Saturday, January 17, 2009

A Ray of Sunshine

Amelia is two years and seven months old. She lives in a world of princesses, My Little Ponies, and Dora the Explorer and Diego. She has imaginary kitties that get into a lot of trouble, and she is afraid the "croc-o-dye-yills" will get her. (Crocodiles show up in a Dora episode, so that explains that.)

Amelia loves to color, read books, build with her blocks and play tea party. She can do a somersault and enjoys showing off her "dancing ballet" moves. Her favorite song of the moment is "Go Tell It On The Mountain." She likes peas, salmon, red peppers, macaroni and cheese, scrambled eggs, cheese of any kind, raisin bran (without the raisins), cupcakes (especially the frosting, which is sometimes the only part she eats), and she LOVES ice cream.

An independent little girl, Amelia is potty trained, and doesn't even wear a diaper to bed at night anymore. She can get dressed all by herself, and now likes to pick out her own clothes. Sometimes I try to guide her choices a bit, but lots of days I let her wear exactly what she wanted. Today was one of those days.

This morning my beautiful child pulled out her Nemo pajama bottoms and a summer dress that is too short, and not a perfect match for the pants. She added a pair of pink Barbie sandals. When I said those were summer clothes, she simply replied, "Then it can be summer today." If this doesn't bring a ray of sunshine to a dreary January day, I don't know what will.


Amelia - 01/17/09

While her clothes clearly don't need to match, Amelia does like things just so, and is forever lining up books, blocks, juice bottles and more. She likes colored socks and has to take all her underwear out of her drawer to pick a pair to wear for the day. She has several baby dolls that she lavishes with attention, and currently likes to hide under her bed or in her closet. Her giggles always give away her hiding place.

This morning she was awake at 5:30 a.m. She slept in bed with me for about a half hour before prying one of my eyes open to tell me she was done sleeping in my bed. So I put her back in her bed. A half hour later, she was ready to get up "and play." Jeff was sleeping on the couch with one of the boys, so I wanted to keep Amelia occupied in her room for a while.

That is how I found myself sitting on the floor having my hair "fixed" by my two-year-old daughter. She rubbed in a little pretend "purple jelly," gave me some pretend spray (pshh, pshh), and used a torturously painful My Little Pony hairbrush to make my bedhead look even worse than it already did. Then she proudly led me to the mirror to admire her creation. Even though I was tired and was possibly missing a clump of hair where the My Little Pony hairbrush got caught on a snarl, I had to smile.

Then tonight we went to church. (She didn't wear the day's outfit of choice. I told her it was too cold for the sandals and summer dress. For the record, if she had something warm on that didn't match I wouldn't have made her change.) The reading was about God calling Samuel to be his servant. Amelia was playing on the floor when the lector first read, "Samuel, Samuel." I didn't think she was paying any attention, but she looked up when he said it.

Then the lector said again, "Samuel, Samuel." And Amelia said, quite loudly, "Samuel is my brother!" While everyone around us chuckled, I did the mom "Shhh!" thing and explained that this was a story about a different boy named Samuel.

She nodded like she understood what I had told her, but the third time the lector said. "Samuel, Samuel," Amelia shouted, "HE'S AT HOME!" Half the church exploded in laughter.

All I could do was look down at her earnest little face and say, "Yes, he is honey. Thank you."

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