Dad is the Rainmaker

The last several nights, Sam has been stuffy and waking up with a cough in the night. The problem is, her throat hurts and she's still half asleep, so she just panics, runs into our room crying, and that makes the coughing worse until she starts to gag. It's a game we played 10 times the night before last. Finally, at 1 am today, Daniel thought to put the humidifier in her room so she would (hopefully) not have the sore throat and stop the cycle. We could really use the sleep, and I'm glad he thought of it, because seriously, between me getting up a million times a night this pregnancy and Sam's visits, I'm sleeping in 30 minute spurts that just aren't cutting it!

Not only did Sam sleep soundly from 1am until 8 this morning (a major miracle because she wakes up by 7 no matter how little sleep she gets!), but I had forgotten she was out cold in our bed while Daniel set up the humidifier in her room, and she stayed asleep when we put her back to bed. Sam woke me up this morning by running into my room and excitedly yelling "Mom!!! Mom!! There is a blanket, a machine, and CLOUDS in my room!!! Come look! Clouds!"
I tried to explain to her that the machine wasn't making actual clouds, but mist to help her throat, and Daddy put it in there--she seemed convinced some Santa-like figure had visited. Finally, she made this totally shocked face and then stood there grinning. Then I figured out why--she now thinks her Daddy makes the clouds.
Now, I know this girl already thought the sun rose and set with her Dad, but now, apparently, she also thinks he creates the weather with his "machine." Oh well, there's time enough for her to observe our mistakes and figure out we're both painfully human. In the meantime, I hope Daniel enjoys being the bringer of clouds.

He should be riding high today--not only is he the mightiest dad in the world to Sam, but we found out yesterday that the new baby is a boy--he's getting a son. Not a bad 24 hours, I'd say!

Miracles happen

For those who know me personally, but have totally given up on my private family blog, I have finally updated it with new pictures of Sam.
See, miracles happen.
Try not to get too excited, it's nothing special, I just know even the most faithful have pretty much given up checking for my bi-monthly updates. :)

Interesting Prayers

Lately, we have been letting Sam lead the way and say her own prayers with whatever she feels like praying for. The results have been some interesting prayers from Sam. Here are some of my favorite Samisms while addressing the Almighty. Frankly, I'm thrilled she's over the three month phase of saying "Heavenly Father. Danks Blessings. Amen." That got old fast.

"Please bless Daddy be safe of the freeway. Please bless me be safe on the freeway. Please bless Mommy to take me swimming." (Daniel's response: It would take divine intervention for me to put on a swimsuit and go in the pool these days. So true--my belly has outgrown the only swimsuit I've bought since I was in the 8th grade, and I have no desire to go shopping for a new swimsuit.)

"Danks for Super Why! And please bless me to watch Super Why tomorrow."

Every prayer, no matter how short, includes the line "Please bless Robby Stevie on der missions." Her twin uncles are serving in Argentina and Uruguay (or will be when they're done with language training), and lately, since Steve has been sick, she adds "Please bless Robby and Stevie at da doctor." Explaining to her that Robby hasn't needed to go to the doctor has done nothing for us.
Sometimes she also adds "Please bless me to go on a mission. To Home Depot and Sam's Club." Why she wants to serve a mission so badly, and further to those particular stores, we don't know. It's funny though and she has never ever wavered from listing those two stores as her goal.

"Please bless my Mack and G to come visit for Banksgiving."

"Dank you for my alphabet." (we put a new alphabet strip in her room that day) Then she added "Dank you for H...Dank you for I....Dank you for J, K, L, M, N, O, P."

"Please bless Mommy and da new baby. It comes out after Christmas." I like this because it's neither a request or a thanks, just some info the Lord might want, I guess?

"Bless Daddy at basketball."

"Danks for my toys. Danks for my house. Danks for my blankies. Bless me to stay in my bed. Amen."

Amen, indeed. Funny kid.

Well, I asked

Lately, I've been forgetting that Sam is getting really smart and starting to think about things in a different way--but that way is not the adult way. So sometimes I ask her questions that are really dumb, like "what are you doing?" and she'll look at me like I'm an idiot and say "I'm running around with dis hanger scatting (scratching) things."
Clearly, I could see that she was running around the house with a hanger scratching things. I could also see that she was "making a big mess," "wiping dis booger on da wall," "rolling on the floor," "throwing dis toy," and about a thousand other bizarre things she does on a daily basis. Which means I probably should have asked "Why are you doing that?" instead of "what are you doing?" It's a lesson I continue to learn the hard way every day. I can hardly blame her for answering my question so literally, though. The look on her face when I ask seems to say, "Geez, Mom, you ask a stupid question, you get a stupid answer."
Sometimes, however, she answers a question in a way I never expected that shows she is thinking about things but still doesn't actually understand how things work. Take today. While I got out of the shower and was getting ready Sam asked "where we going today?" It's been a very busy last couple of weeks, and every day she's gotten dragged to at least one long appointment.
I looked at her and said "You know what? We don't have anywhere we have to be! No appointments on our schedule! So, we can do whatever we want. Is there somewhere you would like to go today?"
Sam looked at me with a huge grin and yelled "Yeah! I want to go to UTAH! Let's go."
Huh, I didn't see that coming at all.
So now, instead of a super fun day where she got to pick the destination, she is very disappointed and upset that we can't drive 12 hours to visit her "Mack and G" in Utah. Welcome to parenthood: "disappointing children through our best intentions for thousands of years."
Moral of the story: I shouldn't have asked.

