Max and Lilja Stories

Leysia's Mom, Carole, asked me to send her some stories about what the kids are doing these days. I decided to copy the stories I sent to her via e-mail and post them here "on the record". I also added a few more that I forgot to put in the e-mail message to her. Enjoy!

Ken

---

1. Yesterday I woke up to the sound of a metal object being tapped on glass; I rolled over and opened my eyes and found Lilja holding my eyeglasses with the left side of the glasses (the part that rests on my ear, (which I discovered today is called a "temple")) ripped off and using said part to tap on the lenses of the glasses. When I woke up, she gave me a big smile and said "Hi Papa!" I sighed and said "Good morning Lilja" and spent yesterday not being able to see anything close up. Fortunately, I was able to get a new frame today and I'm back to "normal".


2. As I was getting Lilja out of the car on Saturday, she looked up at the car light on the ceiling of the car and, without warning, said "Bye Bye Light!" while waving at the light.


3. Lilja now likes to have stories read to her (before this she wouldn't sit still for a story and indeed actively worked to get hold of the book so she could toss it aside). She will methodically collect all of her books into a stack and then come find me. She grabs my arm and says "Read! Lilja Read! Read!" or "Mon! Mon! (which is how she says "Come on!") over and over again as she drags me towards the books.


4. Lilja is starting to be able to move very fast; she is already using this speed to keep things away from Max. I've seen her come up to Max who is playing with some random set of toys, grab one of the toys, and then speed away with Max in pursuit. She is sometimes able to keep things from Max for several minutes! (In Max's defense, he is trying to get the object back without unfairly using his size to his advantage; he could just tackle her and grab the item, but he's too gentle for that.)


5. Lilja loves to dance (and she's recently started singing and humming to herself as she plays, just like Max did at her age). I start playing songs on my computer using iTunes and she runs to the middle of the room and starts dancing; she immediately looks towards my computer and starts yelling "Lights! Lights! Lights!" and what she's referring to is the fancy graphics that iTunes can generate while it plays a song. So, I have no choice but to switch iTunes to its graphics mode and start dancing with her! Max joins in as well.


6. Last night, Max was talking to Leysia and Leysia was telling him about a family in the hotel she's staying at that lost everything in Hurricane Katrina. This family has a little boy around 5 years old and a girl around Lilja's age. Leysia asked Max what she should get the little boy as a present and Max said "A remote-controlled robot! That would be cool!" and then he looks at me and whispers "We should get that for me too!".


7. When I was putting Max down for a nap this weekend, I explained that it was for his own good because resting when you have a cold is a great way for your body to fight the cold and help you get better. His face becomes curious and he asks "How?" My usual approach in these situations is to just tell him the answer (as best I know it) without attempting to water it down too much. So, I say "Well, your body has an immune system and part of that system is something called a T Cell and these cells float through the blood stream looking for viruses and other things that make you sick. When they find a cell infected by a virus, the T cells trigger a process that causes the cell to die, thus killing the virus inside of it." Max takes all of that in and nods and then takes his nap. I then go about my day and I must confess that I forget completely about telling Max this story. Max, however, does not, and apparently was thinking about what I said for about a day and finally out of the blue asks me "What happens when a T cell encounters another T cell? Do they try to kill each other?" I was floored, absolutely floored. For about a minute I could do nothing but stare at him in surprise as the memory of telling him about T cells came crashing through my brain; I then regained my composure and explained to him that T cells have a way of recognizing each other and other parts of our body and only attack those things that shouldn't be there. He nods and goes back to playing, and I'm left contemplating how amazing little kids can be!