Backlog of Caroline Blogging

"Daddy, my legs are broken"

I've been trying to get Caroline to walk places rather than making me carry her. When she asks me to carry her I frequently say "what's wrong, are your legs broken?" She very quickly learned to say "Yes my yegs are broken." Shortly after that "my yegs are broken" became the new way to say "pick me up." I can hear her from across the playground "Daaa-deee my yegs are broken."

notes on language development

Note that above legs are "yegs." She's always had trouble with L's, but for a long time wasn't sure how to deal with it. Some L's became D's. (Pillow --> Piddow). Other L's became Y's. (Look at me! --> yooka me!) Recently she's settled on Y for all L sounds. (Piddow --> piyow).

She is still having trouble with genders. People are he or she indiscriminantly. I'm not actually sure I want to correct her on this. Her world seems to have a more level playing field. Also, sometimes I'm Mommy and Molly is Daddy. I like that too, although I probably don't deserve the title "Mommy"

The possesive pronouns are "yours" "ours" and "mines"

Caroline Dreams

Last night I had the Night of the Living Dead Dream. Most of my dreams are based on horror movies. For nearly a decade, I was haunted by the Invasion of the Body Snatchers Dream. The first body snatchers movie I saw was the 1978 version with Donald Southerland, Brooke Adams & Leonard Nemoy. I probably didn't see it until it was shown on TV--1979? 1980? Well, from then until I was in grad school, I dreamt of invasions by pod people. It helped too that I read Daniel Pinkwater's Lizard Music.

In the early 90s I switched to the Night of the Living Dead Dream. I actually think there are deep psychological reasons for this, although I won't get into them now. For 10 years, though, the NotLD dream has just been about fleeing from zombies. Last night I was visited by a dream which encorporated the most unsettling moment from George Romero's 1968 classic: the zombification of a little girl. In my dream, Caroline was turned into a Zombie--a change symbolized by the outbreak of bloody pustules on her face. Because she became a zombie, George Bush had to set her on fire. "Oh my tiny caroline" I said, and woke to find her sleeping next to me.