abigailisms

So.  Remember when I used to post funny things Abigail said?  Well, this one had both Neil and I choking today at dinner.

A: "Today at school we were talking about grammar and parts of speech and my teacher asked us if anyone had any little brothers or sisters that said things in an odd way."

Me: "Oh?  What did you say?"

A: "I told them that when Isaac wants Goldfish crackers, he asks for 'goldpiss.'  And then everyone laughed really really hard, harder than they laughed at anyone else's brother or sister. Why did they all laugh so hard?"

Cue parental fumbling, raised eyebrows, and ultimately choked-off laughter as we tried to explain while emphasizing that it is NOT a new vocab word around the house.

almost midnight

It's Friday night, and I am sitting up at the computer killing time.  Neil is at a game night with friends (I think for the second time since we've lived here, poor guy--he's a little overworked) and I was planning to go to bed earlier, but the children always seem to magically know when Daddy is gone.  Isaac woke up about half an hour ago, feverish and shaking--poor little man. 

And as long as I'm up, I wanted to write down some funnies that Abigail said yesterday.  We had the missionaries to dinner last night, and one of them asked me how I liked living here.  Before I had a chance to answer, Abigail said very seriously, "Well, it's a nice place, but the garden can be a real problem."  She then went on to discuss soil and water conditions, with explanatory interjections by Neil--I was totally cracking up.  (We've spent a fair number of dinners lately discussing our garden plans for the year, and Abigail has been a very intent follower/participant in the conversation). 

Then the other missionary said something about the weather warming up, and Abigail jumped in again and said, "Well, it's nice that it's getting warm, but I just worry that the trees will blossom and it will freeze again and kill the buds, and we won't have any fruit."  So the elders said, wow, she sure is interested in growing things--and Abigail went off on a rant about how much she loves lettuce. That kid pretty much lives for the garden in summertime.  I told her that we only have two weeks until we start planting, and she started wiggling for joy so much that I thought she would topple right off her chair.  She has presented me with about six different ideas for bunny traps--every day when she gets off the bus she walks slooowly along the fence checking for new rabbit incursions.  Peter Rabbit thinks he's going to get some lettuce?!  Not with this sheriff in town.

Something you may not know about Juliet:  she can hold food she doesn't like in her mouth for an unbelievably long time.  Like an entire meal.

Funnies from the kids lately:

• I told Abigail I was really hungry and I was going to eat her.  She stuck out her arm and said, "No, Mommy!  I'm skinny like a chicken!  There's no meat on these bones!"
• Another one from Abigail:  yesterday at dinner she was trying to tell us just how fast she was running at recess, and she finally said, "running so fast--so very fast, like horses in the wind."
• Juliet has been loving the holiday frequency with which the UPS truck stops at our house.  Every time she says, "Mom!  The chocolate milk bus gave us a present!"
• And last but not least, Isaac is firmly convinced that Juliet's name is "Choo-Choo."  And he makes a noise like an engine (high-pitched whistly kind) every time he calls for her.  It's the cutest thing ever.

overheard

Me: Okay, Jules, we need to go to the pharmacy.
J: And see the chickens!!
Me: What?
J: We go to farmer-see, and see the chickens! See the farmer and his chickens!
Me: Um--no, the phar-ma-cy, not farmer see.
J: Oh. Okay. We go to farmer's market? See chickens?

Abigail: Mom, I have to tell you a sad little tale...there was no toilet paper in the bathroom when I needed it.

Juliet [in the middle of the night when they were in bed]: Abigail, if you touch my owie, I whack you with my sword and tie you up!

classic toddler moment:

she: Mommy, I have apple?

me: No, sweetie, we're ready to set the table for dinner. You can have an apple with dinner.

she: takes apple from the fruit basket and runs off into the living room

me: (following her into the living room) Abigail, what are you doing?

she: (looking up guiltily from the apple, which now has small bite marks) No, Mommy, I hiding! I hiding, Mommy!

If you've ever been to the home improvement store Menards and heard their jingle ("You'll save big money, you'll save big money, when you shop Menards") then you will appreciate this. We generally go at LEAST once a week in order to supply our home improvement project needs, so all members of our family are quite familar with this and generally begin singing it when we walk in.

This morning Abigail asked me what we were doing today. I was still trying to figure that out myself, so I didn't answer right away.

