“They look so small and frail but they are so great and magnificent. They are born of the same womb that birthed the cosmos and knitted together the galaxies. If you could see them as they truly are, you would be astounded. You would see not little children, but dancing clouds of light, energy in motion, swimming in an ocean of love. They are so much more than what you see. As are you.”

-William Martin
The Parent’s Tao Te Ching

Some things I saved recently to remember about my funny little children:

• Adorable toddler nursling moment: I was carrying Alaina in the kitchen and she patted my chest and said, “love you, nonnies.” Then, she said, “sank you, mommy.” 🙂 ♥

• Another charming moment: Alaina standing before me and giving that cute toddler hands raised sort of shrug gesture and saying, “babies…grow…up!” She has also started doing a thing wherein she points at her own belly and says, “baby…belly…me…grow…up,” telling me that she will grow up to have a baby of her own and then points to herself and says “Mama…ME! Babies…grow UP! Mama…ME!”

• Zander bought hair gel and spiked up his hair, put on a gold chain and sunglasses, took off his shirt and started doing some rocking dance moves and handstands in the living room. Lann said: “hey, we could start a band and call it the Wiggly Brothers.” Zander continued to groove with no response. Lann repeated himself about three times and then said kind of to himself, “I guess I’ll be the weird one…” ;-D

• At the beginning of this month, Lann brought me an illustrated “breakfast menu” and said I could start ordering breakfast from him in the mornings. Each item is 50 cents or $1. SOLD! He has been making me a spinach and cheese omelet many mornings and I really appreciate it. The café is called Big Spoon. It is so fun to have a kid that is nine!

• Alaina found some shiny tappy shoes at the thrift shop. The same day, we also bought the Gremlins movies (which I’d never seen) and she  energetically explained how she will use her new shoes to kick bad gremlins–she will “hug good Gizmo” and “kick bad Gizmos” (complete with demo-kick shiny shoe action). In case anyone cares, we didn’t let her keep watching it after they mutated and we muted the computer during the “Santa dad in the chimney” story, which Mark mercifully remembered (due to his own past childhood trauma) just in the nick of time.

• Said tiny girl likes to push (literal) buttons and last week while still in bed in the morning I was surprised by the serenading CD from the living room where she must have programmed it to be on a timer (I don’t know how to do that myself!) She woke up and I said, “did you make the radio start playing?” And she said, “yes, mommy. Me do dat ting.”

• Me last week: “Argh! I have SO much I want to do.” Lann: “Me too, Mom. It IS kind of the primary feature of our family.” ;-D

And, video special: Alaina dancing in the car while we waited to get Lann from gymnastics.