The Grandma Love

Zion and Layla are eating at the table. Layla asks for a drink.  I go to the cupboard and get out her purple Dora cup.

Layla: (with great satisfaction)  That's my Dora cup.

Zion:  Mommy, did you give Layla that Dora cup or did Grandma give Layla that Dora cup?

Me:  I gave it to her.  (Wondering if this will be renounced, as Grandma gets all the credit around here for all the beloved clothes and items.)

Layla takes her cup happily and drinks as I return to get Zion a drink. 

Zion:  Layla, do you like Mommy better or Grandma better?

Layla: (immediately) G'amma.  (She puts down her cup and goes back to work on her taco.)

Zion:  (conversationally) Would you rather live with Mommy or would you rather live with Grandma?  Grandma has room for you...

His mother grins widely over by the refrigerator.  The conversation gets distracted with other activity going on, but later on when I quizzed her, she stated that yes, she wanted to live at Grandma's house, but with Mommy there with her.  Well, we win some, we lose some... ;)

Tribal Markings

These are markings that indicate, to those in the know, that a certain one of my children has recently passed through the region.  As soon as I saw her, happily swinging with all of her tribal markings, I stop dead in my tracks and bellowed - "ZION DAVID MILLER!!!!!!"  Few things make me bellow as loud (although I also did soon after that bellow as loud if not louder when I turned around and someone had knocked an almost full can of baby snacks to the floor and NOT returned to pick them up and Zion was busy driving his plasma car through them....but hey, I digress) as the concern that someone has marked the baby from head to toe with black permanent marker.  The children in the room next to me blink at me owlishly and survey the damage.  Elder Brother, also known as Keeper Of The Law, is hotly indignant.

"THAT ZION!!!" He gesticulates wildly.  "He has been doing that EVERYWHERE with these markers and now he has marked all over the baby and I think that the next time I see him I AM GOING TO PUNCH HIM IN THE FACE!!"  He stomps over to the office to look onto the porch, where tousle-haired mischief maker is padding in from the outside.  "He just needs to be PUNCHED IN THE FACE!!!"

I give him a mildly rebuking glance. "No punching in the face.  Everything is just fine."

I turn to the guilty party, who has been obtained and is standing before me looking furtive.  He knows that he's done something wrong, he's just not sure which thing it was, since things are constantly busy in Zion Land, and one never knows which Destruction He Hath Wrought is currently under examination.  This has happened to him before.  "Did you mark all over the baby?!"

"Yes," he responds, and immediately leads me on a search for the offending marker, which turns out to be the new package of dry erase markers (PHEW!!!) that have also been busy on the door, walls, and other items, including the baby's toenail.  We have a teaching moment where we examine the reality that dry erase markers are for dry erase boards ONLY, and life returns to normal, all face punching averted.  At least for now.

Israel is funny.  He is generally cheerful and cooperative and happy, with occasional bouts of mopy-ness.  Lately he has been asking these questions that go:  "So, I don't get it: what exactly is the meaning of living?  If we're just going to die?"  Sometimes when events are exciting, he will burst out with a joyous "This is the BEST day I've EVER HAD in my WHOLE LIFE, Mom!!!!"  Interspersed of late with this conversation:

Israel: "I don't like my life!!" (Collapses into a chair and puts his head down on his arms.) 
Mom:  "You don't??! Why not?? I think you have a pretty good life!"
Israel: "Because I have to clean and I can't play video games whenever I want."  (His head whumps back down on his arms in despair.) "All of my other friends, their moms let them watch TV and play video games whenever they want!!"  (ends in a wail)
Mom:  Hmmm.  I don't think that's true.
Israel:  It IS!!!

Poor child.

The other thing that has amused me of late was that we recently found this at TJ Maxx and really liked it.

 We brought it home and propped it against the wall and Israel kept eyeing it uneasily.  He would say, "I sure hope we don't have to follow all of those rules!!!"  Or, "Mom, we don't have to do all of those things those rules say, right?"  It turned out that the Hug a Lot one was the rule of primary concern.  :D  He also wondered if he really had to laugh every. single. day.

p.s. Yes, that is a paper plate on top of the canvas.  Someone was painting and decorating - don't remember who.  :)

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Caroline sat well on her own at about 7 months 3 weeks.  She just recently cut teeth at 9 months.  At 9 months 3 weeks she has two bottom teeth and one top tooth.  It looks sort of hilarious to me.  The other tooth is right there under her gums but hasn't popped through yet.  She pushed herself up to sitting from laying for the first time yesterday, at 9 months 3 weeks.

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The other day Layla asked me with great interest if I had a finger that had a super power in it.  She was sadly dismayed to find that her beloved mother was only but a common mortal.