Sabbath

Church today was...inspiring. Sometimes when I go, I think the lessons are nice, but not particularly attention grabbing. Today was attention grabbing. Maybe I was in the right frame of mind, maybe it was something I particularly needed to hear, I don't know.
The lesson in the first meeting (Relief Society for my Mormon readers) was on remembering Christ, how knowing Christ can change your outlook. The teacher quoted my favorite prophet, President Hinckley, a lot during the lesson. The primary thing I took from it, and one of the big reasons he is my fave prophet is because of his constant reminder to us to not despair. Things might be hard, the world might be ugly, war does exist, BUT...things that are hard can teach us. The world IS beautiful and we can work toward peace. And above all, and this is my most favorite scripture-BE STILL AND KNOW THAT I AM GOD. Regardless of the ugly and the evil, the Lord is still in charge. Despite the sorrow that can come from the blessing of agency by making wrong choices or by those who choose evil, good WILL prevail.

Then, in our main meeting, one of the members of our congregation spoke about example and the love of God. She was talking about her son and the joy he gave her and how sometimes that joy is intensified by the knowledge that he is hers. And the realization that that feeling of love and joy is just a tiny part of how the Lord must feel about us.

We also had an amazing musical number with 6 women and 5 men in our ward. I can't describe it, but it made me very happy to be a Mormon.

Happy Christmas Season everyone!

The Fabulous Life of...

Once upon a time, long, long ago, there was a girl. This girl got a bee in her bonnet about blogging and thought, what a great idea! A lovely way to preserve her memories of family, life and her growing daughter!

As you can see, that tale is not ending happily. I am terrible at keeping up with this, and terrible at remembering all of the hysterical things my daughter does. And, believe you me, she is hysterical. The amount of funny in the things she says just does not come through with the written word. You have to see her facial expressions and body language as well.

For instance, the other day, she was eating her dinner. Oh, correction, I was FEEDING her dinner, because the child does not eat of her own volition. Anyhoo, whilst eating, she informs me that she needs her drink. I hand her her milk. She vetoes and reaches for my drink (raspberry slush in seltzer). I say, that is my drink. She looks at me, cocks her head sideways and says, "Acksally, I think it's kinda MY drink", then picks it up and has at it. Yep. I laughed.

I looked up the development tracker yesterday to see where she falls on the scale. It was a bit alarming. The child is 2 1/2. Her physical development(gross and fine motor skills) falls squarely into the 3 year old category. Her cognitive development (language and emotional skills, logic, etc.) falls squarely into the...4 year old category. I am not kidding. I was not expecting that. I joke all the time about how it annoys me when she acts like a two year old, but the fact of the matter is, most of the time she doesn't! She acts much older, and consequently, I expect more of her.

At church a couple of weeks ago, a lady came up and started baby talking to The Small One. Now, The Small One is familiar with this lady, so it wasn't like STRANGER DANGER! or anything. The lady says something like-Oh you such a coot widdow girl! Did ur mommy make oo dat pitty dress?-and The Small One just stares. The lady carries on for a minute, with The Small One just giving her stinkeye, then, she reaches out to pet The Small One, who says calmly and clearly, "Don't touch me." At which the lady looks taken aback and we skedaddle off to nursery.
Later, The Man of the House informs me that said lady mentioned to him how clearly and precisely The Small One talks and she wasn't expecting that.

Now, let me say, we do not talk to her like she is a baby. I baby her sometimes and all that, but in general, we talk to her like she is a person. If she asks me a question, I answer. I explain to her what I am doing, if she wants to know. I explain how things work, if that is her query. Consequently, she has a GIANT vocabulary, for a two year old, and her enunciation is very good.

Twice now, I have had people in church disapprovingly ask me why I talk to her the way I do. My answer, although I don't say it out loud, is that she is a child, not an idiot. Mostly, I just smile and tell them she responds to it well.

Here are a few more fabulous tidbits from The Fabulous Life of The Small One.

Overheard one warm day in October (I was in the back room, The Man of the House and The Small One were out back.)
-Hey, Hey, HEY! What are you doing? PUT YOUR PANTS BACK ON!!!!!!
Anyone who knows my child, knows she loves to be naked.

One morning she perusing the interior of the fridge and saw a bowl of cut mango and asked if it was cheese. I said, no, and she said, "Oh! It is canlaloupe! I love canlaloupe!" She took a piece from the bowl and placed it in her mouth, chewed once and promptly spit it back out. She looks at me and says,"This is not canlaloupe" (I cannot even begin to tell you how hard it was to hold back the laughter at the surprised disgust in her face) I told her no, it was not cantaloupe, it was mango. She pondered the fruit in her hand, looked at me and announced, "I do not love it."

A few weeks ago, we took a drive up the canyon to enjoy the beautiful fall leaves. We stopped at Cascade Springs to walk around (The Man of the House had never been there! Boggle.) We walked about with the dogs (which The Small One mostly rode, pretty funny) and enjoyed the scenery. As we headed down one path, The Man of the House and the dogs got ahead of me and The Small One and veered off the path into the marsh. The Small One ran off the path through the weeds to catch them, not realizing that is was a marsh. Run, run, run, suddenly-SPLASH! right into a pool of water screened by weeds and whatnot. She stood up, completely confused. It looked like solid ground to her. I laughed and laughed. The Man of the House maintained taht she knew what she was doing, as she had been trying to get into the water the entire time we were there, but I don't think she could fake surprise that well.
On our way back up the last stretch to the carpark, I was walking well ahead of The Small One and her daddy (I had the dogs at that point and they were more or less dragging me up the path). I hauled the dogs to a stop, because I saw the cutest little fuzzy caterpillar. He was one of those black and bright yellow striped ones, but he only had 4 stripe segments, so he was short and fat and very cute.
I called to The Small One to come up and see and up she runs, takes one look at it, shouts, "A BUG!" and stomps it flat. Nice one, Godzilla. Several people were standing around looking at the fat, little guy, and up comes my wee delicate little girl and squishes the bug. At least it made everybody laugh.

The Small One was playing with her Madame Alexander doll (who is called Girl, you know, to differentiate her from the baby dolls) and came up to me and said "I need hersherder." Uh, what? "I need hersherder!" Honey, I haven't the foggiest what you are saying. "Come here!" I follow her into the hallway, to the door of the kitchen, where she props Girl up against the jamb and demands a pencil. OH! You need to MEASURE her! "Yes, hersherder!" You see, I measure The Small One, periodically, against the door jamb between the kitchen and hall and mark her height and the date, she figured Girl needed it as well.

I recently finished a bear rug a couple of weeks ago. Yes, a real bear. I occasionally do work for a couple of taxidermists. The Small One decided she needed to help me cut the felt for the dust ruffle, which I do with this old school, hand cranked scallop cutter. I cut the felt into strips and then run them throught the scallop cutter and it does the obvious, cuts scallops on one side. It has a small rotating die that squeezes the felt between it and a metal plate, and it is a bit sharp. Whenever I use it around The Small One, I make sure no little fingers get in the way, as it could do some damage.
So, back to the story, she decided to help me, so I let her crank the handle. This, itself, was funny to see, because it takes some effort to crank and she is little. So, she has both hands going, getting her whole body into it and I am feeding the strips and keeping them straight. As I get to the end of a strip, I hold it and let my fingers slide up on the platform near the cutting die. The Small One stops, cranking, grabs my hand and says earnestly, "Watch your feeners! Be berry careful! This danjrous, don't get your feeners squitched!" At least she learns, right?

Well, that is all for this post. I hope you have enjoyed your peek into The Fabulous Life of the Small One!