Kid-isms and other incidentals

Some things still surprise me about Genea. We went clothes shopping for her over the weekend. She now wears a kid size Small. A year ago, last June when she moved in, she was wearing a 2T. She and Teena wore the same clothes all that summer! (I like to mention that as often as possible- helps my lagging confidence which was run through a paper shredder this weekend). Anyway, we were in the back of the store looking at pants and I told her we are going to have to try some of these on because the sizes were all goofy. She looked up at me, very serious, she had been trying to think up the best way to tell me this. She takes a deep breath, fastens her big brown eyes onto mine and says, "Mama, I don't want to change my clothes here". I tried not to laugh, I really did try. But I had to. Then, I explained to her that I had no intention of stripping her down out in the jeans aisle of Steve and Barry's, and I let her in on the whole dressing room concept. OH. OKAY Mama, anxiety visibly leaving. Oh!

I never met a kid so excited to try on clothes before either. Cute!

Teena has a few words that she thinks are the same. For one, she told me when we were eating, that she was going to need a wife to eat her food. HUH? was my articulate response. A WIFE Mama, you know, a WIFE to cut this. Oh. LMAO. A knife.

The cats have started to actually hang around the same room as the kids. One of the funniest stupid new mom things I did was obsess about how I was going to keep the cats out of the babies room. My older sister had installed a screen door on my nephews bedroom. I had read about those caps you can put on a crib but they were pricey. My other sister had some fancy set up. I finally decided to put a hook and eye dealie on the door, and put the crib where we could peek in and see Teena but the cats could not get their big overfed butts in there.

(In the background is part of my Fiesta and Harlequin collection. Sad little dishes had to be put out of reach of unruly, poorly behaved children.)

Right. No way was one of our cats going to be seen near the Hairless Howler, which is what they called Teena. It would have wrecked their creds forever. Anyway, our 2 current cats are Boo Boo and Bailey. Teena has taken to calling the first one Boobie. Which is hysterically funny to me, because the name genuinely suits him. But we are not going to change his name publicly or anything else weird.

No kidding, I swear this is true. I found Mexican Jumping Beans in a store when we were on our In-law trip. They are awesome but the aforementioned cats are flipping out because they make noise but the cats cannot get to them Yet. Now, if I put curly brown wigs on them, would they not look just like Teena and Genea?

Pictures of the girls in the airport. Notice how Teena's monkey pack is looped around the chair. I bought one for Genea too, hers is a puppy. However, it was only for show because I knew above anything else, I KNEW there was no way Genea would get lost. She actually would hand us the strap when we got up to go. Teena figured out to get off the chair, run the strap down and over to the bottom of the chair leg, and picked up the chair to release the loop and be free.

Sigh. I gave up coffee for nine months for this?

Genea is what I call a black and white kid. For her there is the right way, and everything else is the wrong way, and that is that. No gray, none. This gives her a way of looking at things that I am not used to, an objective, concrete style. In the car I was as usual saying some uh, questionable things, about the drivers in front of us and she asked me if I was talking to them. Yes, I told her, thinking she was going to comment on my um, creative use of language. Instead she said, but Mama, they can't hear you. So sincerely, as if she truly thought I might not know that. Trying to keep me from humiliating myself by talking to strangers who cannot hear me. Ah, kid, you're right. There hasn't been a logical brain in this family for a long time, we obviously needed one.