Cassie Speaks

Last night as I was getting Cassie ready for bed, she lay on her changing table drawing on one of those little boards where you make pictures with what I assume is some kind of iron powder, with a magnet pen. Cassie has just started to draw faces--two dots for eyes, a short vertical line for a nose, and a longer horizontal line for a mouth. She made one of those and told me it was a picture of Mama.

"Cool," I said. "Can you give me short hair?" Cassie made a scribble above my eye dots.

"Can you give me earrings?" She made two little vertical lines on the sides of my face. Unfortunately, one of my earrings veered off and eliminated my left eye, which was after all, only a dot to begin with.

Cassie got frustrated. She said, "I'm going to draw my other mama!"

"Your other mama?"

"Yeah."

"What's your other mama's name?"

"Shakira!"

I know it really doesn't mean much, but I have to say that I'm pleased as Punch that despite being raised by a straight couple currently in a very white suburb, Cass was able to drum up a Black second mom from somewhere.

And while I'm telling Cassie anecdotes, maybe I'll just slip in a couple more recent ones. (Cassie has long been a fairly productive generator of little stories and bon mots--among her very first sentences, a year and a half ago, were "Night-night, Daddy's shirts!" and "Mama, Daddy, bottle gin!")

--

Transcript of a conversation from early February: Cassie (perfectly healthy) is sitting on one couch in the living room. Pete is on the other couch, reading the paper. I'm just hanging out with her for a few minutes before supper.

Cassie: I can watch television, though, because I'm sick.

Mama: No, sweetie, you're not sick. And besides, it's suppertime. We need to go wash our hands.

Cassie: No, I AM sick!

Mama: You're sick, huh? What do you have?

Cassie: Sickness.

(Daddy laughs.)

Cassie: DON'T LAUGH AT MY SICKNESS!

--

We spent Christmas at my brother Erik's (big ol') house, and then flew to Philadelphia to stay with our dear friends Josh and Tommy for a couple days. Pete had gotten there before Cassie and me, since the MLA conference was in Philadelphia this year. He met us at the airport, but my mom (who flew with Cassie and me on her way to other engagements) still said she would give us a ride to Josh & Tommy's house in her rental car. She'd parked it at one of those remote lots, and so we all took the shuttle together to get her car.

When we got to the lot, the smell was just terrible--like the whole world was made of exceedingly ripe camembert or something. In talking to somebody, Pete found out that there was a sewage treatment plant right next door to the parking area. That got us talking to Cassie about sewage treatment plants, and for the next few days, we'd periodically get asked about it again. We'd talk about how all the stinky stuff from people's toilets and sinks from all over the city all goes to the sewage treatment plant, where they do things to the water to make it clean again.

Anyway, about a week after the last time we'd mentioned it, Cassie was watching the water go down the drain at the end of her bath. She was on her hands and knees, peering down into the drain, talking about cities and all the stinky stuff... And I prompted, "and then where does it all go?" Cassie looked up and replied promptly and proudly, "Grandma Sal's rental car!"