A Special Treat

This evening, due to a variety of interesting circumstances, I got to have one-on-one dinner with my daughter. Frankly, it was a real treat. Here are some of the highlights:

• Leah brought a sandwich bag full of coins to the table and used a toy spoon to scoop them into a Cabbage Patch Kid’s shoe. “This is my favorite ice cream,” she explained: “Penny Supreme!” She then offered me some, which I agreed was very good. She then continued: “It’s my favorite, so I looked up the recipe on xibirtz.com¹ and I made it.”

• Imagine a five-year old doing the following, all in the course of about fifteen seconds:
a) announced that she does not like black olives
b) stated that she might possibly try a black olive
c) ate a black olive
d) announced that since now she’s a big girl, she likes black olives

• Several minutes into the meal, Leah started laughing quite hard at something. I still have no idea what, but she just kept going, finally calming down enough to say, “I am not fake laughing, Daddy. Believe me!”

Sadly, I am blanking on some of the other things she said and did, but suffice to say it was a great dinner.

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1. There is no such thing as xibirtz.com. Perhaps that could be the new name for my company?

Scripture Study

A few weeks ago, we decided to start doing our family scripture study from the actual scriptures instead of the children’s storybooks. Of course, since our children are preschool age, we limit our family reading to one verse per person; and since the children cannot yet read, Anna or I whisper the words into one child’s ear, a few at a time, inviting him or her to repeat them aloud. The children absolutely love feeling like they’re reading, and we love that they’re learning to love the word of God.

This evening, we were reading in the First Book of Nephi, chapter 8. It was David’s turn to “read,” and I was whispering verse 10 in his ear. The following conversation ensued:

Jeff (whispering): “ ‘And it came to pass…’ ”

David: (giggles and whispers something incoherent—a common problem).

Jeff: “Come on, David; say it loudly: ‘And it came to pass…’.”

David: (says something slightly less incoherent).

Anna: “David, please say it nicely.”

David: “And it came to pass!”

Jeff (whispering): “ ‘…that I beheld…’ ”

David: “That I befald.”

Jeff (whispering): “ ‘…a tree…’ ”

David: “A tree.”

Jeff (whispering): “ ‘…whose fruit…’ ”

David: “Fruit.”

Jeff (whispering): “ ‘…whose fruit…’ ”

David: “I dunno.”

Jeff (trying hard not to laugh): “No, David; ‘…whose fruit…’.”

David: “I dunno!!!”

By this point, Anna and I were laughing so hard, we had to pause our reading. ^_^

Calling

For a while now, I’ve received the occasional phone call at the office, where I pick up and find Leah or David on the other end. The calls are usually brief and include a request to bring such-and-such down to them, to play such-and-such game after work, etc.. Over the last week or so, though, the calls have become a lot more frequent. So yesterday, when I came downstairs to fulfill Leah’s request for a Band-Aid^®, I asked Anna, “Are you calling me on her behalf, or does she know how to call me, herself?”

Anna: “She knows how to do it, by herself. They both do.”

Me: “Really?”

David: “Yeah, Daddy. Watch. DAAAAADDDDDDYYYYY!!!!”

Ask a stupid question. ^_^

Eyes Wide Shut

A few minutes ago, I walked into David’s room. As I did, I heard his tiny voice: “Hi, Daddy.”

“Hey, David,” I replied.

“What’s up?” he asked. I couldn’t believe it. So simple. So like me. He’s definitely my son.

“I just wanted to make sure you were okay,” I told him.

He smiled so big. I leaned down and kissed him, told him to get some good rest, and quietly left the room.

I never saw his eyes open. :-)

Dream World

David came into our room at about 6:20 this morning and lay down in our bed. As I lay there with him, I decided to take the opportunity to have a conversation with him: nothing urgent, just keeping the lines of communication open. I asked him what he did yesterday, and after several false starts (including Wednesday’s preschool activity and last Friday’s family picnic in the park), he finally started down a very… um… interesting story.

“I saw a very friendly monster!”

“Really! What did he look like?”

“He was an orange drop!”

“Oh! Like a gumdrop?”

“Yeah!”

“And where was this monster?”

“He was walking across the cornfield.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

"Was this a dream you had?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay. What was the monster’s name?”

“His… his name was David, too.”

“Really! He was David 2?”

“Yeah.”

“So you’re David 1 and he’s David 2?”

“Yeah.”

“Cool.”

“And there was another monster!”

“Really?”

“Yeah. And his name was David, too. And he was a blue drop.”

“Really? He was a blue gumdrop?”

“No, he was a blue rain drop.”

“Really! Could you see through him?”

“No.”

“Oh, okay.”

This conversation continued for quite a while, with David telling me about a few other gumdrop monsters in his dream: a green one named George; a purple one named Olivia; another purple one named Leah; and Leah’s twin sister, a red one named Carly. I asked, “And they were all coming across the cornfield together?”

“Yeah.”

“Wow.”

“And then there was a big farm monster that came and put his foot on all of them!”

“He stepped on them?”

“Yeah!”

“Wow!”

By this time, Anna was back: “What did the farm monster look like?”

David’s reply: “A FARM!!!”

