I agree with Dickens: "I love these little children. And it is not small thing when they, who are so fresh from God, love us."
This morning I got an early start and was quietly reading my scriptures around 5 am. I heard a loud creak as Xai's door opened. He stumbled out, eyes bleary but I could tell he was a little agitated. He poked his head over the railing from the upstairs and exclaimed, "I think it is the three days of darkness before the Second Coming!"
"I'm quite sure it's just really early in the morning. It's 5 am, buddy."
Pause.
"Oh. Okay! Can I snuggle with you?"
Love my little buddy.
Eli just told me that a movie made him laugh so hard, he couldn't swallow his popcorn. So cute!
Yesterday, he was also telling me about his pre-school experience. He apparently couldn't get the colored bubbles to yield the colors he wanted. At one point he said, "Surprisingly...." Really? "Surprisingly"?? He's six. It was adorable!!
All spoken without his two front teeth, which make it all the sweeter :D.
Today Liesl, Penelope and I walked over to Oma's and Opa's (I love that they are close enough to do that). We braved the onslaught of the most current ladybug invasion--apparently they come here to die by the thousands. I foolishly took our two seater stroller and put Liesl in the front. Boy, was the hill up to my parent's a doozy!
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I also "played" Ticket to Ride with Liesl today. "Played" in the loosest sense of the word. We were there at the table and all the pieces for Ticket to Ride were out. However, I am quite sure they have never been used the way we used them. When I first got there, Liesl had arranged the numerous colored train cards by color. And decided which she was using. And which I was using.
I could tell from the beginning this was not going to be our ordinary game.
I asked her from the outset, "Do you want to play your way or the way the 'map' tells us to play?" ("Map" is her word for "instructions.")
"The map," came the first, second, third, fourth and fifth response.
However, by the time I had been sternly corrected for playing the wrong way that many times and more and I had asked my clarifying question again and again, the sixth answer was much more of a relief."
"My way," Liesl finally decided. Whew.
Her way apparently meant playing "the most beautiful ones." And collecting as many train color cards as she could and arranging them into pretty piles. And not playing a single train.
I happily played route after route. However, seeing that the train color cards were not going to be replaced due to my hoarding little four year old playing buddy, I wisely asked, "When is the game over?"
After a thoughtful pause. A very short thoughtful pause. "When I win."
Easy.
"You win!" I cheered.
With big blue eyes wide with wonder and delight, Liesl replied, "I did???"
Pause.
"How?"
Shoot.
"Because yours is the most beautiful."
Sweet.
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It was much less pleasant later.
Penelope was overtired and wouldn't settle down.
Liesl and Eli were both raging over me not being in there to snuggle with them (after being in there for 30 minutes before that reading books).
And Maia and Piper had agreed to play Splendor with me.
Well, I was already on at least two children's least favorite list no matter what I did.
When that happens, I get angry, which my therapist said is a manifestation of sorrow and fear. Looking back, I can see that I was super sorry that I couldn't meet the needs of all of my children. Physically impossible. So I was sad. And I yelled. Not the best choice.
I played the game. Quinn put Penelope to sleep, and Liesl and Eli went to sleep with varying degrees of discontent. (I promised Eli I would snuggle more in the morning.) Sigh. Working on reconditioning my responses.
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I did play a really quick, fun game of Scattergories with Quinn, Lily and Drew after that, in which we learned that "taupe" can be any one of a number of different colors. We've decided to put down "taupe" as our eye color on our driver's licenses. When the police officers refute it, we can have them Google "taupe" and be enlightened as we were tonight as to the very generic meaning of that color word.
It felt good to laugh.
Tova and Zoe
What you don't see is Quinn standing behind Penelope, holding her on :D
