I have a clock in Lexi and Lyla's bedroom that has a light bulb inside it that turns green when it is 7:00 AM, signaling that it is an appropriate time to get up and out of bed in the morning. The intent of this clock was, of course, that I can get more sleep, resting assured that Lexi will be in her bed until 7. I think this works with some kids. But my independent little girl cannot stay in bed once she wakes up in the morning. There are just too many things to do! If I drank coffee, I promise you, she would be making it for me every morning and would do it well.
So despite our best efforts, Lexi hasn't really been successfully trained to stay in bed until 7 AM. She has merely been trained to stay out of the master bedroom until 7 AM. Which is what I realized this morning when she came bursting through the door at 7:01 this morning cheerfully declaring, "MOM! IT'S TIME TO WAKE UP! MY SISTER IS AWAKE AND SHE WANTS YOU! OH, HEY DADDY!" (and then proceeded to talk non-stop to Eric for a full 40 minutes while he dragged himself out of bed, through all his morning routines, and out the front door to leave for work). Anyway, during the 40 minute monologue, she proudly informed me that she fed Lyla leftover french toast in her crib (which honestly, is probably why I was able to sleep until 7 in the first place). There was Lyla, happy as a clam, sitting in her crib surrounded by torn up bits of french toast. Lexi was even making sure she did her sign language to ask for "more please."
This (in addition to some teenage-level sassy vocabulary she was pulling out for me yesterday) makes me really wonder if Lexi is really 2 going on 3 or 2 going on 16..
But despite her extensive vocabulary and too much independence, Lexi has been full of little kid questions this morning.
"Where are my hard bones? I don't see them."
"Do I have hard bones all over my body? Or just in my leg?"
"Did my muscles go away? How do I find them again? Do I need lotion to find my muscles?"
"If I have muscles then I don't have anymore hard bones!"
"Are the muscles hiding?"
"OH! I have muscles AND hard bones?"
"Wait a minute! I have muscles all over my body? AND bones all over my body too?!"
"Oh! That's cool. Can I have a snack?"
After she assured me that she loves me like a peanut loves an elephant, she went into the kitchen while I was changing Lyla. Hearing some crinkling noises, I went into the kitchen to see her spooning a heaping mound of butter (carved from a new stick from the refrigerator) into her mouth.
"Lexi, are you eating BUTTER? With a SPOON?"
Lexi: "Oh! YES! It's SO GOOD! It's such a good snack. I love it. Eating butter is good for me."
But one can only eat so much butter, so we added a few cutie mandarins to the snack to balance things out a bit. :-)
HA! J & G useed to eat butter too. They would always ask if I wanted some cheese too. Eventually I had to try to hide it. Rarely worked.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, just want you to know that I love reading your blog posts! They transport me back to the joy of having little people around all the time.It can be exhausting a lot of the time, but you do such a great job of expressing how much fun it can be, too. Your posts always make my day a little better. So, thanks for that!