Obviously striving to be helpful, Abigail suggested "We go Menards? Save big moneys?"

And she informed me pleasantly last night when I doled our her two M&Ms for going in the potty that "Mommy, peez more potty candies! One, two, free, four, five, six, seben, eight potty candies!"

And if you've ever heard the song "Werewolf of London" it's now Abigail's favorite--she howls along all through the choruses, and requests "wolf awhoooo song" whenever we get in the car. Pretty fun. Reminds me of the days when she would insist on singing Johnny Cash's "Winga Fire...ah fell dobn dah buhning winga fire!"

last night Abigail got into my black eyeliner and used it to draw kitty-cat whiskers on her face.

i wish i had a picture (neil washed it off before I thought to grab the camera).

it was truly priceless.

forbidden to urinate in mommy and daddy's room, the living room, the kitchen floor, juliet's room, and on her bed, abigail came up with the following creative places today:

• the garden
• the lawn
• the sidewalk
• and my personal favorite...standing on top of her little potty with the lid closed

i was reminded today of something i once told mary beth when we were little kids "we never get spanked for the same thing twice." today when we were outside planting our trees, abigail ran over to the sidewalk, urinated all over it, and proudly announced "No-no go potty on lawn, no-np go potty on garden! i go potty on sidewalk!"

how long do you think it will be before she runs out of not-yet-forbidden places?

and speaking of potty training, how is it that abigail can identify each disney princess on her big girl panties by name when she has never seen any of the movies? i swear, there's a princess gene that kicks in. everything in our house these days has been renamed...we have "princess shoes, princess chair, princess towel" you name it.

one last abigail note: she's developed the habit of holding conversations "with" me when she's asking for something forbidden. as in she'll say "i have some cantaloupe in my room, right Mom?" and then cock her head to one side and say "oh ok right yeah" and then "ok, cantaloupe in my room!" (and since when am I "Mom"--i thought the mommy/daddy stage would last a lot longer, but this past week we've been Mom and Dad).

ok and REALLY the last abigail note: i love listening to her pray. she always prays "thank you mom, dad, abigail, and baby juliet" and then goes on to pray for whatever she's been doing that day/whatever items have played a recent role on the Abigail Life Stage, as in "thank you blankie, park, friends, ketchup, peach jam, toys, dolly, car, swimming, garden," etc. Sometimes she'll go through our entire extended family by name, or bless all of her friends by name, or her friend's parents ("Tywer, And-wee-ah, Kaf-ween, Milly mommy, Milly daddy"), or Neil's colleagues (Phil, she's sent a few prayers your way!). It's always fun to listen to her prayers. So cute and so sweet, and she insists on saying every prayer at mealtimes and family prayer every night. We sure love this kid. One thing I love about listening to Abigail pray is that she never asks for anything--she just says thank you for everything she can think of. It's a good reminder to me to be grateful for all the blessings in my life, rather than focusing on the I-wants.

Autumn

You might not expect it, but fall here is lovely. Last night we decided to take advantage of the beautiful weather and took a looong walk as a family. Abigail requested ducks, so we hiked over to a nearby pond where we did indeed see ducks, along with muskrats and herons. On our walk to a nearby celery bog we also saw rabbits, squirrels, and a pair of white-tailed deer, or as Abigail noted "Dere are reindeer in dat tree over dere!"

Today the girls and I spent several hours at a nearby playground with a bunch of our friends. Abigail had a great time with her little buddies, and I had a wonderful time talking with my friends! We both sorely needed it after our weekend of cabin-fever-inducing potty training.

this lil' girl

A few days ago, I was reading Peter Pan to Abigail. We turned the page and the main picture was of Peter playing on his pipes. Abigail turned her big brown eyes towards me and said joyously "Oh Mommy! Look, hot dogs!"

Yesterday on our walk she said "Thank you, nice nice man" to the gentleman who invited us to walk across his lawn and look at the stone lamb that Abigail was baaing at from the sidewalk.

And today she found a pen under our pew in church and informed me that she had found "a Mommy crayon."

And here are our you-share-with-me-I'll-share-with-you pictures:

Abigail zipping herself into Juliet's carseat ("Look, Mommy! A boat!")

