Kallan is on her way up the stairs ahead of me, and she turns to argue her case . . .
“But why do I have to go my room? Maj started it. She was the instigator.”
“Yes, I know Maj started it. And then I stopped it. Everything was resolved. And then you just can’t let things go. Why can’t you let things go?”
“Because Maj was being a scoundrel, that’s why.”
Snort!
“An instigating scoundrel?”
“Yes, she was being an instigating scoundrel. What’s the point of having vocabulary lists at school if I don’t get to use the words?”
“Babe, I love you. Love your words. But this fight was all over. And then you just throw yourself across the room to pinch Maj and call names. Why do you always do that? Why can’t you ever just let things go?”
“Sometimes I let things go, Mom. You just don’t notice when I let things go. Whenever you don’t have to stand there and make me release the thing from my grasping hands? You don’t notice that I let it go.”
“Is grasping another one of your vocabulary words?”
“Yes.”
“Very nice, babe. But you still need to go to your room for a bit.”
Kallan is all false sincerity, “OK, but what if I promise that I have already learned my lesson? I will make better choices in the future because I have learned the error of my ways.”
She bats her eyes at me and gazes at me with upturned face, “You know I want nothing more in this world than for you to be proud of me.”
Hee hee!
“Move, Kallan. Up to your room.”
She crosses her arms across her chest and stares at me in annoyance, “Hmmmph . . . you are always so pessimistic and suspicious where I am concerned.”
Seriously . . . Kallan kicks vocabulary ass.
So she turns to walk up the stairs, and I follow to be sure that she ends up in her room.
She takes maybe three steps and then she falls over dramatically onto the stairs, rolling over onto her back and bringing her hands up in front of her to feel at the invisible barrier that has apparently just appeared.
I have to stop short to keep from tripping on her, and she looks up at me pleadingly, “Help! I’ve been mimed! I can talk, but I am somehow trapped in a box of mime!”
“Oh, for god’s sake. Get up and walk to your room.”
She desperately beats at the imaginary box in which she is trapped, “I want nothing more in this world than to be able to obey your orders, Mom. But I am trapped in a box! I am all boxy!”
And then she giggles, “Look at me! I am all boxy! I . . . am . . . boxy!”
Like foxy, but boxy.
And to be certain I understand she is being inappropriate? She carefully turns in her smallish invisible box to wiggle her butt at me. “See, Mom? I . . . am . . . BOXY!”
Are other people’s children like this?
I am filled with giggles, but I reach down to lift her up, “Kallan . . . you are the funniest person I know, but you need to go to your room. GO!”
She runs to the top of the stairs and then turns, “How long do I have to stay in my room?”
“I already told you. Fifteen minutes.”
“OK. Tell Daddy to wait for me. Tell him not to make it without me.”
I call after her, “Make what? What are you talking about?”
From her room, she responds, “Daddy said I could help him make lemon sugar hooves. Don’t let him do it without me.”
Lemon sugar hooves . . .
Snort!
She means Jello.
I turn to walk down the stairs, and she calls after me, “Try not to miss me too much! I don’t want you to be inconsolable and all griefy.”
Seriously, Kallan kicks vocabulary ass.
Plus also?
She is boxy.
Snort!
That is hilarious.
She’s a crafty one.
Kallan is all manic and crazed today.
She has already had wayyyyy too much sugar.
And she hasn’t even gone trick-or-treating yet.
Sigh.
What grade is she in?? Those are good words!
Lemon sugar hooves. I MUST remember that.
Awesome.
Kallan’s in 4th grade.
She loves words.
Especially when she can make them work for her.
She is all tricky.
And she knows that I am weak when I am laughing.
dang! Kallan is a vocabulary ninja! she would be so great at crossword puzzles.
Kallan has a book of crossword puzzles in her room.
She is very good at crosswords, except . . . she is stubborn.
So if she puts in a word she likes that is incorrect?
She will work to try to make everything else fit with her “mistake.”
Hee hee!
I’ve been mimed! Kallan is a comedic genius, I swear.
I know, right?
She is so awesome.
A troublemaker.
But so awesome.
I sooooooooo will not play scrabble with that child – she is wicked vocab girl!!!
Must be fantastic parents to teach her said vocab!!
M
Both Mark and I talk a lot.
Lots of impressive words.
Hee hee!
Firstly, you have no idea the overwhelming excitment that filled my little self after realising I would be COMMENT NUMBER 9.
Yes, comment number 9.
I mean, don’t get me wrong, there is nothing particuarly special about the number 9, however, for me? I am a comment number anything under 147 virgin.
The excitement of being one of the first 10 people to comment on this post? Incredible.
Ok, so enough of the pointless waffling. Kallan is fabulous.
Seriously.
I mean, so is Maj.
Infact, fuck it. You are all just wonderful.
In every way, shape and form.
