well, this evening finds me at home as Daniel and Sonora are at Disneyland enjoying the fireworks. I spent time with my 2 Michelles at Johnny Rebs eating sweet potato fries and talking about life and it's roller coaster effect, as we often do when the 3 of us get together.
I wanted to quickly jot down some of Sonora's milestones, as the weeks seem to be FLYING by between posts. I have been doing all I can just to keep up with her and her energy and all the crazy that is happening here at our home, including residents and also some chaos within my personal circle of friends. It feels like we are living from crisis to crisis lately, but thank God, our family is in tact and doing well.
Sonora is officially potty trained! 2 and a half weeks ago before church, I went into the restroom and Sonora heard me and said to Daniel, "Dada, mommy pee pee" and he said, "yes, mommy pee pee" and then she said, "baby too." and he was like, okay ... let's put you on the toilet and see what happens ... and she gladly went. I have put her on before her bath or shower alot and she always goes, but she has never told us ahead of time, we have never asked her to tried to train her in any way. That day, after church, we went to Target and bought the smallest possible Tinkerbell, Dora the Explorer, Elmo and Disney Princess underwear we could find and proudly let Sonora choose her panties. Since then, she has only had a couple MINOR accidents and was so frustrated with herself, nothing needed to be done on our part. She pretty much potty trained herself! No M&M's, no stickers for going poop ... nothing. I stand amazed again. I feel like singing that song from Sound of Music, "somewhere in my youth or childhood ... I must have done something good!"
Sonora now sings songs. Mostly Happy Birthday to whoever she feels like bestowing the honor on. She also completes each stanza to songs like Hickory Dickory Dock. Twinkle Twinkle little Star, ABC's, Yo Ho a Pirate's life for me, The second star to the right, and the list goes on and on. She got mad at me for singing Jesus loves the little children when I said, "red and yellow black and white" because I didn't say her favorite color, which is orange, so I had to revise the song to include all the fake tan people. She likes for me to insert her favorite people in the song so where it says "children" I will have to say mommy, daddy, Nona, Papa, Nathan, whoever ...
I wanted to write down all the words she says to remember them. She says so many, I can't even remember any more. Some things still tickle my fancy like how she says "No-deh-doh" for Sonora. She says, "Di-doh" for Daniel and An-ta-tet for me. For chick-fil-a she says, "chickyday" and for oatmeal she says "ay-pote!" It is bizarre, the mental gymnastics we do to remember he "words" and she says the same exact ones each time. Does she hear the proper pronunciation as she butchers them??? I often wonder.
Sonora is strong willed. And brilliant.
She uses a paper cutter and scissors. She can draw a circle already. She can draw dots while she says "dots dots dots" and then she can draw lines while she slowly says, 'liiiiines liiiiines liiiines" and then she will make a curly like and from lines will go to "nakes nakes nakes"
Speaking of snakes, she and Daniel have a bizarre ritual. She will yell, "DAAAADDDYY! Come Daddy! Nakes!" and Daniel will say,"snakes? where?" and she will say,"there!" and randomly point to anywhere and he will go and get a shoe and she will say, "up please! Hold baby!" and say, "daddy! scared!" and he will say, as he is shoeing away these imaginary snakes out the door with his shoe, "now listen to me snakes, you get outta here! And don't come back! You're not welcome here, do you hear me?! Get out!" And pretend to hit them and kick them out the front door. This is AT LEAST once a day and has been going on for about 2 weeks now. We think she first saw snakes on Jungle Book. She is quite the consummate actress ... she will come inside and say, "mama, nakes out door! no come back!"
Soooooo very much is happening, I wish I could document it all. I have a gazillion pictures.
One sad thing that is happening tomorrow is that Sonora's first friends, the Lee kids are moving back to Kansas tomorrow. I am heartbroken for Sonora. She talks about them all week and looks forward to seeing them each week at church. I don't know how I am going to explain it to her, these kids are irreplaceable as far as I am concerned. You know, the first real friend ... I am so sad about this. We will be having breakfast with them in the morning. These kids would come up to me when I was pregnant each week after church and talk to Sonora in the womb and haven't stopped since she's come out. You can't orchestrate that kind of history and love.
So many things that happen I say, "I gotta write this down!" and here I am with a little time but a blank mind. I know most kids don't have their lives documented like Sonora does, so I shouldn't feel too bad, but it's in my nature to write and journal my life's events. I honestly don't know how long I will be here for her, so at least she will have all these musings to learn about me after I am gone.
I think back on my pregnancy and how I spent the 4th of July and how different my life is now. I am thankful for my freedom, for my husband and daughter, and mostly for my Jesus with whom none of it would be possible.
Will come back and write when things are noteworthy and I have time and energy. I want to post an e-mail I wrote to a dear friend about training up a child in the way they should go ... I want to post it to remind myself when Sonora gets older and starts to spread those wings of Independence.
Good night, dear friends and readers ... sleep well.
