Memories Made in Mud

When my oldest daughter was little my mother always told me to write down the little hilarious things she said because otherwise I would forget them. She was right. I try hard to make note of the especially adorable things she says but recently Facebook has been reminding me (thanks memories!) of some gems I had forgotten completely about. Some of my favourites include referring to herself as "drinky" instead of thirsty, her best friend the snail (I have a video of her talking about how she tried to teach him to go fast but he only goes slow...made especially adorable by the fact that she was only about 4 and she could not say the letter "L") and her proclivity as a toddler to add "ah" to the end of almost all of her words ("I'm" turned into "Imah" so "I'm thirsty" would have been "Imah Drinky" omg adorable.) I have done the same with all of the following girls but I swear I am going to need a book when it comes to Stormy! At just over 2 1/2 years old she has the vocabulary and speech patterns of an elementary school student. She uses this amazing vocabulary to have some of the most amazing and bizarre conversations I have ever heard in my life. 

Yesterday she came running up to me as fast as her little legs could carry her 

Stormy, "Mommy! Mommy! Oh no there is a squirrel in trouble!"

Me, "Oh no! Where is he?" (These things are so much more entertaining if you play along)

Stormy, "He is trapped! His tail is stuck in the dragons mouth!"

Me, "What should we do?"

Stormy, "We need to save him so he can go back to his house up in the tree and eat some NUTS!"

It’s hard to remember sometimes that she is only 2 1/2! Today I overheard her talking in a squeaky little voice, saying, "Help! This CHILD is going to CHOKE me!" I went into her room and asked who was going to choke her and she was very indignant in telling me that it wasn't her that said that...it was her toy unicorn. Apparently she was going to give her a time out by tying her up with a scarf...

All of my verbal children are this way (I am sure Apple will follow suite but right now her conversational ability is limited to screeches and DADA) and I think its because we have always spoken to them using the same language that we would use for other adults. We don't "dumb down" what we say to the kids - and they generally either understand what we are saying by the context, or they ask and therefore expand their vocabulary a little more. We have always had the kids that say "Children" instead of "Kids"..."Bicycle" rather than "Bike" and so on. They will hopefully be kids that understand what LMAO and SMH mean but still feel the need to take the time to type complete sentences when interacting on social media.

Oh yes, this is one of my biggest pet peeves. I understand that time is precious, but there is no excuse for butchering the English language for the sake of shaving a few letters off of a typed word or a few milliseconds of typing out of the day. In a world of Cliff's notes and Google searches, we are trying to encourage our kids to love reading and research and appreciate the call of a good (complete) story. So far it seems to be working. Bookworm is very aptly nicknamed; she reads everything she can get her hands on. She is currently reading books in the Dear Canada series (if you haven't heard of them and have a "tween" or young teen girl I encourage you to check them out!) while impatiently waiting for the newest installment in the Harry Potter saga to arrive. We preordered it last month from Scholastic (an amazing program!) and she has been talking about it ever since. The middle girls are still pre-readers so they look at pictures, making up their own stories, or beg Mommy, Daddy or their big sister to read to them. Stormy doesn't always have the patience to sit through a whole story but since the arrival of several "Frozen" series books her attention span has miraculously increased exponentially. 

All in all we are doing our best to raise the girls to appreciate technology (the older 3 do all have iPad Minis they got for Christmas last year) but not to rely so heavily on it that they are unable to enjoy life outside the screen. We limit screen time (though probably not as much as we should, but let's be honest, sometimes its the only thing giving enough precious silence to allow Apple to fall asleep at nap times) but more so we encourage non-screen time. The girls have Barbies, dolls, dozens of model Schleich horses and accessories; play kitchen equipment and all sorts of other imagination sparking paraphernalia. They also spend a significant amount of time outside, walking up to visit the horses, riding bikes on the driveway and otherwise exploring the world around them in a very real and tactile way. Ever since our oldest was old enough to repeat it we have been telling the girls that "Everything is washable...including you" and encouraging them to explore and get dirty. It is sometimes a challenge (last summer Sunshine figured out how to turn on the hose and the girls turned our newly planted yard space into the biggest mud puddle possible - I wanted to both laugh and cry when I saw three little girls so covered in mud that they looked like they belonged in an issue of National Geographic- Cowboy well...he wasn't pleased) but always an adventure. 

That pretty much sums up life with four little girls though...it is definitely an adventure. I had better go now though, as it seems the next adventure family Blue is dealing with is a seven month old (yes Apple is seven months today!) that has been woken up prematurely from her nap by her older sisters...