Category: General Family News

Today there was a praying mantis on the front window! and a shooting 10 blocks down and one block over.

Guess which is more common here?

Melissa & I went to a consignment sale, where we found some great deals, as we always do! 🙂

I’ve been looking for one of those Fisher-Price puppy dogs that sings ABCs, “Head & Shoulders, Knees & Toes,” etc.? Mara loves Corban’s, so I looked into getting one for her, but they’re $22 in Target! I was so excited to find one for $5 at the sale.

Another exciting find was a doll-sized pack n play, stroller, car seat, & diaper bag set that I knew Mara would absolutely love! It was $8 for all of that, and I figured it would make a fabulous Christmas/birthday present. She is always begging and pleading to play with the strollers, and usually I say ‘no.’ As with most forbidden things, it seems like whenever I say ‘no,’ she desires it all the more, and while there is nothing intrinsically wrong with her playing with the strollers, they take up way too much space to keep them around the house as toys.

I stuck the pack n play (with the other items folded inside) next to my closet, thinking Mara wouldn’t be in my room much, and if she was, she wouldn’t know what those things were, folded up as they were.

Well, I was wrong. The next morning she found it. And she came to me, with the brightest sparkling blue eyes, yelling, “THOR-roller! [stroller] THOR-roller! THOR-roller!” and beckoning for me to come see. I knew (of course) what she had found and reluctantly went. With that much excitment over a gift I knew she would love, I just couldn’t bring myself to keep it till Christmas.

So . . . I gave her the “thor-roller.”

Wow, it was like Christmas in September! She LOVED it! She shouted “THOR-roller!” the entire time I carried it downstairs to set it up for her “baby.”I said, “Daniel, do you want to watch me give her her gift?” So we gave it to her together. I knew she would be thrilled–that’s why I got it–but I had to wonder if anything else I could find, could possibly make Christmas Day this special?!?!

She pushed it through the house most of the day. She put sippy cups and “snacks” in the basket underneath the stroller for the “baby.” She asked me over and over and over to “na” [snap] the baby in (or else to unsnap it). She took the stroller with her to Grandmom’s house several times this week and cried on Thursday when Daniel made her leave it at home. She begged every day to take it outside in the backyard for a “wah” [walk]. And whenever she pushed it (inside or outside), she would tilt her head to the side, with this “I’m-a-very-important-mother-pushing-her-baby-in-the-throller” air about her.

I watched her enjoy my gift, and I wondered if God feels this happy when we enjoy the gifts He gives to us.

. . .

Later this week, Mara kept saying “Beh, beh,” which translated meant she was going to put her baby to bed.

She would just lay him, face down, on the floor, and say “Nigh, nigh!” [nite, nite] Since she had already found the stroller, my resolve to keep the other items for Christmas had weakened considerably. I hated seeing her lay her baby on the floor, when I had a pack n play hidden in the other room! So I said, “Mara, Mommy has a special surprise for you.” She always gets excited when I say things like that, and she followed me eagerly to my room.

When I pulled the pack n play out, she started saying, “Bed! Bed!”? I was curious how this would play out, because beds (in realistic pretend) aren’t all that exciting.

I guess when you’re 20 months old, it’s just the novelty of it.

She would lay her baby in the pack n play, face down, just like Micah, and say “Nigh-nigh.” Then she would turn and walk away (again with her head tilted toward her shoulder). The first time, she walked all the way into our bedroom! It cracked me up to watch, because the pack n play was like this invisible force, pulling her back! She would slowly walk–then run–back to it saying “Baby! Baby!”

Once while she was out of the room, I “stood” the baby up in the pack n play, as he were standing in his bed. When she came back and saw that, she really laughed, genuinely tickled!

At the end of the evening, I brought the baby and the bed into her room, and set them next to her bed. She was very disturbed–in her mind, this wasn’t how things should be! The baby should be in the baby’s room! She began crying, and through her tears, saying, “Min-uh! Min-uh!” I let her out of bed, and she pushed the pack n play out her bedroom door, down the hall, and back into Micah’s room! Then she said, “Nigh-nigh,” and walked back into her room.

It really surprised me that she wanted to leave her baby overnight. But in her mind, it all seems SO real . . .