Tag: preschooler

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Kids/Parenting

Rebecca is planning

I made the mistake of telling Rebecca her birthday was after Rachel’s. In the sense that she is the next person in this house to have a birthday, I was right.

But that’s not how a soon-to-be-four-year-old thinks.

Starting on Rachel’s birthday and every day thereafter, she has asked. “Is my biwtday tomoyyow?”

“No.”

“Is my biwtday aftay tomoyyow?”

“. . . Strictly speaking, yes.”

Rebecca calls herself The Awesomest Giwl when she wears her sunglasses and her dad's hat

She’s laid off the calendar questioning once I showed her how many weeks until her birthday, but today she sat me down for some in-depth discussion of the big day.

“Foy my biwtday, you an me an Wachew wiww go to de jumping p’ace and Hayden and Daddy wiww go to de stowe to get p’esents, an’ dey wiww make me a big! cake! And dey wiww get bLLoons . . .”

[For my birthday, you and me and Rachel will go to the jumping place and Hayden and Daddy will go to the store to get presents, and they will make me a big cake and they will get balloons.]

But it’s not just her immediate family she’s concerned with.

“An’ Nana wiww send me some p’esents. An’ we—me an’ Daddy—wiww make a bideo to teww hey it’s my biwtday so s’e can send me p’esents.”

[And Nana will send me some presents. And we—me and Daddy—will make a video to tell her it’s my birthday so she can send me some presents.]

I’m already worried about her wedding.

Worse still, so’s she. This week, she asked me, “When wiww de maiw [mail] be hewe, and when wiww I get mawwied?”

Straight answers: I don’t know and I don’t know.

My Aunt Janie pointed out that maybe in light of the second question, it wasn’t M-A-I-L in the first. I agree 😉 .

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Kids/Parenting

Rebecca is clever

Rebecca is three and a half now (and she’ll gladly tell you this!). And let me tell you—we love to hear her talk. And sing. Here are some cute phrases from her I’ve collected over the last few months:

One afternoon, she was playing with Hayden and his fire truck. Seeking his attention, she exclaimed, “I’m a fiwe [fire]! Buwn buwn buwn buwn!”

It worked.

A couple months ago we had a mouse. In our house. Shudder.

Rebecca’s reaction, however, was on the other end of the spectrum. “Mayme we can do sumping nice fow de mouse!” [Maybe we can do something nice for the mouse!]

We decided not to, however, and trapped and killed it. When I explained this all to Rebecca, she concluded, “Dewe awe no wive mice in ours wowd [world].”

Rebecca climbed onto Hayden’s bike, but couldn’t make it go. I asked if she needed something. She said she did.

“A new bike. It’s whoa on enderdy [energy].”

Rebecca had some . . . bathroom issues recently. It looks like she’s all better now, but at once upon a time, I told her her bummy was telling her it was time to poop. She narrowed her eyes at me. “Bummies can’t talk ’cause dey awe not awive.” She lowered her eyes and her voice. “Duh.”

Finally, my sister recorded this original composition by Rebecca a couple weeks ago:

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Kids/Parenting

Singing!

Rachel has really taken to Nursery at church. Although she’s still just learning to talk, suddenly she has a whole new kind of vocabulary: songs.

Although she only knows one word of each song (okay, two words for three songs), she knows all of the actions.

This first one I didn’t realize what song she was doing at first until she added the little toss of her hands at the end. It was the “Bee!” that confirmed it:

Her other two favorites from Nursery are another “Bee!” song (“Itsy Bitsy Spider”) and “Dow!” (“Ring Around the Rosy”).

This reminds me of a dinnertime last fall, when Rebecca was talking about a song from her Nursery about an octopus. We don’t know any octopus songs, but Ryan jumped right in to adapt “Head Shoulders Knees and Toes”: “Head, arm, arm, arm, arm, arm, arm, arm, arm . . . .”

“Mouth and beak,” I finished.

