"My love you, Dada."
"You're best my friend."
"I love you to the moon and the stars and the fan."
These were all things Amari has said to me since beginning her mastery of the English language.
Even without words, she has made given me magical powers to heal boo boo's with kisses and dissolve fears and sadness with hugs. She has helped me to finally feel like the grown-up I always imagined I would one day become. And then, in a matter of moments, she reduced me to the insecure teenager I used to be.
The scene was our front yard, a sunny enough day to pull out the dinky, fifteen dollar, plastic pool. While she splashed around, I decided to get some vitamin D on my magic hugging arms so I took off my shirt and lay down on a towel. I've never been a confident fan of sunbathing, but I was with my "best friend" who loves me "to the moon and the fan," so I went for it. Seconds later, on one of her jaunts outside the pool, Amari sat next to me and said, "Dada, your boobs are wobbly." I took it pretty well, and promptly rolled over onto my stomach. She took that well, and as an opportunity to climb on my back, poke my shoulder, and ask, "Dada, is your pimple happy?" For the record, it was a mole. But nonetheless, neither my mole nor I were exceptionally happy. It was all pretty funny, though.
Yesterday, I told Amari we might go to the park in the morning. With the weather changing quickly and creating some uncertainty about outdoor activities, I tried to disguise our plans during a phone call with Jim.
Jim: What do you have going on this morning?
Me: We're thinking about going to the P - A - R - K.
Amari (angrily): No, I don't want to go to the P - A - R - K. I want to go to the park.
And finally, tonight at dinner, she was talking to her food, creating a little dramatic scene between her and the starch. Playing both rolls, she says:
Rice says, "Are you going to eat me?"
Amari says, "Yes. I'm going to eat you."
(Pause to take giant bite of rice) "Mmmmm."
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