A 'Lil A' Fix

Dedicated to Tammy

I do read my emails and post to my blog

...eventually 

My friend Tammy emailed me and wanted the link to our blog again because her own little one deleted all her links and she was needing a Lil A fix. Well, I hadn't posted in a long while and was way over due to write a  post about Aurora anyways, so thanks to Tammy here it is for all of you. :)

Lil A's hair is so long and thick. I don't think I have ever gone out with her anywhere and not have someone, usually a stranger, comment on her hair. Although, she, herself could care less about it and would prefer to be completely bald. Then she wouldn't have her Momma torture her every morning with a brush.

The girl dislikes shoes and prefers to be barefoot whenever absolutely possible. She asked for some slippers this Christmas and received 4 sets of slippers all very cool and exactly to her liking (1 set was fuzzy & pink- her favorite color, another was dinosaur feet and another was a Stompeez where the heads of the animal pop up when you walk) except she just remembered that oh yeah, she doesn't like slippers either...too much like shoes.

Translating Aurora: 

Lil A has always been verbally inclined and usually she speaks pretty clearly & understandably but there's still some translation involved sometimes.

Such as:

"I just want to go home" she says this even when she is home.

Translation: "I'm bored."

"I'm scared"

Usual Translation: "I'm lonely & bored."

Other Translation: "I am actually scared of something more specific & particular this time."
which is rare because this girl isn't scared of hardly anything.

"I'm one year's old"

Translation: "I'm too little and young to have to do this or at least to have to do it more than once."

"I'm big, brave & strong."

Translation: "I'm a little unsure or scared but I'm going to try and handle it myself anyways."

Other translation: "Look at what I can accomplish and do all by myself."

"You are big, brave & strong."

Translation: "I need your help."

Other translation: "I want you to do this for me because I can't be bothered to do it for myself right now."

"You go away."

Translation: "I'm about to do something that I don't want you to see because it will get me in trouble and/or you'll make me clean it up."

"I want to eat a tomato" (tow-MAH-tow)

Translation: "I want to eat a tomato" (toe-MAY-toe)

(She says tomato with a British accent like some of her favorite cartoon & book characters' Charlie & Lola).

This year she decided she wanted to be a pumpkin for Halloween just like Lola from the before mentioned Charlie & Lola. Another year passes and she still hasn't succomb to peer pressure to be a princess yet, at least not for her official Halloween costume. She dresses up like a princess all the time when we play pretend.

 She often won't look at the camera or smile for it.

So we say things like:

"Where's Daddy?"

Her response appears to be:

"Right there. Duh."

Lil A has started saying "See what I mean?" at the end of her sentences. Jared and I are not sure where she got this as we both believe neither one of us say that and don't recall it from any of the shows she likes to watch or books we read.

She likes having collections. She will pick up anything and everything and called it "her collection." She even has a "kiss collection" where she collects kisses that people blow her. She might ask you for a kiss for her collection, too.

Right now though her absolute favorite collections, ones that we must play with every day are: her dinosaur collection (sounds like 'dinosaur kitchen' when she says it) and her seashell collection. Her dinosaur collection often eats meals with her, goes on outings with her, watches movies with her, takes baths with her and even sleeps with her at night.

When she wants you to look at something, she will point to her eye and then look at the object and say "Look" or "See?" and expect you to know what it is she's looking at. I've gotten pretty good at following her eye's line of sight and making correct guesses.



Lil A likes to play games online at PBS Kids. One of their games/video clips is called Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood which is a cartoon spinoff of Mr. Roger's Neighborhood.  Apparently, Daniel has a repetitive strategy song that goes like this: "If something seems bad, turn it around and find something good."

Well, Aurora made a rather big mess recently involving no less than 6 blankets and 1 sheet and some bodily fluids. I actually didn't get upset or even say much of anything (since bodily fluids are just apart of my life with a 3 year old) but it must of been obvious that I was less than thrilled to clean it up and launder all those blankets because Aurora sang to me "If something seems bad, turn it around and find something good!"

I burst out laughing, hugged my daughter but in my head cursed those goody-two-shoes children's shows for being used against me. (Have you ever wondered where the phrase "goody two-shoes" comes from? I did so here's the link with the answer. You're welcome.)

Since we are talking about creative exploratory discoveries (aka messes) Aurora is an expert. Not only are bodily fluids apart of my everyday life anything that can be turned into a hard to clean-up or gross mess she will make it. If you received our Christmas letter (sorry if you didn't we started out really good about getting them out and then our momentum came to a sudden and apparently permanent stand still) we said ask us about the Great Egg Fiasco sometime. 

Well, here it is:

Mind you this wasn't the first or even third mess I cleaned up that day just one of the messiest.

Brand new carton of 18 eggs thrown, cracked & stomped on all over the family room.

Later when asked what she was doing, she said "I was making a cake."

 The girl loves to get into the kitchen cabinets and refridgerator to "cook" and "bake" things.

Our kitchen is starting to look more and more like Fort Knox all the time.

Although we do have her help us cook and bake things to give her aspirations as a chef some outlet.

She could swing all day long either on a swing set or having Momma & Daddy pick her up & swing her if Momma's and/or Daddy's arms didn't fall off way before that point in either scenario. But she doesn't like slides much anymore. She's developed a little bit of a fear of heights recently. Don't believe there was any kind of dramatic event that brought it on, just seemed to develop overnight.

Her tire swing on her new playset.

 Her "Momma-and-Daddy-swing" on her not so new parents.

If you were to ask her what she wants to do or play, her most likely response would be to play "the running game." She loves, loves, loves to just run around. Our new house has a nice big circuitous route in it that she does laps on. A couple of nights ago she did 50+ laps without stopping or even slowing.

Lil A just adores babies. Lately, any and every baby within her vicinty is not safe from her attention and kisses. She really wants to have a baby brother or sister and she really likes to pretend to be a baby, too. Here she is lovin on her newest cousin baby Julie at Thanksgiving.

She still loves books and is starting to point to words or spell things out to us and ask what it says.

There are a blue million other things that I could say about our little firecracker, Lil A

 but this was probably way more of a "fix" than anyone ever wanted.

We love you Lil A!