Musings of Makenna

More time has passed and I haven’t kept up with this as I should, but the comments and ‘play-back” of my voice coming out of her from still flows as read by the following:

March 8th – “Teri, Your phone is ringing”….yelled by her to let me know my cell phone was ringing. It’s funny but also a bit disconcerting as it comes out from what I envision to be a daughter and mom distanced by time and age, along with a sense of not getting along, in the future.

March 10th – “Hey….Why don’t you slow down…Your banging my cookies.” If I could only convey inflection on paper you would really get how funny this statement really was. She was eating a pack of 100 calorie cookies I had given her in the car as I was driving down to Zumba class. The road, from the winter weather, has become quite a mess and the result is jostling on the car and her cookies.

March 11th – “Well, we’ll just have to have a talk with daddy and if he doesn’t give us our CD’s back, then we’ll count to three and sit him on the step.” We had just switched cars from the four-wheel drive back to my mommy van. We had left some CD’s in the winter car but I was also unsure as to where the CD’s I had left in this car were and I said that we’d have to ask daddy. She really wanted to hear her music and since I couldn’t supply what she wanted, this was her comment to me about the situation.

March 19th – “What are we having for dinner?” (Me) – “chicken and biscuits” (M) – “No we’re not.” (Me) – “Oh? What are we having then?” (M) – “Hamburger with noodles, that’s what we’re having.” (Me) – “If you cook it.” (M) – “No, you’re going to cook it..Got it?!” Well, I guess she told me but I won out that night and cooked her request/demand the next night.

March 19th – (While at the park, she smelled someone barbecuing) – “I want that (pointing to the BBQ), (ME) – “So do I.” (M) – “No, I want that!” (Me) – “So do I but we don’t know them and we don’t go up to strangers and ask them for food.” This same conversation was repeated on March 21st when we were at the park again.

March 22nd – “I don’t feel well.” (Me) “What’s wrong?” (M) – “The stegosaurus in my back and in my tummy hurts.” Makenna is great at saying she doesn’t feel well at all times, especially when she doesn’t want to do something. It usually comes out more like, “I don’t want to feel well.” To which my reply is, “You better start wanting to feel well if you want…..(insert what ever she would like to be doing).” This day she threw me by adding the stegosaurus bit. It didn’t help that her daddy and I were definitely fighting some sort of bug and praying really hard that it didn’t hit her.

April 3rd – We, (Chris, Makenna, myself, my brother Josh, and his little girl Katie,) went up to Taughannock Falls in Ithaca. We thoroughly enjoyed the warm weather and took advantage of the low water to let the girls play in it. Because of bathroom issues (mainly Makenna stating she had to go, but couldn’t) Chris and her lagged behind while the rest of us forged ahead. We came back down to the base and let Katie & Makenna pick up rocks and throw them in the water. Along with sticks and whatever else suited their fancy. Katie got thoroughly wet while Makenna did fairly well and only got up to her knees wet. I had brought water shoes for them, and myself, but that didn’t stop us from slipping. After, we drove another half-hour to Ovid, NY where my friends opened up a pizza place a little over a year ago. We enjoyed catching up with them and our pizza.

April 4th – Easter Sunday. Sunday last year we were celebrating it in France at a Chateau and a Castle. This Easter Sunday, we were able to spend most of it at home as we had General Conference on TV. This gave us time to do an Easter Egg Hunt in the morning in the house. I put out 50 eggs. Why so many? I asked myself that same thing. I had some from back when she was just over one, then Chris had bought some filled with candy from Sam’s Club. I had purchased a few from Target forgetting about the other ones I had. I filled the ones I had with coins for her piggy bank. From this task, I think I might start rewarding her with coins for her bank then stars for listening and doing extra things. I’ve fallen out of giving stars as it wasn’t really working anymore and I wasn’t keeping up with it.

While I had her in a bath, I ran downstairs and picked up all the eggs and put them away for next year. She promptly, after bath, kept asking for the eggs. I had to keep explaining that the Easter Bunny is into recycling and needed them back for next year. This leads into the dreaded “why” question repeatedly.

Later, we went to Chris’s parent’s house where she had another chance for an Easter Egg Hunt. These ones were also filled with candy. At least this is candy she can eat. The one’s Chris had purchased from Sam’s club each had the same thing in it – a piece of gum (which she can’t eat,) and a candy bracelet that she doesn’t want to eat. Now we have 32 pieces of each of those. I think I’ll dump it off at work – people eat anything you put out in the kitchen.

