Tuesday, January 30, 2018

Reeisms, Vol. 4

The master of making faces, the funniest kid around, and with a head full of truly terrible ideas, at age 3.5, Ree continues to keep us on our toes.

She is usually quite trustworthy out of my sight, but is never to be trusted in the bathroom alone.  Although I should know better (based on incidents including but not limited to toilet paper being stuffed in the sink and the sink being filled and flooded, for example), I recently sent her upstairs to use the bathroom and told her I'd be there in a minute.  I arrived to a guilty smile, and Ree said, "Mama I'm sorry but I washed the walls with toilet paper and water..."  Filled with dread, I asked her, "Where did you get the water you used?"  And of course, my worst suspicions were confirmed as she pointed down between her legs into the toilet bowl.  Oh my lawd but this child.  What am I going to do with this child?!


She calls flamingos falingos and a placemat a spacemat.  A telescope or a kaleidoscope are both called eyedoscopes, somewhat interchangeably.  She sings Joy to the World exuberantly although Advent and Christmas are past, blending her words together into "heavenature sing, heavenature sing! heaaaaaaavenature sing!"  

She has been known to run around the house declaring "Pip, pip, pooray!"

And when her teeth chatter, she'll say, "My teeth are snapping from the wind!"

And one of my favorites: "See you later!  In a crocodile!"



When a woman at the grocery store smiled at her, Ree declared loudly: "Well I don't like you!"
{And I died a little of embarrassment, of course.}

* * *

Ree: "I have lots of babies you know."
Me: "Where are your babies today?"
Ree: "I keep them in a cage."
Me: ...
Ree: "I don't let them out really."

* * *

Early one morning:
Me: "Ree, it's way too early to be up."
Ree: "Well, I didn't wake up until it was one sixty-two."

* * *

At 7:00 am one morning: "Hey Mama I am hungry.  Because it's five o'clock.  And the sun is setting.  Setting up."

* * *

As we came to the end of a fun hike: "I know we really need to go but I really want to stay here forever."

* * *

A conversation with her little friend Lydia, demonstrating that Ree is a regular little Miss Congeniality:

Lydia: "I like your apple hat."
Ree: "Thank you.  Well, actually, no thank you."
Lydia: "You are special and you are happy."
Ree: "No I am not happy."

* * *

"Hey Molly, do you want to die and go to a new place and visit God?  Yeah?!"

* * *

Musing to herself: "My belly button is a little bit crooked and it needs something to go on top of it."



"I don't like boy singers but I only like girl singers."

* * *

Ree: "Sometimes your brain hurts when you go poop.  Your brain that is in your tummy.  (Points to vein in wrist.)  This brain goes into my tummy."
Me: "Ohhhh your vein."
Ree: "Yeah.  And then you die and this vein goes into your tummy."
Me: ...???...

* * *

Me: {places order at Starbucks drive-thru}
Ree (yelling from the back of the van to try to be heard on the speaker by the barista): "CAN I PLEASE HAVE A DONUT?!?"

* * *

During Advent, when we were focusing on doing kind and sacrificial things for one another, Nell asked if something she had done was a sacrifice, and Ree retorted nonsensically, "No, that is not a sacrifice, that is a mad mean mookie!"

* * *

Her food choices are remarkable for a three-year-old: 
"I don't want soup, I want broccoli. Or salad."

In fact, she loves salad so much that she named her baby doll Salad.  Salad as her first name and Saliva as her middle name.  Salad Saliva.  Yes, really.

* * *

Ree {taking after her father perhaps, who has a cheek-biting habit}: "I'm eating my cheek where I bited it."
Me: "Oh, don't do that."
Ree: "But I like it and it tastes good."


In church (angrily): "I can't hear my sentence because everyone is singing too loudly!"

* * *

Disapproving of one of Nathan's Christmas music selections he was listening to: "This music is not Christmassy it is just plain."

* * *

Listening to Roger Whittaker for a moment of a throwback to my childhood, Ree said disparagingly: "I don't like this movie music!"

* * *

As the organist began to play "Go, tell it on the mountain," in church one Sunday morning, Ree declared, "This is the wrong kind of music for church!"

* * *

Driving in the car one day:
Me: "What kind of music should we listen to?"
Ree: "I want church music."

* * *

She thinks all pop music is a commercial - like the moments of pop music she hears in between songs when we're listening to music on Spotify.  A few times when I've put on some pop music to listen to, Ree will come dashing into the room and yell, "THIS is just a COMMERCIAL!"



"I need to practice my violin now because in seventy-two weeks I'm playing a concert for my kids."

