A Little Jingle

Kenzie can say some things that really tickle the funny bone (in the funny way, not the painful way). I am always shocked by the stuff she comes up with!

Garrett spends most mornings eating breakfast with MaKenzie, and that is a time of day when she is just a happy little chatty thing (she definitely gets this from her dad, he is the one eating breakfast with her because I am still in bed trying to separate myself from the pillow). A few mornings back Kenzie was sitting at the breakfast table just being her usual chatty self. She often insists on looking at the back of a cereal box just like we do. This particular cereal box had a picture of a Christmas tree, a dolphin, a pencil, and the state of California. Kenzie just randomly burst out into song about the back of her cereal box, and her song went something like this:

"I have a Christmas tree,

I have a dolphin,

I have a pencil,

and I have a . . . . (long pause as she looks at the state of California) sock."

Clever and funny. I couldn't stop laughing. I wish I could record Garrett's impersonation of her singing . . .

The Taste of a Burp

We had a great Saturday afternoon outing to the park with Garrett. In honor of the chilly weather, hot chocolate was very appropriate when we arrived home. As we sat around the kitchen table sipping the goodness, Kenzie let out a killer burp and then excitedly declared:

"Oh mama, there is hot chocolate in my burp!"

She has now personally experienced the world of tasteful burps.

To add further enlightenment to the evening Kenzie continued to amuse us at the dinner table. I was serving spaghetti and meatballs tonight and served her a plate without any meatballs as I assumed that any attempt to get her to eat a meatball would be unsuccessful. When I walked to the table with my plate of spaghetti with three yummy meatballs on top Kenzie's eyes got real big and she made this amazing request:

"WOW mommy, I want balls on my spaghetti too."

Somehow I am certain that if I had offered the meatballs in the first place that she would have declined the offer.

White Lies, Bunny Rabbits, and Elmo

The best white lie in my home growing up came in the form of a little bunny rabbit. My little sis was an animal freak. She loved anything that hopped, barked or meowed. The tragedy always came when the animal died. My poor little sister was devestated by the death of her little furry friends. Well, our sweet little bunny rabbit friend (whose name I can't even remember . . . I was NOT the animal lover in the family) joined our family and did his thing as he happily ate in his cage and pooped all over the house whenever we thought it was a good idea to let him out. The problem came one day in the form of a three year old that my mom was babysitting. Naturally the little girl thought picking up the rabbit and shaking it by the neck would be a great thing to do. This bright idea left our rabbit friend paralyzed. It was a horrible sight to see, even for me - the anti-pet lover. Our little rabbit's neck was stuck in a side ways position and every time he hopped his front paws hit his little face. My parents took the little guy to the vet to see if anything could be done. The vet couldn't do anything except put the poor little thing to sleep to stop the suffering. Well, rather than reveal the truth to my little sister my parents stopped at a pet store on the way home from the vets. They searched frantically for another white rabbit with brown spots; but without any success. So, they did the next best thing, they bought a rabbit with dark brown fur and told my sister that as part of the rabbits treatment the vet had given him a special bath and the shampoo dyed the rabbit's fur dark brown. I'm not sure when the truth caught up with her, but it saved my parents a burying in the backyard and a devastated daughter.

Now, the beginning of my white lies doesn't even begin to compare to this, but it is a good beginning nonetheless. You see, Kenzie has an absolute love for an Elmo t-shirt that my little sister got her for Christmas last year. The child would wear it every day if she could. A few days ago she was going through the routine of asking for her Elmo shirt (that I had hidden in hopes that if she didn't see it then she wouldn't miss it). Well, the out-of-sight-out-of-mind tactic failed and she started asking for it every morning. My response was that the shirt was too small and she couldn't wear it anymore (TOTAL lie . . . I mean, WHITE lie). My lies were caught when Kenzie was talking to Aunt Ginny a few days back and Aunt Ginny asked her about her favorite Elmo shirt. Kenzie proudly announced that Elmo was too small and I was caught. My sister has teased me about it ever since.

I guess I have a lot to learn in the white lie portion of parenting, but I've got time to practice. ;)

So cough it up . . . what have you lied about?