Bad Call

Why, oh why didn't I write my speech for tomorrow night before Mockingjay was released today? It would have taken me so little time, but I put it off, and now I not only have to do it last minute, but have to drag myself away from the final installment of the Hunger Games series to do so.
I'm a moron who didn't think ahead, that's why.

I'm also someone who is still procrastinating by taking time to post this on my blog instead of writing my speech...

I'm a terminal procrastinator!

There's probably a lot of factors at work here...

Maybe it's the heat (our AC was accidentally cranked up to our "vacation setting" so it was 84 and climbing in our house this morning).
Maybe it's the pregnancy exhaustion.
Maybe it's Sam waking up at 6am and wanting to "sleep" in my bed for an hour, that hour mainly consisting of her smacking me in the face repeatedly with her gloworm as she attempted to hand it to me and asking to "turn the music back on!" (We only let it play music during the day, lights only at night).
Maybe it's a lot of things...
but seriously, Calliou has to be the most annoying, whiny, obnoxious child ever to grace the TV universe. The fact that there has yet to be an episode where Mommy drops him off at Grandma's "Just to get a freakin' break from all the whining, before mommy has a break down!" is endlessly fascinating to me. Far be it for me to rag on a kid that probably has alopecia, but geez, he drives me nuts.
.

Then again, I acknowledge that I could just be having a stressful day. It doesn't help that Calliou is Sam's favorite show on PBS kids and she wakes up before seven every day, just to make sure she doesn't miss it at 7:30. We have had talks at our house however, and Sam knows that "I do not talk like Caillou. No whining!" So, at least he's telling her how NOT to be.
I'm going to take comfort in the fact that it's probably not just me, however.
The other day at the library some kid was looking at books with Sam and opened up a book with a bald kid in it. She yelled "Mommy, look--it's Caillou!" The mom said "It looks like him doesn't it?" and then turned to me and said under her breath "Holy crap. I hate that whiny Caillou. Drive me crazy!"
There's at least one other person out there who can't stand a fictional preschool character. Anyone else out there who can't stand Caillou, I'm thinking of creating a support group?

Not what she thought it would be

Sorry I haven't blogged in a while. I've had a lot of things going on around here, including my brother's wedding (Congrats to the Boy and Kiki!) and a two-week stay with my parents, just because Daniel and I finally realized that just because he has limited vacation time, doesn't mean I do. It only took us nearly 3 years to figure it out. We missed him for the week or so we were apart before he joined us, but it was nice for Sam to milk some serious grandparent time where she normally only gets a few days. Plus, having help with Sam in the form of my sister has been absolutely awesome. Everyone should have a teenager in the house that they trust, but don't have the responsibility of raising when they have a toddler. Adjusting back has been hard, but that's part of the joy of vacation, right?

So what's going on with us that has us so busy?
Lately, Sam has been very much into telling me she loves "cute babies." She yells "Ohhh, yook at da cute babies!" at Gerber commercials. She plays with her baby dolls. She also treats all the kids at church under three and a half feet (even the ones older than her) as "babies" and tries to feed them her goldfish--directly into their mouths, which is more than a little embarrassing, particularly when the "baby" in question is pushing age four.

Apparently, however, all this love is purely in the abstract. When we went to visit a friend with a new baby, she was so excited to see him she talked about it all morning, and made him a "card" that she slipped into our baby gift when I wasn't looking. He was all she could talk about--"I gonna see da baby! Cute babies!" When she ran in from playing outside to see me holding the baby, however, she changed her tune. Standing squarely in front of me and pointing at my arms she very loudly, very carefully, and very slowly said "Put. Da. Baby. Down. You hold me, Mom. You hold me!" I have never seen anyone turn on another person so fast. In Sam's eyes, babies are only cute when relegated to their swing, or their car seat, or the arms of anyone but her very own mom.

Uh...if she doesn't find a way to cope with this, I think Sam is going to have a really tough February.