Matricide in the Morning

Our little girl, Catie is four.  She likes to climb in bed with us.  If we are lucky, she waits until morning.  The other morning she was a little late.  The alarm had already gone off, but it was cold, so Hubband and I huddled together in the middle of the bed for a few minutes.  When he left to take his shower, Catie was standing at the side of the bed, glaring.

"Hey, good morning, little monkey.  How are you?" I said.

"Why were you stuck together like that?" she asked, stone-faced and serious.

"We were hugging."

"Why?"

"Because we love each other.  You are very lucky to have a mommy and daddy who love each other."

"What about me?  I need love."  This was not a whine, as is most of her conversation.  This was a cold statement of fact.

"Well, honey, you could have climbed in with us."

"There wasn't room," she said, pointedly.

Then, after about five seconds, and almost as if changing the subject, she got a huge smile on her face, threw her arms around my neck in a hug, and said in her sweetest voice, "Don't worry, Mommy.  I'm going to draw you a beautiful picture to show you how much I love you before you die."

Um...is there someone I should call about this?

It Snows Here

As I mentioned in a previous post, we have moved to northern Idaho.  It snows here.  Even though it is spring, and the sun doesn't go down until after eight, it still snows.  A light-hearted, "Welcome to Idaho" sort of snow.

Me:  Hey, kids.  Look.  It is snowing outside.
Sam:  I don’t see any snow.
Jonah:  It’s like a blizzard out there.
Catie:  If it is snowing, I probably better skip my nap.

The reality?  It was snowing.  It was not a blizzard.  And, in no way was it relevant to Catherine’s nap. This left me wondering.  Why are my kids so weird?

Having given it some thought, I can now announce that my children aren’t (always, completely) weird.  They’re just very different from each other.  Let me explain.

Sam’s Snow

Sam is very literal.  He knows what he knows, and if you want him to know anything more, you need to teach it to him.  He understands cause and effect, but he does not extrapolate new information.  And, Sam’s only experience with snow is what he has seen on television. On TV, “snow” is an object, a noun.  Mounds of noun-snow heaped up everywhere.  Noun-snow hills for sledding.  Noun-snow snowballs.  Noun-snow snowmen.  When I said it was snowing, Sam looked outside, at the ground.  He saw no accumulation of snow, therefore, it was not snowing.

Jonah’s Snow

Jonah is more imaginative.  He sees nuances.  And, is a wee bit melodramatic.  Unlike his brother, he has firsthand experience with the “stuff” that is snow, but still very little experience with “snowing.”  Verb-snow.  He knows verb-rain.  So, when Jonah looked out the window, he expected to see snow falling like rain; down.  What he saw was light, fluffy snow swirling around in the wind.  When rain does that we call it a hurricane.  When snow does that, Jonah calls it a blizzard.  This is reasonable. (Especially when you go back and read the part about being a wee bit melodramatic).

Catie’s Snow

Catie is a four year old girl with only one care in the world. Herself.  Her experience with snow is also limited, but irrelevant.  She didn’t even look out the window.  She sensed a disturbance among her subjects and immediately tried to work it to her advantage.

She took a nap anyway.

There is an old anthropological study that says in the Eskimo languages there are 50 words for snow.  Add three more.

You Never Know When You Are Going to Need a Dandelion Vase

The girl at Starbucks looked at me like I was crazy when I asked to keep the sample cup.

"When you have kids," I told her, "you'd be surprised how valuable little things like this can be."

Why I Don't Follow Fashion

When choosing a loose-fit jean, avoid the high waist and roomy crotch associated with the dreaded Mom Jean.  'The high pocket placement of Mom Jeans can create pancake butt, and that extra ease around the stomach accentuates a tummy,' says Moan Hanoch, Creative Director of Citizens of Humanity.*

I don't know what this means, but it makes me feel old...and fat...and bad about myself.

In other news, I have moved to northern Idaho.  More on the later.  Maybe.  Or, not.  I can't promise.

*Quote taken from People Weekly, March 4, 2013