Rebecca was not amused. She gave us a very three-year-old glower. “You awe des makin my Desus [Jesus] song siwwy.”

We (okay, it’s just me) are trying to make sure their cultural education is broad in the classics. Witness exhibit 1 (it’s long and mostly sideways):

And exhibit 2, just Rachel:

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Kids/Parenting

Rebecca sayings

Ryan and I were talking last night about how Rebecca didn’t really talk until she was at least 18 months old. In fact, she hardly ever even made noise until she discovered screaming at 8 months. Even her laughter was quiet: scrunching her nose and sniffing.

Yeah, those days are a distant memory now. But with the cute things she says, I guess it’s okay.

Rebecca got her first real haircut!


Just kidding! (Silly you.)

We bought a bag of Reese’s minis for Rebecca as an incentive. “Are dey gowd?”

“Yes, they’re gold.”

“Are dey gowd doub’oons? [Doubloons] . . . No, dey are just gowd.”

Rebecca gets her middle name right about half the time; the other half she thinks her middle name is the same as Hayden’s (a mistake he’s just learning to correct). But she knows Rachel’s middle name, apparently because I say it so much. She even knows what it means:

“Waychew Deana [Rachel Diana] means ‘Come hewe!'”

“Good job, Bex,” I told her as we were cleaning up.

“No, I not Bex. I jus’ one Becca!”

During Rachel’s nap one Saturday, I left the other kids playing on the computer while Ryan went to church for a bit. When I came back from my shower, Rebecca announced, “We take gooood cawe of Wachew, Mommy! We takin’ good cawe o’ ouwsewves.”


Rebecca the ice princess (note the hat and the tiara)

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Kids/Parenting

Tendin

I’ve mentioned how much Rebecca enjoys pretend play. She is sharing this love with lots of other people . . . and things lately.

A while back, she insisted “I Buzz!” when we called on “Becca” for our family prayer one evening. We informed her Buzz was not allowed to pray, but Rebecca could. After we convinced her our minds were made up, she stuck out her arms and legs and wiggled them.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“I shakin’ off my ‘tendin’ a be Buzz Wightyeaw.”

After the prayer, she mimed pulling on sleeves and boots: “I puttin back on my ‘tendin’ a be Buzz.”

This summer, we’ve crammed in waaay more travel than I’d initially planned. On her first trip, we stayed in a hotel. As we departed for home, Rebecca repeatedly asked if we were going to the hotel (since I guess we said “home” when we said we were going to the hotel while we were there). Finally, she understood that we were driving back to our house.

“Oh!” she exclaimed. “Hotew was jus’ ‘tendin’ a be ours home!”

She’s used this logic on other nouns as well. When she doesn’t want to go to bed, like tonight, she’ll inform us that “The daytime is just ‘tendin’ a be nighttime.” Or when she was having a little trouble on a playground and I read to her the sign that said the playground was designed for kids ages 5-12, and she told me she was five, she clarified, “I was just ‘tendin’ a be five.”

What funny things did your kids pretend?

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Kids/Parenting

W is for wacky words

I love the new phrases little kids use!

My favorites from Rebecca:

  • ackshee . . . (actually)
  • s’uw (sure, but without the sh. Or the r.)
  • Kudaihav . . . ? (Could I have . . . ?)
  • Pe-p’ease? (Pretty please?) (This just recently advanced from “Me-mease?”)
  • Mayme we can . . . (Maybe—Rebecca is generating alternatives)
  • F’iends (Friends)

But I think the most surprising recent words were this:

Last night at dinner, we were talking about our visit with Nana (my mom). I asked my son Hayden what his favorite part of the visit was. He decided his favorite part was getting new blocks from Nana.

“Here’s the backstory,” he said. And he proceeded to explain in great detail the shopping trip a week ago when we bought the new blocks.

“It’s great on so many levels,” he concluded.

(!!)

What are your favorite kid phrases?