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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

Busy times!

Hayden has “graduated” from Kindergarten (though he still has a little school left):

Rebecca has gone undercover:

Rachel? She should be dancin. (Yeah!) (RIP, Robin Gibb.)

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Kids/Parenting Faith

Easter (and cute things Rebecca says)

Rebecca is pretty dang cute—and she’s the reigning Princess of Precociousness around here. Her latest cute saying:

“Mommy, can I p’ay a game with you? Wike ‘Who Can Hide Da Most’?”

“Ah, my c’ean, wef’essing waday.” [Water]

We visited the St. George LDS Temple this week, and Rebecca was talking with one of the missionaries. He asked her why she thought the Christus statue had his hands outstretched. She replied, “I dunno. Mayme he’s a angel or sumping?”

Her first talk in the children’s Sunday School (“Primary”) was this week—she did great!

(Okay, this is from Easter, but she mentioned it in her talk!)

The Easter Bunny remembered how in years past, Peeps have not been very popular with my kids. Fortunately, the Easter Bunny (well, the EB’s mom) erred on the side of caution, and pink Peeps garnished their baskets Easter morning. Rebecca promptly bit their heads off:

Ate them, and then asked for “Mowe ‘mingos?”

“Mingos?”

F’amingos.”

Flamingos, folks. And last night, she proclaimed “Fuh-fuh-f’amingos stawt de same aw Fuh-fuh-F’ancesco!

True.

Christus statue photo by arbyreed

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Kids/Parenting

Can you say “Precocious”?

I had someone say that to me about one of my kids this last week, but I think it might apply to all of them. Yes, even the one with a twenty-word vocabulary.

This week, Hayden told Ryan (AKA Daddy) that he wanted to work on his birdhouse this weekend. Ryan agreed, but that wasn’t good enough for Hayden.

“Put it in your phone, Daddy.”

Ryan said, “Why do I need to put it on my phone?”

“Because,” Hayden replied, “your phone is smarter than you.”

Ouch.


Last night while we were finishing dinner, Rebecca picked up a picture of Jesus and pretended to read the information on the back, as if she were delivering a talk in Primary (which she hasn’t done yet—she keeps volunteering for prayers). About twenty minutes before, she discovered Rachel had absconded with her milk cup and finished it off. I finally appeased her tears—or so I thought.

After introducing her subject, Deezus, she continued on about Him for a while before I realized what she was saying:

“An’ he wants us to be nice . . . and kind . . . an’ not d’ink ouw big sistay’s d’inks. . . .”


Not on the subject of talking, but last week, Rachel was playing with her baby doll when she suddenly ran into the kitchen, opened the silverware drawer, and ran back:

(She actually got the baby’s mouth most of the time. She also shared some cereal later.)

Rachel is still working on words in general, so we applaud any of her efforts, even “yah” and “suh.” Unfortunately, her latest phrases have taken a sharp turn toward the negative:

When she gets upset, she flaps her hands like a floundering flightless fowl and wails, “No waaaaaay.”

And last week on a road trip, she realized we all found it hilarious when she answered any question with “Ummmmm no.” It’s a lot less cute the 45th time.

What’s your favorite precocious moment?

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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: