Jesus With a Sword

This was your funny/sweet story tonight as we were getting ready for bed.

Petra: I don't like yellow, Mommy. (said in reference to your yellow Dora the Explorer pajamas)

Me: You don't like yellow, huh?

Petra: Nope. Do you like yellow, Mommy?

Me: Yes, I like yellow. It's like a sunshine.

Petra: Oh. (pause) Belle (from 'Beauty and the Beast') wears yellow.

Me: Yes, she does.

Petra: Why does Belle have the Beast and not the prince like Cinderella?

Me: Well, the Beast is a prince, but an evil witch turned him into a beast....

Petra: OHHHH! What happened next?

Me: Well....Belle met the Beast and fell in love with him and kissed him and he turned back into the handsome prince.

Petra: And then what?

Me: Well...um....they got married and lived happily ever after in the castle.

Petra: That's a good story, Mommy. The witch tried to get me too.

Me: Oh, don't you worry, sweetheart. No witch can get you because Jesus keeps you safe.

Petra: Yeah. (pause) Jesus has a long sharp thing?

Me: A sword?

Petra: Yeah! A sword. Jesus use the sword to fight the witch.

Me: I guess that's one way of putting it.

Petra: Okay, Mommy. Maybe we can see Jesus in the morning.

Me: Sounds good to me.

Sometimes You Scare Me!

You know, it wouldn't exactly be an accurate story if I only talked about your sweet moments, or cute mannerisms... Sometimes, little girl of mine, you scare the bejeezus out of me!

Take this weekend for example. First you started having a fever on Thursday - 101 degrees...not TOO serious, but enough to make me take notice. You were acting pitiful - not playing, sitting in my lap a lot, even falling asleep in Daddy's lap when he was holding you in the recliner. We gave you infant tylenol (which you didn't like much, but you took it better than you did the 'pink stuff' - a.k.a. amoxacylin) and the fever went away the next day.

Then you get this rash all over your body. Little pink spots on your arms, face, legs, butt.... Daddy immediately says "chicken pox" but I've had chicken pox, he hasn't and I don't think that's what it is. Plus you aren't scratching them, and they don't look as awful as chicken pox. I went through a gambit of possibilities. Measles? But your fever had gone away... Heat rash? But it didn't go away like heat rash normally would. I wondered if it was some of your umpteen-million new clothes that Grammy had bought you causing an allergic reaction of some sort because your bad mommy hadn't washed everything first (I ususally do, but there were just SO many new outfits!) before letting you wear it.

So we went to church Sunday night and you were walking around in the sanctuary like you always do when I'm tuning the guitars for praise and worship before service starts. And I look up, and you've vanished. I didn't really panic at first. After all, the church is like a second home to you and you often go get a toy from the nursery and come right back. But you weren't in the nursery or children's church or the fellowship hall, or Daddy's office or any place else that I could find. Cue panic....

After frantically searching every hiding place I could think of and enlisting some help from your adopted grandpa Monte.... we finally found you. One of the children's staff had taken you and a couple other kids out to the playground without bothering to tell me!! Needless to say, they were very apologetic, (especially after I told them if they ever did that again, I'd kill them!) and you were fine. I think I have a few more gray hairs after that and it took my heart a little while to get back in a normal rhythm again.

After church that night, one of the church ladies who is a nurse told me your rash was most likely just the residual effects of a minor viral infection - which was probably what had caused your fever a few days prior. She said her son had had something very similar before. That relieved my mind and we went home a little more at ease.

Of course, you had to pull one more heart stopping stunt before the day was through. After laying you down for the night, Daddy and I stayed up a little longer to have some time to ourselves to play on the internet and such. We were heading down the hall to go to bed ourselves when we heard you screaming. We both dashed into your room and you were crying and calling for me saying your head hurt. You said you had bumped it. Well, you had bumped it slightly several hours before when you were playing with Daddy, but not enough to cause this kind of hysteria. There wasn't even a mark on you. We soothed you and rocked you for a bit and you feel back to sleep, so we put you back to bed.

Not even an hour later it happened again - you crying out for us saying your head hurt. And of course, my 'mommy brain' starts running through scenerios....what if Jennifer was wrong and the rash and fever were something serious? What if you hit your head harder than we thought and you have a concussion and we let you go to sleep?!?!

We put you in the bed with us to observe you - something we never do - and you contentedly went right back to sleep. Eventually we got you back in your own bed and you slept the rest of the night, waking up this morning perky and cheerful and apparently having no rememberence of anything that had occured. Your head is fine and you act fine. All that scaring for nothing!

I know you can't help any of these things. But the saying is true, "Having children is like ripping your heart out of your body and letting it walk around in this dangerous world on tiny little legs."

Things I love about you, Petra Sky....

Your vivid imagination..

Your funny facial expressions...

The way you call Daddy a "prince" and me and you, "princesses"....

Your lengthy explanations of things...

Your announcements of "I can do it myself" about the funniest things...

You love Mexican Food like me....

Your tenderheartedness....

Your singing....

