Category: Mara Joy

Random Mara Quotes

Posted on by Becky

Even though I haven’t really had time for blogging during the past two months, I jotted down a few Mara quotes now and then. Quotes I wanted to remember. Here are a few:

After we picked up my sister (“Aunt Mary”) at the airport, Mara burst into the house with more enthusiasm than I can describe, exclaiming, “Daddy! Do you want to meet Mommy’s niece?!?!?!?!”

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I’m learning that she picks up on a lot of the things I say, and repeats them.  One day, while my family was here, Mara told me: “Today my day is horrible! My house is not cleaned yet. It is horrible!”

Yikes. Maybe I should be re-defining “horrible” for my daughter.

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Mara’s toys were spread all over the floor, and as she tried to get through, she said, “Excuse me, beads. Can you move along?”

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Recently Micah has been blowing “raspberries” all the time. For some reason, this really irritates Mara. (She calls it “beeping,” as in ‘Micah keeps beeping at me!’) So while she was on the phone with Daddy (who was at work), she said, “I don’t want Micah to be spitting at me and beeping at me. Micah needs to get a spanking. [There was silence on her father’s end of the line]. . . Daddy? . . .  ANSWER me!”

Later in the same conversation: “We are sinners! We have sin in our hearts. . . I am reading the Bible, so don’t talk. . . We need GRACE! Come ONNNNNN!!!!!”

Wow.

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My dear friend Stephanie gave Mara her book A Pocket for Corduroy. In the front cover she inscribed, “To Mara Joy. From Kathryn Kuchle [Stephanie’s daughter, who is a year older than Mara].” Whenever we read, A Pocket for Corduroy, I read the inscription.

Yesterday morning Mara was going around saying “I’mmmm Kathryn Kuchle! . . . Remember the nice lady that gave me Corduroy?” So I told her that actually Kathryn was a little three-year-old girl, almost the same age as Mara.

Ironically, that day’s mail brought the Kuchles’ Christmas picture! So I showed her Kathryn Kuchle and her little brother Tyler. Mara carried the picture around saying, “Look! It’s Kathryn Kuchle!–She’s cuter than me.” And then she would ask random questions, like, “How do you spell ‘Kathryn Kuchle’?”

Then a couple weeks later, I overheard Mara telling Daniel, “See this chair? It’s from Tyler’s mother. And not Kathryn Kuchle’s brother Tyler’s mother. It’s from the Tyler down the street with the father named Bo.” . . . I just had to laugh, because she doesn’t really even know my friend Stephanie, or her daughter Kathryn, but she still includes them in conversation regularly (even more than I do!). 🙂

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Also, this should be obvious, but never tell a toddler about a surprise.

Mara to Aunt Mary: “It’s your birthday! And we have a surprise for you! And we’re going to have CUPcakes!” [It actually wasn’t her birthday. We were just going to celebrate while my family was together. So much for the element of “surprise.”]

Mara thought for a minute. She is going to be three on Christmas Day, and she equates “birthday” with “Christmas.” So she asked the logical question, since Aunt Mary is clearly old than three: “Will you be four at your birthday on Christmas?”

Doing “Fun Things” With Mommy on Bedrest

Posted on by Becky

For Works for Me Wednesday, here are a few ideas from my current experience involving toddlers & bedrest (What a challenging combo, let me tell you!). I’ve listed some ideas that have worked with my three-year-old daughter–and a plea for help with my 19-month-old son! Please comment–for my sanity and his!

Having a three-year-old daughter with you when you’re on bedrest isn’t all that bad. (It’s the 19-month-old boy I struggle to keep entertained.)

My daughter is forever running into my bedroom, saying, “Mommy, can we do some fun things together?”

And by “fun things” she is referencing the stack of kids’ stuff next to my bed. In that stack I keep things Mara and I can do together while I lay in my bed. (Unfortunately, I have found nothing that Micah and I can do together to add to the stack.)

We have:

