darndest

November 4, 2011 at 9:08 am (darndest)

 “A characteristic of the normal child is she doesn’t act that way very often.”

-Author Unknown

Teagan has been busy showing her little sister all of the different flowers that are growing in our yard…
T: See these big orange ones? Aren’t they pretty? They’re called Lion Loolies.”
(They were Tiger Lilies)

After a morning spent playing outside, it was time to go in for clean diapers and snacks. As we were going through the door, little Rowan turned around to give the backyard a final long look, and in a very sad and wistful voice, she said:
“Bye-bye, swing. . .”

Abby (who’s ten) and T are having a discussion on the tooth fairy, a subject in which Puff is very interested:
T: The real tooth-fairy isn’t the one on this show (Yo, Gabba Gabba). She’s very tiny and beautiful – not creepy like that weird lady.
Abby: ACTUALLY, there’s more than one tooth fairy. . . it depends on what state you live in, which fairy you get…

One night we were having macaroni and cheese for dinner. Rowan, being one and a very messy eater, accidentally dropped one of her elbow-macaroni noodles onto the table. It magically landed upright – balanced end to end, like a frown, or an upside-down letter U. Rowan was staring at it with a silly little smile on her face. After a minute she looked up at me and said “Issa WEEBOW!”
(weebow is Ro-speak for rainbow)

AFTER polishing off a huge lunch of hotdogs, cheese, crackers, carrots, AND applesauce, T said:
“THAT was a really good lunch, Mom! Can I have a sandwich for desert, please?”

About a half-hour after bedtime, T creeps out of her room. . .
Me: You aren’t supposed to be out of your bed.
T: I know. But mom… I have a really GOOD reason for getting up. . . I needed to get *shuffles feet and glances around the room for inspiration* my Care Bear.
Me: That is not a good reason, you should be sleeping and don’t need any toys. It can stay out here until the morning.
*T grumpily goes back to her room until she re-emerges about 15 minutes later. Her good reason didn’t work, so she had come up with a new strategy*
T: Mom! This time I have a really BAD reason to be out of bed!
Me: They’re ALL bad reasons!
T: It is bad because I left my Halloween pumpkin bucket outside on the porch with my toy puppy in it!
Me: How do you know they’re still outside?
T: Because I saw them when I was looking out my window.
Me: You aren’t supposed to be looking out of your window, you’re supposed to be in bed. They’ll be fine out there until the morning.
T:*getting tearful* But MOM! I’m really worried about them. . . and. . . what if there’s a hurricane!!? They’ll get all messed up!
(Yes… I gave up and brought them in at that point. And she went to bed. Finally.)

Rowan comes whining over as I’m fixing lunches in the kitchen:
R: MOMMY! I hab it? Milk? Quease? Cuppy?
Me: I gave you milk already, where’s your cup?
R: Nee-KNOW! I fine it. . .
*Ro runs off in search of her missing cup, and returns a few minutes later*
R: OH NO! Mommy! My CUPPY! Its HIDIN’!
Rospeak vocabulary key: hab = have / quease = please / Nee-know = I don’t know / fine = find / hidin’ = hiding

Rowan is a very naughty little mite, she’s always into everything (as is to be expected at her age). She knows perfectly well what is or isn’t allowed. She always gets discovered in the act mischief making, no matter how hard she tries to be sneaky about it (sneaky to a toddler tends to be a bit like an elephant playing hide-and-seek in a strawberry patch). When she gets caught, she’s taken to making a very unhappy angry face at me. Brows down, lips pursed. . . then she says in her sternest squeaky little baby voice: “NO-NO, WO-WEE!” (Wo-wee is Ro-speak for her own name – Rowan). She admonishes herself so sternly, it cracks me up EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. Her other approach to getting out of trouble upon discovery is to give me her very best and brightest smile and say “HI, MOMMY! I LUB YOU!” (lub = love. This is also a trick that T used as a tot) It’s really difficult to follow THAT up with a punishment!

T and Daybaby A are happily playing side-by-side, when suddenly, A lets out a blood-curdling shriek of terror.
T: (in her best soothing ‘mommy’ voice)  Alex. . . it’s a cricket. They suck because sometimes they jump up and startle you, but they can’t hurt you, cuz’ they don’t have any teeth or stings. So you shouldn’t scream like that – it’s crazy.
A: *smiles* Okay, Teagan!
Then they both calmly went back to their sidewalk chalk. . .

Rowan is  calling me from the next room. . .
Ro: MOMMA! MOMMMMMMYYYYYYY! MOOOOOM COME HERE!
Knowing that she’s perfectly fine, I ignore her for a moment longer. . .
Ro: DESI! MOMMADESI! COME HERE MOMMADESI!
Rowan frequently calls me by my first name (Jesi) if I don’t respond quickly enough to ‘mom.’ I guess she’s figured out that it works for the daycrew . . .

Me: What’s an owl say?
T: An owl says WHOOO-WHOOO!
Me: Who? An OWL! What’s an owl say?
T: WHOOO-WHOOO!
Me: I TOLD you already, an OWL!
T: I told YOU already, WHOOO!
Me: Not who, what! An owl!
T: MOM! WHOOO!
Me: AN OWL!
*continue until child’s head explodes*

Ro has just finished off some blueberry yogurt, and so is covered from head to toe in purple smoosh. Teagan remarked:
“Looks like she’s been eating purple people – she must be a purple people eater. . .even if she has two eyes!”

T: I had a dream last night about the Swingerators!
Me: Sounds neat! What on Earth is a Swingerator?
T: Mom. You know…(T says in her patient my-mom-is-a-total-moron tone) the Swingerators are very tiny people that live on the moon. They have a giant swing that hangs down from the moon, and they ALL swing on it at the same time! It’s lots of  fun!
Me: Really? Wow!
T: Yeah, and THEY are the ones that swing the moon down in the morning and swing it back up at night!
Me: I’ve always wondered how that happens!
T: The Swingerators do it. BUT. One time their swing got broken because a COMET hit it, and they all fell off!
Me: ! ! ! Oh MY! Were they okay? The sun came up this morning, does that mean that they’re alright now?
T: Oh yeah, they had to work REALLY hard to fix their swing by the morning time, but. . . they did!
***The Swingerators is now a game that T and A play on the swings outside nearly every day***

T and I were in the woods collecting natural materials for a project we were working on. I stooped to gather some moss.
T: MOSS?! It’s called moss? I just thought it was called ‘grass that wasn’t growing for some reason’. . . why is it called MOSS?!

Rowan is a total momma’s girl, and when we’re out (if she’s not busy running off and being naughty), she expects to be carried. If we’re going over rough terrain, say down steps or through the forest, or if she feels like she’s being jostled about too much she has taken to saying:
Ro: Careful, Momma! Be careful! You okay?!

From the moment Ro was born, I started saying ‘up’ when I picked her up, and ‘down’ when I put her down to help her learn these very important words . . . but quite often I would pick her up and put her right back down again to play somewhere else, and so said ‘up. . . and down’ all in the same breath. At only a few months old, Ro started trying to use the words, but she couldn’t remember which was for which direction, and so got into the habit of combining them (this also happened to Teagan when she was a baby). When Rowan wants to be picked up, she says ‘up-an-dee,’ which was her infantile way of saying ‘up-and-down.’ but – since I respond to it every time – it got stuck in her vocabulary. At this point she is fully capable of saying exactly what she wants very clearly, and I thought we had moved past it when she said ‘pick me up!’ for an entire day, but I guess old habits die hard, and ‘upandee’ it still is. It’s kind of becoming an odd kind of slang word around here, and big sister will often come and tell me that Ro wants upandees. . .