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!

Short but Amusing

I refer to both this blog post and The Small One. Both are short, both are amusing. At least in my estimation. Your estimation may vary.

This morning, upon waking, I realized that the headache I had gone to bed with was just about to turn into a migraine. Not good. Migraines are evil. I hate them with the fiery burning of a thousand suns. But, that is not the point of this blog post. The point is, whilst lying in bed bemoaning my fate (silently, as I did not want to wake The Small One, she awoke anyway.) Due to a serious need for sleep, The Man of the House opted to sleep in the nursery while Small and I slept in our bed. I don't blame him, my nasty cough keeps everyone awake.

Anyway, The Small One woke up and laid there for a moment, sideways with her head on my midsection, as per usual. Then she sat up and solemnly declared that she was "soggy boggo" and promptly began to remove her clothing. She is not one to wait around, she makes a decision and gets down to business. After divesting her thin frame of its clothing (and hurling the offending garments into the corner), she sat on the bed for a second. "I feezing" she tells me. I groaned. My head hurt. I lifted the covers and motioned for her to climb under the covers with me, but she demurred. She looked over at her crib, next to the bed, saw the blankets therein and made a decision. Crawling over to the crib, she grabbed her pillow and fluffed it, just as The Man of the House does, pulled and straightened the covers, one of which is the electric blanket she stole from her dear daddy, scooted up to the top of the bed and shinnied down into the pleasant warmth with an audible sigh of pleasure.

I looked at her and laughed. She is her daddy's daughter. Warm and cozy, buried under a pile of blankets, is the way to be. Although, she particularly likes to be buried in warmth whilst naken.

I asked her if she was comfortable. "I comfable," she replied, "my own daddy turn my blankly on for me." Then she demanded a bottle. It had to be warm as well. Fortunately, her daddy had provided one before he left for work. All I had to do was hand it to her.

Pleasantly, she remained like this for nigh unto an hour. Long enough for my meds to kick in and allow me to feel like facing the day. Bless the child.

More adventures from The Small One

Who is getting to be not so small! Not sure I like that plan!

This morning, once again arising earlier than I prefer, The Small One announced that it was time to get up. Not only was it time to get up, but she had to go potty. Normally, she is quite capable of going potty by herself, but it was a rather darkish morning and the lights weren't on. I groaned, not wanting to get up as I had a rather sleepless night. She was demanding. But...ah, blessed baby. She wanted Daddy to be the one to come help her. Hallelujah! At least from my point of view. Not from his. Lazy beggar didn't want to get up either.

After going potty, she returned to the bedroom, where she spied my bottle of Powerade. I don't particularly like Powerade, but I was stricken with a dehydration headache last night, so got Powerade instead of water for the bedside. Over trots The Small One, picks up the bottle and looks me straight in the eye. Dis my juice. Okay, you can have it. Dis MY juice. It for me. Not for Mamma. Fine, you naughty stinker, take the juice. And again, with finger pointed my direction, for emphasis. Dis my juice. You not cannot hab any. And turning on her heel, she marches out of the room. Ah, my sweet, generous, sharing baby. Not.

We read scriptures and say prayers at night and The Small One is learning how to do it herself. The other morning, she climbed into bed with me, grabbed my Scriptures and opened them. I will read scritures to you, Mamma. Ok, baby, that would be nice. She flips a couple of pages, settles back into the pillow and says, An it came a pass, (blah, blah, nonsense words), an it came a pass, (more nonsense words) and it came a pass! I all done! With that, she shut the book, got down and went to watch Spongebob.
You should hear her say her prayers. Let me tell you, this kid is grateful for EVERYTHING!

She is becoming more and more independent by the day. Somehow or another, she figured out how to buckle her carseat buckle, but it takes FOREVER for her to do so. Then I get frustrated that she is taking so long and try to "help" her. Thanks, but no thanks, she does not need (want) help! So, as we are getting ready to leave a parking lot, my mom, in the passenger seat, turns around to help The Small One buckle up. NO! DON"T BUCKLE MY DOTTOM!!!!! Yeah, she didn't want help buckling the bottom buckle. I tried to warn my mom, but alas, she would not listen. But now I tell The Small One to behave or I will spank her dottom. She looks quizzically at me when I say that, because, you know, the little folk hear themselves saying the word correctly, but when you mimic them, they just don't get it. Silly baby.

Well, if I can get my battery charged and download my camera, the next post will contain photos and video. You are sure to get a laugh!

Tootle

The Small One refused to take a nap today. This is happening with increasing regularity, which does NOT make me happy. She is far too young, in my humble opinion (and mine is the only one that matters), to be discontinuing her naps. Her naps are my free time, my quiet time, the time during the day in which I am allowed to work. If she gives up her naps, I could conceivable lose this time. This is a daunting idea. Of course, there is always quiet time, but this is something The Small One has a difficult time with. She is not good at the quiet. But, come on! She isn't even two and a half yet and wants to give up naptime? Although, my mother says she is two going on five, what with the way she talks and struts about the place. There is certainly something to be said about the confidence of The Small One.

Anyhow, so she refused her nap, which, come evening time, left her very tired and a bit cranky. I did not want to let her go to bed too early, because then she will wake up too early and, as I am sure to have mentioned before, I do not like to get up early. I also do not like to make The Man of the House get up too early on the weekends, as he does it during the week. Point being, if The Small One gets up early on the weekend, I have to get up with her.

