Then Some Mornings you Wake Up with a Meat Mallet in your Bed

Having a child makes your life so much funnier. I am not sure you can totally appreciate the humor of other people’s children. Or maybe it takes having them to understand the innocence that makes them so inherently hilarious. I just know that before I had kids, I produced many a fake smile at the story of Little Tommy who said “poo poo” in front of special dinner guests, or Little Sally who threw away Daddy’s important papers just because she was trying to help Mommy “Clwean Up!” Cute stories, sure, but certainly not enough to make me laugh out loud like their parents were. Now here I am, expecting all of you to think Pace is as funny as I do. If you don’t, I suppose it’s OK. There is just something too hard to pass up about telling your own child’s funny stories.

This first picture was taken over a month ago now. I think you can see that Pace is fully clothed, shoes and all, and standing in the bath tub. I was on the phone and trying to fill the tub up for her bath. She was reaching her fingers out just as far as she could to try and splash herself with water. At some point her equilibrium was stretched past its limit and she went head first into the bath tub! Thank goodness I was sitting right there. She could have broken her neck, or passed out from hitting her head and drowned, or just been so surprised by the fall that she sucked up a lot of water and then drowned….Thankfully, she just scared herself enough to never (at least so far) try to reach down into the tub again. I couldn’t resist getting a picture of my little drowned rat.

The second picture happened on a day when Pace was eating her lunch a bit too quietly to suit my taste. I went in to check on her, to find that she had reached up onto the breakfast table beside her, pulled down the brand new package of shredded cheese, and done some combination of eating handfuls and scattering it over herself and the floor like rice at a wedding. There was no poopy diaper for a good day or two after this little incident 🙂

A few weeks ago, I was having one of those “beyond any realm of normal tiredness because I am growing a life form” mornings. Pace bounced out of bed at 6:30, and I tried to bring her in bed with me. Maybe she’ll snuggle quietly, I thought. WRONG. So, though I am not proud of it, I eased her onto the floor and asked her where her baby was. Ten more minutes is all I need, I thought. I’ll just stay kind of half awake and I’ll still hear if anything bad is happening. Thankfully nothing bad did happen, but Pace did bring me a continuous string of items for my approval. “Book!”, “Baby,” “Elephant,” “Elmo,”…. If I repeated the word back to her and followed it with a mumbled “Good girl,” it seemed to keep her pretty satisfied. After 20 minutes of this bizarre game, I had been forced into a wakeful state that I could no longer deny. Later that morning, I went to make up our bed and found a meat mallet, lying in the sheets with a big red ribbon tied around it! For a moment I was horribly confused, and then I recognized it as a gift that Lauren had given me after I had borrowed her meat mallet on a couple of different occasions. It must have been one of Pace’s little love offerings from the morning, that I had inadvertently laid beside me in the bed. It’s days like this I am thankful we don’t have a maid! Imagine what kind of kinky bedroom life she would have imagined we lead 🙂

Then there are all the things she says, that you really need to be able to hear her little voice saying them to get the full effect. Just imagine Pace, with her attempts at perfect pronunciation and exaggerated mouth movements as she forms each word saying things like:

Pace, where does Aunt Alex live?: “Aunt Alex?…Nashaville!”

What about Uncle Josh, where does he live?: “Uncle Josh?… York!”

Last night Jeremiah was gulping down water, post work-out, as he held Pace. About half of the water made it in his mouth, and the other half was on Pace and his shirt.: “Shoot, Daddy! Shoot!”

Pace, where’s Daddy?: “Daddy work…hopital.”

What do we learn about at church?: “Bible!” and whose the Bible about, “JESUS!”

Where’s Bebe?: “Home.” Where’s home?: “Dofin.”

Love you, Pace: “Love you, Mommy” (Oh, there is something crazy wonderful about the fact that she can tag your name on after she says “Love you”)

Then there’s cautious Pace, who approaches all “dangers” very slowly and expects those around her to do the same. Her friend Natalie has a much more adventurous spirit, and when they swing together on the tire swing sometimes Natalie likes to hold on with only ONE hand or maybe even stand up.: “No, no Natalie. Stop it! Stop it, Natalie.”

One final thing I’ll mention is Pace’s new obsession with her babies. Nobody has taught her how to play “mommy,” but it is mesmerizing for me to watch her act out things that I’ve done for her. She says she’s “cookin” as she stirs an empty bowl with a “poon“. She pushes her babies around in a stroller, but she never forgets to hang her purse on the handle and tuck a bottle away into her purse for the “baby snack.” The babies go “night, night,” have a “rash,” need a “diaper” change, get to “eat dinner” out of what she’s been “cookin,” have a “spankin” when they’ve been bad, and most often get brought to me because “baby’s cryin‘!” There is something so beautiful about seeing her kiss and love her own little babies…right down to tucking their blankie around them so they can go “night, night.”