Kota is one of a kind....

Yep, that's her; Kota. She is almost 8 years old and clearly in her senior years. Laurie and I purchased Kota soon after we were married in 2002, she was there to greet us when we brought Kylie home from the hospital. Kota is truly one of a kind. She normally sleeps at the foot of our bed, snoring and snotting her way to sleep every night. OK, I lied. She doesn't normally sleep at the foot of our bed, she normally sleeps on top of our bed between my legs wrapped up in a little ball. Laurie hogs the blankets, I hog the dog.

Lately for the past few months Kota has decided that my legs or our bed is not good enough for her anymore, she has taken over the couch in the living room. We try to coax her into bed with us, but she just grunts and goes back to sleep on the couch. Wonder what we did?

Well, the last couple weeks I've been having a sinus infection that does not want to go away, one night I woke up at 2AM shivering out of my mind, I got out of bed, shivered my way to the kitchen sink to get a drink of water and could hear my teeth chattering on my way back to bed. I COULD NOT get warm. I laid in bed trying to convince myself that it's all in my head, that I could control these chills, that worked for about 30 seconds. Thoughts were going through my mind "is there anything I can take that will stop this?, should I wake Laurie up?, What IF I wake Laurie up?" After about 20 minutes of non stop chills, I heard a familiar noise, the shaking of a collar. I hear the collar slowly approach our room and feel something jump up on our bed, travel over to me, and curl up in a tight ball next to my chest, its Kota. After a bit, her warmth radiated me and made the shivers subside.

Now, am I up in the night to think that Kota knew what was going on? Or was it luck of the draw?

Tricking the Tooth Fairy

As I walked Kylie to bed the other night she experienced a mental break down. She was sobbing so hard I could not understand a word she was trying to say.

We reached the top of the stairs and I was finally able to understand pieces of speech between the sobbing. She had done something wrong and she should not have done it.

I sat her on her bed and asked her what had happened. Again, she started with uncontrollable sobbing with what seemed like words in between the sobs. I asked her to take a breath to calm down a little bit, so she did. The sobbing had subsided a bit and she was crying but now I could understand her.

"I took my favorite rock and put it under my pillow so the Tooth Fairy would think it was a tooth and give me some money, but she took the rock and didn't leave me any money and now I don't have my favorite rock anymore AND I don't have any money!!"

So I asked her, "So you are upset that you don't have your rock?"

She says "Yes, and I don't have any money either!"

So we used this experience as a lesson in honesty. Though I must admit that I felt a little hypocritical by telling her not to LIE to the TOOTH FAIRY.

3 in 1

During our morning routine of getting ready for the day Ky was taking a shower. I helped her wash the shampoo out of her hair and continued getting ready myself while she finished her shower. As I was finishing my makeup I looked over at the shower and noticed Kylie with suds in her hair again. I have to admit I was not happy about more soap in her hair and got a little testy with her.

"Kylie! Why did you put more soap in your hair?!"

She said defensively, "MOM! I AM ON THE LAST ONE!"

"Ky, you already washed your hair, now you are just waisting time."

"But Mom, I am on the LAST ONE!"

"Kylie, you should be done by now."

She looked at me like I obviously did not know what I was talking about and picks up the shampoo bottle. Pointing to it she says, "Mom, it says 3 in 1. I am on the LAST one!"

... wow.

Oh the joys of life

As I was doing Ky's hair the other day I noticed the shirt she was wearing was inching up her arms. I just bought that shirt in August with a cute little skirt and now it is too small. So I mention to her.. "Gee, this shirt is getting too small already?"

She turns to me and says, "It's not getting smaller mommy, I am getting bigger"

Yes, my beautiful girl, you are. :D

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Ky's homework yesterday was to practice writing her address. I decided it would be best to make her do it 3 times instead of once so she could improve her writing. This tedious task took her over 30 minutes to complete and she groaned the whole time, "I hate homework Mommy", "This is taking forever Mommy", "Can I just do it once Mommy?".. so needless to say, when she was done she was not in the mood for more learning.

As she finished, I asked her to tell me what her address was with out looking at the paper. She recites the whole thing perfectly until she got to the zip code. I look at her and say "8".. "4"..

