We're almost done with our move up into the mountains, blog post to come soon. In the meantime, there have been a bunch of conversations I wanted to record. As first seen on my Facebook page, here they come:
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Addison has recently been complaining about scary things at night, something that's never been an issue before. She'll come running out of her room at bedtime, saying, "Scares! In the dark! There are scares in my room!"
So Lindsay tried to teach her a little trick with an invisible magic wand to make the scary things go away:
Lindsay: Just say, "Abracadabra scary things away, BOOM."
And then Addison's maternal instincts kicked in and all her fears of things that go bump in the night faded away, to be replaced with this:
Addison: Oh no! You boomed the scares! But now all the little scares are hurt and they don't have their moms and dads to take care of them. I will be their mom now. Poor scares. Poor, poor scares.
And so Addison, now refusing to go to bed for a different reason, starts wandering around to all the dark little corners of her room muttering "it's okay, scares. It's okay. I'll take care of you."
Kids. They take that parenting manual and really scribble all over it.
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My daughter, running breathlessly out of her bedroom:
Addison: There's monsters in my room!
Lindsay: Oh?
Addison: Yeah. And some of them are hurt. And I need to take care of them.
Lindsay: Okay, well, get back into bed and take care of them.
Addison: Okay.
I can see that we may have a new bed-time routine.
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As we near our move-out date and Addison contemplates what it means to move from one home to another, and since she thinks about her deceased (great) Grandpa all the time, this is where her thoughts went:
Addison: Does God have rooms?
Lindsay: Uh. What?
Addison: Like to sleep in...
Lindsay: Um. Maybe?
Addison: Let's call my Grandpa and ask him to ask God to give us some rooms to sleep in after we die.
Because when you travel from one place to another, you always want to know that there's a safe place to land. Count on a kid to remind you that mundane things act as analogies for the big concepts in life. I'm gonna have to put some extra special thought into cozying up her new room.
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My daughter's revolution continues. She said, "I want new parents."
The reason? "I want new stuffed animals," she said. "These stuffed animals are not my favorites."
Me: And why do you need new parents for that?
Addison: Because they will have different stuffed animals. They can still be named Lindsay and Neal. But they will wear different clothes.
Lindsay: But we'd miss you so much.
Addison: It's okay. My new parents will bring me to visit. Or maybe you can come live with my new parents, too.
My, how easily we are replaced. It's a little sad that she'd trade us for a new set of stuffed animals . . . but at least she doesn't mind if we still live together.
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Typical phone conversation with my daughter:
Me: I have something to tell you.
Addison (from a distance): No!
Me: Ok, then I'll tell you this: Pickle-weasel!
Addison (suddenly much closer and engaged): Pickle-weasel to you!
Me: No! Pickle-weasel to YOU!
Addison (at max volume): NO! PICKLE-WEASEL TO YOOOOUUU!
I'll treasure these conversations.