The little big picture

CZ, age three, very shortly after we moved to New York

I needed some perspective yesterday, so I got out my little journal of things CZ said when she was little. I know that all children say cute things when they are small, and I have my favorite things that other children have said, too. But I only have permission to post ones that CZ has said. (Yes, she got to edit the list.) I do think they show her particular personality and make me appreciate her. These are through about age six:

In the backyard: "That's toys-in-ivy. Want to get the toys out."

"Does the Holy Spirit have a stethoscope?"

"May I walk on water when I grow up?...Oh, I'll walk in water."

Saying her prayers after going to the Metropolitan Museum: "Thank you God for the paintings you made." "Well, " I explained, wanting her to understand the difference between God's creativity and man's, "Men made the paintings, and God gave them the creativity. She paused for a few minutes, folded her hands, and began again, "Thank you God for the frames. I know you made the frames!"

"I don't want this bagel anymore. It's starting to taste like puzzle pieces."

"On the holidays, Grandmommy cooks hollandaise!"

***

Under the desk, playing with the nativity scene, and narrating in a story-teller voice:

"Once there was a woman named Mary, and it was a wonderful sight..."

"Once there was Mary, Joseph, Jesus and sheep. And it was good, but their problem was the goat [donkey] couldn't fit in the barn..."

"Once upon a time, there was Mary, Joseph, Jesus, a sheep and a donkey. And it worked out really well and it was fine and alright, though Jesus just, just, crawled everywhere...to save Mary from crocodiles and stuff!"

"Once upon a time there was a barn..."

***

"Do stars have gravity?"

"I need to go to the doctor tomorrow and tell him I have hypochondria."

***

Me, reading the Bible: "As far as the East is from the West, so far I will remove your sins from you."

CZ, looking very surprised: "You mean they're all the way over on the West Side?!!"

***

Stretching her boots out in her stroller: "My boots are so yellow. They're as yellow as old cabs."

With her first 100-piece puzzle all laid out around her on the floor: "Is this a chapter puzzle?"

***

Looking rather wistfully out the window towards the street, on a cloudy day. "Every part of the world is crowded today."

Looking out same window, on another day, with growing horror: "How did it get to be Monday? Is the whole city Monday?!"

***

"A month is a long time, but you can't see it. In here is a month, and out there is a month, but you can't see it. You can see through it, like air...Can you see microwaves? They're like that."

"What is dinner time + dinner time?...Way past my bedtime!"

"I'm a happy girl, 'cause I have a little fort, and the reason I'm in here so much is...I don't know how to get out!"

"Mommy, I like the way there can be TV on TV."

After we missed the express bus because there wasn't enough room for everyone to get on and the door closed on someone's backpack: "Mommy, it's okay. We didn't want that bus...It was just full of lawyers anyway."

Standing with me while we were waiting for the elevator: "Am I imagining this?"

From the bathtub: "Mommy, the water's running out of float-ness!"

To Bob, conspiratorially, while playing Frisbee in the park: "Okay, get ready! You never know where Mommy's going to throw it next!"

"You put a puzzle piece where you think it goes, not where you hope it goes. You hope it goes everywhere."

Me, looking absently at a take-out menu: "Your hot dog comes with two sides."

CZ, puzzled: "Everything has to have at least two sides, or it wouldn't be real."

"Lotsarella, please!"

and

At Grandmommy's house in rural Georgia, sleepily describing the sound of crickets in the woods: "They sound like millions of car horns blowing, far away."

***

Sometimes we just need to look at the big picture, don't we?