November 2008
“I have a date with Leopard. We had a fight. We’re going to talk.”

“If you’re zero years old then you’re just a seed that is put in someone’s tummy”

“I can’t take naps at home because my [stuffed] animals are talking and wake me up”

(looking at leaf on sidewalk) “That’s a footprint of a dinosaur made out of a leaf”

(in car with music playing) “My feet are singing”

(smelling the air) “My nose is stinky”

“Since I have food in my tummy I am not having a sad day”

“Did you notice I can jump and twirl my arms at the same time?”

When asked “Do you know how much I love you?” She answers, “yes, five.”

(near harrison/20th in the mission district in San Francisco) “This would be a good place to live because you can see the sun setting and it’s really beautiful.”

February 2009

“A long time ago, before I had a momma and mommy, it was just me and Leopard and Wanda and we were saving pigeons.”

Lucy sits down at dinner table and notices I made her a “cocktail” (fizzy juice with a maraschino cherry) and says, “You didn’t have to make me a cocktail, Mommy. I didn’t ask you for one. Thank you so much for making me a cocktail.”

She put the cap on her scissors and said, “Look at me! Now I can run with scissors because the cap is on and I’m protected”

March 2009

(after her great-grandmother died) “Dead people aren’t as fun because you can’t show them your toys or play with them, you can only remember them, not as fun.”

“I’m tired of running but I don’t want to walk so I have to run”

Listening to Obama read his book and Lucy says “Obama’s grandparents are from the same Kansas as Dorothy!” (devoted Wizard of Oz fan)

April 2009
“I’m thinking of what it might look like inside of a song – how is music made?”

“The clouds in the sky look like blurry thunder”

Lucy ate a sardine and asked, “Where did it come from? Does it know that I’m eating it?

At the top of Twin Peaks at night, looking at the city, Lucy gasps, “it looks like a toy! So pretty!”

May 2009

Woman with a child was shouting expletives on F-Market and apologizes to Lucy.  Lucy says, “she’s angry because didn’t sleep well.”  I asked Lucy if she heard every expletive and insult that was screamed for 10 minutes. She says, “No, I didn’t open my ears.”

June 2009
(talking about dealing with being afraid of the dark) “I can go under the covers in my bed and then I own my own darkness”

“I didn’t step on the millipede because I think it wants to live”

July 2009
Lucy’s invisible friends Leopard and Kitty (who are also stuffed animals) apparently had their first day of kindergarten today and Lucy has a talk with them about what it was like and how they feel about kindergarten.

“The spinney thing makes the dizzy part of my body go to my tummy,” says Lucy while spinning on playground equipment.

August 2009

“I know everything I already need to know. I never need to know anything else”

“Being smart means you know a lot of stuff and your brain is really strong and you can think of lots of things”

“Even if I already know how to do the whole thing I need to practice to get more good”

She's been afraid to lift her legs off the ground while the bike is moving, but shortly after this photo was taken she did it and lifted her legs up and floated. Bravery! Courage!

She can be just about anything she wants, but I have a soft spot of extra enthusiasm for girls wanting to be scientists, and also a strict promise to myself to try not to require it of her or overly emphasize it.  Since this announcement she’s started describing some specific things (maybe she’s done this before and I only recently noticed) as scientist toys or scientist books or scientist play.  And, oh,  don’t I want to hold onto this confidence and desire and interest she has and spread it out amongst her whole life like soft butter on a pancake.

"C'mon, let's go find the puppies!"

We took a wide berth and walked 3 extra blocks and avoided the protest to protect her.  She doesn’t yet need to know that anyone thinks her parents don’t deserve to be married.  She only needs to know love and support and confidence in her family and friends.  At the Prop 8 Town Hall last week an adult woman stood up and talked, through tears, about how sad she felt when prop8 passed because her moms are married.

I was thinking about this protection when I was leaving the state building after dropping Lucy off at preschool.  She was happy on the couch with her friends, surrounded by teachers and kids who are all her friends and supporters.  Outside it was much different.  There were signs opposing gay marriage purporting that opposing our marriage also “protects” children.  And then there were all the children holding or standing with adults who were holding varieties of yes-on-8 signs.

Why do they bring their kids into this if they purport to protect children?  I like to give them the benefit of the doubt and hope they aren’t teaching their children to hate.  I hope.

It doesn’t help to point out date on airplane ticket or look at a calendar and count the days because, as the preschooler wails, “That’s too LOOOOOOONG to wait!!”

