The Kidling loves ice. And superheroes. And penguins. And she’s pretty darned confident. So to The Mama and The Dada, this chilly declaration last week wasn’t entirely out of left field:
“I won’t even froze like an ice cube if I’m in Antarctica. Just. Because. I have, like. Superpowers.”
How do you decide when you are full? Beyond the objective measure of the actual quantity of food I know I have prepared, placed on my plate, and consumed, I have a general sense of contentment. Not too hungry. Not too full. Just right. Alice apparently has much the same mechanism.
But hers talks.
“Can I be done now? My tummy is saying ‘(switches to a squeaky voice) no more food!’ so that means I’m probably full.”
“Gargoyles are just flying lions. And they have a different name.”
-Alice Munchkin Kidling
July 24, 2012
The Kidling is very good at losing things. She is especially good at losing marbles. Specifically, losing marbles under very low-to-the-ground and near-permanent fixtures.
Case in point, the stove.
Yes, last week, Alice lost a marble under the stove. We tried several kitchen tools to no avail. None was quite the right size to retrieve the lost ball of glass. Then Alice had an idea. She pointed to the space under the stove and observed:
“If Clifford’s leg was smaller than that and it could fit and he was real and could come out of the TV, then he could get it out.”
Indeed, Alice. If only…
“Mamacito. That’s another way to say ‘I’m not turning it on yet.’”
-Alice Munchkin Kidling
June 3, 2012
After a year-long hiatus, The Kidling has suddenly taken a renewed interest in her letters. This is good. Her interest typically manifests itself in the labeling of her scribbles artwork. Upon declaring that a crayon drawing depicts a rattlesnake, she asks, “How do you spell rattlesnake?” She then proceeds to with the speed of a comatose snail laboriously craft the letters, one at a time.
On a recent drive home from daycare, Alice seemed pretty pooped. This is typical. The Kidling tries her darndest, but simply cannot nap at school. I geared up for a quiet trip home when I heard a voice wearily pipe up from the back seat, “How do you spell, ‘I have a headache?’”
Sad, no? Well, it gets worse. Once we had talked our way through the final letter, she got quiet again. Thinking nothing of it, we arrived home. When Alice climbed out of her car seat she showed me her picture. What, dare you ask, did she draw to illustrate her pain? A brain. A tiny, aching brain on the top of her little stick-figure body. And when we got inside, she asked for help drawing (and, of course, spelling) a couch.
Poor girl.
“It’s called rainbow sherbet because it has sherbet and rainbows!”
-Alice Munchkin Kidling
May 25, 2012
The Munchkin Kidling family spends a lot of time in our garden. We bought a home a few years ago with a glorious flower garden, in which I:
Now that The Kidling is four, she helps out now and then. I solicit her help with planting vegetables, transplanting perennials, occasional weeding, and transporting worms to the safety of our vegetable garden. And, of course, disposal of those dastardly snuvs.
What is a snuv? Quite simply, a snuv is a grub. Also, one of the few words that it pains me to tell Alice the proper word for, as I genuinely prefer her neologism. Speaking of neologisms, I do believe ‘snuv’ belongs in The Dictionary. Don’t you agree?
Snuv: noun. Insect larva. Syn. Grub. Ant. Anything on earth deserving of mercy.
Gratuitous inclusion of one of my favorite photos ever: The Mama and The Kidling in the garden, circa 2009, back when her vocabulary included fewer than one billion words and she did not ask me questions to which I do not know the answer. Very nearly prehistory.