She repeats "84..."

I give her the look of "keep going"

And she says "apple?"

"Really Ky? Apple? You think there is an apple in your address?"

Proud as a Peacock

Kylie's Kindergarten teacher has come up with some creative ways to explain certain actions or feelings. For example: busy as a bee, quiet as a mouse and proud as a peacock. I am so glad she did.

Kylie was practicing her letters the other day and had done a great job at some of them. She was telling me that certain letters looked really good and asked if I agreed, which of course I did and stated that to her.

After her homework was done she sat back just staring at her work and looked up at me beaming, and said "Mom, I am Proud as a Peacock!" There was an unmistakable glow to her face.

It was at this point that I realized that before hearing about the expression "proud as a peacock" she had no outlet to describe this type of pride in herself.

Since this day we often use the term "proud as a peacock" to assure she can express that aspect of her feelings.

Thank you to Mrs Robinson for sharing this term with us. :D

My Strawberry

This year is the first year we've attempted to plant and care for a garden, so far so good. Early this spring Kylie, Grandma Payne and I went to nursery to buy some herbs and vegetables to plant in the garden. I told Kylie she could pick something that she could take care of in the garden. After telling her such phrases as "no, that's too hot, you won't eat it" to "what is that?" Kylie decided that a strawberry plant would be hers to nurture and watch grow. Returning home we planted the plants with such care paying special attention to the placement of the strawberry plant.

My days after work consisted of racing Kylie out the back door, to our little haven to see what has happened in the past day. On one of these occasions into the garden, Kylie spotted one little green berry growing on her plant, she couldn't contain her excitement "Dad, I have a STRAWBERRY!!!!", so then the cycle started.

Every day she would caress that strawberry, speak soft, sweet words of encouragement to her little green berry. Eventually, that strawberry grew bigger and bigger till it was about the size of her thumb, except one dramatic change excited her even more "Dad, its PINK!!!” I can now see her mouth starting to water just imagining the sweet flavor of a strawberry.

Finally, her little green berry matured into a red, plump juicy strawberry, I told Kylie one more day and that berry is hers, she wasn't too happy but understood none the less.

The very next day, it was strawberry eating time, I came home from work with Kylie in tow, let the dogs out while Kylie was getting the shears out of the drawer so she could snip her treasure off the vine. We both stepped outside, and all of a sudden I heard the little angry voice yell "Sid, get out of the garden". As I look up, I see Kylie running toward the garden as fast as she can, but I also see that Sid is chewing furiously on something, my heart sinks, I know EXACTLY what has happened. Before I could say anything, Kylie in the most disappointed voices says "SID! That was MY straaawwbeeerrrry"

Imagination

A Child's imagination is a wonderful thing!

Kylie recently "found" 500 new kids games (her words) on her Nintendo DS, she is so excited about them.

She was sitting on the couch next to me watching TV and apparently got bored so she grabbed her DS and started to play a game which builds hamburgers. As she played the game she would talk to it "I would like a cheese burger with no pickles, onions or mustard, I will move the bun over here, add the burger, put the cheese over here and oh, I need ketchup. There, it is done. Yay, I get extra points cause I did it so fast." All the while she is pointing and tapping on her device.

Then onto the next game, a fruit game where you choose your favorite fruits and put them in the bowl. She looks at me and says, "Mom, which fruit should I choose?" I tell her "Blueberries sound good, and perhaps Strawberries also." She says "OK, so I need to choose the 'berry bucket' and I will get all the berries. Mom, is watermelon a berry cause I want watermelon too." I say, "No, watermelon is a melon not a berry." She says "OK I'd better get the 'melon bucket' too, there is the melon bucket.. got it." This is a great bowl of fruit and I get an extra cupcake for doing it so fast." Again, this is done by pointing and tapping all over the screen.

Next she plays a numbers game, but this time she wants me to play. "Mom, there are 14 numbers, which one do you want to choose?" I say "14", she says, "Mom, that is not one of the choices, you have to choose from these numbers." And she shows me her DS so I can see which to choose from.

I look over at the screen and it is black, the power is off. She is not playing a game. Well not a game that can be seen by anyone else.

I think it is about time to invest in another DS game.. or 500 of them.