The Askingest Pigeon Around

I have always, always loved 'The Pigeon' books.  Ever since I found them in college and had them read to me on a day that definitely could have been better.  I still remember being in pjs and wrapped in a blanket, downstairs on the lovesacks that littered the common area of the freshmen dorms.  Levi brought a stack of children's books from the library and read them to me after a full day of classes and not feeling well.  "Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus" was the only one available at that point and we read it three or four times before moving onto the next book.  Love that sassy pigeon.

We got "The Duckling gets a Cookie" not so long ago and it has become one of Alaska's favorites.  Not because she loves it, but because I love it.  Handsome Husband and I quote it back and forth in conversation and it has become quite the inside joke.  We need more.  Yesterday I got home from a bird release and Steven says, "Alaska is really 'the most askingest pigeon around'"  And I laughed.  Because I knew exactly what he meant.  She's always asking, 'what is this' and asking with a question in her voice, "momma" or "dia-dee" as she points to an article of one of ours.  Or asking for more milk.  The pointing game is one of her favorites and she'll point saying, "Dis?" to a dozen of objects, even if she points to the same object twice.  I always feel like she's quizzing me and I now understand why often, picture books made for little kids have word recognition built into them as each picture on the page is labeled.  They thought that was for the kids.  No.  That is for the parents when we can't think fast enough to name a duck.

My current hope is that even though she's not saying the words after me right now, she's practicing in her head and someday I will be amazed when she points to an object and says its name when she has never said it before.  Right now we are working heavily on colors and I am not hoping so much that she'll be saying the colors, but that she can recognize them.  The words will come soon enough, I am sure.

Rocking the Toddler to Sleep

Confession:  I rocked Alaska to sleep for her nap this afternoon.  She has been a champ at going down for naps and sleeping through the night since baby-age.  Like, pridefully good.

But lately she has better things to do than to take naps.  Play with Kitty Kitty, look at books, run around like a crazy and tag along behind me as I clean a bathroom and pick up the bedrooms.  I let is slide for two days and then that was enough.  After shutting her in her room for half a hour, I always caved at her 'tap-tap-tapping'.  She can't open doors yet, and we plan to keep it that way as long as possible.  Is that crippling a child?  I don't know.  But it keeps her in her room at nap time, and that is the battle right now.

Only, the peculiar thing about her nap-time scamming is that instead of playing with her toys, she tends to sit by the door and holler.  ALL of her toys are in her room.  But she sits at the door and cries with a diaper in hand.  Because she has learned that if I check on her and she's got a diaper in hand it guarantees a bum check, and that's 15 seconds more than if I were to walk in there and lay her in bed again.  Smart girl we've got on our hands here.

I had my battle armor on for today and left her in there for one hour and forty-five minutes.  Oh Please, don't look at me that way.  I can see the judging in your eyes.  I did check on her every half-hour.  And I did know she was fine.  And believe me, I felt every single cry for 'maaaaaamaaaaa' that came through that door.  It made it very hard to concentrate of anything else.  So keep your judgy eyes to yourself.

15 minutes before my last ditch effort of letting her out of her room I swaddled her and tucked her into my arms in our stuffed rocking chair.  I sang a few songs and her eyes were closed in 5 minutes.  A total of 10 minutes and I was laying her down in bed.

Those 10 minutes that I sang to her, I watcher her little face.  Those deep-brown eyes that have always looked back at me, so strong and alert.  Always alert from day one.  Her whipped cream complexion has been darkened by the sun and her skin tells the truth on me, that we don't always do lotion after baths anymore.  Her forehead tells of tears, a few spots of fresh skin that were healing under dark scabs during the warmest days of summer.  The scars will fade with the next sun tan in the spring.  But right now they peek, shy out of slumber.  Under usual circumstances she's moving too fast for anyone to notice.  Her small nose and miniature ears looks less like doll details and more child size.  I breathe in deep while kissing her forehead and it's not the same milky johnson's baby smell that filled my nose the last time I held her like this.  The only thing remotely the same, as my arm starts to tingle from her heavy head, is her eyelashes.  Long and feather-like, they always remind me of butterfly wings.  Softly curling at the edges as they swipe across the tops of her cheek.  Butterfly-like not only in their dainty design, but in the fact that just when you think a butterfly is going to stay a while, the lift up their wings and fly.  Just as you think those eyes are going to stay closed and they flutter open at the smallest movement.

