being wooed

at play group every friday, vienne has a little man that she follows after, named michael. he is a year older and full of spunk and clever mischief. they are absolutely darling together.

while us moms were congregated with our coffees in the living room, i noticed vienne and michael sneaking into the garage (his house). i let them play privately for a few minutes before checking in on them. finally, i decided to take a peak. i opened the door to a tiny little garage w/one car squeezed in and did not see our two little ones. looking around the car, under the car, i called out "where are you?!". "here, mama!" what?! oh my good grief, i finally looked INside the car to discover the two of them sitting in there like little adults - michael in the driver's seat, v in the passenger. michael has found the keys and only turned them far enough in the ignition to unroll the windows and turn the music on. they were quietly sitting in there together, enjoying slow romantic tunes. i nearly keeled over in laughter! it was the cutest most hilarious (and potentially scary!) sight! i said he is cleverly mischievous, no?!

gotta keep an eye on that one cuz this little girl will follow him wherever he will go!

haha.

don't be angry

"Don't be angry Mama. It's ok. God will make you happy."

Love.

things she said

We were at the beach. Mark took her for a morning walk and she wanted to be carried.

Mark: "oh geez, I should've brought the stroller."

Vienne: "oh, Jesus brought the stroller?!!"

We've got her so well trained with her manners (most of the time) that sometimes I wonder if she sounds like she's abused in order to behave so well! This morning as I sat down with my breakfast, she looked over at it and said:

"May I share your bagel, please?"

"May have I little bites, please?"

good grief. it even shocks me sometimes.

right now, everything she says is prefaced with "maybe".

"maybe we can eat dinner on the couch and watch cars?? yeah??"

"maybe i can get a treat?!"

"maybe we can go to scarbucks?"

and finally...

we've officially got a make believe friend in our home. her name is Ty. she is 3 and two minutes old. she has brown hair and green eyes and "pretty just like me", vienne says. oh, and she's nice "just like mommy and daddy". she's been talked about for a few weeks now, but not made an actual "appearance" until this evening. mark says they were in the garage and she engaged in a full conversation with her friend ty about goldfish crackers. enlightening! the entire "ty thing" began one day in a goodwill dressing room when vienne suddenly said "mama, do you remember my friend ty?!" hahahah oh how i love it!!

here is a picture of our darling girl bravely wielding her sword. i think it gives her confidence in new situations. she cracks us up!

bear feet

on our way upstairs to put vienne to bed,

she says: "i want to wear my feet to bed"

I said: "you mean, you want to go to bed with bare feet"

she says: "no, i don't have bear feet i have vienne feet!"

OH how literal children are! I love it!

what she said...

earlier this week, there was a day that i found vienne to be full of extraordinary cuteness. simple things, really. nothing hilarious. it's just that i've noticed her conversational abilities have amplified in the last week or so and it is sooooo entertaining. i'm astounded just by the way she is forming sentences and expressing her ideas and feelings. too darn adorable. she's also recently been filled with extra uber amounts of joy. pure abandonment and joy. it is such a lovely thing. her name literally means: "full of life". and that she truly is.

so, some little excerpts from the day, that i remember, were this:

-we were sitting on the barstools at the counter and eating lunch together. she suddenly looked up and said "uh oh, i better get down and go close the flidgilator". i guess i had accidentally left it open (pregnancy brain!). but it was so out of the blue and so observant and responsible. she didn't tell me to do it, but just decided that it must get taken care of. :)

-later that afternoon she refused to nap. a current dilemma, especially for this newly pregnant mama who desperately needs some afternoon snoozes, herself! so after checking in on her several times and instructing her to lay down and try to rest she finally emerged from her room, just not into it. i was exasperated. she could tell and said:

"i'm sorry, mama".

me: "what are you sorry for, vienne?"

v: "i make you angry"

me: "oh honey, you don't make me angry. i love you. i'm happy."

v: "i'm just not sleepy today."

and that's that. she's just not sleepy these days. ugh for me. but at least she's not a pill when she doesn't nap. and at least, on most days, she will stay quietly in her room and play and read books. i am blessed.

suddenly, we had a dog

a while back (winter of 2011), we discovered that our daughter had transformed into a puppy. i think most kids go through this stage. it is quite comical...and then gets progressively annoying! good thing it didn't thoroughly last for too long. we still get puppy every couple of days, but definitely not as intense as it was. when puppy arrived, she licked toes, licked faces, requested to wear a leash and be pulled around, played fetch, drank water from a bowl, nuzzled with her nose, crawled on all fours of course, and barked and barked and barked....a shrill high-pitched "shut that dog up" yip. it was fun. ;)

but she sure did make a darn cute puppy. and again, i love the imagination and would never stomp on that!

tomboy

i think our daughter just might have some tomboy in her. and i must admit, i am pretty darn proud! before we recently found out that we are pregnant (after a discouraging year of trying), i had come to place of pure peace and contentment over having only one child. if she was the only gift that god was going to give us, then she is the most perfect and best gift of all. seriously, the best child. i had encouraged myself by realizing that, in her, we had a perfect mix of tomboy and little girl...best of both worlds! of course, now, we will be doubly blessed by the much prayed for arrival of a second child. god is so good.

our girl loves dinosaurs. she is enchanted by dragons. she is thrilled by cars and trains. she is excited over soccer balls. can you even guess how much mark loves all this?? as girly as i am, i surely love it all, too. it is not what i expected from her and it makes me love her all the more. she knows barely a thing about princesses and really could care less. she's been given dress-up clothes, which have been tossed to the wayside. if she cares about what she wears, it is in preference of her comfy stretchy "jeggings" and a dinosaur shirt.

she will play with dolls and most definitely has a very nurturing side of her - which tells me she will be an excellent big sister. she does enjoy sparkles and butterflies and definitely loves to cook (with me or in her kitchen)! she loves to dance and sing. but, she also loves to make dirt soup, play with swords, race trains around her train track, throw or kick balls...etc.

when we are in the car, almost every time, she will point out a distant hill or mountain and claim that it is 'dragon mountain' and that the dragons are up there sleeping and then requests that we go find it. when we are on walks and walk past a small wetland, she will exclaim that dancing dinosaurs are hiding in the marshes (from dinosaurumpus, a book we love). and when we walk through woods, she whispers that the fallen logs are dragons sleeping. oh how i am in love with her imagination!!

i realize the reason that she is drawn more to the cars and dragons and dinos is because of the movies we have allowed her to watch. i didn't purposely steer her towards them, i have just intentionally steered her away from most of the disney princess movies out there (that i grew up with) which are full of witchcraft and scary evil that i really don't want filtering into her mind. out of all the non-witchcraft movies we have shared with her, she has been drawn most to Cars & How to Train Your Dragon ...also, with a love for Bolt, Ice Age, Iron Giant, & Astro Boy. heheh it makes me giggle.