Weird

So Carson talks now. He talks and talks, and says things he should not say. I was deep in conversation with my friend Stacee as he was trying to get my attention. Finally he took my face in his hands, stared straight into my eyes and said, "Mom, shut up." Lilly told me a wildly morbid story in the car the other day in which several people died. I said "Lilly, that's weird." Carson picked up on it, and now "that's weird" is his new catch phrase. At dinner last night he poured the last of the juice in his cup. I was disappointed because I wanted the last of the juice. But when I expressed my disappointment he said "No mom. You drink yours water." When we all giggled he looked around and said "That's weird." Of course that made us laugh even harder, which just made him mad. Another thing he has been saying is "I hate you." But before you judge, you need to understand where he got this from. Carson has horrible eczema, on top of already dry and scaly skin. I have been trying to keep lotion on him but he fights me every time. I was slathering him up the other day and he was crying and desperately trying to get away. Trying to express my sympathy I said, "Carson do you just hate this?" Ever since, when he is being teased by the girls he says very calmly "I hate you." It seems to be in attempt to express his feelings about being teased more than his feeling towards one of his sisters. Just the same, we are working with him on it.

Lilly's new favorite color is blue because it is her "Best Friend Elizabeth's" favorite color. She also stopped wearing underwear to bed for a while because her "Best Friend Elizabeth" does not wear underwear to bed. I put the kibosh on that one, but it illustrates the point that Lilly is following Elizabeth's lead. This seemed odd to me at first since Lilly does not strike me as a follow-the-crowd type of kid. But I don't think that is what this is. I think Lilly is incredibly empathetic by nature, and because of this she tries to find congruity with those around her. She wants to relate to everyone, and by adopting the habits and likes of those around her she can. Holy psychology moment! OK, it has passed. On a more light-hearted note, we have baby chicks. They are from Rachel's Kindergarten class. Mrs. Atkins did not have anything to do with them once the class was over, so we are taking them to raise as laying hens. Side note, I hate caring for living creatures that are not my children. It is hard enough to keep my own babies alive! I had nightmares all night about the chicks getting eaten. But back to Lilly. Last night she brought worms in from the garden for the chicks to eat. This is a huge step for Lilly-Who-Loves-All-Living-Things. Before she gave the worms to the chicks, I wanted her to be very clear that they would be eaten. She understood, and wanted to feed them anyway.

Melissa Millward told me that her daughter Allison told her that Rachel and Walker kissed! And if you cannot trust a 5-year-old when it comes to this sort of gossip, who can  you trust? I asked Rachel about it and she swears it never happened. She said all the other kids were telling them to kiss but they didn't. I believe her, but it got us to talking about her relationship with boys. Shelby told her she can't kiss until she is a teenager. I adamantly disagree. As far as I'm concerned she can kiss all she wants between now and her 10th birthday. But from ages 10-25, her lips are off-limits. I asked her if she still liked Walker and she said yes. She also told me Walker has another girlfriend. I asked her how she feels about that and without hesitation she said, "Good." She also said, "Sage is my other boyfriend, but don't tell him!" Apparently when you are 6, all you need to do in order to have a boyfriend is claim him silently.

Emilia is close to crawling, and she is so excited by it she can hardly contain herself. I am actually excited too. Not because I cherish the idea of having to chase her around keeping her from harm's way. More because maybe once she can crawl around she won't need me to make direct eye contact with her during every moment of her waking hours. She literally screams at me (screams, not cries) until I look at her, then she stares me down with her soul-piercing eyes until I look away. Then the screaming starts again. That is one spoiled baby. Part of me thinks I need to have another baby so she won't be spoiled. But if I follow that logic I will always and forever be having babies, and I don't want that.

Wah Wah Wah Wah

As you all know, Carson has finally begun to converse freely with the rest of us. Every day he seems to become more fluent. Occasionally he gets lazy though. If he wants to tell me something but does not want to take the time to form a complete sentence, he says "Mom! Wah wah wah wah?" I always respond with something akin to "I don't know what that means." At that point he gives me a coy little smile and then tells me in English what he is trying to say.

I remember being around Rachel's age and wanting more than anything for the adults in my world to take me seriously. I wanted to be treated like a grown-up. I wanted my ideas to be taken seriously, and not to be laughed at when I would say something "cute". I can see this with Rachel, and I have tried really hard to talk to her like an adult, and not poke fun when she says something I find amusing. Sometimes it is just so hard! Last night she was still awake when we headed to bed, an occurrence that is not terribly rare around our house. Before going upstairs Shelby told her that he would know if she turned her light on. When I came to rotate the laundry she said very seriously "Mom, I want to ask you something... How is it dad knows when I turn my light on?" It took me a second to understand what she was talking about. Once I got it I said, "Oh Rachel, I can't tell you. It's a secret!" I thought she would find this mysterious, but she was just annoyed that I was not letting her in on the whole thing. This put me in a spot since obviously Shelby has no idea whether or not she turns her light on. But if I were to tell her the "secret" the whole scare tactic is shot. In the end I kept it to myself. She was pretty mad at me.

As I said last time, Lilly is really into hunting for worms. As a result, I have endless mason jars lying around outside with the dried up, shriveled remains of dead worms. When her and Carson were getting eggs for me the other day, Carson accidentally let the chickens out of their cage. Lilly was devastated. She cried and cried because "The chickens will eat my worms!" We still have on our hands a little vegetarian. I took the kids to get burgers last night and I asked her if she wanted meat on hers this time. She said (a bit shrilly) "No mom. I'm a vegetarian. Vegetarians don't eat meat!" She might as well have added a "Duh!" to the end of her statement.

My kids are awesome. For spring break we did nothing horribly exciting. We spent a ton of time outside playing together, or with cousins and friends. The best thing about it is we were all together. I loved it! I totally see now why some people would want to home school their kids. Rachel went back to school on Tuesday, and I hated to see her go. She was not exactly thrilled about it either. That girl has a long 12 years ahead of her!