Abigail putting her underwear on Juliet ("Baby Dooey-yet, you wan sum big girl pannies?")

my cutie pies

we've begun potty training! so far we're 2 for 3 (although maybe it should be more like 1.5, since she did go to the toilet by herself, but instead of lifting up the seat of her training potty she stood on it and urinated while neil and i were clearing the dinner table. interesting. but she did manage to get the messy one in the toilet, which resulted in an entire handful of m&ms after she proudly announced "yay me!" yes, lots of candy, but we had been working on potty training for less than half an hour at that point and i really wanted to make a big deal out of it to encourage future compliance. plus, i was really excited about not having to change a yucky diaper). sadly, after our walk we forgot to ask her to go to the potty immediately until she said "uh...i all wet."

about two seconds after I took this picture, she walked up to me, turned her back to me, pulled down her panties, and said "Look, mommy! See my bummy!"

So it took a grand total of five minutes in big girl panties for her to moon somebody...what does this indicate about her future proclivities?

These are Abigail's new dress-up shoes, courtesy of her great-grandma and great-grandpa Peters (she picked them out herself!) She insisted on sleeping in them last night and told me they are princess shoes.

Last night I told Abigail she was beautiful and she looked up at me calmly and said "Yes...like a princess." Very suave.

And this is my "cookie buddy," as she named herself yesterday.

We got ambitious last night--Juliet seems to be settling into more of a schedule during the day (the night is still pretty awful) so Abigail and I pulled out the August issue of Martha Stewart Living for some jazz-up-dinner inspiration. We ended up making grilled lime-basil pork chops, spicy creamed corn, baked potatoes, tomato and basil salad, and chocolate chip cookies.

Poor Neil did the dishes while I escaped to mow the foot-high lawn. I think I got the better end of the deal.

Ever since we came home from Michigan, Abigail has been talking nonstop. I'm not sure if it was having so many people around teaching her lots of new words (Elise, you stinker!) or just people talking to her all the time (which would make me feel guilty for not talking to her as much at home and possibly delaying speech development or something like that), but she's saying some of the most random things! For instance, yesterday we went to Walmart to pick up some groceries and she said "Oh, get some movies and CDs at the store, right? Some movies watchie on computer, right?"

I don't know how she knew that was the store for movies and CDs, since I've never bought any there, but she was pretty convinced! She also coolly informed me at the checkout counter that "I want some potty candy now" (I bought M&Ms as treats for potty training, which I'm planning to start on Thursday...dum dum dum).

She says so many cute things and does so many cute things all day that I wish I could remember, but quite frankly, with all the sleep deprivation, I feel lucky if I call her the right name. Poor kid. Oh well, at least she got to lick the cookie beater yesterday. That's worth something, right?

So I have about a million pictures, but I forgot to bring my camera cord so that I could upload them...so prepare yourselves for an absolute barrage of photos when I get home.

Abigail keeps me laughing...here are my favorite gems from the last few days.

• "Oooh...at's a nice purse, Geat-Gamma!"
• To the mosquitoes..."no, bugs, no! No bitey me!"
• her new habit of ending every question with "right?" As in "put dis here, right? Drinkee some water mommy, right?"
• carrying around a shoebox stuffed full of washcloths to make a bed for her Winnie the Pooh toy
  
• kissing everything goodnight, from the Cheez-It box to the computer
• Her different names for me: Mama when she's upset with me, Rachael when she wants something, and Mommy for everything else
  
• finding her trying to take a nap on one of the steps on the stairs, just for novelty
• wearing the arm covers on my parents' living room chairs as hats
• running from door to door in my parents' house and proudly announcing "I lockee dis one," which we later realized was quite literal when various family members began beating a tattoo on the door from the outside
  
• insisting that the boat go "faster, faster, faster!" when she was out on the tube behind it
• telling Neil to "go work now Daddy" when he refused to give her a cookie for breakfast
• somehow managing to drop the ten-foot-long blinds on my parents' living room windows and proudly announcing "night now!"
• sitting at the piano and contentedly singing to her own accompaniment

Last night when I asked Neil how his studying for the qualifiers was going, he told me that he'd realized that if he went the non-thesis route, he could graduate with his master's very soon. Like December. Of this year. As in...fourteen weeks from now. As opposed to four years from now if he passes the quals and continues with his Ph.D.