A Child's Prayer

I don't know about the rest of you, but prayer time can feel like a zoo at times. Our morning prayers are not typically too bad because they precede going out the door. Going out the door is something MaKenzie is looking forward to, and knowing that prayers have to be completed before leaving is reason enough for her to sit down and fold her little arms. Nighttime prayers are a totally different story. These prayers are inevitably followed by going to bed - something that Kenzie will try as craftily as possible to avoid. These evening prayers sometimes require bribery ("Daddy will give you a piggy back ride if you say prayers") and can even come to subtle threats when our patience is waning ("No bedtime book if you don't come and pray with us"). The threats are something we try to avoid because we don't want her associate prayer time with something horrible, but when you're tired and looking forward to get a crazy kid in bed you do whatever works fastest. Once we are gathered, the way the prayer itself goes depends on her mood. If she is feeling silly she will chant Jesus' name through the entire prayer or play peek-a-boo with Jordyn. If she is feeling sassy she will lay on her back and refuse to kneel. If she is feeling sweet then she will actually kneel, bow her head, and close her eyes (only for the first few seconds of coarse - I don't know one two year old who keeps their eyes closed for the entire prayer?) By the end of these encounters we can often wonder why we are going through this process as all? Well, the answer same yesterday in a pretty humorous way . . .

Kenzie is a bit clumsy. She tends to get excited and not watch where she is going, and then when she trips on her way to her destination she can have a total break down. Yesterday we were celebrating a poo-poo in the potty momentous occasion and we were excitedly running into the kitchen for a pez reward. Well, she tripped in transit and fell on her knee. The first words out of her mouth (in that loud, whining, fake cry, two-year-old, tantrum voice) were, "Ooooweeeee, I waaaant to saaaay a p-p-praaaayer to maaaake my kneeeee all bet-t-t-ter." I'm proud to say that we said a little prayer right then and there (even though my typical feeling towards the fake cry is annoyance). As soon as we finished our prayer Kenzie popped up and said, "See, Jesus works, all better."

Lesson learned: Every prayer that ends with you secretly wanting to throw your child out the window is actually a step in the right direction.

Be Careful What You Say . . .

Kenzie is really becoming a regular little parrot lately, and its bringing me to a brutal realization of the need to change some of our vocabulary around here . . . What I never thought was bad now sounds horrible coming out of the mouth of a child. (Or maybe I'm making a big deal out of nothing? What do you think?)

Anyway, the highlight of the week came last night when Kenzie walked up from behind me, grabbed my butt, and said "Hey sexy mama." Apparently Garrett's attempts to grab my butt unnoticed have not been successful. Oh man, this kid makes me laugh.

The Best Things in Life

Life was a blur today. I felt like I was rushing from one thing to the next and the first time I sat down was when I scarfed down my dinner so that I could more quickly tend to a fussy baby and a ringing telephone. At the end of the day as I'm trying to sit here and wind down, I keep thinking back to that moment in the car today when I looked in my rear view mirror to see Kenzie silently playing peek-a-boo with Jordyn and Jordyn laughing her little baby face off. In that moment I was just unbelievably grateful that heaven sent me these two amazing kids. They may be sweat and tears at times, but they are also the greatest amount of happiness and love that I have ever felt. It seems that the best things in life take the most amount of work.

Frustrations

Kenzie is starting to show signs of not wanting to take naps in the afternoon and it is really freaking me out. She has been great about staying in her big girl bed up until two nights ago. She now gets up and walks out of her room several times and NOTHING seems to work. The night before last she didn't go down until nine because she kept thinking it was a game to get out of her bed over and over and over again. I'm going a little bit insane partly because mommy time is necessary and also because my management job is extremely demanding lately; basically, an hour or two of naps in the afternoon is something I have come to depend on to get by . . . I want to try and transition Kenzie into having "quite time" in the afternoon if naps are something that she really doesn't need anymore. The thing is that the attention span of a two and a half year old doesn't seem to coincide with a quite time each day? I think motherhood is a never ending stream of problem solving. Let's see how creative I can get this time . . .