Sweet Child(ren) of Mine

My daughter is hilarious these days.

Here are a few of her latest crack ups:

Yesterday Tyson picked her up and was snuggling her and she perks up and squeals "DADDY! You smell JUST LIKE Mr.Jerad!" She giggles in her girlish fashion, and Tyson said "Is that a good thing, or a bad thing?" And she said it was a good thing... phew. And aweeee, she loves her Mr. Jerad, how adorable is that?!?

This morning, she spotted a fly on the living room ceiling and shouted "Wha-oh, Mom. We got flies in the house... better go get the bug spanker!"


A coupe days ago, I heard her lecturing away in the living room, so I came out to see what was the matter. She was talking to the cat (of COURSE!) who she had strapped into the baby swing which was turned on the fastest setting, and who might or might not have been threatened with a spank if she tried to escape...


Recently she is very in to the whole wedding thing. She and her bff Addie talk on and on about who they will marry, and when they are grown up, and what they will wear, blah blah blah. One night at the dinner table she announces out of nowhere "When I get married I want grandpa to walk me down the aisle." I asked her which grandpa, and she said "Grandma's grandpa" (which means my dad). She was so cute and matter of fact about it I told her she should probably call him and ask him if he would be up for it, which of course he was. But then she kept talking about it, and I finally said "You know, Anabelle, you might hurt your Dad's feelings if you dont let him do that job... most daddys really like to be the ones to walk their little girls down the aisle to their new husband..." and she goes "but if Dad walks me down the aisle, how will I marry him?"


Today in the back seat of the car, her Addie was hacking her lungs out (recovering from pneumonia like the rest of the town). Anabelle goes "Oh, poor Addie, that doesnt sound good, but MYYY cough is all better! See?" and then she threw her head back and opened her mouth as wide as it would go to prove it. Yep, I see its definitely gone.

She was sitting at the breakfast table the other day with Dawson and they were eating cereal and I was encouraging them to eat quickly because we had somewhere to go. Anabelle looks over at Dawson and goes "Ok, Daws. I already know its NOT a contest, but Im just saying... MY breakfast is almost gone, and yours...ISNT!"

My recent most favorite is still the fact that she COMPETELY mortified me when she felt the need to taunt the two criminals in handcuffs on the curb outside the grocery store at the top of her lungs..."You're BAD GUYS, and YOURE GOIN TO JAIL!!" as I attempted to tiptoe past the crime scene as inconspicuously as possible. Luckily I don't think either of them spoke much English... but I know the cops watching us sure did!

And lets not forget the man who came to clean our carpets recently who was, shall we just say, not a people person. Especially not the little-kid-loving kind of people person. In his defense, he was there to clean my carpets not babysit... but Anabelle coudnt wrap her mind around the fact that he didnt exactly think it would be a fun idea to teach her what every detail of his day job is, or see the inside of her barbie dream house, or know what she had for breakfast yesterday morning. Finally, in a desperate attempt to get her out from under his feet without crushing her hopes of an invitation to be his apprentice for the day, I said "Why don't you go sit at the table and color while the worker man does his job?" She thought that was a fantastic idea... so she busied herself for all of 30 seconds at the table scribbling away furiously before taking off to present her new best friend the carpet man with a picture of her... holding hands with him... and shall we just say, this was quite the honest picture. He was not a small man... and she really made sure his girth was properly drawn to scale as she handed him her masterpiece... SO embarrassing.

Oh, Anabelle.

And now, on to my sweet son... Dawson.


He is changing right before my eyes. He is a completely different kid from the one I dropped off at his first day of kindergarten just a few short months ago. All he does is eat, eat, eat. He easily eats more than me at any given meal (and I really, really like to eat, I know I've never said that before).

Its not just the inches he is growing... The boy is writing... reading... spelling!... telling me interesting facts about things I have long forgotten learning about. (Did you know penguins only have one mommy and one daddy? Do you know what nocturnal means? Did you know there are 10 10's in 100?...) The kid is a sponge, and he LOVES to learn and be smarter than me, and every other single moment of school. We got a report card for him recently, it was GORGEOUS:


And here is another milestone on the near horizon: he is all signed up and anxiously awaiting the opening ceremonies of T-Ball.

My heart could not be happier with these 2 beautiful, smart, rotten, witty, hilarious kids I ended up with.

How'd I get so lucky?