It's nice to know there's always a back-up plan, except for that whole we-bought-a-house thing. Let's just hope (and pray) that all this studying pays off in the direction we've anticipated!

One funny thing I realized lately when I was talking to my friend Kathleen is that I really am very contented with my life right now. I didn't anticipate living the student lifestyle for ten years (I'll be twenty-eight when Neil graduates), but when I look back over the last six years, it really hasn't been bad. In fact, it's been surprising good. Yes, it would be nice to have a little more money, but in all honesty, enough of it would go for taxes and the like that we probably wouldn't notice that much more difference. And when I think about it, if we had more money, we'd probably just spend it on things we don't really need (although I admit I do get a little nervous about retirement).

The student lifestyle really is nice in a lot of ways--Neil has a fairly flexible schedule, I can teach and we can just swap the kids on campus, we live in a place with a ton of members and I have lots of young moms to hang out with, there's fun cultural stuff to do on and around campus, we have inexpensive access to fitness facilities, and we have lots of chances to be inventive and creative with everything in our lives, whether it's figuring out what free things we can do as a family or how we can wring the last bit of usefulness out of various possessions. We're in good shape physically because we're motivated to walk or bike rather than pay for gas; we make sure that we follow prophetic counsel on planting a garden because it makes fresh fruits and veggies affordable, and we've had lots of time to laugh and work together over the last year as we invest lots of sweat equity in our house. (ok, I ran out of patience making hyperlinks, so you'll just have to imagine the rest.)

If I've learned nothing else over the last six years, I think I've learned--or at least begun to learn--how to not only be content with what I have and where I am, but how to revel in it and love my life and the people who make it so blessed.

Tales of a "bankee"

On Abigail's first Christmas, my sisters gave her a green fleece blanket that they'd made themselves. Originally, it was a lovely fluffy fleecy cloud of a blanket with carefully tied fringed ends, with each fringe exactly the same length.

Abigail fell in love with this blanket, to the point of distraction. To the point where, if this blanket had been human, her affection for it certainly would have merited a Shakespearean play or two.

The "green monster," as Neil began to refer to it, soon became a fixture around our house. At first, its insinuation was gradual...a sort of backdrop blankie, if you will.

But then it slowly began to gain prominence...

Soon, we weren't quite sure where the blanket ended and Abigail began. In fact, in our cross-country move, at times she disappeared entirely.

We didn't mind it so much when the blanket was more of a bedtime fixture. After all, we reasoned, all children have their "lovies."

But then the blanket began to pop up everywhere. It was a necessity when meeting new people...like Grandpa Steve.

Or when walking across the room.

The blanket got to go on all sorts of exciting activities from which Mommy and Daddy were barred...

When it really started to get a bit obsessive was when we noticed that not only did she carry the blanket around while sucking her thumb, but she held onto a piece of fringe in her clenched hand and then inserted the fringe in her nose. We watched in somewhat disturbed fascination while she would turn the blanket around and around searching for the longest fringe available. Neil began referring to the "Goliath fringes," since they would get stretched out through the constant pulling and tugging. Some reached the length of four inches, quite impressive since they all started out less than an inch long.

Over time, we noticed that the ultimate accolade of Abigail's love was when she would willingly share her blanket. This was quite rare and generally confined to Mommy (and occasionally Daddy). Rosalind's attempt to use the blanket as a pillow was met with frantic shrieks of "No, no, NO!" and frenzied stamping; Abigail's best friend was dragged off by the hair when she lay down on the blanket.

Occasionally when sharing it with Mommy, she will generously search out a fringe and proffer it, asking kindly "Fringe in nose, Mommy?" and seem quite disappointed when her offer is turned down. She's an eternal optimist; I have learned that I need to quickly wake up when Abigail and her blankie come into my room in the morning, since otherwise I will be woken up by an unpleasant tickling in my nose.

Over the past two years, the blanket has continued to enjoy a special place in Abigail's heart (and nose).

It made a recent camping trip possible:

and consoled her in the morning of that trip when Mommy burned her pancakes.

It got her through a nasty bout of stomach flu:

So you can imagine how shocked, surprised, and touched I was to turn around and see this yesterday afternoon:

Apparently, Abigail has decided that Juliet's a keeper.

one more...

ok, I know I already posted (a lot) today. But these just were too classic...

