Lexi: Do you know which one is my favorite bobo?

Me: No. Which one?

L: I like Whistle.

M: Who’s Whistle?

L: (Pointing to Mazie) It’s this one, right here. This is Whistle.

M: You changed Mazie’s name to Whistle?

L: Yes.

M: Kev. Lexi changed Mazie’s name to Whistle.

L: No. This is Mazie not Whistle.

Kev: I’m going to go run an errand.

M: Okay, bye.

L: Is daddy going to Ninevah?

M: No. He’s going to the Hansens’.

L: Oh. Which way is Tarshish?

M: I’ m not sure.

L: It’s that way. (Pointing to her left) and Ninevah is that way (pointing to her right)

M: Okay. Are you going to Ninevah?

L: No. Whistle is going.

M: I thought her name is Mazie.

L: No. It’s Whistle.

M: Okay.

L: Speak is a baracuda.

M: No, he’s a dog.

L: No. He’s an animal. He’s a baracuda.

M: Well, I think he’s a dog.

L: Um, no. Can I get down from the table now?

M: Okay.

L: Jonah does a good job listening.

M: Lexi, do you have poop in your pull-up?

L: No, I just have a fart in my pull-up and you can’t see it so don’t look.

M: I wasn’t planning on looking.

L: I’m going to ride my moose. (riding her moose, singing) Bald women, du-pah-chish, du-pah-chish.

I could keep going with this, but you get the idea of what life with Lexi is like. This conversation took place in about a 5 minute period. She’s now bouncing on the couch singing several songs at once. I think it’s the ever popular Jonah was a Prophet/Every Step I Take/The Breakfast Time Song/Bald Women/God is so Big medley.

Lexi woke up at 10 this morning. And that’s never a good sign. That usually means a sick day is upon us. Sure enough, I went into her room and she had thrown up. Here’s how our conversation went:

Me: Did you throw up?

L: Yeah. I froed up on my jammas and my bed. Can you get me my bucket. I’m supposed to fro up in my bucket.

Me: Let’s get you cleaned up.

L: Then I need to go downstairs and watch T.V. in my chair with my towel and I’ll fall asleep in my chair. I want to watch the Jonah movie and then the Muppet Show.

Me: uh…okay. Good to see you have a plan.

I’m pretty excited about Lexi’s Halloween costume for this year. I’m going to make her an Abby Cadabby costume.

Any volunteers to be Elmo or Zoe?

About 2 months ago, Lexi saw someone on Sesame Street playing the violin. Now she turns lots of things into a violin. My favorite combo has been the t.v. remote and a safety pin. But her favorite violin is her xylophone. After she’s finished playing she’ll put it down and say “See Dorothy? That’s how I play my violin.” (If you’ve seen Elmo’s world, you’ll understand.)

So, the reason for our trip to Target. Tomorrow Lexi is getting potty trained and we needed supplies. I read a book called Potty Train Your Child in One Day. And I’ve also had quite a few people recommend this method. At this point, I’m willing to try anything

We went to Target to get supplies for tomorrow’s “potty party”. Yup, we’re having a potty party. It’s Elmo themed. The basic concept behind the book is that your child wakes up to a party at their house. They get a present which is a new “big kid” doll. And the doll wears big kid underwear. Preferably underwear that matches the big kid underwear they will be receiving later in the day. You spend the morning having your child “potty train” the doll. So, yes, the doll has to sit on the toilet, sometimes has accidents, gets rewards for staying dry - the whole bit. Then after lunch/nap your child gets big kid underwear and it’s her turn to sort of practiced what she preached all morning long. On top of that, you feed them juice and water and fruit and smoothies and anything else that will make them need to pee more than normal so they can have more success at it. At the end of the day, they get a big reward and you repeat the process the next day with less fanfare. (No party, but still little rewards here and there).

Oh and Lexi’s party is Elmo themed because a) I can draw a semi-decent Elmo b) she’s in love with her Elmo underwear that she picked out and c) I had some random Elmo fabric that I can make “big kid” underwear for her doll. That and her little toilet seat ring to make the hole smaller has Elmo all over it.

I’ll let you know how it goes.

Kevin is in Chicago for a couple of days, leaving Lexi and I carless. At first I thought it would suck to be stuck at home for 2 days with no real way to get out of the house. Then I remembered how much Lexi loves to ride the city bus. Today we rode the city bus. A lot.

We caught the 67 at 10:00 and rode it to the library. Only to discover that on Mondays the library does not open until 11:30. No big deal. We played in the park, looked at art downtown, ate at Subway and then went to the library. Caught the bus home at 12:45 and Lexi went down for a nap.

After her nap I needed to go to the post office and Target, so back on the bus we went. This time we caught the 67 going the opposite way at 4:00, got off at the post office, mailed our letters and transfered to the 68 at 4:45 and went to Target. We got our supplies, ate dinner and went to wait for the 68 to take us home. Well, after rush hour (which ends at 6:00) it stops coming every 10-15 minutes. And it only comes once an hour. So we waited at the bus stop for almost 45 minutes. During that time Lexi entertained herself by telling us what color the cars were that passed. And she earned $0.50. The guy who was waiting with us was impressed she new her colors so he gave her the change. Go figure. Anyway. The but came. Problem was it got to our stop at 7:00. The 67 (which we needed to catch to get the rest of the way home) left that stop at 6:53. We had to wait until 7:53 for the next bus. I was not too excited about that. But there was a Caribou Coffee at the stop and they have toys for kids to play with so we killed some time there. Lexi was pretty well behaved for the whole thing. Considering it took us over 2 hours to get home (if we would have gone by car it would have been 10 minutes at the most). When we got home I still let her watch her Veggie Tales movie that I had been promising her all day long. Hopefully I wore her out and she’ll sleep in past 8 tomorrow.

