Craig: Did you know your Mom is 28 years old?

Lucy: She’s so large!

Lucy turned the rocking horse on its side since it was sick, and was looking at its tummy.  “It’s a girl,” she announced.  “How can you tell?” asked Grandma.  Lucy: “It has eyelashes.”

A little late, as she is now two weeks old!  I thought I had already posted this.

I just wish I could remember them all…the girls have been on a roll!

Samantha: “Why your bottom is scary?” (“Scary” is how I described my incision.  I don’t know why she thinks it’s on my bottom.)

*****

Grandma: “What we need is a yardstick.” exits toward room where yardsticks live.

Lucy: runs for the back yard to get a stick.

*****

Samantha (chalkboard eraser in hand): “I don’t want Lucy on there anymore.”  (She tried to remove her drawing from the calendar.)

*****

Samantha (looking at children’s song book):  “I don’t want that!  I want God!  I like God!”

Well, it’s been 3,200 miles, but we’re finally home again.  And we have lots of stories, but it’s bedtime, so here’s just a little something to spark you interest.

We had the privilege of staying at a Catholic Worker farm the other night, and when we got up in the morning, I told Lucy to look out the window at the chickens.  She said,

“Look at that bird singing (=crowing)!  That’s the one we’re going to milk!”

You’ll be happy to know we straightened a few details out for over the course of the morning.

More to come.

We were visiting at Chris’s mom’s house while he and Kelly were in town, and sitting down to white beans and rice with the three of them and Granny, when Lucy raced into the room.

Lucy: “The step-mother is here!”

I start to ask one of those motherly questions which draws out the story behind her pretending, but before I can form the words…

Lucy: “I’m going to kill her!”

And she was gone again.  I turned red, shocked, and sent Craig to deal with this.  He deals with football players and wrestlers and marine-wanna-bes on a daily basis, after all.  Apparently Lucy was protecting her friend, Meadow, from the step-mother, who was going to hurt her.

Thanks, Disney.  Non-violent child-rearing takes another set-back.  Craig tried to explain, and suggest that she convert the step-mother, but I’m not sure that it sunk in.

Related, or not, Lucy spent a good half hour crying because she didn’t want to take a nap today, which she hasn’t done in months.

Tomorrow – the journey to Fargo begins.  Pray for us.

Lucy: “If God was made of glass, and had a thing in his back so you could wind Him up, like a wind-up bunny, then he could go up to the sky and come back down from the sky.”

And later in the same car ride…

Craig: “Have you ever tried to talk to Jesus?”

Lucy: “No, I’m too shy of him.”

Lucy’s imaginary phone conversation this evening as we drove to dinner:

Lucy: “We’re leaving the house.”

* unintelligible question from interlocutor*

Lucy: “Because we can’t pick up our big house!  It’s too heavy!”

Apparently her friend on the phone was a turtle.

Happy Mother’s Day to all the mommies out there.  I hope you have a peaceful, love-filled day.  Here’s a Lucy quote to brighten (or not) your day.

Lucy: “Tell me about the chickens.”  (By which she means, the slightly gory story of how a chicken goes from the farm to our table.

So I do.  And I ask, “Does that make you want to eat a chicken?”

Lucy: “Yes!  I want to eat a chicken.”

Me (prepping her for the *eventual* move to a farm): “Would you like it if we raised chickens and killed them and ate them?”

Lucy: “Yes!  I want to kill a chicken!”

My grandmother lives on in this child.  Although, I’m not sure that she butchered chickens with quite this sort of relish.

Anyway, Happy Mother’s Day!

Lucy has been waiting, oh, about two months for the kettle corn man to re-appear at the farmer’s market.  I don’t know if we just missed the weeks he’s been around, but we haven’t seen him there in a while.  But today, there he was, and the popcorn was purchased, and nibbled around the rest of the market and back in the car.  And as we were driving down Magazine on the way to the grocery store to finish our shopping, in the midst of proclaiming the delight brought on by the popcorn and retelling the story of its finding, Lucy cried, in what must have been her best revival voice, “Thank you, Jesus!”

I said, “For the popcorn?”

Lucy: “Yes.”

Me: “Oh.  Good.”

Ok, it wasn’t quite that dramatic, but those are direct quotes.  And she was really excited about the popcorn.  We had a terrible day yesterday (whining nonstop from waking to sleeping), so I think that helped make up for it.

Lucy: “You sneaky little sister!”

as Samantha climbs on top of her in bed