My squeeze-Abigail-because-she's-so-cute moments from today:

• our spiderweb hunt: Abigail and I went from room to room with the vacuum (while Juliet napped). Abigail would circle the room pointing out "bah-der-webs" and I would vacuum them up. So our house (except for my room) is entirely bahderweb free! Her shouts of glee when she found each spiderweb were totally priceless.
• popcorn in the shower: some of our friends brought over some popcorn drenched in white chocolate tonight (very yummy). Abigail was devoted to it and toted it around for the rest of the evening, which we were spending outside doing yard work. When we came in, completely filthy, and all headed for the shower, I didn't notice for a good two minutes that Abigail had taken the paper bag of popcorn into the shower with her. It took a lot of cajoling before she would consent to let her popcorn "wait" on the floor outside the shower.

If you've ever put Abigail to bed or down for a nap, you probably (hopefully it wasn't a nightmare for you) know that she'll go down with relative ease.

With one exception.

Everything in her room has to be in its exact, proper, Abigail-assigned place.

Today we picked up all the books from the living room which we'd read this morning after our walk and put them in the bookcase. I made the mistake of putting all the Little Golden Books in at once to save time and was promptly remonstrated and denied any further opportunity to help in the following eloquent fashion: "No, Mommy. Mine do it self."

So I sat on her bed and watched her painstakingly put in each Little Golden Book (and believe me, there were many) one at a time, perfectly lined up, each right-side up with the spine facing outward.

Then she looked around her room for other items out of place. She carefully aligned the rocking horse parallel to the baseboards. She picked up her green ball, carried it across the room, and set it down against the wall a foot away from her bed, moving it over an inch or so to ensure exact placement. Then she looked around in amazement and exclaimed "My bike!"

We made a trip to Mommy's room to find her little plastic ride-on toy, which she had insisted on riding around the house this morning since she was "go-ee work like Daddy." We then proceeded to "carry it both together" back to her room, where she carefully set the bike down parallel to the head of her bed. Actually, I set it down on a slight angle; she immediately fixed it, moving it an inch at a time until it was absolutely perfect.

Finally, it was time to get into her bed. Again, she insisted "climb in bed mine self," so I obediently waited until I was instructed to collect her assortment of stuffed friends which she insists on napping with, namely "dummy, baby, dolly, and puppy. And dolly blankie!" (We're still working on "dummy." She'll refer to all other rabbits as "bunny," but this one seems to be stuck with her original version of the word...sigh.)

I made the mistake of putting all her toys into her arms, which was the preferred method last week, but again, Abigail corrected my ignorance by showing me this week's placement: Baby and Dummy in her arms with Dolly and Puppy lying upside down near her waist. Dolly also had to be covered--just on the feet--with her special blanket (the doll's blanket, not Abigail's). Then finally we were set--I sang her two good-night songs, kissed her, and shut the door.

Never a dull moment with this kid, I tell you. Speaking of which, this is for you, Elise: Abigail requested this morning that I sing the "Won, Won, Won Weezy!" song this morning.

For the uninitiated, just click on the Youtube video. Warning: it gets sort of addicting. And it won't leave your head.

conversations with abigail

I haven't written any of my little Abigail moments on here for awhile, so here's one that gave us a few chuckles:

Me: Abigail, tonight you are going to Elise's house while Mommy and Daddy go on a date.

Abigail: Oh.

Me: Do you know what a date is?

Abigail: No.

Me: A date is how mommies and daddies have fun together, and how mommies and daddies become friends. Mommy and Daddy sat by each other in class one day and became friends. Then they got married and decided to have an Abigail baby.

Abigail: Oh. I have two fathers.

Neil: Two fathers?

Abigail: Dey live in my room.

Neil: What are their names?

Abigail: Father and father.

Neil: Oh. What is my name?

Abigail: Mommy.

First haircut

Lots of pictures for all of you who only check this for pictures (Elise!). I finally put new batteries back in the camera.

Anyway, as you can see, we celebrated the demise of the Mullet of Glory over the weekend. It's now been replaced by a more-or-less neat little bob that makes her look rather frighteningly less babyish and much more like a little kid, or at least a baby whose parents have noticed that she had weird hair and finally finally did something about it.

On the "growing up suddenly" front, Abigail walked into the dining room yesterday where I was grading papers, and sweetly offered her face up for a kiss, indicated that I was to put her back-pack on her back, then told me "Bye bye, Mommy. Go car pack pack school. Bye!"