Your spontaneous outbursts of "I love you, Mommy"....

The way you clean up your own spills....

Your love of all things 'girlie' while at the same time being such a risk-taking tomboy....

Your sweet tooth.... (M&Ms for breakfast? I think not!)

Your cuddliness....and the fact you say I'm "cuddlyful" too....

Your big blue eyes....

Your gorgeous hair that always seems to curl just so...

That you miss me when I'm away from you...

That you love me so....

Almost Three

I can hardly believe you are about to turn three.... you should still be my baby! But you are growing up so fast. Everyone says it goes by faster than you can blink - and it's really true. You amaze me, your Daddy, and your grandparents with your vocabulary and the concepts you seem to grasp at such a young age. Some of your phrases that either astonish or set us to peals of laughter (or both) include:

"Oh, yes, mommy, that's a really good idea."

"Look both ways, mommy!"

"Don't tell me that..." (that one gets you in trouble every time)

"Oh mommy, you're a good finder."

"Just a little bit, Mommy, just a little bit more?"
(said with your fingers pinched together to illustrate how much a little bit is...)

"I know, Mommy, I know..." (Then follows a long drawn out explanation of your 'master plan')

"Mommy, I will never use the potty, never ever. I like my diapers. I will wear them forever."

"No, Mommy! No helping....I will do it myself!"


You are so polite! You nearly always say "please" and "thank you". You will say "excuse me" if you're trying to get by. You're still working on sharing....but I've read in different books that your brain hasn't completely developed the 'sharing synapses' yet....so I'll cut you some slack on that one.

You are very obsessed with Strawberry Shortcake (the updated version, not the ones that were around when I was a kid!) at the moment - it has taken first place in your loves. Just the other day you insisted I buy you a Strawberry Shortcake balloon you saw in the grocery store. I'm afraid I'm pretty much a pushover when it comes to buying you little nonsensical things like balloons or stickers or such. So I'm staring at it now as it floats above my head in the living room. You watch the Strawberry Shortcake videos over and over again on your DVD player in the car, and can sing a lot of the songs by heart. You also play with the Strawberry Shortcake dolls a lot. Of course, their clothes don't stay on for very long. You're in that "naked baby doll" stage right now. Between your 'oh-okay' Mommy and your spoiling Grammy and Grandma, you've got about every Strawberry Shortcake figure that has been released in NC (and VA for that matter!). I think Grammy is going on Ebay hunting for the elusive 'Blueberrry Muffin'. You said you want a Strawberry Shortcake birthday party this year, and I think Grammy is going to make sure that happens.

You still love Mickey Mouse and all the Clubhouse figures, and you watch it first thing when you get up every morning while you're eating breakfast (a strawberry-bannana cereal bar and chocolate milk every morning!). You still love to play with the Clubhouse we got you for your birthday last year. You've started really loving tools - which we attribute to one of your other favorite shows Handy Manny. It's about a Spanish-speaking handyman and his talking tools who live in 'Sheetrock Hills' and fix things for their neighbors. You have three tool sets now - a wooden one, and a "baby" set (small Handy Manny tools that go with the Handy Manny talking doll!) and a "mommy" set (bigger tools made for your size). So you go around the house "fixing" things all day. It's very cute.

You are also into the Disney princesses some. We haven't really let you watch the videos other than Cinderellla....most of them have such scary elements in them (i.e. the dragon in Sleeping Beauty, the wicked queen in Snow White...). Someone brought Snow White to church, of all things, and was playing it in the nursery. You've since said you had 'bad dreams' about a witch trying to steal your birthday cake. I don't know if the two things are connected or if you've been influenced by the in-your-face Halloween aisle at Wal-Mart.....either way, Mommy is not pleased. But you did decide on being Sleeping Beauty for Hallelujah Night at church this year. You have the dress, the crown, and Grammy bought you a matching pink princess pumpkin to put all your Trunk-or-Treat loot in. I can't wait to see you in the costume - neither can you, for that matter. You've asked over and over if you could wear it. Finally we hid it in the back of your closet - 'out of sight, out of mind' still seems to work for the most part right now.

You've really started making deeper friendships with the kids at church. Your "best" friend is Cameron (not to be confused with "Little Boy Cameron - your cousin) but you also love Destiny, Courtney, Haley and Joeb very much. In one of your little children's books there is a picture of a group of children on a beach and whenever we get to that page you name off who everyone is: "That's me, and Courtney, and Destiny, and Cameron, and Joeb, and Little Boy Cameron, and Baby Gabby, and Haley!" you say with confidence.

You are starting to grow a little in the foundations of your faith too, and that is a very exciting thing to behold. You not only say your prayers at night and meals, but you remind others if they forget, and you're starting to put some crucial concepts together - God as creator, Jesus loves us all, and stuff like that. The other day you were making waves in the bathtub and I said "You're making some big waves there." You replied, "Like the ocean." So I asked you who makes the waves in the ocean. And without hesitation you said, "Jesus." It was a thrilling moment for me, even if you did have that 'duh, mommy' expression on your face.

Almost three....where did the time go?