I’m pretty sure she thinks we’re going on a playdate with a man she’s seen all over the media – he has daughters, after all, who are just the right age to be complete idols for a 4 year old. (Speaking of idolizing “older girls” we have a new neighbor who has a 7 year old daughter and my kid is already planning sleepovers with her – if you’re 4, then a 7 year old causes heroine worship)

Also, it’s not Obama or Barack, it’s BarackObama (all one quickly spoken string) as far as my kid’s concerned. She regularly corrects me when I refer to him as Obama.

I’m heading to DC early tomorrow morning for the inauguration along with my 4-year-old daughter Lucy, her friend Olivia, and Olivia’s parents Greg and Christine. My wife’s not going due to work and other things and we’ll all miss her and will do plenty of iChatting (and Twitter DM’ing and txt’ing) with her.

I am BEYOND excited about this trip – tickled that my kid will “see” the inauguration, thrilled that we’ll be there (in the freezing cold) for it, excited to have finally voted for a candidate who won, and hopeful that there’s a smidgen of a chance that this president will do something to give my family some federal legal rights.

I haven’t been to DC since I was 16 years old (in 1987) and that was on a trip with 40+ other 16-year-olds. I don’t remember much about DC except the Vietnam Memorial and eating lots of greasy fast food and staring at the White House. I’m sure I went to lots of other places in DC. I was more interested in having fun with the other kids – some of whom are still my friends today.

We probably won’t get much opportunity to go in any museums, what with the other millions of people in DC next week, and we’ll likely be a very well-packed sardine in the Metro sardine can on Tuesday.

Still. I. Cannot. Wait.

If I felt comfortable enough to throw myself on the ground and yell and kick like my kid, well, I might just copy her.  Sometimes she’s my heroine.

About a month ago, sometime around when this picture was snapped, my 4-year-old declared she is no longer a vegetarian.  My wife and I are “vegetarians” who eat a bit of fish here and there.  We’ve kept our daughter on the same diet, but told her that it’s her choice if she wants to eat meat — it’s not something we’re adament about, we just don’t eat it ourselves — and that we’d just want her to eat sustainably-raised and kindly-killed meat if she eats it.

She’s had a bit of proscuitto at some parties in the past and loved it.  After declaring her desire to be a carnivore we asked her what meat she’d like to eat.  She said, “only cow, that’s the only meat, pigs and chickens and ducks aren’t really meat, I want to eat dead cow.”  We suggested she eat meat at school and not at home, but she said, “I only want to eat meat at home.”

We’re flexible.

We did our grocery shopping at Whole Foods that week instead of Rainbow Grocery so she could pick out some meat.  She selected some all beef cocktail franks (not super healthy, not super unhealthy, already cooked which is nice for those of us who don’t want to cook meat) and we designated a small cast iron fry pan in our house to be the meat-cookin’ pan for our carnivorous preschooler.  She ate a few franks.  She’s asked for them since but then declined to eat them when they’re hot and ready to eat.  She’s tried bits of a few different types of meats at restaurants but didn’t like it.  She tried a bite of turkey at thanksgiving and spat it out.

I’m pretty amused.  I’m proud of her for trying out something new and taking advantage of a choice when, really, kids don’t have that many choices.  She’s my rock star.

In the afternoon, Lucy and I took a tricycle ride (her on trike, me walking) to Cliff’s Variety store in the Castro so she could spend her $22 on whatever she wanted.  She picked a pirate and some treasure.  We ran into some friends – Fred, Minne, Jonathan, Sarah, Esther – and then headed over to Eureka Rec Center where Lucy and Sarah balanced on the teeter totter:

We noticed police shutting down streets near the playground and decided to head home and see what all the fuss was about — it was a sit-in in the middle of 18th/Castro protesting Prop 8:

When we got home, my flyclear card had arrived in the mail – I’m officially not a terrorist!

Then we scampered off to Paul’s birthday party in his backyard with a fire pit and chili (not sure if it was really vegetarian or not but I was polite and just ate it) and yummy s’mores and, according to Lucy, “fun creepy paths” to wander around the dark garden.  There was chitchat at the party about prop 8, about someone who’s getting married soon, and I did my best to try to avoid it.  I still can’t stop the tears sometimes when people talk about prop 8 and I don’t want to be pitied by straight people.  I was slightly relieved when Lucy pulled me away to go play somewhere.  Sometimes a child’s whining is a good excuse to get out of an awkward adult conversation.