My favorite part of the day? Lexi and I were on our way home from the library. She was laying around in my lap, jabbering away. Suddenly she stops, folds her hands and says, “Dear God, Thank you for city bus. Amen.”

“So…” She says this at the start of a sentence, often with her hands on her hips.
“Packanoni” Her word for pepperoni.
“He’s got new rain brother, in His hand” translation: He’s got you and me brother, in His hand.
“Ee-oh-pee-opah” translation Ethiopia
While at Underwater World “Look! It’s a zone, zone, zone” This took a while to figure out. Her favorite movie is Finding Nemo and Mr. Ray (the sting ray) sings “oh, let’s name the zone, the zone… and she’s decided that sting rays are called zone, zone, zones
Another Nemo, she retells part of a joke in the movie that starts “so there was a mullusk and a sea cucumber” and then at some point they finish with “with fronds like these, who needs anenimeas?” Lexi will randomly say “a mawwusk and a sea cumber fronds like these who needs ananemies?”
“Really?” We’ll tell her the name for something or what we’re doing and she’ll give us a very incredulious/disapproving, “really?!”
ex:
Us: Lexi, that’s a school bus.
Lexi: A school bus? Really?
She has started calling Kevin and I by our first names and shorting Kevin to Kev.
“PPL” translation peanutbutter
If you ask her what a sea turtle says she will answer with “Dude, totally, sweet” (another Nemo reference).
“Salts and Peppers” is salt and pepper.
She’s a big fan of the letter “w” and points it out all the time.
She calls band-aides “bandanas”
“Spacket” translation basket
For a while she was introducing herself to strangers as a 3 year old named Emily.
“I’m carefulling.” translation I’m being careful.

Today was the last day of GAC (Great Adventure Club). This was Lexi’s first year as a participant and she loved it. (and I loved it because she came home everyday exhausted and slept for about 4 hours.) Her favorite part was the music. She sang the songs, usually adding her own words, did all the hand motions and was right up front jumping and singing. Next year, I’m looking forward to not doing anything - just dropping my kid off and enjoying time at home with the younger one. Although, I’ve said that every year and every year I end up doing something. Maybe next year I’ll do behind the scenes stuff like shop for snacks.

If you’re interested here’s a couple of songs Lexi has rewritten the words to (some are GAC songs and some are Veggie Tales songs):

Original version:

I’ve got love like an ocean, I’ve got love like an ocean, I’ve got love like an ocean in my soul.

Lexi version:

I’ve got love like a lotion, I’ve got love like a lotion, I’ve got love like a lotion in a hole.

Original version:

The Lord has given this land to us
No need to fuss, He knows what He’s doing
We know that He will take care of us
If we will follow Him.

Lexi’s version:

The Lord has given this land two bus

No need two bus, He knows what He’s doing.

We know that He will take care two bus

If we will follow Him.

Here’s a short list of the things Lexi has done in the past week.

Note: If you are one of those people who can’t tolerate kids being kids and making a mess and doing gross things then just stop reading.

1. Discovered the joys of eating playdough. (Really she discovered the joy of playdough and then she learned how great it tastes.)
2. Ate dog food. And declared it good.
3. Played with bubbles in the sink. This resulted in a wet shirt, wet pants, water on the counter top (read: flood), soaking wet kitchen rug, and one happy kid.
4. Found the dog food that spilled a couple weeks ago and ate it.
5. Mixed playdough and water. (I didn’t see it, but I’m guessing she sampled some of the water.)
6. Mixed orange juice into her playdough-water cocktail. Sampled it. This is declared gross.
7. Poured orange juice into a bowl of raisins to make “cereal”.
8. Used markers to color a picture on paper and then her hands, face and arms.
9. Smeared sour cream all over her face because she was “shaving like daddy.”
10. Couldn’t reach handles on the sink so she filled her cup with water from the toilet.
11. Dipped her bagel into orange juice.
12. Dipped carrots into milk.
13. Dipped wheat thins into water.
14. Okay, really she just dips whatever is in her hand into whatever is in her cup. At lunch is was PBJ sandwich in water.
15. Dumped about 4000 foam cut outs from my kindergarten art supplies onto the floor so she could look at them.
16. Took the orange juice container from the fridge and tried to pour herself a glass of OJ - in the living room.
17. Discovered she could climb onto the counter tops and reach the cupboard where the snacks are kept.
18. Spends at least 20 minutes a day chasing Mazie up and down the hallway screaming “I’m gonna get ya!”

So that’s been my summer. How’s your summer going?

Lexi went swimming today. We went to one of those wading pools that only gets about 2 feet deep and she loved it. She was not coming out of the water for any reason. All the kids got out to eat lunch and Lexi would get out, come eat a carrot, go back in. Five minutes later she’d get out, come eat a grape, get back in. This process repeated until most of her lunch was gone but she was not going to stay out of the water for more that a minute.

I learned today that my kid is very bouyant (is that how you spell that?). Anyway, she fell over quite a few times today and for the life of her could not figure out how to get her feet to go back down to the ground. So she would tip, her butt and feet would go up and she would be stuck. She could keep her face out of the water but not enough that she was comfortable. At one point she tipped, got herself upright, took one step and tipped again. She did that about 5 times before she got really frustrated and started crying. All evening she’s been talking about how she doesn’t want to put her face underwater anymore.