Rachel-isms

For starters, let’s all enjoy a snippet from Rachel’s bedtime prayer this evening.

“Please help me to know the truth. And help Mommy and Daddy give me more candy. And…”

I don’t think a more sincere prayer has ever been uttered.

The “know the truth” part comes directly from a primary song, but the “give me more candy” part she came up with all on her own.

Yesterday while I was praying I mentioned something about insurance refund cheques and the next thing I knew there was a two-year-old right in my face.

“What’s a cheque?” she asked.

“I’ll tell you after the prayer. Kneel down and fold your arms.”

When the prayer was over, Rachel immediately blurted out,

“Amenwhat’sacheque?”

I explained to her that a cheque is kind of like money, but instead of actual money it’s a special piece of paper that you write on to tell someone how much money you want to give to them. Then they take that paper to the bank and the bank moves money from your bank account to theirs. She thought that was cool, so while we were getting her ready for bed gave me a piece of paper she had scribbled on.

“Here, Mommy,” she said, “This is for you. It’s money. I bought it at the bank. You like money. You can have it. I buyed it for you!”

Awesome! And I know just what I’ll buy with that “money,” too!Some more “candy” for Rachel, who apparently can’t seem to get enough of it.

Another area she thinks she’s lacking in is playground time. This one is probably a valid concern. Playgrounds here are cursedly inaccessible so at best we get to the playground once a week. We had talked about going to Al-Azhar park with Andrew’s family shortly before they left but we were all so worn out from everything else that we had done that we just couldn’t get ourselves to leave Maadi the last few days of their visit.

Unfortunately Rachel had already penciled playground time on her calendar and she wasn’t willing to erase it. As Andrew was summarizing the days’ game plan to everyone he said,

“Okay, we’ll go to Seoudi’s and Nancy and the girls will stay here. Then we’ll come back for lunch and then we’ll all go to Road Nine for some shopping and…”

That’s where she cut him off.

“Stop, Daddy!” she shrieked, “You meaned to say playground! You didn’t mean shopping! You meaned playground! Say playground now!”

Then she threw herself facedown on the floor for a class A temper tantrum. She can be a little emotional.

To finish off, we’ll mourn the following Rachel-isms that have since passed on:

1. “Nootuns” have become “noodles.”
2. “Pantoes” are now “pancakes.”

And why is it I can only think of sets of things lately? Everyone knows a good list has at least three items. Oh, well.