Ask a silly question….

She Needs Her Privacy

At ages 4½ and almost 3½, respectively, Leah and David still generally share a bath. Thus, it is particularly humorous that immediately preceding this evening’s bath time (while David was running around naked), still-clothed Leah ran into the bathroom and demanded that he stay out. The reason?

“You can’t be in here when I’m changing into my nothing!”

Three-year-old Logic

A conversation between me and David, about two minutes ago, in its entirety:

Me: “David, please give that back to Leah.”

David: “But she’s not screaming for it.”

How can you keep a straight face to that?

Melting My Heart

Sometime last night, Leah made her way into our room with her sleeping bag and spent the rest of the night, sleeping on our floor. When I woke up in the morning (Anna having already gotten out of bed), my little girl climbed into our bed and snuggled in, just holding me as tightly as she could. Talk about the best feeling in the world….

Anyway, given opportunities like this, I always make a specific point to tell my children how much I love them and how wonderful they are. This time, on a whim, I also posed a question: “Leah, why are you such a good girl?’

Her response: “Because you taught me to be.”

Wow. Just… wow.

Not Enough Dora to Go Around

A few days ago, Leah tore a page out of her Dora the Explorer coloring book and starting putting stickers on it. Somewhere along the line, this picture somehow wound up on my bedside table, and a scan (in case you hadn’t guessed) can be seen at right.


This morning, as I walked into my bedroom, I came upon Leah explaining the picture to her little brother. She was pointing out that there were three stickers featuring Dora. “That,” she explained, “is because there are three Doras: one regular Dora, and two robot Doras.”


And isn’t that just what the world needs?

Breakfast of Champions

Scene: the Drake family kitchen, about 7:00 this morning. Leah and David have run ahead of me and by the time I get there, I find David having grabbed a box of crackers and shoving his hand into the box. I quickly grab the box from him, returning the two or three crackers to the box. (Yeah, I know, unsanitary. It’s not like anyone else is going to be eating them.) ;-)

I inform David that we will not be having crackers for breakfast; he screams. I ignore him and turn to Leah. The following conversation ensues:

Daddy: “Leah, what do you want for breakfast?”

Leah: “Crackers!”

Daddy: “No, Leah. I just told David that we don’t have crackers with breakfast.”

Leah: “But I want crackers!”

Daddy: “No, Leah. Not for breakfast.”

Leah: “Can I have crackers for lunch?”

Daddy: “If you would like some crackers with your lunch, I’m okay with that if Mommy is. Mommy, is that okay?”

Mommy (looking up from the computer): “What?”

Daddy: “Leah can have crackers with her lunch?”

Mommy: “Yes, with her lunch.”

Daddy: “Okay, thanks, Mommy. So, Leah, you may have some crackers with your lunch. Now what do you want for breakfast?”

Leah: “Oatmeal!”

Daddy: “Okay. David, what do you want for breakfast?”

David: “Lunch!”


(((sigh)))

Wise Beyond Her Years

I am so proud of my daughter.

Last night, the kids were watching Super Why! while I was cleaning up in the kitchen. For those that have never seen this PBS show, it’s actually pretty cool: a computer-generated little boy name Whyatt hooks up with three of his friends from Storybook Village to solve a problem one of them is having. The foursome become the Super Readers, and they make their way into a book wherein they learn how someone else solved a similar problem. Neat concept, really.

So anyway, in last night’s episode, the problem they were having was that Wolfie—a character I’ve never seen before, but what do I know?—erased the scoreboard, right in the middle of the kids’ kickball game. This obviously constituted a major emergency, since no one could remember what the score was. (It was 3-1, by the way; our heroes were winning.) ;-)

True to form, Whyatt immediately called upon the Super Readers to figure out what to do, which was interesting, since the winning team consisted of—you guessed it!—the three kids and one pig that constitute the Super Readers’ secret identities. I smiled and muttered under my breath, “Guess you’re just gonna forfeit that game anyway, huh?”

A few minutes pass; I’m still cleaning in the kitchen, maybe half–paying attention to the show. All of a sudden, Leah gasps. Without any prompting from the show whatsoever—it really had nothing to do with what was going on in the on-screen book, at that point—she says, “I hope the game’s not over before they all get back!”

That’s my girl. :-)

The Simple Answer for Everything

Our family made a shopping trip to Meijer on Saturday, to take advantage of their awesome deals. Among the items on sale: Teddy Grahams, which make a great morning snack for the kids. Strangely, there’s a new kind of Teddy Grahams that’s shaped like Disney Princesses—wouldn’t that be Princess Grahams?—so of course Leah noticed that immediately and just had to have it. (No, we don’t give in often, but Graham crackers are a pretty good choice, so I let her have that one.)

Yesterday after lunch, Leah noticed that Mommy was in the pantry and made a beeline for her, in hopes of getting some of her Princess crackers. Unfortunately for Leah, Mommy isn’t so easily swayed and informed her that no, she couldn’t have any right then, that she’d just had lunch and it wasn’t snack time. So our little girl, with all the indignation she could muster, placed her hands on her hips and responded:

“So change your mind!”

Wouldn’t it be great if life were that simple?