The Man of the House, being the chivalrous gent that he is, went over to the church to print off the monthly Church Newsletter for me as I prefer not to be in the church alone at night. Creepy. So, I remained behind to put The Small One to bed. She whined piteously at me that she was ready for bed, so I asked her if she wanted her jammies. She did. Off she trotted to the nursery to find them. I clothed her in her nightwear and asked if she would like to go to bed now. She said yes. So, I took her and laid her in bed. She sat up. "I need my Tootle!" Your what? I queried. "My Tootle! I need my Tootle!" Your Tootle? I queried again, perplexed. "My Tootle! My dog!" Ah, now I understand. She needs her little stuffed poodle that Memma gave her yesterday. Her Toodle. I rousted out said Toodle, gave it to The Small One, she said thank you (unfailingly polite, she is) rolled over and went to sleep.

P.S. Would you like to know the names of her other dollies and things? Of course you would!
She has several dollies (not babies, so don't call them that and don't refer to her as their Mamma. She doesn't like it) They are named-Georgina, Alsatia, Blue and Purple. The other two don't have names.
She has two kitties, Grey and Tabby.
She has a Kangaroo named Pop.
And now she has a Poodle called Toodle.

Oh, and we cannot forget Torres, the Wonder Pup. He is one of those little soft lovies that babies have.

Sniff, sniff

Smell is perhaps the most evocative of the senses. It most assuredly is, for me. Certain scents can stop me in my tracks, dragging me rapidly back to a certain memory here or there. And certain scents remind me of the people to whom they belong. For instance, my older brother, who used to have waist length hair, used Pantene shampoo and conditioner. It was a very long time before I could use it on a regular basis because when I did, well, I smelled like my brother! Not that there is anything wrong with my brother, I just didn't want to smell like him.

The Small One, of course, has a readily identifiable scent. I love it, it makes me happy when I lay down on one of her blankies and can smell her.

There are two particular scents which overwhelm my mind with memories and images whenever I catch a whiff. The first is Dewberry, from The Body Shop. Oh, the fond memories this evokes. Dewberry is the smell of my London apartment. Every time I smell it, I am transported back to my tiny, cramped flat in South Kensington. I remember the noise of the traffic on Queen's Gate, the sight of the little French schoolgirls, dressed like Madeline, parading down the street to their school. I recall the tininess of our postage stamp sized kitchen. The sound of the (very annoying) pigeons which roosted on the back courtyard. It brings back memories of my flatmates, costume designers, all, and very quirky.

From Drop Box

I attach the scent of Dewberry to my flat in London for a very good reason. Shortly after arriving there, I was shopping in Covent Garden and my hands were VERY dry. I hate dry hands. And I am OCD enough that once I realize my hands are dry, I cannot stop thinking about it and must remedy the situation immediately. So, upon realizing, I promptly began searching for said remedy.

Covent Garden is crowded with shops and I did not think it would take but a moment to find a chemist and get some lotion for my poor hands. Alas, there was no chemist to be found! What was I to do? Then I spotted it, The Body Shop. This was well before they were here, so I had never heard of them, but could guess it would be rather outside my price range. But, what could I do? I couldn't enjoy my excursion if all I could think about was how dry my hands were. So, I went in.

There were only a couple of bottles of lotion small enough for me to afford, so I sniffed and bought the one I found least offensive. I did not particularly like it, but I was in need, so there you go. My hands found relief and the bottle of lotion went into my bag, and consequently, into my makeup bag back at the flat. I didn't want to waste my money and so I used the lotion whilst in London, though I did not care for the smell.

Fast forward, back to the states. I had been home quite some time when I walked by a Body Shop in Salt Lake. It had just opened and there was a girl at the front handing out those little paper strips with perfume on them. She handed me one and I took a delicate sniff. The shock was almost like an assault, but very pleasant. I was stopped dead in my tracks. The scent she had handed me was Dewberry. It had been a year or two since London, but it was like I had stepped back into my flat and was getting ready for another day of adventure. I could see and hear everything so clearly! Since then, I have purchased Dewberry rarely. I use it sparingly as I want it to continue to remind me of London, I don't want it to gain any other associations as that particular association is a very happy one for me. To this day, when I open a bottle of Dewberry Lotion, the memories are as clear as when they actually happened, sigh, 13 years ago.

Which reminds me. I haven't had Dewberry lotion for a long time. Perhaps I ought to try and remedy that.

For Kaytee

Kaytee thinks I don't post enough pics on this blog. I expect she is right. So, here, for the benefit of Kaytee and all other interested parties, are some pics. Possibly with captions.

My adorable and adored Small One.

From Drop Box

The Small One and The Man of the House enjoying a bit of leisure time. Note the requisite lack of pants on the part of The Small One. And the ever-present popsicles.

From Drop Box

This is what happens when The Man of the House gets The Small One ready for bed. It makes my sensibilities ache.

From Drop Box

The Small One figured out she could make a "splinkler" by sticking her thumb in the end of the hose. This was a daily occurence when the weather was super hot. She is "watering the garden".

From Drop Box

And here she is hauling around her giant bag of...stuff. It contains Georgina and Blue, a towel, a blankie, some binkies and a couple of books. You know, the important stuff!

From Drop Box

I hope that takes the edge off your hunger for pics. At least a tiny bit.

I have discovered an easier way to post them, so I hope it worked. If it did, there will be more pics in the future. Just for you Kate. Just for you.

You know those security words they have you type in on certain sites? So they can make sure you are not a computer? Sometimes, they are hysterical. Like today's little soldier in the world of Spam Prevention. Today was...fordspog. Hehe. Fordspog. Sounds like an epithet a Dodge owner would throw at a Ford owner. Man, that dude is such a Fordspog!

Don't you think?