  • A feltboard: Aunt Darla gave Mara and Micah FeltTales Busy Day at the Farm Story Board for Christmas. This is a great toy for preschoolers! Mara calls it her “cardboard,” and every day she asks, “Can we play with the cardboard?” She pretends the kids are going apple picking; milking the cow (then feeding the cow its own milk out of the pail!); planting the garden; playing with the other farm animals . . . I think it would be a great “travel” toy too. We may bring it next summer when we drive to Florida for my sister’s wedding.
  • Candyland: I got this game at the thrift store for 99 cents, in great condition, and it was one of Mara’s Christmas presents too. She is just barely old enough to play this game. It took her awhile to understand that you have to take the top card off the pile (you can’t go through the pile and pick) and that your goal is getting to the Candy Castle–not drawing cards with candy on them, regardless of how far they set you back.
  • Memory: Another Christmas present Mara received, conveniently packaged as a hard plastic “book” that can be stored on a shelf. She does pretty well with this game. (I think all kids have to be reminded they can only turn over two cards on their turn, even if they suddenly remember where the match is.) I’m considering dividing the game in half until she’s a little older, because with 72 cards, the game takes a long time and she’s usually yawning halfway through. We have yet to complete an entire game.
  • Little Bear and Dress-up Clothes: She was given a little bear with three outfits: cheerleader, cowboy and angel. She loves dressing and undressing the bear, but she can’t do it all by herself, so it’s perfect for both of us sitting on the bed and whenever she needs help, I’m right there.
  • Bible Story Books: Mara considers it a special treat to read Bible stories and sing songs together. So I keep those by the bed too. We are flying through the book right now, because we have so much time for reading right now!
  • Charts: Mara practices ABCs (letters and sounds) every day. We usually do Bible stories and charts for the first 20 – 30 minutes of Micah’s nap; then Mara goes down for her nap too. She loves doing “charts.” One day I heard her say, “Daddy! Maybe today I can teach you charts!” and she did. He said she got almost all the letters right, except she sometimes mixes up “U,” “V,” and “W.” Daniel would tease her and say, “‘A’ says ‘Buh-Bear’,” and of course Mara would correct him with the right sounds. 🙂
  • Stickers/Coloring
  • Many, many other books: Reading is probably Mara’s favorite pastime!
  • Brain Quest for ages 2-3: I was given Deck 3 by a freecycler. I wish I had the next level (Brain Quest for Threes), because Mara whips right through this one, and I think she will get bored with it after a couple times through it. But she enjoys answering the questions and she has learned several things going through it. We use it as a springboard to discuss new concepts (like beavers, building a campfire, or different kinds of insects).
  • Girly Stuff: Once a day Mara gets a squirt of body spray (Bath & Body Works’ Black Raspberry Vanilla), and we lotion our hands and put on chapstick. Mara loves girly stuff!

In just a few short weeks (weeks, not days, right??) Mara’s little sister will be born, and we will not have nearly so much time to spend together. So when Mara says, “Can we do fun things together?” I treasure those times!

And if any readers have ideas of “fun things” a 19-month-old boy would enjoy doing while Mom’s on bedrest, I’m all ears! I would love to spend more one-on-one time with him too before this baby comes. 🙂

So, tonight, after I turned out Mara’s light, I said, “Nite-nite, sweetie. I had fun with you today.”

Mara said, “Thank you for playing CandyLand with me! It’s fun doing lots of things when you’re on bedrest.” 

That made my day.

Mara’s Manicure

Posted on by Becky

For weeks Mara has asked me to paint her fingernails. And for weeks I told her to wait until Christmas and we could do it for her birthday and Christmas.

I don’t mind doing her nails, but I’ve been super-busy since mid-November and trying to put off anything that wasn’t absolutely necessary during those few weeks. Besides, if we do her nails all the time, she’ll start to think she always needs to do her nails–and she is still only three. If we don’t do her nails all the time, it will be something special to her, something you can ask for on vacation or on your birthday or on Christmas. 🙂

So finally we did it. She was absolutely delighted!

Mara, waiting for nails to dry

Checking out the finished product

And showing them off

Sunday after Christmas, she came home from church with Daddy, saying, “I telled everyone at church and nursery that we painted my fingernails for Christmas!”

I’m sure she did.

Mara Loves Her Little Sister

Posted on by Becky

Last night after Micah went to bed and my sister-in-law went home for the night, Mara climbed into my bed (where I’m appropriately stationed on “bed”rest). Daniel was working late, so it was Mara and Mommy time.

We read three books. After we were done, she asked, “Mommy, now can I read a book to the little sister?”

So she re-“read” Just Going to the Dentist to her little sister. She has so many of her books mostly memorized, and only occasionally she would stop and ask, “What does this page say?” I’d give her a few words to trigger the memory.

It was kind of humorous to me that she wanted to read a book on going to the dentist to a baby that’s not even born yet.

But at the same time, it was sooo precious. I wanted to run downstairs and grab my camera so I could remember it always. Of course, I couldn’t, and frankly that would have ruined the moment anyway. So instead I just sat there, taking it in: My three-year-old, red-haired girl sitting there in her brown-with-white-polka-dot-kitty-sleeper, legs crossed, reading a book to her little sister, before she was even born.

It was a special moment.

Tonight I was sitting on the couch after dinner, and Mara asked, “Can I give the little sister a hug?” She threw her arms around my middle and planted a huge kiss on my belly. “I gave her a BIIIIIG hug and I KISSED her!” she exclaimed.

I can tell she’s smitten already. And that makes me really happy.

Some Evidence that Watching TV Makes You Stupid

Posted on by Becky

A lot of times when a 2-year-old quotes you, she’ll get the quote just right enough for you to understand what she’s referring to, but just wrong enough to be amusing.

The other day Mara said to me, “Daddy said I couldn’t watch too much TV because Bugs Bunny makes you ‘tupid! [stupid]”

I think he probably said something to the effect that she couldn’t watch too much Bugs Bunny, because watching too much TV makes you stupid. I tried to clear it up. I’m not sure if she really understood or not.

But here’s a picture from last night, that just confirms watching too much television makes you stupid.

Here they are watching Clifford.

(Note especially the one in the middle!)

WatchingClifford