Thank you for being all super and fabulous and wonderful and bringing such joy to my life.
Enough of the waffling.
You?
I love you.
I don’t think Halloween is a big blog-reading day, and so I am not expecting a huge turnout.
But I am committed to posting every day, and so here I am! I am a crazy person.
And you?
You are fabulous!
Thank you.
I see myself at a 9 when I read about Kallan. Lemon Sugar HooveS? BOXY? oh yeah. I still end up using words I have to explain the meaning of on a daily basis.
Hee hee!
Kallan makes me laugh all the time.
It is so hard to punish her when I am giggling.
She knows this.
I am doomed.
yeah. My miss A. already knows if she can be silly and make funny faces then I can’t stand punishing her. She makes me laugh constantly.
They are going to rule the world, our daughters.
Seriously.
Let me say I appreciate your dedication, because I read your blog most days. And vote, too. :)
And I needed my dose of your blog tonight, because I am tired from doing Halloween stuff all Friday and this morning and painting my kitchen all day yesterday, and I am pregnant and whiny and my husband is in another country. So hearing about Kallan’s escapades (there’s a word for her) made me smile, and I needed that. You are so awesome.
And I love that Kallan makes the words she wants fit in the crosswords. :)
You do need this blog. Badly. hehe.
I congratulate you on being a trooper though!
Ashleigh –
See?
That’s why I’m here this evening.
Because I love you.
You are awesome.
Oh. My. Way funny. I love and think there is nothing funny about vocabulary, but when a 9 year old girl says words like “instigating” it is way-y-y-y funny. Tell Kallan I said salutations, will you? hehe.
Hee hee!
Kallan loves the word salutations.
I find that I have more in commen with this girl than previously thought. As if I did not already love your family enough… :)
Yay!
“Help! I’ve been mimed!”
Good lord.
I’m all breathless with giggles!
I know!
How do you punish a child who thinks of stuff like that?
Seriously . . . how?
Oh my gosh, how I adore that girl..
Happy sighs that she is mine.
For now.
Sigh.
“Inconsolable and griefy”? Ha, love it!
Kallan is a constant source of amazement over here.
And amusement.
Why is it that their vocabs are so…intrigueing to us. If it was an adult saying it no biggie. But everytime my two yr old looks at her brother and says he is infuriating and irritating I crack up. Oh yes and assimate. Can’t wait to see what happens with the girls tomorrow.
Is Maj’s camera still intact?
Maj’s camera is still intact.
Amazingly.
And if an adult fell to the ground before me and claimed to be “trapped in a box of mime?”
I would be intrigued.
I so would.
I don’t know if I would be intrigued or not. Maybe horrified. I might even call the special guys with the white jacket that makes you hug yourself. MMMMM I love the jacket that makes you hug yourself.
Hee hee!
The jacket that makes you hug yourself . . .
Love that.
My 3rd child is surrounded by grown ups. His dad and I and my two grown daughters one is married. My son got a brother in law at age 2. We all use very big words around him because it’s so hilarious when he picks up on them. If I weren’t crashing off the mom tax sugar high I’m sure I could think of one of them which is funny enough to keepup with your girls.
Hee hee!
I am countering my sugar high with a beer at the moment.
But I know where you are coming from.
Snort!
Too funny! But, ‘hooves’? Why hooves? And yeah, all children are like this, they just don’t all use such grandiose words as they do it! I think it makes it MUCH more fun when they do, though!! And thank you for visiting my blog. I made you come!! *giggle snort*
Kallan recently discovered the Jello is made out of the rejected pieces of animals whose flesh is used for other purposes.
And, yes . . . I know that sounds horrific.
But Jello is made out of bones (for the most part). Someone told Kallan they also use hooves (which Snopes says is not true).
But she liked that notion.
That she was eating hooves.
Kallan is odd.
Does she put the hooves in the Frog Dairy to chill? When I was about 3-4, was a little sketchy on a few words. Thought the cold thing was a Frog Dairy, not a Frigidaire.
How the hell do you discipline that girl? If I were marching her up the stairs to go to her room it would end tragically: I would be @ the bottom with a subdural hematoma resulting from my fall down the stairs resulting from my uncontrollable fit of laughter. Probably wet my pants for good measure. Snot/snort!
Mark my words: that girl’s a public health menace.
Frog Dairy . . .
That is awesome.
It is sometimes very difficult to discipline Kallan. It is sometimes very difficult to even speak to her sternly.
I giggle a lot.
This morning?
She offered me Halloween candy to fix her bed for her.
Hee hee!
So which kind did you get, and did you do hospital corners on the bed? Assuming picking up pj’s was a bonus, right?
Not even.
She fixed her own bed and picked up her own clothes.
And then she went to school, leaving her candy here untended.
I am eating a Milky Way at the moment.
Being Mom rules!