Stories from this week

How did it get to be Saturday again already? We have a fairly busy day planned—if I can ever get the whole family out of bed, that is. Rachel has a "class at BYU," which she's been looking forward to (both anxiously and excitedly) for weeks. The Museum of Art at BYU does "Second Saturday" classes for children and they're doing an Islamic exhibit right now (for which Andrew did a lot of the signage) so we signed Rachel up. It would have been a good thing to know about earlier but I guess we'll just take advantage of it from now on.

The rest of the week was fairly quiet. Since Monday I've been fairly unmotivated to go outside—it's only ever warm enough between 2 and 3 PM, which is right in the thick of nap time—aside from the walks we take to get Rachel to and from school.

Miriam has been a little chatterbox lately. We were snuggling in bed yesterday and talking about all sorts of things. She accused me of stealing one of Rachel's blankets but I explained that it was a blanket I got for Christmas when I was a girl. Miriam wanted to know if I had gotten it from Santa. I said that I couldn't remember but it was either from Santa or from my mom.

"Who is your mom?" Miriam asked.

"I don't know. Who is my mom?" I said.

"Ummm...ummm...ummmm...Naanii!" Miriam said.

"That's right! And who is your mom?"

"Fancy Nancy! You is my mom and is your name Fancy Nancy!"

I think it's hilarious that she tacks on the fancy part, though about fifty percent of the time it comes out as Mancy Mancy and the other fifty percent of the time it comes out as Fancy Mancy.

"What should we name your little brother?" I asked.

"Santa," Miriam suggested.

"Not Santa," I said. "What else, do you think?"

"Harry?"

"No."

"Ron?"

"No."

"Voldemort?"

"Voldemort!?"

"Yeah—just in case my baby brother is a bad guy."

"Your baby brother is not going to be a bad guy."

That child has been just full of the funnies this week.

On Thursday she found me eating an apple, which I had sliced because my teeth are ridiculously offset and I lack the ability to actually bite anything (I can chew, just not bite). Miriam asked if she could have a snack, too.

"Sure," I told her. "Have a piece of my apple."

"No!" she said, aghast. "Just that...not do I not want to share germs with you! I need my own apple!"

"Taking a piece of apple that I haven't bitten doesn't share germs," I explained.

"Not does it share germs?"

"No. It doesn't."

"Okay!"

Yesterday she made cookies with Grandma and repeatedly dipped her little fingers into the bowl to get tastes of the dough until her hands were positively dripping with slimy cookie dough mixed with saliva.

"Miriam—you don't like to share germs and yet here you are, licking your fingers and sticking them in the mixing bowl?" Grandma asked.

"Not do I not have germs!" Miriam said, affronted. "Rachie has germs because is Rachie sick."

"Oh, people always have germs, even when they're not sick," Grandma explained.

"But not do I not have germs!" Miriam insisted, licking more cookie dough off her fingers.

Sadly, she now has the cold that Rachel has had this past week. Rachel didn't cough last night, which was great for Rachel. However, Miriam woke up with a stuffy nose and now I have snot all over my pants and shirt because she's been using me as a human kleenex. I suppose I'll be next to get this cold. Fortunately it seems to be short-lived.

While Rachel was at school on Thursday, Miriam drew some pictures. She's big on people lately and was talking all about the kings she was drawing as she was drawing them so when she handed me her picture to admire I said, "Wow! Look at all those kings!"

"No! Not all they are kings! Just that is a king and that is a king and that is a princess."

There was one person unaccounted for in her narrative so I pointed to it and said, "And what's that?"

"That?" Miriam said casually, "That is a dead king."

Wonderful. She draws dead people.

Grandpa Reid's on his annual trip to Germany—for work—and so he spent some time with Rachel yesterday before he left. They went on a walk to the park to play and while they were gone Miriam decided she wanted to draw again. She came up to me with a box of crayons and asked if she could use it.

"Can I just...use this box of crayons?" she asked innocently.

"Sure."

"Okay. Just that—it's Rachie's and she's not here so then...I can use it!" she explained.

"Oh...no... I didn't know it was Rachel's. If it's Rachel's then we should put it away."

"Why? Not she is here to take it away from me. So...we can share!"

"Well," I began before Miriam cut me off, "Sharing is nice...but it's not very good..."

"Sharing is good!" Miriam interjected. "Sharing is so, so, so good!"

"Yes. Sharing is nice. And sharing is good. But it's not very good to use other people's things without asking permission so we need to put Rachel's crayons away."

"Oh...okay," Miriam sighed.

Poor dear. It's not like we don't have a whole bucket of crayons with all the colours Rachel had in her box and more. The reason Rachel has her own crayons is because she's a little OCD about keeping them pristine.

Miriam has begun throwing tantrums more regularly but her tantrums are so mild that it's hardly problematic. By this age (and well before) Rachel had earned the nickname "Bucking Bronco" because when she threw temper tantrums she'd contort her body and thrash around on the floor and if you tried to pick her up she'd nearly knock you off balance with all her bucking back and forth. And her accompanying screams were terrific. Miriam, on the other hand, cries or screams or yells for approximately five seconds before collapsing on the floor to suck her thumb.

Yesterday she threw such a tantrum because I tied the bow in her hair wrong. She pulled her ponytail out, tossed her ribbon to the floor, yelled, "Not did you not do it right!" and then lied down on a pillow to suck her thumb. Rachel comforted her saying, "I know this is so hard for you. It's okay. Mommy can try doing your hair again. It's okay."



