I Don't Know Why, But I Do

How does that saying go: kids say the darnedest things! I’m not quite to that place yet where my parents say something and I respond, or I ask a question or say a statement. But I have my fair share of cuteness coming out of my mouth and it only gets better by the day.

When sharing a conversation with my mommy one day, she told me something funny and I responded “that’s funny.” Now this doesn’t seem much, but it told my mother that I am beginning to understand feelings. I also tell them when I’m happy or I’m sad. And I love to talk about what made me cry or who upset me during the day. Just the other day, Elijah “stole” my book at school and when I got home the story went something like this: “I cried today because Elijah took my book.” “Really” my mother said. “Yeah!” These feelings are pairing well with the development of my attitude. It’s not a full blown girl attitude but I do have some sass to me. For instance, one day when driving to school, I told me mother something wherein she did not understand me (this is not uncommon). Finally when she caught on to what I was saying, I replied to her “I told you.” It’s as if I speak a foreign language half the time to these people! I’m sure my followers understand how frustration can get the best of me. When neither of my parents understands me, I just repeat myself until I am understood, and even if it takes until I’m whining.

I’m also beginning to understand smells. This surfaces best when I walk in the door and my mommy has made it home to start making dinner. I immediately walk in the door and ask “what’s that smell?” On those occasions where I know the smell, I usually respond to my own question to show my smarts. For instance, the other day I walked in, asked the question, and then immediately responded, “it smells like chicken. I don’t like chicken.” Yes, it’s true I have my mother’s genes and I do NOT like chicken. My mother tries to play the game, “oh chicken is so good” but come on, seriously woman you hate chicken as much as I do. So now she’s teaching me all the tricks in her bag on how to cover up the nasty taste of chicken. Did you know chicken smothered in ranch is actually pretty good. Well anything smothered in ranch is good, including pork, steak, carrots, etc. I tend to think of myself as the Bubba Gump of Ranch (hence the song title from the movie above). It’s to be decided if I’ll be as picky about my ranch as my mother is (Hidden Valley)…only time will tell!

I often find myself in the car. This provides a great amount of time to speak what’s on my mind. The latest of which is traffic signals. I was getting frustrated by the fact that we couldn’t go…this may have stemmed from my mother’s road rage when I am in the car…but we’re not blaming her entirely as I do like to be on the move constantly. So my parents decided to teach me the ways of the roadway to help me understand why we couldn’t “GO!” I now know all about the stoplight, in that Red means stop, green means go, and yellow means “Faster!” My grandparents keep correcting me and telling me it means caution but we all know that not true! And when sitting at stoplights, or in general driving, my parents like to sing to me for entertainment. Well there is only one person in this car that can sing according to me and that’s my mother. I profoundly tell my father “stop singing, mommy singing.” This brings me to school. Not that long ago my mother told me that there is a bug that lives on my body called the “tickle bug.” The tickle bug always seemed to find a way to surface in the middle of my breakfast. He lives in my armpits, my belly, the middle of my back and crawls up the back of my back. Eventually my mommy pops him into her mouth eats him and spits him out whereupon he lands right back on me and we start over where he somehow surfaces again. Lately the tickle bug comes out whenever and is lucky if I don’t pretend to throw him out the window. But somehow, he always ends up coming back, lucky for me.

Finally, at bedtime I have a routine but it’s more of a ritual. After brushing the gunk out of my teeth and taking my medicine, a decongestant to prevent ear infections, I climb into my parents’ bed to read Curious George and Little Critter, my two favorites. Occasionally we’ll read a third book, Snuggle Puppy, or whatever strikes my fancy that night. Thereafter we head to my bed that “has a gate on it” and climb in. Even though it’s a big boy bed, I let my mommy lay beside me and we chat about the specifics of my day. This usually includes what I cried about or what I saw or what I did or what my favorite thing was that I did that day; pretty much anything that pops into my head at that moment. Afterwards, we sing Silent Night and then she proceeds to ask me “how much do I love you?” and I respond “to the moon and back.” Then she asks me “who’s my favorite?” I say “mommy’s favorite.” Daddy then enters the room to tuck me in and bid me ado, as mommy leaves saying “Sleep tight, see you in the morning.” Magically, I have been sleeping from 8 to 6:30 a.m., which if you’re a loyal follower, this is break through!