April 6th – “I can’t, it’s not Passover.” This was her reply to me asking her to finish getting ready by coming upstairs to brush her hair and teeth. My first thought was, “well, it’s going to be a long while before we get to Passover again for this task to happen.” When I mentioned it to her pre-school teachers this morning they clarified that because of Passover, they had to put their toothbrushes away until tomorrow. I have no idea what Passover and toothbrushes have to do in common – something I’ll have to look up on the Internet, but because she goes to a Jewish pre-school this is how this comment came about.

April 7th - "Car Stop It!" She was yelling at the car as I was going around a curve. The curve of the car sent her books and other things that she had to the other side away from her and she was quite upset. I was glad that she was taking it out on the car and not me. She has in the past yelled, "Ouch Sun, you're hurting me." This is usually said when the sun is shining through the car window into her eyes. I'm sure I'll be hearing this a lot more now that it's starting to get nice out again.

April 9th - "If you're not listening, you're not going to have gum tonight." I thought this was pretty ingenious of her to throw "gum" at me as the bargaining tool. I am usually threatening one thing or another that she is not going to do or have if she doesn't stop or doesn't start doing something. She is now turning this around as evidenced by this comment and putting in something I like. Again, it amazes me how she can understand the context of the concept and apply it. Amazes, and scares me. I think as she becomes a teenager, I'm in for big trouble...a lot of arguments and disagreements.

A few other “catch-up” comments:

Needless to say, she really enjoyed the winter storms we had and really enjoyed going out and playing in the snow. Even now, when the snow has melted and the spring air has arrived, she keeps asking to go out and play in the snow. We definitely need to get a sled for next year.

We’ve been working hard on having her learn her colors and she’s gotten them down fairly well. Every once in a while she slips up and tries to roll the colors into one when we’re asking her what a color is. For instance, I’ll be pointing to the color blue and I’ll ask her what the color is. She’ll come back and say, “Rrrrroowwnnnuuee.” This is a combination of starting to say Red, rolling it into brown and ending with blue.” That way she can cover three colors at once and hope I fall for one of them.

She also likes to read to us now and it’s cute to watch her just make up stuff from the pictures she sees on the page, plus add a few words she may remember from us reading it to her. She also will start singing songs in the car, of which some she definitely must’ve learned from pre-school and other’s she’s doing a combining of songs. It’ll start out “Old McDonald…had a dog named Bingo…B..I…N…G…O.” I just smirk and enjoy the singing. She obviously doesn’t feel the same about my singing as she usually asks me to stop singing

We are now up to the “why” question and it can happen frequently and repeatedly on the same subject. Chris found that if he explains to her step-by-step what we are doing that she seems to stop asking…for a while. She will also employ this annoying tactic when she wants something, by repeating it often, like “I want a hamburger,” even after I’ve already told her okay, that when we get home I’d make her one. The comment happens over and over driving me up the wall. We then break down the steps of what’s taking place up to the point of her getting and eating the hamburger. For example,” We’re now driving home, once we get home, we’ll put away groceries, daddy will start the grill, and cook your hamburger, and then you can eat it.” For some reason, this works and stops me from becoming annoyed and stating “What did I already tell you?!!”

She is also now using more of my comments, repeatedly, on me. Such as, "Teri, I'm tired of this!" Or, "You're not making me happy." What gets me about these comments is that not only is she repeating back to me, and inserting my name, but the fact that she uses them at appropriate times. She's just not stating them out of the blue but in times of frustration with me not letting her do something. One that she hasn't quite figured out the appropriate timing for is, "This is not your fault!" She's usually trying to tell me that something is my fault.

One last statement that keeps coming out of her mouth all the time is “I’m the line leader!” She has picked this up from pre-school and tries to use it all the time on me at home. The problem is that she is a very slow line leader and I resort to saying, ‘Then lead! Get moving, lead!” When I mentioned it to her teachers at school they found this interesting as she only wants to be the flag holder when at school. They told me that she was quite upset one time when someone else got that job before her and was beside herself.

Being a flag leader entails having to stand in front of people holding the flag. This, along with the fact that she wants to be saying prayer at primary at church shows me that I might have a little one who likes to be in front of people…hmmm…not sure if it’s good or bad.