* * *

Walking in abruptly on me using the bathroom: "You look nice."   {Um, thanks?}

* * *

Putting me in my place, as she frequently does:

Ree: "Mama I'm sorry but I peed a little in my undies."
Me: "Ok go hop on the potty quickly!"
Ree: "Ok.  Well good job not screaming Mama!"

{In my defense the so-called "screaming" is usually a slightly raised voice urging the speed required to go upstairs and get on the potty before the slightly damp undies turn into a full-on accident.}





When I took the girls to see the Nutcracker at the Boston Ballet after Christmas, and the Arabian dance began {with the male dancer, as usual, without a shirt on}, Ree declared in a loud whisper, "That's not appropriate!  That's not acceptable!  That daddy is naked!"


* * *

And when we went to the beach one wintery day and there was snow all around and the girls were in their snow pants and boots, Ree said ecstatically, "Look at the ducks!  I'm going to go in and swim with those ducks now!"

* * *

When she had an earache one evening, Ree said pitifully: "I have an ear 'fection.  Something is in my ear is choking me.  And it's having a fight in there.  And it's hurting me."

* * *

And later that same evening: "I want medicine.  And I get to decide what medicine it will be because it's my ears and it's my body so I get to decide what kind of medicine I want."



"God can make even Joseph and Mary cuz that's why God is flexible."

* * *

When I came downstairs wearing a dress one morning: "WOW I love you!  You are so beautiful!"

* * *

When I was reading The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe aloud to them recently: "They shouldn't have gone to that dangerous place with a witch they should have stayed home with their mother!"

* * *

And further musings on Narnia: "I wouldn't go to those bad scary places.  I would just go to good churches."


"When I was a baby asleep in your tummy I feeled that I was in your bone.  Isn't it funny that babies can be in your bone?  In your tummy bone?  And then they come out of your belly button and there's a scab and a cord and a clip to hold it and then it falls off and the cord is off and there's a hole."

And there you have it, my friends.


Wednesday, January 17, 2018

Molly at ten months

Sweet Miss Molly.  Ever so happy as long as Mama is holding her or is close by, and showing off her two bottom teeth with frequent grins, this girl manages to be both Mama's girl and extrovert at the same time, grinning at everyone she sees -- as long as they don't try to take her away from me.  

She sits at my feet for a lot of the violin lessons that I teach these days, and eagerly greets my students with big smiles.


A few stats:

Weight: 18ish pounds, I think

Nicknames: Molly Moe, Moll, Mollywog.  Oh, and in the past five minutes Nathan has referred to her as a "Beautiful, beautiful, Artisinal quality, handmade in small batches, beautiful, beautiful, high level baby."

Expertise: Scratching faces, grabbing glasses


Her favorite food is paper, and it doesn't seem to matter that we keep explaining to her that this isn't in fact a food.  All solid foods that enter her mouth are subsequently spit back out.  Paper, on the other hand, is surreptitiously grabbed in tiny bits that big sisters have dropped to the floor, and happily gnawed on until Mama finds it in her mouth and removes it.

She fights sleep, this girlie, and often seems to have some sort of baby-insomnia where the skills she's earnestly trying to develop are keeping her awake.  She'll be drifting off to sleep, and then open her eyes, pop up, and start saying "mamama!  mama!  mamama!" or clicking her tongue, or making kissing noises.  All wonderful, adorable skills, to be sure, but sleeping is a skill too -- and one we're hoping she'll develop one of these days.


Speaking of sleep, in a sad turn of events, poor Molly fell off the bed and fractured her left clavicle on Sunday night.  She keeps looking at me reproachfully, and who can blame her, really?


The poor baby, who usually cosleeps between Mama and Daddy, was blissfully cosleeping with just me while Nathan was out of town for the better part of a week.  Despite the pillow barricade I had set up, she apparently found a means of escape.

"Really, Mom?  You thought a mere pillow could stop me from sleep-crawling off the edge of the bed?"
It was pretty evident that something was amiss after her fall, so when morning dawned I called the doctor's office and we traipsed over there so that Molly's reproachful expressions could be joined by the reproachful expressions of doctors and nurses.  

Yes, of course, I feel terrible about it.  I know I won't be getting any Mother of the Year awards at the rate I'm going.  And I probably shouldn't admit that I'm pretty sure each of my kids has fallen out of bed a time or two, and somehow Molly was just the first one unlucky enough to get a resulting fracture from the experience.


In the meantime, by Tuesday she was already back to crawling around a bit and even pulling herself up.  I've tried various tactics to immobilize her arm, but she wiggles out of everything and keeps moving.  We're safety-pinning her sleeve down to the body of her clothing, which is what the doctor recommended, and aside from that precaution, it seems like her pain levels will determine what she can and can't do, and she seems to be managing okay.  

I have to admit my soft spot for this babe of mine has grown even softer, tenderized by a dose of pity, I suppose.  She needs lots of holding and snuggles, and I'm only too happy to oblige right now.


