4.19.2006

Five for Not Forgetting

I set them down here because otherwise they'll slip away.

Color the Weather
My mind is immersed elsewhere when Millie runs to me from the living room, inexplicably near tears. "Mom!" she quavers with eyes welling up, "It's windy out!" Then, an eyeblink later, she begins to laugh, "...AND there's paint in my armpit!" Sure enough, it was and there was.
[I'm teaching her to handle life's rollercoaster as steadily as I do, eh?]

The Knowing
Right before the Lord's Supper is given at our church every week, John always leans to Millie and whispers, "Christ died for you." This past week, after he whispered this truth, Millie whispered back, loudly and pertly, "I know. He tells me every week!"

The Naming
The girls and I were in the store, and Millie was chatting with a friendly, older lady. When the woman asked Susannah's name, Millie replied very glibly, "HernameisSusannahWren, but we were going to name her Mabel-Mabel-Set-The-Table." The woman cleared her throat and politely said, "How nice..." [How nice, indeed.]

The Price of Gas is Irrelevant
Millie, overheard from the living room, "You're in your seventies, and I'm in my eighties." Annika, ever obliging, "Evteeeee." They were having a teaparty on the ocean, but then Annika somehow displeased Millie, so Millie handily taught her a lesson, as follows.

Millie: "I'm going to fwim all the way to England! Fwim, fwim, fwim, fwim, fwim, fwim...." [Arms akimbo all the way to the bathroom door, at which point the following Nixie arrives]
Then, after leading Innocence into the bathroom and swiftly shutting the door on her, satisfied, "There. You're in jail, and I'm in England."

The Honest Truth
Millie has adopted the Nixie's surly practice of growling and eating our hugs and kisses when she's too grumpy to graciously accept them. A few days ago, I told Millie that I loved her, and she replied (with the attendent surly look), "I took it all, Mom. Oh! It's flying away!" Then with thrashing arms holding the invisible, "I'm catching all your love in a net!"

Her logic was that she'd foiled me by catching all my love. See, that way, I'd have none to give her and sit thwarted, emptyhanded. She didn't understand my jubilant response, "That's just what I want, Millie! I want you to catch all my love, because then you'll have it!"

Sometimes human ties are a mirror of that we have with the Father,
and this gave me a glimmer.
_______________________________________________

And now, we're off! A long walk awaits because that's the only way I know to get rid of my excess inches while bringing the girls along (What! To stop stealing my children's Easter candy might do it, too, you say?!?!?! P'shaw...)

4 comments :

Anonymous said...

i love your family.
that's all.

Abigail said...

next time you're driving past new york, come see us! we'll make you a cake and dance you a dance.

Anonymous said...

These little stories are already my favorites. I've already relayed them to others amid hum-drum conversations and such. It's so nice to have a family to enjoy vicariously through the blog-world!
-heidiann(e)

Abigail said...

Yeah, it is nice. (But I still think blogs are weird-- or maybe it's just that mothers who share their children's speech amid dozens of photos are weird. Thank goodness I'm not like that!)