Alpha, Omega... Who Needs the Middle?

Did you ever see that email forward that described a study that said if you completely misspell words that the human brain can read the message anyway as long as the first and last letters were correct?  Like this:

Dsd ywu eevr sce taht eimal frrwaod taat dserciebd a sdtuy taht siad if ycu cmlpoeetly mpssiell wdros taht the hmaun biran can raad the mseagse awynay as lnog as the fsrit and lsat leettrs wree cceorrt?

I was always fascinated with that concept, that explains why we can all be bad spellers and fail to catch our own mistakes.  It is because of our amazing brains that we need spellcheck!

Speaking of amazing brains, (yes, here’s the part where I start bragging about my child), my Katy Rose certainly has one.  It seems only last week I was still trying to show her the correct way to hold a crayon or marker.  Now, she is picking them up and holding them without me even mentioning the correct way to hold it.  I can still remember thinking the way we were supposed to hold our pencils was dumb, so I fully expected her to resist.  There I go, making assumptions again.  (Yes, I said it, but that doesn’t mean you need to call me an a#$.  This is a family-friendly blog.)

You may remember I was recently elated to discover that Katy Rose knows how to make smiley faces.  She has really expanded on this talent, and now makes smiley faces on just about every object she draws.  She made a picture at dinner the other night of a cherry tree with a swing, a pumpkin, a sun, and other assorted goodies.  Yes, everyone gets to show their happiness, including the sun, the cherries, and of course, the swing.  I have joined the ranks of parents who are happy to plaster their kids’ handiwork not only on the fridge, but on any available posting space at my work station.

When I came home yesterday, I was blown away by the work she did at Grandma’s house.  She used four pieces of paper from a square notepad, and drew a puppy along with some “words” on the first one.  Then she duplicated the same puppy and words three times!  One for Grandma, one for Mommy, one for Daddy, and one for herself.  Is it just me?  Come on, this is incredible, right?  (“Yes, Wendy, of course it is.  She is an Artist Genius, obviously.”)  Thank you, that’s what I’m talking about!

The really cool part is what she wrote on the pictures.  I asked her to read it to me.  Under the puppy, she made an F and a W.  This spells “Woof” to Katy Rose.  Above the puppy, there is an S and a D.  That spells “said.”  Then above the puppy’s head is a D.  That means “the” (think “de” since she isn’t good at saying the “th” sound yet).  And at the top next to the D is PPE.  That spells “puppy.”  All together, the picture says, “Woof, said the puppy” (or “Woof, said de puppy”).

Wf, sd d ppe.  She’s got the basic first and last sounds down.  Do you realize what this means?  My kid can already spell like the rest of us! 

Look Out for the Nozzles!

My darling four-year-old is really into expressing her opinion.  Unfortunately for me, we have had a lot of clashes of opinion lately.  Well, actually, I suppose that should be unfortunate for her.  Because I am The Mom.  Which means I am In Charge.  Right?  Yes, that's what I keep telling myself.  And her.

We've been trying to get better at attending church, which has been challenging for a few reasons.  First, my husband's work schedule always involves at least one weekend day, and his schedule changes every 2-3 months.  Second, because we don't regularly attend, we don't know anyone at our church because even the family members that go there never seem to go to the same service we go to.  Third, we like going with my in-laws to the church where we were married, which is nowhere close to our house.  And fourth, we have a four-year-old who is opinionated.

For three weeks in a row, we attended mass on Saturday afternoon with Mom & Dad.  Each time, Katy Rose insisted she didn't like to go to church.  And so we made her go, like good parents do, and tried to keep her quiet and behaving well enough to avoid disrupting our neighbors in the pews. 

The first week, I grabbed a hotel notepad from the car just before we went in.  I now carry a box of Crayola crayons in my purse at all times, and it came in handy.  Katy Rose spent her church time drawing four pictures.  A pumpkin, a lemon, a carrot, and an apple.  The carrot and pumpkin are holding babies.  The lemon is jumping on a trampoline.  I was so delighted with her artwork, I took a picture of them after mass and shared it on facebook.  I didn't know she knew how to draw smiley faces already!

So, anyhoo, fast forward a bit and we are thinking of switching churches to a parish that is very close to home.  They have a school and a preschool where we plan to enroll Katy Rose in August.  So we wanted to attend mass there and see how we liked it.  I told Katy we were going to go to church, and she gave me her standard, defiant pout and delcared she doesn't want to go to church.  After a few words about why it's important I tried a different route.  "But there is music at church, and we get to sing songs," I said.  "But I don't like those kind of songs," she countered.  "Why not?"  "Well... because they're too God-ish."

