Liddy-isms

My sweet Lydia has become quite the conversationalist.  She loves to chat, sitting at the table with her cute, dimpled chin in her pudgy little hand, sharing with me about all the bests and leasts of her day.  And as if that isn't all adorable enough, she sprinkles her conversations with all sorts of garbly-gook.

She has a wide vocabulary of almost-right words.  Words that are close to what she means, but not quite.  Here are a few that come to mind:

We have all had the sniffles for the past several weeks.  Not a cold that really slows you down, but an annoyingly drippy nose that keeps us close to the kleenex box.  Lydia frequently runs to the kitchen, grabs a tissue and declares, "My nose is coming out!"

Lydia is slowly fazing out of napping in the afternoon.  Sometimes she falls asleep, but usually she lays and reads in her bed and then gets up and plays quietly.  (No problem here ... I still get my mommy-time!)  A few days ago I asked her if she had slept to which she replied, "Yes.  I close my eyes and I open my eyes and I close my eyes and I open my eyes."  Ah-ha.  Kinda like blinking slowly.  And, no, that's not really sleeping.

My baby girl is infatuated with Shaun the Sheep.  Or, "Saun da Seep" as she likes to call him.  She has one episode in particular that she loves where the sheep sell all of the farmer's belongings in a yard sale.  "Everything must go" ... and all of it went.  Unfortunately, it took poor Lydia about three minutes of constant repeating, "Seep sellet, seep sellet, seep sellet" for me to understand what she wanted to watch.

And then yesterday, Lydia had her second ever dentist appointment.  Her first visit was a teary and sad affair and so she was a little anxious upon our arrival at the office.  She summoned up her courage and bravely climbed into the moving chair alongside Ashley and Aaron.  At one point, the hygienist was dabbing her eyes with a tissue and Liddy was wearing her "I'm trying to be brave, but my chin won't quit quivering" face.  I let the hygienist comfort her and before long her checkup was finished and she proudly strutted over to me with her new toothbrush and bag of goodies.  I told how proud I was of her and how brave she was to which she responded, "I didn't cry, but my eyes drooled a little bit."  Oh.  I hate it when that happens.

Someday she'll have all the right words ... until then, I'll enjoy deciphering her Liddy-isms.

a self-portrait

small things {sand castles}

Thanks for a fun SITS day ... so many wonderful and encouraging comments!  Makes this Word-Lover so happy! :)

small things #41 ... sand castles

Last Friday was a big day.  We did the Big, Enormous, Drink-from-the-Fire-Hose VBS Walk-Thru for all of our volunteers.  We crammed two months of planning into two hours in an attempt to bring our 56 "pilots" up to speed for our Amazing Wonders Aviation week of adventure.

It was a doozy morning.

When we landed back at home for lunch, my kids and I sat around the table munching mac-n-cheese and slurping Orange Crush.  (Doozy mornings call for heedless diets!)  I decompressed and was informed by my all-too-intuitive eight-year old that my stress was a result of me being a "worry borrower" ... something we talked about NOT being during a recent morning devotional.  Out of the mouth of babes!

Following our slow and mellow lunch my kids headed off into four directions - to read, to write and to rest.  I followed my pokey little Lydia up the stairs to her room to snuggle and read about how Buster got lost, but then found again by sweet kitty, Betty, "a white ball of fur waving from the top of the tree".  All the while Lydia is picking at her feet, poking her finger between her toes and shaking her socks.

Just before I spin her around to tuck her chubby little legs into bed she announces that she got all the "sand castles" out of her toes.  Hmmm ... sand castles.  Of course.  

A perfect ending to a full morning ... a snapshot of my little girl's littleness and what an honor and privilege it is to be her Mommy.  And to not miss one single Liddy-ism.

Sand castles ... the pesky, dusty granules that sneak into our sneakers when we're busy bustling about at the park.  Two words that make me smile.  And make my day.

small things {keedjing)

small things #34 ... keedjing

She's saying something, but I can make the letters come together.

She's insistent, but as I repeat what I think I'm hearing, her frustration grows.

She's serious now.  She had pulled a prank and she had wanted me to laugh.

I didn't.

But only because I didn't know she was keedjing.

Kidding.  Joking.  Teasing.  All wrapped up in one Liddy-ism.

When she put her sticky fingers in my iced tea to fish out an ice cube, she was only keedjing.

When she stuck her stinky feet in Baby S's lap, she was only keedjing.

When she refused to pick up her puzzle pieces because, "she didn't know how", she was only keedjing.

