Kid Updates

Maddie Mae – Wears socks on her hands almost daily, the fancier the better in her opinion. Last night I finally put the pieces together. They are her fancy princess gloves like the long white ones Cinderella wears to the ball. She cracks me up.

Jacob – Has begun to stutter. Sort of. He has been saying the “t” sound after most of his sentences. Otherwise he speaks almost crystal clear in full sentences, at least for a two year old. How he will say stuff like, “Jakey want go with daddy in a car t-t-t-t-t.” Jenny suggested today that it was because I was teaching Maddie how to read. Are you scratching your head like I was? She explained it happened to her two girls when she was teaching the older one to read. The younger daughter was imitating the repetitive sounds made when you are sounding out a word (s-i-t) and the adult will repeat a sound to help them understand and remember. Makes total sense to me so I’m buying her theory. Otherwise I’ve got no explanation why he stutters a “t” after sentences that don’t even end in the letter.

Ben – Came home from school and his white polo shirt was clean for the first time in three weeks. Of course I noticed and teased him, “Ben, I can tell you didn’t have any fun at school today.” “Huh?” “Well, your shirt is totally clean and white still so I know you didn’t have any fun.” The grin starts across his face immediately, “Oooooh, NO! I had LOTS of fun! We had recess on the rooftop playground and I climbed into the tunnel tube (he begins sketching out a schematic diagram of the playground on scratch paper so I can understand) and when I was right here (points) I was right above the girls (draws two stick figures). And so I listened really carefully to them and got their secret plan to chase Caleb around the playground. I snuck out and told him so he didn’t get caught and he ran away. It was AWESOME!!”

I guess recess play is the same across the world. He played spy on the girls in first grade in Virginia too. Although there he usually chose to be on the girls team so he could protect them. (Smooth. Get in good with the ladies.) Not sure if we should worry about his love interests yet. He definitely liked someone in his last school class. Too bad he missed the Fairy Tale Ball right after we moved or he could have had the chance to dance with his fair maiden. This week when we read who gave him valentine cards on Monday night his face lit up when I read MacKenzie’s name. “Do you know who she is yet?” “OH YEAH! She stands in front of me in the lunch line and she is the funniest girl in the whole class. I like to be by her.”

I remember first grade. Recess was filled with kissing tag for the better part of a year. Mostly I didn’t like it. Nathan liked my best friend Bethany and his best friend John liked me. I recall going in during recess in tears to Mrs. Zagarella to tell her I wanted them to stop. Wasn’t a whole lot to be done I guess. She explained it was because they liked us, but I wasn’t impressed at all. Just mad at stupid John and dumb Nathan. After first grade though I don’t remember any romantic encounters for anyone until about fifth grade. Maybe we’ll be in the clear soon. People here don’t date until they are much older than they do in the States and don’t marry until much later in life. Hopefully that translates into the younger grades too.

On the Topic of Kissing

At least once a month, often more often, my family has the Mormon missionaries over for dinner. They rotate into our area and out again so their names are always changing, but there are always two 19 year old young men that need to eat. They spend all day teaching people about Jesus Christ. If they have to return home to prepare a meal, eat and clean the dishes, it really cuts into the time they could be out teaching about the Savior. So, as a congregation, we feed them dinner often. It's actually a great chance to get to know them and have more gospel discussions in our home. The kids have always loved it too. In fact, they really, really love it. Over time they have developed great friendships with several of the elders that have stayed for longer than normal periods of time before their transfers came. Elder Peterson, Elder Smith and Elder Tamir (from Mongolia who played with them non-stop) are the most recent in my memory, though there have been some fun elders pass through the four walls of our home. We currently have Elder Perkins and Elder Rothman here. About two months ago, the kids wanted to have "fancy dinner" with them. That means that we cleaned up the party table and used a table cloth instead of the regular kitchen table. Maddie made the seating assignments. She was on the end next to Elder Perkins, then Elder Rothman next to Perkins. Across from them were Brian, Ben and me with Jacob in a booster seat to the side. After we were almost done with our dinners and Maddie was getting slower and slower at eating I noticed her body slipping down farther and farther in her chair. When her head finally disappeared, I peeked my head under the table to see what she was doing. What I saw made me giggle a little bit. Maddie slid down into a ball on her chair and perched her little body like a cat facing Elder Perkins. Then she sneakily kissed his knee cap before I could stop her and went back to a cat position again. I gently grabbed her so she didn't whack her head on the table and pulled her out to the side. I explained that we can't kiss the elders. They can't kiss anybody for two years except their mothers and no one can kiss them but their mothers. It's a rule. We were all laughing about it and she just burst into tears. She was pretty upset and probably a little bit embarrassed. I asked her why she kissed his knee and she simply replied, "cause that's what you do to be nice to someone you like." What a sweetheart. Today for Memorial Day we hosted our Semi-Annual Rogue Ward BBQ at the park. We had signed up to feed the elders again, so invited them to the BBQ. Though there was no kissing to speak of, we did have to watch Maddie. She followed Elder Perkins around. A lot and wanted to sit by him to eat her lunch. So innocent and cute today. Possible terror as a teenager.