Mary is… well, she’s…“different”.

Kids go through phases. All parents know this and accept it. They know that an annoying habit will fade eventually, but they also know that it can work in the opposite direction; something cute or funny a child does will almost certainly end one day. Having said that, Cam is going through a very interesting phase right now, and I’m sure I’ll have mixed feelings when it’s over.

His current phase: Cam is constantly pretending he’s a girl.

It seems to have started a few months ago. Cam began pretending he was the characters on Calliou: first he was Calliou, and then Leo and then Andre. Then suddenly he was Sarah more often than not, and then Rosie and Clementine, and then I don’t remember the last time he wanted to be any of the boys.

Now he wants to be any girl in any book we read or any TV show we watch. Whenever we’re reading a book, he’ll point to every single girl and ask their name, so he can add them to his list of characters.

Off the top of my head, he has recently been:

- D.W. (from the Arthur books)

- Betsy (from a Curious George story)

- Emily Elizabeth (from Clifford)

- Martha (one of Emily Elizabeth’s friends)

- Sallie (from the Cat in the Hat. He really likes her bow).

- Little Girl Going Potty Who Wants Privacy (from his potty training book).

- Daffodil (the girl bunny from Clifford’s Puppy Days. He keeps forgetting her name, and we have to remind him.)

- Little Girl Who’s Afraid of Monsters and Whose Pony Tail Goes Flying Up (????)

And most recently:
- Cindy Lou Who (How the Grinch Stole Christmas)

Our absolute favorite, however, has got to be “Different Mary”. One episode of Calliou had a little girl on named Mary, and later that day Cam said, “I’m Mary”. And we said, “Like Mary had a little lamb? That Mary?”. And Cam replied, “No, different Mary”. And the name stuck.

Cam takes his acting quite seriously. When he is in character, you must address him correctly. One day I was driving in the car with him, and a song came on that he had heard before. As I was turning it up, I said, “Hey Cammy, you like this song!”, and Cam quickly corrected me: “Different Mary likes this song”. He also likes to establish his character early. One morning when he woke up, I walked into his room, and Cam was struggling to pull himself up to a stand, wiping the sleep out of his eyes, and the first thing he said to me was, “I’m Different Mary”.

Like I said, I’ll have mixed feelings when this phase is over. On one hand, it’s freaking hysterical. On the other hand, we have all these boy’s clothes that are just going to go to waste.

For Want of Any Words at All

A couple of weeks ago, Cam and I went to the playground. He ignored the swings, the slide, the climbing structure, and the play car in favor of exploring the path surrounding the park. As it was ninety degrees out, I made a point of telling him that we shouldn't get too hot, and we must remember to drink our water.

He half-ran and half-marched in that distinctive toddler way, kicking up dust with his sandals and stopping every few feet to inspect rocks. I followed and swatted at the mosquitoes that landed on his ankles and on the back of his neck. Every once in a while, he would pick up a rock, study it for a moment and turn to me, saying "I bring ish one home."

When it came time to leave the playground, Cam placed his three new treasures on the seat of his tricycle where they promptly fell off. Undeterred, he picked them up and, clutching them to his chest, waited patiently for me to push him home.

Bending over, even slightly, while 30 weeks pregnant is no small feat. Bending over while 30 weeks pregnant in ninety degree heat and pushing a 28 pound toddler on a tricycle for three blocks is, as you can imagine, even more of a challenge, and not something I'm looking forward to doing again. But Cam was determined to get these rocks home, and he didn't trust that they would travel safely in his pockets or in mine (believe me, I tried).

It was a long, sticky walk home, but we made it, and so did the rocks. Cam named them (Clementine, Kaitlyn and Leo) and placed them gently in his kiddie pool to cool them off, cheerfully saying "Shouldn't get too hot!" I wiped the sweat off of my forehead and wondered if what I was experiencing was heatstroke.

******

At home, Cam gives me his toy stethoscope and tells me to check his heartbeat. I oblige, saying "It says. . .ba-dum, ba-dum. . .and it says your heart loves cookies, and trucks, and Mommy and Daddy, and dogs and tractors, and your sandbox, and playing outside."

Cam carefully places the stethoscope around his neck and listens to my heartbeat, and his brow furrows with the importance of the exam. "Mommy yuvs. . .cookies! And Cammy! And Ho Ho [his name for Santa Claus]! And Daddy! And Ho Ho again! Yuv Ho Ho two times!"

******

He talks and talks all day long, always in exclamation points. He names everything: the windowsill, the couch, the rug, and a blue plastic teething ring are called Sally and Billy and George and Andre, respectively. They are all his friends.

