Sparkle testifies...

to my spectacular mothering ability...

and has me completely humbled (and laughing!) in a moment:

"Mommy, Sunny's crying a lot because I have the Elmo Ice and she wants the Elmo Ice but I fell and bumped both of my elbows AND both of my knees and I NEED it.  She doesn't need it and I didn't do ANYTHING to her, but she won't stop crying..."

(long pause while I finish brushing my teeth)

"You can start yelling now."

"Mom?..."

"...What's closure?"

Thank you, Chicken Little, for bringing yet another word to my child's attention that she will ask the meaning of over and over (and over) because she cannot grasp the concept.

And so it starts...

This morning as I was helping Sparkle get dressed for church she thought that I was putting pants on over her tights (it was actually a long jean skirt). She started crying and pleading with me, "No Mom, please!?! I'll look silly! Please, Mom!"

...Of course, once it was on she looked in the mirror and smiled, "Oh, I really like it, Mama!"

She's four and a half. I don't think that I noticed what I was wearing until I was ten. We're in for good times.

Say What?

Sparkle's been having trouble hearing lately. I'm not really too worried about it, Lord knows we have enough other things to think about right now. But when most of the questions we ask are answered inappropriately (Me: "What do you want to eat for breakfast?" Sparkle: (Smiles sweetly...) "Ahh, I love you too Mommy!") and even when she's looking right at us it takes repeating what we say a few times for her to get it... we've started to wonder what's going on. We've waited several weeks to see if this was a phase, wondering if this was a behavioral issue or not, trying to give her ears time to heal if they had been clogged from an infection, etc. I had an appointment today to check her hearing, but she was up all night coughing and has a congested nose, so a hearing test would be inaccurate at this point *Sigh* I guess we'll just keep waiting. Pray for my patience level. I'm trying to remember that she probably isn't always just ignoring me, but we've had our moments over the past several days!

She'll miss preschool again today. We paid for the entire month, then proceeded to leave for two and a half weeks. Now with the Thanksgiving holiday... she'll have attended 3 of the 11 school days this month. There's nothing like getting your money's worth out of something!