I took her to bed and lay her down, eye-lids barely opening and kissed her one more time before tip-toeing out and closing the door.  She slept two hours and I got my 'my time' for one more day.

Christmas Browsing in November

Yesterday Alaska and I were having a hard day.  Not that it was hard, it was just long, really. Really long.  I didn't feel so well and I hated letting her watch Word World after her nap.  I needed a good pick-me up and Handsome Husband needed some poster board for a sign.  

As much as I dislike going to WalMart, that is where we headed.  I don't know.  It's so 'college' to me.  I would much rather spend a little extra and go somewhere locally owned where not everyone in their pajamas go.  But it's what we've got.  And sure, sometimes it's all the energy I have to get my hair done to get out the door and cute clothes would be the tipping point, but at least I wear yoga pants instead of my pink owl pj bottoms.  Let's show some respect around here.

We took our time and went straight back to the seasonal and walked through all the ready-made gift ideas, candy and your classic Christmas Bling.  Then through what used to be the garden section, turned out-door decor and wrapping.  Alaska loved Santa driving the airplane with a propeller that spun, all 8 ft of it.  It was hideous.  I picked up and smelled cinnamon pinecones and scentsicles smelling like Chritmas Tree, breathing in deep.  Winter White Fir.  Passed through the glass bulbs that have been replaced by safe plastic, losing their fragile appeal and landed among the classic ornaments of Disney characters and miniature leg lamps from 'A Christmas Story'.

 

There is something demanding about the season that requests to be seen, smelled and experienced.  Felt deep in the heart.  Our apartment right now is so cozy it easily feels cluttered if there is one item out of place.  We have two good sized half-walls that could simply collect things just by being.  I am constantly clearing them off and keeping them clutter free because it makes the biggest difference in the atmosphere as to how it feels and how I feel, besides vacuumed floors.

There's no place to put decorations, half-walls included because it doesn't matter what's on them, it feels like too much.  I left our Halloween and Thanksgiving decorations in their boxes this past season and thought the Christmas would have to stay packed up, as well.  But as I look around, we could use a little Christmas cheer.  As annoying as decorations are to put up and take down, they add enough to make it worth it.  I am anticipating the day when Alaska is excited about decorations and begs to pull the boxes down.  Setting her nativity up the day after Thanksgiving, like I used to.  And I'll embrace it again then.  But right now it just seems too big.  Except Christmas.  We're going to need some Christmas this year.  No tree.  We haven't got the room for that.  But some glass balls hanging from the ceiling is a Christmas tradition around here. 

This year I have big plans.  I've been saving money for a while now and have plans to set out Christmas for a couple of families.  I am really excited about it and have already started collecting ideas.  It makes it so wonderful, to be getting gifts for someone, and to have it be a surprise on top of it.  The kids are still young enough to believe in Santa if they wanted to and I've got plans that include lots of wrapping paper and lots of glitter.

My other big plan is to learn more about Christ.  To KNOW Him.  I mean, sure, I know your regular stuff and I've read Jesus the Christ, but I want to know more.  That is what my December is going to be about.  Christ and what He did with the short life He had and the people that He spent His time with.  It all seems so miraculous to me.  So magical and divine.  That a man could teach so much, in such a short time.  Touch so many lives, and not only those have been touched for generations.  But touch those that He literally touched.  I am always trying to be Christlike, because that's part of my promise that I made to Him when I was baptized.  But I think it's always good for us to immerse ourselves in the goodwill for others.  A great huge dunking of goodness where we notice the good we have been doing because we look for it and record it, not just because we are living it casually every day.

Bought some cinnamon scentsy today and plan to bring Christmas in with a huge hug!  Right after Thanksgiving, of course.