Grandma bought something at the store that came wrapped in butcher paper. She gave it to the girls to colour on, which they thought was awesome. They watched a couple of episodes of "Arthur" this week and there's usually a clip of Marc Brown at the end showing the kids how to draw one of the characters. At the end of one particular episode he taught them how to draw Buster (the bunny) and Rachel really picked up on it. She drew a couple of beautiful bunnies on the paper while Miriam scribbled on the other side (note the long black line in the middle of the paper—Rachel drew that).



When we showed Daddy the drawings Rachel had done he said, "See? Educational television can be educational."

"Can it now, Mr. Redundant?" I asked.

"Scratch that first educational," he said.

Television can be educational. In moderation. And it totally helps stimulate creative play, at least I think so. My girls have been playing Harry Potter all week, which probably doesn't come as much of a shock. We watched "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" this past weekend because we finished the book last week. Much to my surprise neither of them have had nightmares because of it. Rachel was jumping and screaming through the whole movie, which was rather funny, but when it came right down to it she loved it (which is odd because we read The Minpins by Roald Dahl a couple of nights ago and Rachel was so terrified that she couldn't sleep because every time she closed her eyes she saw "The Gruncher." So... basilisks are okay but Grunchers are nightmare inducing? Whatever).

They stacked the couch cushions against the wall in the living room and ran into them, claiming that they were the platform at 9 3/4. They would also stand in front of the fireplace and yell, "Diagon Alley!" while pretending to throw a handful of floo powder. Then they'd run to their bedroom to buy supplies (when their bedroom was Diagon Alley; sometimes their bedroom was the dormitory (and if you've never heard a two-year-old say, "Welcome to our dormitory!" then you just haven't lived)).

Here's Miriam/Hermione, standing in front of a stack of books at Flourish and Blots.

"Think of my pile books!" she told me.

"Oh, I'm thinking of them," I said.

"No! Come to Diagon Alley and think of my pile of books!"

So I went to the bedroom to admire them. I realized that she had meant, "What do you think of my pile of books?" and hadn't actually been commanding me to think about them in my mind at all.

The only problem with their Harry Potter game is that they fight over who gets to be Hermione. There is only one Hermione, you know. Rachel usually wins the battle and convinces Miriam to be either Luna Lovegood (even though they haven't exactly been introduced to her yet other than through word of mouth) or Ginny Weasley. 

Miriam told me the other day that she wanted to be Ginny for Halloween.

"Oh, really?" I asked.

"Yes," Rachel explained. "We were just talking about Halloween and since I want to be Hermione then Miriam can't be her, too. So Miriam's going to be Ginny. I was just disgusting her into dying her hair red for Halloween. Isn't that a good idea?"

No. It's not.

Also, "disgusting" doesn't mean what she thinks it means. She was obviously going for "discussing" but even then she used the word wrong. Her language and mannerisms are maturing rapidly but she often uses phrases that she doesn't quite understand. 

We were having a discussion at the dinner table last night about why Malfoy would call Hermione a Mudblood. Andrew explained that Malfoy was somewhat of a racist and the only reason he didn't like Hermione was because she had Muggles as parents. Then we discussed half-bloods and pure-bloods and all sorts of nonsense like that.

Then Rachel said, "So the point is—wizards don't exist."

I'm not sure that was exactly "the point" of the conversation but 10 points to Gryffindor for knowing that phrase.

And our final story of the day (probably more likely "of this post" since we have a few adventures planned for this afternoon) comes from last night. It was one of those nights where any excuse is an excuse to get out of bed. Shortly after 9 PM, Rachel opened the bedroom door.

"Mom, one of my elbows hurts," she complained.

"Which one?" I asked, not really seeing how she could have hurt her elbow between being put to bed and now since (in theory) all she should have been doing was lying in bed.

"Ummm...I think I just need to get a cold cloth for it," she suggested.

I told her that was fine. Cold cloths have become the bane of my existence. We started on them when Rachel was younger and terrified of bandaids. Instead of putting a bandaid on an owie we'd get a cold cloth and apply direct pressure until it felt better because there was no way she was going to let us put a bandaid on. She's probably had at least one cold cloth per day since she was a year old. That's three years worth of cold cloths. Usually she thinks she needs them at bedtime (for a toe she stubbed earlier in the day or a hangnail she picked or a headache or whatever). Instead of fighting it I've started making her get her own cold cloths. Who cares if she takes a wet cloth to bed so long as she doesn't make me get it ready for her, right?

While she was getting her cold cloth, Miriam tiptoed out of the bedroom.

"Mom!" she stage-whispered at me. "One of my faces hurts!"

"One of your faces hurts?" I asked. "That sounds terrible. Why don't you put your hot pad on it?"

Yes, while one of our girls insists on a cold cloth before bed the other insists on a hot pad—just a little pouch filled with rice that we warm up in the microwave, a habit that started a few months ago when she got an earache and one that has yet to die out.

She ran to get her hot pad, which was already warmed up, and held it to her (one and only) face. 

"That feels better," she said.

"I'm so glad!" I said. "Now let me give your face a kiss and we'll put it back to bed." 

And that just about brings us up to today. So even though I didn't write anything since Tuesday we've had a lot going on...at least, we've had enough going on. I'm going to blame my lack of writing on my influx of reading. I just finished True Grit last night—and found that the movie stayed relatively true to the book, though the book used a few more contractions—but I'm not sure it can account for a whole week's worth of slacking since I checked it out Thursday night and finished it yesterday night (I am loving checking books out from the library on my Kindle, just so you know).