Conversations with Evie

Last night, I fixed a beef stir fry lo-mein type dish for dinner.  It had fresh spinach wilted into the dish.  (I don't use spinach very often in cooking.)  Evie said, "I know what this green stuff is... spinach."  She took a bite and said she liked it.  Then toward the end of eating her dinner, she said, "Let me see if I like the spinach."  She took a bite of just the spinach, pondered for at least thirty seconds, and then said, "I do like it!  Thank you for fixing me spinach for dinner, Miss Allison!"  (It was a pretty tasty dish, if I do say so myself, but what five-year-old - especially one who hardly ever had vegetables before - says "thank you" for spinach?!)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Evie was talking to her mom on the phone last night.  Mom said she had recorded The Swan Princess for Evie.  Evie asked, "What's a swan?"  Mom: "It's kind of like a geese."  Evie: "Like a goose?"  I thought it was very interesting that my five-year-old was correcting her mom's grammar.

Evie Funnies

This morning I told Evie to keep an eye on Tank while I was in the other room and make sure he didn't get into anything he shouldn't have.  From the other room, I hear: "No, Tank!  Tank!  You know better.  Well, you don't, but don't grab that!"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

We had a heavy lunch today, so I decided to do something light and just have soup tonight.  When I pulled out the Saltine crackers to go with it, Evie got VERY excited and said, "Oooh, I LOVE your cooking!"

Bigfoot

Conversation with Evie the other morning on the way to school:

Evie: I'm really not very happy right now.
Me: Why?
E: Because I'm wearing two shirts, and I don't like to wear two shirts.  I never wear two shirts with my mom.  [It's been cold here this week so I've been layering up the kids.]
Me: Well, I bet you never went outside and played when it was very very cold with your mom, did you?
E: No, I didn't.  Actually, I never went outside to play with my mom because there's Bigfoot out there. 

Seriously?!  I wonder if her parents told her Bigfoot was out there so they didn't have to go outside to play with her?

Homick

As we were driving to school this morning, Evie said, "Who is Homick?" 

 

I was thoroughly confused.  "Homick?  I don't know what you're talking about."

 

"You know, Homick Donald had a farm."

 

Bahaha!

 

Where Do Babies Come From?

Evie started 4K today.  Full details coming. 

 

But in the meantime, here's a funny story from this weekend. 

 

We were driving in the car, and randomly/out of the blue, Evie said, "I wonder who brought me to my mom."

 

She has periodically mentioned the investigator who removed her from the home; and asked who is going to take her back to her mom and how the process will be.  So I thought she was referencing this in some way. 

 

So I asked, "What do you mean?"

 

"Well, I think it was either Jesus or a bird [I'm assuming she meant stork], but I don't know." 

 

Made me laugh.  Kids are so funny even when they are not meaning to be. 

Was That ME Talking Just Now?

I have had two instances today where I heard myself talking out of my child's mouth.

Evie was fixing us some fake sandwiches with her M*elissa & D*oug set.  She told me she was putting tomato on mine. 
Me: "But I don't like tomatoes." 
Evie: "But you have to eat them.  Remember I had to eat that red stuff [peppers]."
Me: "Yes, sometimes you still have to eat things even when you don't like them."

Evie was brushing and "braiding" my hair.  Of course it got tangled in the process, and then she pulled it really hard with the brush.
Evie: "Did that hurt?"
Me: "Yes"
Evie: "I'm sorry.  But we have to get the tangles out."
[Oh, how many times I have told her that while brushing her hair... especially in those first couple of weeks!]

At least she's listening!

Evie's Pronunciations

Evie has some funny pronunciations of words.  On the surface they are cute, and some errors are normal for her age (the "r"'s and "v"'s).  However, being in the field I am in, I worry that some of the errors may be indicative of either some auditory processing problems, or some issues with motor planning of her speech.  The reason being that with some of the words that do not contain any specific sounds she can't make, she still has a very very hard time saying the words correctly even when I correct her. 

- O-du day-u (over there)
- Can we play with our chother?  (each other)
- Pon-kin (Pumpkin)
- Be-surt (dessert)
- Bether (better)
- Ko-mato (tomato)
- Lath (laugh)
- Cwallow (swallow)
- Nilla (Noah)
- Wes-ta-ant (restaurant)
- Yourselth (yourself)

We'll see how things progress once she starts school, and I may have our speech therapist talk to her. 

A Four-Year-Old's Prayer

I love everybody with my whole heart. 

I love Mama and Daddy and [insert all family members' names here].

I really love 'em.

I love everybody and stuff.

I really miss 'em.

 

[Then put this on a loop for about three or four minutes.]

 

Amen.

Jesus and a Dirty House

Two stories...

Background: Evie had two really bad nights of sleeping on Sunday and Monday nights (after having settled a little with the sleeping the few nights before that).  Maybe it was because she had a visit with mom on Monday (and she knew about it on Sunday).  Sunday she was up every 30 minutes to an hour between 10pm and 3am (6 times total).  Monday she was in my room every ten minutes for over an hour (and some of these times I stayed with her in her room until she was asleep; and she was STILL in my room ten minutes later); and then woke up 30 minutes after that saying she "had a bad dream that the Popo shot Mama."  
Since Evie's mom kept telling her to say her prayers at night, I decided to try to use Jesus/God as a comfort for her if she woke up in the middle of the night, so she wouldn't be scared.  I told her that if she woke up, to just remember that Jesus is always with her and will protect her.  She looked at me scared and said, "But I don't want Jesus in my room with me!"  Hmmm... I asked her if she knew who Jesus was.  "No."  "Do you know who God is?"  "No."  Apparently although they pray, no one has actually explained the concept of who they are praying to.  So then I tried to explain that it wasn't actually a person who was going to come into her room.  That night, she woke up about an hour later while I was still awake and came downstairs and said, "I don't see Jesus in my room."  Oh, my.  I think in my attempt to comfort her, I may have made her more scared of some strange man coming into her room in the middle of the night!

**************************************

 

Evie was anxious as we passed a police car, as she always is.  "Is that the Popo?  Why the Popo take kids from their mamas?"  I said, "Because they want to keep you safe.  They have to make sure you have a clean place to live."  She pondered this for a few seconds, then said, "But your house is a bit dirty."  Then genuinely worried, "So is somebody going to come and take me away from you?!"  I tried to reassure her that they wouldn't; and it made me so sad that she has to worry about someone coming and taking her away from the people she loves.  But a part of me just wanted to laugh because Evie in her 4-year-old wisdom is dead right that my house is "a bit dirty"!!