Crayons in My Coffee

Baby Girl won a citizenship award at school—one of the many things they do regularly that I love.

I wasn’t able to make it in person (I had to work and didn’t know about it until the day before), but Andrew was able to go and see her surprise!

Please enjoy this smattering of recent Baby Girl stories:

• We were having Sunday lunch last week at WELCOME TO MOE’S and got stopped by one of the little moments that I better remember. We had just gotten our food and Andrew was maneuvering her toward me and our table from the drink station, and she was just sort of dancing around WILDLY and generally acting the fool, limbs flailing as she made her way through the crowd. You know, as you do. In the course of her joy, she smacked right into this gentleman behind her, practically knocked him and his tray over, and stopped the forward progress of an entire line of people.

AS YOU DO.

So I was all embarrassed and rushed over to correct her and, you know, MOVE HER out of everyone’s way—and I think I said something nonsensical like “BG, you have to look around you when you dance and make sure you’re not about to knock into people” and made her apologize. And he turned to me (the man she crashed into the MOST) and said, “Honey, you see that little girl over there? That’s my daughter, and she’s 25 now. You let that little girl dance all she wants now, because she’s going to stop doing it soon and be all grown up.” And maybe my overactive imagination added this part in, but I think he tipped his HAT at me as he said it. Who knows.

I do know I was about to cry right there by the salsa and the trash can.

• Here’s how to make your child not care that you’re not going anywhere for Spring Break: volunteer to dog-sit for someone else who is!

Please meet our 85-lb lapdog! I was able to take the week out of the office and work at home for the week, which worked out beautifully. BG got to have some grandparents and great-grandparent time and we had time to do some family things just for fun. The dog was awesome and so very emotionally needy (which I kind of liked). I now know why Weimaraners are called “velcro dogs.” She wanted to sleep in bed with any human who would have her and just followed us around the house incessantly. If she was near you, she was touching you—definitely a people dog! She is an older dog (and used to 2 little girls), so she was also quite calm and independent when she needed to be home alone. Unfortunately, it either snowed (!) or rained every day of our break, so we had to spend a lot of time inside. We managed a few playdates and long walks—I have never seen a dog so reluctant to go outside, though I sort of couldn’t blame her this week.

And now I have MAJOR dog fever. Again.

• Lastly, BG has learned her first bad word and it is THE BIG ONE. Actually, she had no idea it was a bad word. By sheer accident (probably), she doesn’t know any curse words and therefore doesn’t even react (yet) if she happens to overhear one. She read it and was curious about what it meant. There was not (and hasn’t been) any actual usage of any questionable words.

She read it on a bathroom stall.

At church (our church meets at a high school).

On Easter Sunday.

And it was the F-bomb.

And she asked Andrew about it as soon as she came out of the bathroom into the crowded hallway.

Sigh.

I choose to find all this hilarious.

We never should have let her learn phonics.

That was a nice run, right?

She doesn’t really know anything other than that it is NOT okay for her to repeat it, and we also made a recent household rule that she is not allowed to make nonsense words with F.

Again, I think phonics is the common problematic denominator here, correct?

 

Now, she knows she’s not allowed in the ocean without an adult…

One snippet:

Baby Girl, quietly from the back seat: “If ONLY we had a ROOSTER to wake us up every morning. That would be just perfect.”

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This year, Baby Girl’s school had a Daddy/Daughter dance—to make all of us die of the cuteness. I even asked Andrew to pick out a dress for her, and he did a great job! She was so proud and excited.