Tall Tales, Volume 412- Brought to You by Memories of Summer and Green Grass

It's been a while since the last snapshots delivery of too-long and not-as-funny-to-non-parents anecdotes, right? Like, a week or two...

NIXIE

Annie is much more inquisitive about the nature of God than Millie was at her age, or, for that matter, than Millie is now. She asked her latest question right before naptime today, which was recent enough for me to remember. "Mama, God can't see in the dark, right?" Since we've talked about God's omniscience, His omnipresence, and His ability to see everything, I was baffled. "Why do you say that?" She responded with logic that only a three year old could produce, "God can't see in the dark because He is Light."

In the past, if Annie has fibbed or done something that is blatantly spoken against in the Bible, I've told her about the verse with this addendum, "God says do not _____." I guess I speak very soberly when I do this, because last week after I told the girls to go upstairs and prepare for bed, I added, "..and don't dawdle!" "YEAH!" said Annie, her eyes bugging wide in righteousness and with a loud, stern Puritan tone, "Because in the Bible, GOD says DO...NOT...DAWDLE, right Mama?" I admitted defeat.

Here's another doctrine-themed anecdote. The girls and I have given up sugar for Lent- no desserts, cinnamon sugar or honey on toast, sugar on Toasty Oats, gum, etc., and they're handling it much better than I am. Annie reminds me at least once a day that "We love God more than we love sugar, right Mama?" I had to laugh last week when she came to me and in an explanatory tone said, "We should love God more than everything, right? Even sugar!" When I placidly agreed, she added, "Candy is yummier, but GOD is gooder, right?"

A frequent and necessary aspect of the girls' imaginative play is the ability to change their ages at will, with whatever whimsy possesses them at any moment. To set the scene for something, Millie was explaining that she was 12 even though she looked like she was only five, but Annika cleanly won the contest by countering, "I is one hundred when I look like free."

Annika no longer calls her doll Split Pea Soup but rather Split-Pea-Soup-Chronicles-of-Yarnia. Guess which series we're a quarter of the way through?

Last of the Nixie: We don't have this book, but the concept has apparently reached us nonetheless, and Annika says, with variations, "Mama, I love you how many a moons an a stars are, an' how many a sand is, AND how many the lollipops is!" In case you don't know, that's A LOT, and I love her that much times two.

BUMPKIN:

Another Lent-themed anecdote, shared with me by John's mom. When we were down on the Island, she and Millie watched part of a televised Sunday morning service, in which the speaker reiterated the self-confidence building mantra, "Never give up. NEVER. GIVE. UP." Millie stood and listened before thoughtfully saying, "Weeeeell, except for Lent, right?"

Millie and Annika have been on a fairies kick lately, all jumbled up with ballerinas and ball gowns, and Millie came downstairs decked out in fairy garb. (Which, if you're not aware, was this costume combined with a wand and a hodge-podge of scarves, a cape, a crown, and sparkling ruby slippers.) When I picked her up to cuddle, she leaned into my neck and then shied away in suspicion, saying, "Um! Just don't tickle my armpit because that kills us fairies!" When I questioned her further, doubting the veracity of this folk legend, she explained in a whisper, "I'm the most powerful fairy in the world, even though I can't fly like my parents, and we usually use our wands to stop people who want to tickle us. My parents told me never to tell ANYONE this secret, but I just wanted you to know." Hm, sounds logical, but part of me thinks she just had the foresight to stave off a Tickle Monster/Mama.

Scenario: The Wren's in the kitchen, holding her pants and saying, "'Tinky, 'tinky," a sure sign that she needs to be rushed to the bathroom. Millie comes over to me with a grape-juice moustache and deduces that Susannah wants some juice, too, and furthermore that "Maybe 'stinky' is her new word for 'grape juice.'" I took Susannah to the bathroom, anyway. Millie's a bright girl, but she's no Sherlock when it comes to potty-training.

Scenario: I wish I had a picture. Millie enters the kitchen as I make supper. I glance up to notice her outrageous costume combination-- buttercup yellow dress glove on one hand, pale pink glove on the other; ballet tutu, ballet slippers on feet that redundantly have then been stuffed into too-big, Dorothy sparkle-shoes; a bright red superhero's cape tied around her neck, and my old, yellow, Raggedy Anne and Andy blanket from kindergarten veiling her head.

"What do I look like?" she asked. I gaped, obtuse, before stirring the onions and coming up with a completely unoriginal, "You look like a little girl with a cape and blanket on her head." She paused, and then said, "Oh....I think I look like a widow." I nearly guffawed, and then asked if she was certain what a widow was. I explained it, just in case she might be mistaken, and then asked her what color a widow would typically choose to wear in our culture. With some hesitation, she replied, "Black." Relieved, I said, "Yes, black is a color of mourning!" Millie thought some more and then began a lively tap dance, her ruby shoes clunking on the linoleum, "I'm a HAPPY widow with YELLOW!!!" It was at this point that I did guffaw.

THE WREN
Susannah does really funny things all the time, like insisting that the giant, stuffed lion is "tinky," before putting him on the toilet and soaking his too-long tail in toilet water. Unfortunately, you'd have to be here to find most of them funny. Give her time and increased speech capabilities, and she'll wow you with the rest of them.