I think I did a sort of double-take on that.  Goddish.  All things relevant to God?  All things Holy?  Hmm...

Almost as funny was when she said she wanted to show me how she can rub her nose when it is itchy.  Then she scratched the bridge of her nose and said, "This is how I scratch my nose when the top part is itchy, not the nozzles."  How's that for a visual?  Talk about a snot-rocket, double barrel!

Remind me to create a Katy Rose glossary.

Heaven is (not) a Place on Earth (posted 4/19/2011)

What do preschoolers think about?  Certainly not what mine has been thinking about: Babies, Heaven, and Death. 

Katy is four years old, going on ten.  Lately we’ve been having conversations on some pretty deep subjects that she has raised.  Many times, our conversations occur in the car while I’m driving.  Out of nowhere from the back seat, she has asked questions and made statements such as,

“Mommy, who will take care of my toys when I die?”
“Mommy, how do we get to heaven?  Can we drive there?”
“Mommy, I’m going to have a puppy.  When I grow up and die, who will take care of my puppy?”
“Mommy, how do you get out of heaven?  Do they have cars so you can drive out of there?”
“Mommy, what if I have to go potty when I’m in heaven?”
“Mommy, what if I get hungry when I’m in heaven?”
“Mommy, will you get God’s phone number?  You have to call her so she will come here because I have to talk to her about some things.  I can’t remember what she looks like.”
“Mommy, when I go to heaven to get a baby, I will remember what it looks like there.”

She’s asked me so many amazing and difficult questions that I’ve had to come up with a philosophy in pretty short order.  Since she was only three (and now four), my philosophy has consisted of the following:

Babies live in heaven with God and the angels before they get to be born here on earth.  The people we love that grow old and die go to heaven and get to help the angels take care of the babies.  (This came about because of a photo of my grandma, who died before Katy was born.)

Everybody dies, but usually not until they are very old.  (Had to quiet her fears as she went through a phase of, “Mom, I don’t want to die!”)  We needn’t be afraid of dying because when it happens we get to go back to heaven.  When we’re in heaven, we are with God, Jesus, and the angels, and we’re happy.
When a mom and dad decide they want to have a baby, they pray to God that they will get to have a baby.  Then God puts a baby in the mom’s belly for it to grow until it’s ready to be born.  (Phew!  Had to come up with that one on the fly when asked where babies come from.)

In heaven, you will have whatever you need.  (Katy couldn’t fathom being anywhere without a potty, so I finally agreed that they have potties there.)  Any food you want, it’s there.  Any game you want to play or thing you want to do, you can do.  (Upon explaining that one, she told me she couldn’t wait to get to heaven.)

God IS Love.  (Whoa… Wrap your mind around that one, Katy Rose!  She’s still working on it.)

Storyteller (posted 3/29/2011)

We just got home and Katy was chillin' on the couch.  Out of the blue she asks me if I want to hear the story of the doctor that came to the house just for Daddy.  Of course I do!  Here is the story, verbatim, as she told it to me.
-----------
One time I waked up and there was just a doctor and Daddy and me.
And I had a mysterious feeling.
And on that day, there were the only chocolate bunnies left that we could eat.
And that’s all my strangest feeling that day.  That’s all that happened.  I still know that.
-----------
This was so bizarre I had to record it for posterity.

Love = Hug (posted 5/12/2010)

As a first-time mom of a normal child, time does not operate the way it once did.  I’m pretty sure I have mentioned this before.  At this stage of the game, all the things that people tell you will happen actually do happen, but for some reason it is still a novelty because it is happening to you and your child, which has never happened before, technically.  Confusing?  Exactly.

For example, at some brilliant stage of toddlerhood, children begin repeating everything they hear.  This is the part where your kid repeats the least appropriate thing you’ve ever said within earshot of her.  And by “within earshot” I mean within a quarter mile radius.  For me, I was able to weather the storm when it came to profanity.  During the beginning of her “Black Beauty” phase, I said “sh#t” under my breath and realized it too late to stop it from coming out.  Immediately I sprang to recover, so by the time she said, “What did you say, Mommy?” I was able to cover with, “Bit.  I said bit.  Remember, the thing they put in the horse’s mouth, in the first part of the movie?  And he didn’t like it?  That was called a ‘bit,’ remember?”

Mike was not so fortunate.  He had a habit of cussing when things went wrong and he had no idea she was able to hear him.  So one day at Grandma’s house, she tried to tug a string off her dolly highchair that was terribly tangled.  As she was unable to free it, she said (to herself), “Fock, fock, fock.”  No, that is not a typo.  Grandma decided to investigate, and sure enough, Katy was using the words in the same sentiment that she had heard her daddy use them, but she pronounced them with a slightly different vowel sound.  When pressed on the matter, Katy simply replied that she heard Daddy say that. 

