Children are Funny v2

Another three quick but cute stories about Abby!

Story One: Sharing is Caring
A few weeks ago one of my co-workers gave Abby a little heart-shaped, green "gem" ring. It is nicer than the others that we have because it adjusts down to the tiny size of her finger. Abby was so touched about the random act of kindness that she actually came home and handed me another one and said "Please take this to Miss Mary and tell her thank you!" How sweet!

Story Two: Meet Your New Mommy?
This afternoon Abby was wearing said adjustable ring as part of her dressing up. She was decked out in hair-clip earrings, necklaces and all! Anny asked where Abby got such a beautiful ring. Abby did not hesitate before saying "One of daddy's girlfriends at work gave it to me!"

In my defense, when we ran into Mary at the park a few weeks ago she did tell my family that I am "everyone at the office's Work Husband!" Yes, I can see how this could be confusing. Also, I can see that we need to work with Abby on what "co-worker" means so that she can use it properly!

Story Three: I Wanna Dance!
Anny and I were in the kitchen as I was cooking and she was emptying the dishwasher as Abby was playing with her Little People in the living room. The music was on, too. Anny was telling me about a co-worker that has a four year old daughter whose soccer team is in desperate need of players. We do not really want to get her into organized sports yet. She has years of that in front of her and for now we just want her goofing off in the park. That being said, we really want her to make a bunch of new friends so that we can expand our friend base at the same time. Yes, we are parents and we are sometimes selfish. :)

Anyway, as we were talking in the loud kitchen about whether to look into the soccer team a bit more or sign her up for the dancing class at the local rec center. We decided we would talk with her about it over dinner, but we were aided in a plan pretty quickly when Abby yelled "you HAVE TO sign me up for dance class, you know!" in a loving-but-very-sarcastic tone! Guess we had our answer, and she meant it!

I have another blog post bouncing around in my brain. Might get to them tonight, but probably not since we're going out dancing with Abby and a handful of other friends!

Children Are Funny #1

So, a friend of mine has two kids who are beyond funny, especially in their conversations with each other. She has a running series on her blog that is up to like 56 entries just based on funny things they have said. Seriously, go check out Amy and her blog, paying close attention to THIS grouping of her blog posts. She suggested that I start such a series on my blog as well when I asked for post suggestions.

The thing is that what Abby says IS funny, but it's all in context and I do not pretend to be eloquent enough to capture context. That being said, I thought I would share some funny/sweet things from Abby's words and life recently...

Long Term Goal #1

Abby is a big fan of Pinkalicious - even leading us to create her birthday party around that book as a theme. In the latest book in the series is Silverlicious, which is about Pinkalicious losing her first tooth and her Tooth Fairy experience. You can imagine that chaos ensues, or it would make for a pretty lame book.

Since the day we bought her the book, at a release party at a bookstore nonetheless, she has been fascinated about losing her first tooth. For at least a week she was introducing herself as such - "Hi, I'm Abby. I am going to lose a tooth soon!"

Here's the thing: She's Four. Unless there is a big ugly incident, she's not losing a tooth any time soon. Strangers give her a look and are excited for her, and she lets them think it's going to happen, and soon!

We have convinced her that she will not lose a tooth any time soon, and I think she's finally okay with that. She is still fascinated by other children that are gap-toothed. She stares. She asks them how they lost their tooth and about the Tooth Fairy. It proves funny, because the older kids think it is not a big deal now, but she has such aspirations to become one of them!

Long Term Goal #2

Abby is pretty clear on the main physical difference between girls and boys. Following the in-bottom and out-bottom conversation, she later declared that "Boys have hoses and girls do not." At least we are getting closer, right? Anny has also gone into childbirth stuff after Abby asked if babies come out of belly buttons. She likely got more than she bargained for from that particular question...

Anyway, over the last month or two she has become very aware of the difference between going to the men's room and the women's room, publicly. She's NOT happy to go in with me anymore, insisting that she would be fine to go to the ladies room by herself. "I'm a girl dad, just like the girl on the picture," she says, pointing at the stick figures on the door. She also promptly points to a urinal and reminds me that those are for men, and sit down toilets are for girls. (Funny for me, mostly because I sit at home. I clean bathrooms and have no patience for spray!)

I have come up with a compromise that she seems to be okay with, though. I have told her that she has to wait until she is six and when she reaches six I will let her go in by herself. Given her affinity for pooping in public places and still preferring help wiping in such situations, I think it is just as well.

I'm already dreading her sixth birthday and the number of public pissers she is going to want to go into on that day!

Sweet and Sweaty

We went to the Missouri Botanical Garden this week for a concert that ended up being rained out. Before that, though, we had a blast at the garden. It was the first time that Abby and Anny had been since we went in February, though I was there last week. It was hot and humid out - which should be expected in July. As we sat down on our blanket to have a picnic dinner Abby got "the look" and declared she needed a trip to the potty. After rolling my eyes, mostly because I suggested she go before leaving the apartment in the first place, I walked her up and over a hill to the cleanest men's room I've seen in a long time.

On the way back to the blanket I was trying to rush a bit so I tossed her on my shoulders and huffed it with an extra almost-40-pounds. I was dripping with sweat, and my shirt was pretty humorously soaked through. Abby was "being four" and grabbing my shirt and trying to pull on me. I assured her it was WAY too hot for that, and asked her to chill out. After going through that bit three or four times Abby looked up at me and said, with the sweetest voice, "Daddy, I just wanted to pull you close so we could smile - cheek to cheek!"

All grabbing forgiven, replaced with welcomed/ing kisses!