When I was a little girl, I was known for quoting movies, reiterating plot lines from Bonanza and Sleeping Beauty. My Granny swears to this day that my Maleficent was a dead ringer for the real thing.
“Touch it, I say!”
I became suspicious that The Baby had inherited this talent early on, when she began to be riveted on everything everyone around her was doing. She began “snapping” her silent little fingers, blowing baby raspberries in response to big people raspberries… and soon she began singing lines from “Frozen.”
Her first spoken sentence was -in very fact -SUNG, “Leh i’ goooooo!”
Now her favorite game (aside from a pretty painful version of “peek-a-boo” in the which she grips her Mom by the hair and forces her head into hiding) is the call and echo game.
“Hi, Dad!”
“Hi, Da!”
“I’m sorry…”
“I dorreee…”
“I LOVE you!”
“I YUH YOO!”
And the beat goes on.
Last week, we said family prayers and I stayed kneeling on the ground to say my own personal prayers. I wasn’t long into it before I felt tiny fingers on the back side of my pants… lifting them away from my body.
“You poop?!” a tiny voice inquired from directly behind me.
She was just checking… the same way Mom checks her.
Last Saturday, we went out as a family to The Steps outside of town.
The steps are a place in a canyon where the rocks have been whittled away by some mysterious band of someones.
Maybe the Spaniards?
So that they might water their livestock at the creek below.
Sheep, maybe?
Our neighbor growing up owns the land now, and he’s added a few more man-made steps and a sturdy hand railing to make the hike down easier.
My sister arranged for us all to meet out there and soak in the creek water, catch tad poles, and get completely covered in sand.
Trenton and Lacy were ALL ABOUT the water, the crawdads, and the tadpoles.
Alice was mildly interested in the water, but the sand? She was infatuated. She dug her hands and feet into it, peeling off her most beloved pink crocs (she’s obsessed with shoes) to sink her little painted toes (“prebbies!” aka “pretties”) into the soft beach-like sand.
But somehow I only manage to get a water picture. Good job, Mom.
After a good long dunk in the water and a few walks along the creek side, my sister took a break in the shade. Alice watched her spread her pretty swimming cover-up on the sand and lie down. Then she toddled over and did exactly as Julianne had done.
She plunked her little wet bum next to Ju and lied down flat.
“Dis bed?” she asked, honestly wanting to know why we bother lying down when there’s SAND to be had.
The kids all loved it.
The tadpoles did not.
And we all went back to Grandma’s for hot dogs and s’mores which means we all slept soundly from either exhaustion or full bellies.
Or happiness.
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