But look!  She's still got some pretty fabulous grins going on, fractured collarbone notwithstanding.


I'm working hard with Marie on the understanding that we need to be extra gentle with Molly right now, and not touch her at all.  This is difficult with a child who scarcely seems to be able to be gentle to begin with, and the only reasonable solution may be to never leave the two of them together until Molly is healed.  

I did allow the big girls a closely supervised photo op with Molly, of course -- and no, they didn't dress up for the occasion.  They were already dressed this way, as they often are.  Regular clothes are so boring when all you want to do all day is dress up and dance and twirl and be ballerinas.  I think Molly is wondering when she can join the fun.


Dear Molly,

I've probably said "I'm sorry" to you a hundred times in the past three days, but I'll say it again here, for the record.  I feel terrible that you took a tumble on my watch.  Somehow the knowledge that it's just the beginning in a long line of life's hurts I won't be able to protect you from makes it all the more poignant, and I've spent a lot of time in the rocking chair the past few evenings, just cuddling you and singing to you.  

You're a tough one, and I know you'll be good as new in no time.  

To tell the truth, sometimes my arms get tired of holding you and I get frustrated by how little you nap and how much you need me.  I guess that, even after almost six years of motherhood, I still have some selfishness left in me.  But at the end of each long day, I still look at your sweet, sweet little face and feel like I could explode from loving you so much.

I'm heading up to bed now to snuggle you, because I can hear your cries up there right now and can tell that Daddy just isn't cutting it for you.  I guess his feelings for your {as expressed earlier in this post} aren't yet 100% mutual.  Okay, okay!  I'll come snuggle you back to sleep.

I love you, girlie.  

Lovelovelove,
Mama

{catching up}: Molly at 9.5 months

Aaaaand skipping over eight months, because life was crazy and poor Molly had a nose that streamed snot for weeks on end... I did manage to get some nine month pictures only a couple of weeks late! {At which point she was on round two of a cold, and still a little red-nosed and sad!}



Molly at nine months was crawling everywhere, pulling up on things, making kissing sounds, babbling (with aaahhhdadadadada being a particular favorite), and blowing raspberries like a pro.  She peed in the potty sometimes, with frequent resolutions by her mother to be more consistent with elimination communication so we could start getting the yucky stuff that really matters into that delightfully appropriate receptacle known as the baby potty.  She was rapidly moving into 12 month baby clothes, and her fingernails kept growing at an alarming rate that allowed her to scratch my face and draw blood from time to time.  I guess the 80 fingernails and toenails I'm singlehandedly responsible for trimming around here these days are getting the better of me.


Nine month Molly had become more attached than ever to Mama, and would often prefer to sit quietly and play at my feet while I was teaching violin lessons rather than be subjected to spending time with - the horror of it - a babysitter.  As with her sisters before her, I found her occasional babbles far less distracting than the sound of her screaming in a nearby room, so she has been keeping me company in my teaching these days more often than not.  


This child is not what you might call a good sleeper of late, and the past month or two has had its challenges in that regard.  In fact, for most of December she utterly refused to be laid down at any point for a single nap.  After endlessly trying to transfer her from arms or Lillebaby carrier to her crib, all of which ended in a wide awake and overtired and very crabby baby, we mutually gave up the effort and either Nathan or I would just wear her in the carrier for every. single. nap. for a while.  We simply concluded that between the emergence of two cute bottom teeth, and one cold followed by another, poor Molly just needed lots of cuddles.  So she took her naps on my chest in the carrier, and then would sleep the first part of each night's sleep in the carrier on Nathan's chest, and thus she was a reasonably happy camper, and we all kept surviving.


It's a good thing she's cute.


She had her first Christmas, and I think she approved of the experience.  She even got an ornament from Mama and Daddy to commemorate the occasion.


happily gnawing on a giant jingle bell.

Dear Molly,

You are surely adored around here.  Your sister Nell is of two minds on the matter: on the one hand, she wishes you were still a newborn baby and sometimes reminisces about those early days of tiny sweetness, and the way she could hold you and you didn't wriggle away.  On the other hand she can hardly wait for you to keep growing bigger and be able to really play with her!  You sister Marie loves you with the strange {deranged?} love of a three-year-old, and while it's dangerous to leave you alone with her, I do think that most of her cheek-pinching and body-slamming is somehow well-intended ... at least, we hope so.  Daddy can't get enough of you, and regards it as a personal accomplishment that most of your babbles are "dadada" rather than "mamama."  And I, while quite tired and sometimes overwhelmed with all the chaos and daily hard work of having three young children in the house these days, well, I wouldn't have it any other way.

Lovelovelove,
Mama