He adores his stuffed animals, and will pick them up one by one, telling me "Ish my friend. I yuv him so much. I hug him so tight."

******

I spend good portions of my days trying to make sense of what all of this means to me in words that will satisfy my mind. Nothing fits. No words are large enough.

All I know is how it feels during these moments, when it becomes increasingly clear to me that Cam is a kind, funny and compassionate little person who worries about rocks being too hot, and who needs to name and personify every inanimate object he comes across. Behind my ribcage, something stirs and begins to tighten. Behind my eyes, a bite. If I could, I would look away. It can be too much sometimes.

What can I do? How can I say it? I resist writing anything down for fear of diminishing what I feel, for fear of not doing justice to who my little boy is.

At the end of the day, it must be enough to say He is amazing. He blows us away all the time.

And at the end of the day, when Cam has hugged his animals close and professed his love for all of them, and there are no words that are big enough, I opt for small words. I tell him "Mommy and Daddy love you so much. We hug you so tight." I think it is enough.

First Love

We took Cameron to the zoo for the first time this past weekend. We thought he’d really enjoy all the animals, because he loves playing with his toy animals and reading about them in books. He knows all the names of the barnyard persuasion, and could identify at least the most popular animals on an African safari. He also knows the corresponding sounds that they all make (his elephant impersonation is great; it’s kind of like “doo doo DOOOoooo!”, done in a high-pitch voice. Absolutely hysterical).

Cam seemed somewhat interested in the first animals we saw (the zebras), but his attention quickly shifted to the miniature “train” that was giving families rides around the park. He also immensely enjoyed playing in the jeep that had “crashed” into the Lion’s den (while giving the actual Lion a passing glance at best), and he had a great time riding on a giant mechanical bunny on the Merry-Go-Round (the real bunnies were completely ignored). And of course we had to end the day in the playground with the giant wooden trains and fire trucks. I’ve said it before: this boy loves his vehicles. The animals didn’t stand a chance.

While Cam was playing in one of the wooden structures, a little girl who was probably 4 or 5 came up to Cam, and appeared to grab his hands. I couldn’t quite see what was going on, and a second or two later the little girl ran off. Cam stepped out of the house with a bewildered look on his face. “What happened, buddy? What’s going on?” I asked him. Cam held up both his hands. “Yittle girl kiss hands”, he said. “She kissed your hands?” I asked. Cam nodded. His gaze then turned to the girl as she scampered away, and said “Yittle girl come back!”

Perhaps cars won’t stay his first love for long.

the Pretenders

The plastic yellow dump truck is Dorothy; a red matchbox car that Cam opened on his second birthday is the Scarecrow. For the wizard, we use Mr. Potato Head. The man behind the curtain is a Playmobil truck driver. Toto is represented by a chewed green straw that we picked up at Starbucks. I get to be Auntie Em this morning, and Cameron is playing both the roles of Tin Man and the Wicked Witch.

My favorite character is the Cowardly Lion: a wad of sheep's wool wrapped around a broken tongue depressor and secured with pipe cleaners. Cam and I made it last month at our farm-hosted playgroup. Every time I see it out of the corner of my eye, I wonder how on earth a handful of pubic hair has ended up on my coffee table.

"I Tin Man! I stuck!" Cam cries, beginning our game.

"You can't talk." I remind him. "Dorothy hasn't oiled your mouth yet."

Once he becomes unstuck, Cam likes to skip directly to the exciting part. He hands me Mr. Potato Head. "I am the Wizard!" I say in a deep, booming voice.

Now comes Cam's favorite plot twist: Pulling the Playmobil truck driver out from under a pillow, he gleefully announces "Tricked you! I not great big wizard! I just yittle guy!" The wizard's act of deceit and subsequent exposure delights Cam to no end. Sometimes we act out this scene dozens of times.

From here, the menagerie moves on to the castle of the Wicked Witch, who glares at the dump truck and remarks sternly "I no YIKE you, yittle girl!!!" The dump truck responds by tossing a bucket of water (a crayon; burnt sienna) at the Witch, who in turn screams "I melting! I melting! I melting!"

Flash forward to Kansas. The dump truck has been abandoned and the part of Dorothy is now being played by Cam, who flings himself into my arms. "I miss you, Auntie Em!" he cries in a high pitched squeak (his best "girl voice").

"I missed you too, Dorothy! I'm so glad you came back!" I say.

"Yesh. Now Auntie Em nurses Wizard." he says. He hands me Mr. Potato Head and eagerly waits for the feeding to commence.

"Sweetie," I say, breaking character, "Mommy doesn't really want to nurse Mr. Potato Head."

"Just pretend." he tells me.

Duh.