Horsin' around

Coming up Lanie

Background info: 1) Steve has been out-of-town since Tuesday so Emma and I are on our own. Aunt Susan, as luck would have it, has been working late every night so we don't see her much, either. Consequently, meals are very simple. 2) Emma has been practicing with rhyming and making up nonsense words. She sometimes spends many minutes just saying crazy things that mostly don't make sense. If she didn't have an amazing vocabulary and spend lots of time speaking clearly and logically, I would be worried. 3) Grandma has a goat named Lanie, whom Emma remembers quite fondly. Lanie may have come up in other posts- one time Lanie called Emma on the phone (thanks to creative Aunts KA and Susan). Grandma and Grandpa sent Emma a stuffed animal goat and kid. Emma calls them Lanie.

Story: Tuesday night Emma and I had tortellini with a mushroom, tomato sauce. Emma and I ate our tortellinis and chatted our way through the meal. Then Emma started on one of her silly word binges. I nodded along until she said, "Torte-Lanie!" At that point I was laughing so hard that my eyes watered. That was all the encouragement that Emma needed and she took Torte-Lanie to whole new levels of creative word fun. I have no idea if she was imagining Lanie covered with tortellinis. Or perhaps Lanie was very small and wrapped up like a tortellini. Or maybe it was just the words that worked so well together. Either way you cook it, it was darn funny.

Epilogue: Yesterday morning Emma woke up and said that she wanted steel cut oats with javelinas on them. I obliged, but had to tell her that you couldn't tell the oats from the javelinas when she asked to see them in her bowl. They were mixed in. When she kept insisting I think I mentioned something about it being pretend. Did she really think that I would put javelinas on her oats? What did she think that would look like? Is this something to be worried about?

No running

Steve witnessed a near catastrophe this past weekend when he and Emma were home by themselves. Emma was running around like a little tornado after dinner- running from the family room, through the kitchen area to the back room- from carpet to Pergo to carpet. After clearing the last boundary area Emma tripped on somethig (most likely the edge of the carpet) and went sailing across the floor, landing on her stomach just inches from the edge of the wooden end table. Of course there were tears but no real injuries. Much unlike what would have happened if her little face had smashed into the table. Let's not go there!

So Steve and I decided that we should implement a no-running-in-the-house rule. So we have brought it up to Emma just a few times and for the moment she seems satisfied that running raises the risk of tripping and falling. And she doesn't run in the house.

So the other day when Emma woke up from her nap she didn't want to come downstairs. I had the monitor on so I told her that was fine. I locked the gate and went downstairs to fix dinner. I heard her reading to herself and talking to Sleepy Joe and Baby Doll. Then I heard her voice in stereo saying "Mommy" from the top of the stairs and through the monitor. I walked over to the bottom of the stairs and there she was standing at the top issuing me a directive.
"Mommy, hurry up with dinner so you can come upstairs."
"OK, Emma. Should Mommy go quickly? Should Mommy run, run, run?"
"yes!"
As I began to run away she yelled down the stairs at me, "Mommy, no running in the house!"