This morning H and I (despite our lingering colds; it was time to get out of the house!!!) joined some of our ward family (i.e. church friends) to tour a small, nearby farm. H was so thrilled to see the chickens, cows, goats, and pigs. The goats loved the kids and wanted to be in on all that was going on. One even started to nibble her shoe (which we'd barely purchased the night before) when I put her up on the fence to say goodbye. I'm glad to say that instead of it scaring her, she loved it!
At the end of the tour the kids got to choose a small pumpkin to take home. Some of those little three-year-olds were pretty tough, I must say, hauling around their prizes.
H and I were finishing dinner tonight when we heard overheard
S practicing for the Scouts Halloween festival:
(creepy Daddy laugh is heard from the bedroom)
H giggles with delight.
Me: "What was that!?
H: "PAPA!!!"
(another creepy Daddy laugh)
H: "Done!"
Me: "You want Papa to be done?"
H: "No, more!" (I think she had meant that Daddy had stopped his drawn out creepy laugh)
(another creepy Daddy laugh)
H shrieks with delight
(another creepy Daddy laugh)
another happy shriek from H
(another creepy Daddy laugh)
another happy shriek from H
She then climbs down from her chair and runs to the bedroom, amid protests from me that her hands are filthy. She chats with Daddy, and I catch up with a wet cloth to wash her (and luckily only the door frame and doorknob as well). Afterward, she and I head back to the table, and she begs, "More Papa silly noise!"
H called Daddy on her toy phone after he left:
"Hi Papa! Me pick up me Papa me car! . . . . Uh, uh, yeah! Me pick up Papa friend too!"
At bedtime, we've been reading "Scarry Stories": Richard Scarry books. :) Our wonderful neighbors J&J gave H a collection of his works, and she's requested it for nap and bedtimes for the past two weeks. Just today, I pulled out another Richard Scarry book that I realized I had hiding out in the family bookcases, and she was so thrilled to have a second one. :) I realized the other day that this "Scarry Stories" thing was perfect timing. For the past couple months, H's been saying that she's scared at night, and we tried everything from leaving the bathroom light on for her to giving her a flashlight, and the only thing she'd be content with was one of us staying in the room with her. I figured for the first while that it was just another shinanigan to get us to stay in there as she fell asleep (you would not believe all the things she's used on us, but maybe some of you would). However, one night, I said to her, what are you afraid of? She usually didn't answer (was there not really anything she was scared of her is it just her limited vocabulary?), so this time I continued on and asked, Are you afraid a bad man will come and take you away? She absolutely freaked out in response to that. Oops. That was dumb. However, how intensely she reacted made me think that this "Me scared" thing was quite real in her mind, which is why we finally started trying to find solutions to the problem rather than just treating it like all the previous acts.
One night--was it last week?--I just happened to tell her that Richard Scarry had written the stories and drawn all the pictures in her book. She looked a little concerned, so I explained that he wasn't really scary, that was just his name. "It's a silly name, isn't it?" She agreed. After that we started calling them our "Scarry stories", and shortly thereafter, no more cries of "Me scared!"
WAHOO!!!! :) :) :) I'm so grateful that she seems to be over this!!!
Do you know how pathetic that is???
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