The Fabulous Bisfarook

Hello.  And don't I look darling?  Especially my hair?  C'est fabu.  Moments before this was taken, I was pitching a fit.  Oh about how my diaper and pajamas were put on of course.  I gots to keep the 'rents on their toes.

And then there's this one again.  Tonight, Birdie selected Caps For Sale as one of her before-bed books, and as we set off with its peddler selling his caps, right on cue, she began crowing, "Caps!  Caps for sale!"  Caps For Sale is an atypical selection, and has been read to Birdie perhaps less than five times, if that, so Julie was suitably impressed.  Birdie did the same thing when Julie began Inside, Outside, Upside Down: parroted the beginning right along with Julie, and as Julie reached the last page, Birdie cried out "Mama!  Mama!"  (The last page reads, "Mama!  Mama!  I went to town!  Inside, outside, upside down!")

Just yesterday at pick-up, Julie ran into one of Clara's teachers, Ms. Manisha, as Manisha was headed out and Julie was headed in.  Manisha stopped Julie to say that Clara was doing so well with letters, that Clara had been picking out the C for Clara from the alphabet assemblage, but had, that day, also picked out an A.  Julie said she was so glad to know it, because she admittedly sometimes worried that she wasn't shifting gears well between Joe and Clara, and worried that Clara was getting short shrift in the work on these basic concepts.  It's less to do with their ages, and more to do with their approach to things.  Joe has always been rather focused on, for example, whatever is being read to him at night, while Clara seems to be distracted.  But she isn't.  Like, Brigade, lately, she's been levering herself over to see if she can put her toe in her mouth (she can).  What the heck?!*  And then she up and informs you of the colors of all the crayons in If You Give a Mouse a Cookie all "Duh, Mommy."  Julie was relaying all of this (except the bit about the toe) to Ms. Manisha and Manisha said "Oh yes, they're very different!  Very different.  Joe was all focus and Clara's got to be playing with her shoe or something.  But so smart!"

So apparently, Julie can lighten up a bit when it seems like Clara is more concerned with figuring out whether she can maneuver her toe into her mouth than The Task at Hand.

*But, now then, Julie will admit here, for the first time, that this all called up a vague memory she has of trying to cram her toe into her mouth, and when she was much older, say six or seven.  Why?!?!  Why?????  It was during the summer, and she happened to be at her maternal grandparents' house.  Her grandfather saw her doing this and said, "You are bisfarooked."  This is a made up word from what Julie can tell, and means what you might expect: crazy.  See also: wackadoodle.  One can also be a bisferook; it is both an adjective, and a noun.  Julie grandfather's sisters once told Julie that their mother spoke German in their house, and Julie mentioned this bisfarook word, but they didn't recognize it as being any of the German their mother spoke.