Magical Moments, brought to you by Brooklynn

Every road with an incline is called a "road slide".

Every car sales lot is met with a shout of "LOOK!! A CAR PARTY!!!"

With every meal preparation comes the grinding slide of the chair across the floor, and the excited "can I make with you, mom?"

The quality of EVERY dress is determined by how it twirls, and nothing is as disappointing as a dress that "isn't a good twirling dress".

All sneezes are followed by a "mom, I bless you'd".

If you don't watch her carefully, she'll unwind the toilet paper roll into a pile of tangled white paper on the floor. She'll then use that white paper as her Rapunzel hair, or the toilet paper cardboard as a "horn" or an "eye-scope" (telescope), or all three.

As she runs, you'll see both her arms wildly flapping with bent elbows. Don't be confused, these are her wings. Running immediately turns her into a fairy in flight. . . . but she'll be the first to tell you she'd much rather be a mermaid than a fairy. Often she says this at bed time with a sigh. . . "mommmmmm. I very very very wish I was a mermaid and my friends were mermaids and daddy was a merman."

She spurts out things like "mom, lets be sneaky and tip toe so the spiders don't eat my cookie", and when something isn't exciting enough (for example, when after three band aides she realizes that the entire box is going to be a boring brown color) she'll exclaim in exasperation "you have got to be kidding me!". Or out of no where while we're driving she'll say with excitement "Dad, I want to go to the costume store and get a Brent costume to wear for Halloween, so I can look just like you!"

Brooklynn is learning how to have tact. This is hard for a three year old. In the elevator, she tends to call anyone who is slightly overweight a monster. I honestly think this comes from watching Monster's Inc because Sully is a tad overweight. I'm hoping it doesn't stem from anything promoted by her parents. We're working on it . . . she also has no timidness about pointing out people's skin color. Yesterday she announced in gymnastics, loud enough for the whole gym to hear that "that boy with a brown face was mean to me!". Ay yi yi.

She loves to run up to my belly, give it a gentle squeeze and say "OH mom. I just love your baby!"

Since we started our reading practice, Brooklynn has become very interested in how things are spelled. The only problem with this is that she's still growing out of her toddler enunciation and it often gets in the way. For example, this morning she came running up to me saying "mom! It smells like whu whu whain!" (emphasizing that the word started with the letter W). Wain. Not Rain. Oh dear.

Sometimes when we practice, I play with Brooklynn through her twinkles. This has to be periodically, because it often frustrates her. She listens so well, and often will look up with big sad eyes and say something like "I'm just not as good as you at violin mom", or "I need a new bigger bigger violin mom, mine sounds too small".

I've been trying to emphasize obedience and being a first time listener. Sometimes this is promoted by me saying something like "uh oh, we don't say no to mommy" when something is met with a fit. Today Brooklynn asked if she could have a cookie for breakfast. I said no. She turned and in a very serious tone said "we don't say no to Brooklynn, mom". I laughed so hard, to which she got even more stern and replied "NOT funny, mom. NOT funny."