I was on the porch sorting and organizing the goods for our rummage sale and Lexi was helping. She kept asking to keep things and I told her that we needed all this stuff to stay on the porch, it was going to help us bring our baby from Ethiopia home. Here’s how the rest of the conversation went:

Lexi: We bring the adopted baby home?

Me: Yep. We are going to bring the baby home. Do you want a new brother or sister to come to our house?

Lexi: Yeah.

Me: Do you want them to come to our house and stay forever?

Lexi: Yeah. The baby from Ethiopia come to our house.

Me: Okay. (at this point I was done and getting ready to go in the house. Lexi was staring intently at the front door). Are you coming with me?

Lexi: (still staring at the door) No. I waiting for the baby from Ethiopia.

(hmmm….how do explain a several month wait to a 2 year old?)

Tonight at dinner Lexi was about 3 bites in and stopped, crossed her arms, and said “I wanna pway.” I told her she needed to eat before she could play. She said, “no, no, no, pa-way.” I asked if she wanted to pray. “Yes, I want daddy to pway.” So we prayed for dinner.

See? Cuter than cute.

If you didn’t know or in case you forgot, Lexi’s first name is actually Madeleine. The nickname “Lexi” comes from her middle name - Alexis. Anyway, since we’ve pretty much called her Lexi her entire life she really has no clue that her name is Madeleine. I’ve been trying to fix this problem by calling her both names but our conversation usually goes like this:

Me: What’s your name?
Lexi: Lessie.
Me: Is your name Madeleine?
Lexi: No. Lessie.
Me: Can you say Madeleine?
Lexi: Ma-da-nin.
Me:Yay! That’s your name. You’re Madeleine.
Lexi: Ma-da-nin.
Me: That’s right, you’re Madeleine. What’s your name?
Lexi: Lessie.

Well, at least she can say Madeleine.

On Thursday I made bread with my kindergarten class. We’ve been learning about the food groups and the “grain” group was hard from them to grasp so I brought in the bread maker and showed them all the ingredients needed to make bread. They helped scoop and measure (that way it counts as a math lesson) and they after we were finished they could (and would) tell anyone who would listen the list of ingredients to make bread.

Anyway during the scooping and measuring phase some of the flour fell between the pan and the actual bread machine, landing on the heating coils. When I went to check on the bread there was a lot of black smoke from the burning flour. So we unplugged the machine because I wasn’t in the mood to set off the fire alarms. My class was disappointed that they didn’t get to eat the bread that day. I told them I would take it home and try baking it in my oven and bring it in on Friday. Really, I took it home, dumped it and made a new batch.

Friday, they had to wait until the end of the day to try the bread. I passed out a slice to everyone, buttered the ones wanting butter and then we sat around and talked while we ate. One student said, “Ms. Abby, this is best bread I’ve had in my life!” and another boy agreed saying “When I eat this bread, I feel like I’m in Heaven.”

A couple of months ago I rolled Lexi’s sleeves up and at the same time made a “vooop” noise. She started asking us to roll up her sleeves by holding her arm out and saying “vooop”. Then Kevin pulled her sleeves back down and said “de-vooop”.

Lexi now thinks the term to roll up your sleeves is “vooop” and to pull them down again is “de-vooop”. And she will actually say ‘vooop’ and ‘de-vooop’.