Ahh.  Of course.  That makes it all better!

Keedjing ... Lydia's excuse for silly and sometimes inexcusable behavior.  

I guess I need to remember to laugh.

small things {possums}

small things #22 ... possums

The poor girl sneezes constantly.  And when she's not sneezing, she's dabbing her eyes with a rumpled tissue.  Or blowing her running-out-of-control nose.  

"Are you okay, honey?"

...sniff, snuffle, snort... "Yeah."

Allergies.  Such a drag.

Fortunately, she seems to do well on her allergy meds.  At least there's a little less sneezing, dabbing and sniffling.  We know this season of snuffling won't last forever, but Ashley will be so relieved when she can get dressed in the morning and not wonder where to stuff her stash of tissues.

However, even with her understanding that wind = increased sneezing + itching eyes, the terminology is still a little foggy for my little girl.  For example, I recently had this conversation with my LeLe.

We pulled into the parking lot at the grocery store last week and saw the dark storm clouds rolling over the Monument.  There was certainly a storm brewing to the west.

"Hmmm ... we better hurry up and run in quickly.  We don't want to get caught in that storm."

"Do you think it will rain, Mommy?"

"It sure looks like it."

"Good.  Maybe all that rain will knock the possums out of the trees."

....silence...

"Uhm.  What was that?"

"You know, the possums.  If the rain knocks the possums out of the tree, I won't have my allergies."

"Ah.  Gotcha."

Those pesky possums.

I didn't correct her.  The imagery of sodden possums laying in wet heaps waving white flags of surrender was just too funny.

Possums ... the source of LeLe's sneezes and sniffles and the source of a much needed giggle for me.

A Fine-Toothed Comb

While combing sand out of my toddler's hair this morning ... Wellllll, perhaps I'll back up a bit. :)

To begin, I spent a lovely morning with other mommies celebrating our kiddos being back-to-school.  We sat outside, enjoyed some delicious refreshments, listened to the little kids playing happily (most of the time) and enjoyed some delightful, adult conversation.  From the deck I could see my two girls playing and I was happy to see them getting along with the other kids well.  It was really a wonderful morning ... but eventually duty called and it was time to gather our parts and head home.  Upon collecting the girls I discovered that Lydia was covered, quite literally, from head to toe in sand.  I knew she was playing in the sand box, but I hadn't realized she was playing IN the sand box!

You might ask, "What would you have done if you had known that she was enjoying the sand box so very, very much?"  To which I would point back to the lovely morning I was having and the fact that my girls were playing so happily ... albeit sandily.  I guess as long as the girls were still safe, I would still let them play in the sand box ... but perhaps I would have made her wear a swim cap! :)


And so, back to the combing of the sand... 

Upon returning home, I decided a bath was in order.  Unfortunately, it is seemingly impossible to get sand out of hair.  (Perhaps you beach friends could give us land-lubbers some helpful tips!)  I washed and rinsed and washed and rinsed and I could still feel little gritty bits in her hair.  Some did rinse out as Ashley was quick to point out that the bottom of the tub was crunchy.  But, eventually I gave up and decided to try combing it out ... hence our blog title of the day.  Lydia sat so nicely as I combed with my fine-toothed comb ... and combed and combed and combed.

And as I was combing I thought about the phrase, "a fine-toothed comb" and thought, "who came up with that?"  And that little question led me to quite a rabbit-trail of thoughts:  What about all those other silly things we say?

• Run the gauntlet,
• A piece of cake,
• Apple of my eye,
• Beat around the bush,
• Doozy,
• Go out on a limb,
• Fuddy-Duddy,
• High on the hog,
• Mumbo-Jumbo,
• Rabbit-trail... You get the idea...

Now, think about this:  all these words came from somewhere.  Someone said it first and then other people started saying it and pretty soon that strange word or phrase became an idiom and was adopted into our vocabulary.  So my challenge to you is:  what word or phrase can you share that could someday become a regular part of our conversation?  You could make a real contribution!  Or at the very least, entertain us. :)

To get you started, I'll share a couple that I came up with:

"To share a kidney" ~ we use this in reference to our son and his buddy and their in-ability to be separated from one another for longer that 12 hours.

"To be booped" ~ this originated with the kids and the many times they set-up booby-traps in an attempt to scare us.  Synonymous with being sorta scared ... mainly not.

So ... send me your -Isms with a brief definition and I'll post my favorites.
We'll all broaden our vocabulary!