Tuesday, January 26, 2016

The Informant

A few months ago, the munchkin had decided that her new interest was fake sneezing. Finding it to be the funniest thing imaginable, she would use it as a measure to cheer herself up or to break the monotony of a conversation her father and I were having, in which she was not included.  It was endearing in some ways and a catch-22 in others.

When she decided that it was time to ‘hide’ (taking a piece of clothing or one of the sheets from her bed), she would attempt to stay quiet. Ultimately she would provide a clue to where she was hiding by ‘sneezing’ and then following it with a giggle. Her father and I would pretend we had no idea where she was after said sneeze to keep up appearances. She would then pop out from under the shirt or sheet so say ‘Peek-A-Boo!’

On a number of occasions, as I would walk down the street holding munchkin’s hand, she initiated a process of sneezing in order to jump really high into the air. Upon her landings, she often would drag me down or a bit to the side. I did not quell her fun. (My perspective is that childhood is the one time you are allowed to jump in the air without people looking at you like you are insane. In fact, most people genuinely smile when they see the munchkin doing this.)  After almost every sneeze, I would either say “Bless you!” or “That sneeze was so powerful, we should go to the doctor and have her check it out.”  The sneezing-jumping phase lasted for a few weeks, which included the early period of her pre-school introduction.

There we were at drop off one morning when the little one decided to fake sneeze in front of the head teacher. My face was aghast.

Munchkin reported to the teacher, “I got a powerful sneeze so I should go to the doctor to make sure I feel better.”

The teacher responded, “Ok!”

Of course, I felt the need to explain that she was not sick but fake sneezing. But am not sure how far that explanation went to pacifying the teacher’s fear of powerful sneezes not being an indication of sickness.  What this incident also initiated was a period where my tiny one would point out the obvious or inform people of things that perhaps they did not care to know.

Some of the items include:
“Hey Mommy, you are short!”
“Mommy, your toe nails are purple.”
“Daddy, cover your mouth when you cough!”
“Mommy, you have food in your mouth so don’t talk!”


Who knows what she said to other people? These were examples of the running commentary in my purview – as you can see most of them involved pointing out my mishaps or flaws (I guess she learned something from Nonna after all). After weeks of this behavior, I christened her ‘the informant’ because she delivered every line like the roving reporter on the evening news broadcast – matter-of-fact with no color commentary.