She's also growing increasingly attached to "baby doh," which Rosalind gave her for Christmas. Baby doh spends her days being force-fed bottles, driving recklessly through the house smashing into walls, and goes down for a nap with a blanket over her face every fifteen minutes or so. I'm not sure what this says about Abigail's feelings towards my parenting style.

Musings

I realized this morning that my schedule this semester has, for the first time in my life, allowed me to develop an amazing ability. If you've ever lived with me, you know that I have a pathological problem with falling asleep when I'm supposed to, and once I wake up, that's it. I can't go back to sleep.

However, I have now developed the ability to get up at 5:30, go to the gym and get in 2.5 miles on the elliptical and twenty minutes on weights, then drive back home, go back to bed (yes, I generally change clothes first), and promptly fall back asleep. Pretty cool.

I was also thinking last night while I was cooking dinner about all the nice things in my life since Neil and I were married; one of those nice things being a willingness on my part to try more exotic (read: anything other than PBJs) cooking, foods, and ingredients. Back in the good ol' single days, my culinary daring extended to things like...chicken pot pies. The frozen kind. Or--shout-out to Jenny!--our staple of dirty rice, sausage, and Kool-Aid. But after I met Neil, aside from a slight detour (Jen, you probably also remember this) with the Garlic Pizza of Nastiness that he concocted on our first big group date, I learned to start cooking with previously despised ingredients like garlic and onions and mushrooms. I really would just leave out onions if a recipe called for them, so that was a big improvement! And anyway, I was thinking this while I was cooking up chicken in a creamy dijon mustard sauce topped off with sauteed mushrooms and onions, and thinking, gosh, that's sure one nice thing about being married to Neil. My taste buds are happy. Plus, he's a really great cook, nasty garlic pizza aside (granted, he'd only been back from the Philippines for four months, but really--twelve cloves? Honey, what were you thinking?)

I've also been thinking a lot lately about how grateful I am for Abigail. There are lots of times when I wish I had free time, or just the leisure to spend twenty minutes on my own somewhere away from home sitting in Borders people-watching, but it's really a blessing to be able to spend so much time with her and watch her grow and develop. She's becoming a tiny little friend now, instead of just someone whose needs I take care of all day (I loved her even so, but it's nice when she can communicate and interact. Preferable to the small limp slug stage). All the things I've "given up" are worth just one good "Yuv yoo Mommy!" from her (and I write this now so I will remember that I feel this way on the not-so-good days!)

Since this blog is also my chronicle of Abigail's general coolness, here are my favorite moments from yesterday:
1) Reading stories together. We have been able to do this every (week)day since the first of the year, and it has really been a lot of fun. Her attention span is much longer now, and we can read "real" books like How the Grinch Stole Christmas instead of sticking to board books with only 5 or 6 pages. Hurray!
2) Watching her play with her Little People yesterday--I looked over at one point and she had them all sitting in their chairs surrounding the table. How cute was that!
3) Playing with her kitchen: she brought me a wooden steak in her little frying pan, then warned me very seriously "Hot, Mommy," and blew on it to cool it.
4) Lying under her crib with her. This sounds weird, but I'd crawled under there to distract her from storytime, since my throat was getting pretty hoarse, and she thought it was a great game. By the time Neil came home, we were playing "nite-nite" under there with an enormously varied collection of stuffed animals and blankies. Abigail had a blast (and Neil couldn't find us, which she also thought was hilarious!)
5) Watching her run around after her bath. Before we put on her diaper, she always does this weird high-stepping dance that is really comical to watch. Of course, since Neil laughs like crazy, she gets even more into it and goes berserk running around the house doing all kinds of silly moves. It's a great way to get her nicely worn out for bedtime!

Stories?

Lately, Abigail has started telling me very long and complicated stories, out of which I generally understand a grand total of five words. Usually it goes something like this...

"Mommy honey a gluoo noo a sni poh a car bye-bye," except fill in about five minutes of baby blather and chirping in there too.

On Saturday, she spent about fifteen minutes trying to convey some very complicated message ("Mommy! A gluu!!!") and then finally stared at me in exasperation, grabbed the seat of her pants, and said "Mommy. Me poo."

That solved it.