Grandma told me about this later that day on the phone, when Katy wasn’t around to hear it.  So I wasn’t surprised later that evening that the situation was still on Katy’s mind.  As she was sitting on her froggy potty, out of the blue she said to me, “My daddy says ‘f*&#, f*&#, f*&#’ all the time.”  I proceeded to try explaining to her that this is not a word we should ever say, and that girls, especially little girls who want to be like princesses, definitely shouldn’t say it.  She seemed to buy my explanation because I had done a pretty good job of not using the f word, and I am a girl.  But it was not the last time we discussed this.

When kids start repeating what you say, somehow it seems they know exactly which things are the worst things they could possibly repeat, and then say those things to the exclusion of anything nice that they’ve heard you say.  One day, Mike and Katy Rose were reading “Pat the Bunny.”  Mike pointed out that a character in the book, Judy, looked like she had a big butt on one of the pages.  (I’m just going to chalk that up to being a boy, like maybe they just can’t help it.)  I butted into the conversation and asserted that it was NOT nice to talk about other people’s butts.  The last thing I need is for Katy to tell me I have a big butt, or worse, someone else has one.  I once had a friend’s daughter giggle and say, “Mommy, Wendy’s fat.”  Yeah, let’s not encourage this.

Another amazing thing about this age is when kids start to recognize that they are growing.  We have a little hand and foot print framed on Katy’s wall from when she was 6 weeks old.  I’ve taken it down and tried to show her how we can use those to see how big her hands and feet have grown.  I soon learned that hands and feet are not the only things that grow.  One day while she was undressed, Katy came to me and proclaimed that her “bras” got bigger.  Oh boy.  Two nights ago, Katy informed me that her butt got bigger, followed by a show of one foot and the claim that it got bigger, too.  (Phew.)

Sometimes, though, this stage turns out to be purely amazing.  Suddenly, my two year old switched into a three year old, seemingly overnight.  Now and then I can almost see the wheels turning in her brain.  At this age, it is precious to witness Katy trying to make new logical connections based on what she already knows.  Last night I asked her if she wanted to sit on the big couch with me, or on the loveseat.  She knew them both as couches, so the loveseat term was new to her.  She tried repeating the word to me, so I said it again—the smaller couch is called a loveseat.  She thought about it for about 3 seconds and then said, “So… we hug it??” 

That’s right, love = hug.  <3

Tales from the Potty (posted 11/9/2009)

We are in the midst of potty training.  Despite my lack of do-or-die commitment to getting this completely done, we seem to be doing pretty well.  But this experience has opened up the door to some majorly funny expressions out of Katy's mouth.  So I'd just like to share a few with you.
The most common right now is: "Mommy, I want to do it MY-SELF."

"Mommy, I have pee pee to make in the potty!"
"Mommy, I made pee pee in my diaper."
"Mommy, let's read a hippopah-mus book.  Let's read two, three, four, five, six, seven books!  Get them, Mommy!"
"Mommy, these are pull-ups.  Daddy bought them for me today at the store."
"Mommy, I want to sit on the froggy potty."
"Mommy, I made pee pee in the potty!  Look!!"
"Mommy, I want to put it in the toy-wet.  I will flush the toy-wet."

And hands-down my favorite:

"Mommy!  I made poopy in my diaper!  And it's NAS-TY!  It's Bad News!!"

Yeah, you're welcome for that one.  :)

I Don't Sink So (posted 10/19/2009)

Well, alright, the title of this entry has nothing to do with what I wanted to write about.  I don't have a lot of time to write today, but I did want to tell you we have had some major, amazing, milestone action in the last 48 hours.

Katy Rose WENT PEE PEE IN THE POTTY!!!!!!!!!  YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!

Whew!  Sorry, had to put that out there.  After months of having a little potty that has songs and a sensor to reward the child after doing some business, but not having success getting her interested in sitting on it, I decided a different strategy was in order.  We went shopping together and picked out a potty.  It's a froggy.  It's very cute.  It's very simple.  It's $12.

This weekend, Katy Rose managed to make pee pee in the potty a number of times.  I used books to keep her entertained on the potty, and Littlest Pet Shop stickers to reward her for trying.  We're early in the game, but kickoff has finally taken place, at long last.

Back to the title... whenever we ask Katy Rose if she has poopy in her diaper or has to make pee pee, she has gotten in the habit of smirking and saying in a teasing voice, "I don't sink so..."  What a little stinker.

Please, Lord, let me be able to donate the new, unopened tube of Desitin... Let's get this kid out of diapers!