realized this watching her buzz around the Atlanta Botanical Garden while viewing a nighttime light exhibit. I knelt to point out a firefly and realized she had never seen a firefly.  We live in a city in an apartment building next to a very busy street.  Nature isn’t even in the same zip code.  Our city also has unfortunately high levels of violence and crime making the few parks that are here unsafe at night.  Running around outside after dark, playing hide-and-seek, capture the flag, or catching fireflies was a HUGE part of my childhood.  But hasn’t been and won’t be for my daughter. It makes me sad.
4. If it’s not chocolate, it doesn’t count as desert.  She will eat the chips out of a chocolate chip cookie.  She will turn down cookie dough for lack of chocolate.  She will refuse to part her lips for pound cake.  And she will not deign to look at anything called “pie”.  Dessert is by definition chocolate.  This almost redeems the booger eating.
5. She is stubborn.  I knew this about her but sending her to preschool every weekday from 10-5:30 provided a significant buffer that kept me from really understanding the depths of her resolve.  If she does not want to do something, she will refuse and she can keep refusing, crying, & screaming for over an hour.  I decided she was old enough to start blowing her own nose.  She disagreed & snorted snot out of her nose leaving it all over her face & hanging from her chin for over an hour.  I told her she had to try one bite of corn in order to get dessert.  She refused and demanded chocolate cake repeatedly until long after we’d finished the meal and arrived back home.  I told her it was too late to read two bed time books.  She screamed at me to read her chosen books throughout my entire going to bed routine and continued after I’d gotten under the covers.
6. She is a one hell of a control freak!   She has rules for everything.  What cup the juice is in.  What order the books are read in.  Who takes her to the bathroom.  What underwear, what socks, and heaven help the person who offers to put her hair in a ponytail if she’s not in the mood.  Everything matters!  Everything!  And “playing” with her means standing quietly until you are assigned a toy, which hand to hold the toy in, a place to sit, and what you are going to say.  And do not screw up your line!  If she tells you to say “Hey, who stole my kitty?” do not say “Hey, someone took my kitty!”  No improvising! Give dialogue exactly as assigned!  She will grow up to be either an award winning director known for making actors cry or dictator of a small Latin American country.

I’m sure summer vacation in December will be full of new insights, although I’m beginning to think ignorance is bliss.