What I live for...

Can ya'll believe that my baby girl is almost 4 years old? In 2 more days I will no longer have a 3 year old. It seems like just yesterday she was a cute little swaddled bundle of love. Today she is like a whirlwind kind of like the Tazmanian devil gone wild. She is up to no good most of the time. Just last night I believe I should be given an award to my calm reaction to finding out why their bathroom and one of their hand towels was soaking wet. Neither one of the girls wanted to tell me why. It was midnight and I wanted to hurry and get them in bed and I told them, "No one is going to the parade in the morning until I find out what happened to this towel!" Emily told me Abigail dried off her stuffed animals with it. Now, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that somewhere there probably is a pile of wet animals somewhere. I wanted quick results so I decided to stay completely calm and be cool about it. I say "OK Abigail, show me the wet animals so mommy can take them to get dried off." She went to her closet, opened it, and started pulling sopping wet animals out of the bottom of the closet. She said, "I washed my little pony's hair too, but it's dry already." I calmly said, "OK sweetie, let me go lay these downstairs to dry."

Apparently Abigail felt the need to bathe her poor animals and put them back in the closet. Could you imagine the smell from that closet if I had not have been the inquisitive person that I am and asked about the wet hand towel?

This is just one of the many trials and tribulations that this child has put this household through. We just have to learn to try to stay one step ahead of her in the thought process, but that's hard to do. Every since Brandon's car burnt and melted to the ground and he came in the house huffing and puffing and trying to say, "I need the fire, fire, fire department", Abigail goes around and tells people about him saying that. It was a combination of him being out of breath and stuttering that put him in a tizzy. Whenever we want to ridicule him, we just say "I need the fire, fire, fire, department!" and he just cringes. Next time you see one of my kids ask them to do their imitation of daddy needing the fire department and then I will add the parts about him crying and saying "it's gone, it's gone, my car, it's gone!" I mean my goodness, it had a tax value of $300, what is the big deal!? Anyway, Abigail knows how to get under his skin just as well as me and Emily do. I am training them well!

Abigail and I also have this special bond that usually occurs right in the middle of supper. First she says, "I need to go potty!" Then she goes to the half bath and sits and does her business and she hollers, "Momma, can you wipe my butt!" One time I said "Oh yes, I live for that!" Now when she does it, and mind you it happens during every evening meal at home, she yells "Can you wipe my butt!" and if I don't answer she says, "Don't you live for that momma!?" and I say, "Of course I live for it." What mother doesn't want to get up in the middle of a meal and wipe their child's butt? I'm telling you, me and Abigail are tight like this! I am just happy that she still needs me for something, never mind how slight it is. If you ask anyone in our house what I live for they will say "to wipe Abigail's butt."

So, to celebrate her birthday I took off a few days and we are going to go swimming and do some fun stuff together. It's kind of fun to have a birthday so near to the 4th of July because you can have a summer party for several days straight. Thursday night we went to Oakboro's carnival, Friday the girls went to Denton Farm Park with Paw Paw John and daddy, today we went to the parades in Oakboro and Unionville and we will go see fireworks tonight, who know what tomorrow holds, and on Monday we are having a cook out for her birthday. Tuesday we hope to go to Blue Waters to play in the pool. How lucky could a girl be to have all of this excitement around her birthday! I feel sorry for Emily having a November birthday.