I'm interspersing these Mollyisms from ages two and three with some photos I snapped in June early one morning when she crept upstairs and crawled into bed with us wearing this tutu she had put on, a self-proclaimed princess. What a fun kid she is -- something I need to step back and remember more often amidst the inevitable frustrations a three-year-old can bring.
She really is my sweet little side-kick these days: wanting to help me in the kitchen throughout the day, and eager to help tidy the house, too -- and getting pretty good at it! Every time I catch her eye and smile at her she exclaims, "I love you, Mama!" And anytime she's not certain she'll come ask me, "Mama, do you love me?" It sort of reminds me of the phase of time when she regularly asked, "Mama, are you nice?" I think in this, too, she's really feeling out if I'm in a good mood and apt to swoop her up for a hug and a kiss.
Molly: "I feel sick."
Me: "I'm sorry Molly, what doesn't feel good?"
Molly: "ME!!!!"
Molly often assures her big sisters, "Yes! Mama said I could!" Ah, a girl who understands the power of permission but doesn't seem to understand that it does, in fact, need to be granted from a figure in authority.
"I'm too scary!" and "I will be scary!" are used interchangeably for being scared, her arms usually wrapped tightly around my neck in an act of bedtime desperation sweetness. And once after something happened that scared her, she declared, "Wow! That was nervous!"
Nathan was asking me about something and I replied, "Sure, go ahead babe." Molly interjected vehemently, "He's not babe he's Daddy."
Molly: "I did a poop! I did lots of poops! A daddy one and a mommy one and a Nell one and a Marie one and a Molly one and an Uncle Andrew one and an Aunt Hannah one and..."
One of my absolutely favorite conversations, which comes up over and over again lately, involves the recent arrival of Sylvie in our family. It has become apparent that Molly believes that our midwife brought Sylvie to us as a gift. Yes, despite the fact that we talked extensively about the baby's arrival, and she was born right here at home, and Molly met her when she was minutes old, and we had even watched YouTube videos of home births in preparation for the big day. (Yes, really.) All of this is irrelevant; every few days Molly will be gazing lovingly at Sylvie and then will say something like, "I love our baby. It was so nice of that lady who comed to our house to give her to us. That was a nice lady to give us a baby."
Her very first attempts at her own name, back around age two, sounded like "Momee" and then "Mah-dees." Version three became "Monny," and today she expresses outrage when Nathan affectionately calls her "Monny."
"I'm not Monny, I'm MOLLY," she yells at us.
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Her version of "hair elastic" for some time was just "hair stick." Scrambled eggs used to be "tumble eggs" - a curiously appropriate name the more I think about it. An octopus is an "aquapus," and vitamins are "bitamins," other ones I find rather fitting. She calls my slippers my "flippers" and delights in shuffling around the house in them saying, "I'm Mama!" And "Why are you funny?" is her way of asking why someone is laughing.
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She called a washcloth a "hoshcough," a telephone a "hellophone" (which actually makes a great deal of sense), a sandwich a "famwich," and her jammies her "dammies." She says "either" when she means "too," as in "Mama can I have some either?" And "upside down" is "up-spied-down." Spaghetti is "pasghetti," and in general while she sometimes complains about meals (and took a little longer than I remember my other girls taking to come around to greens and salads) these days she compliments most of the meals around here, saying on more than one occasion, "Oh Mama it's very so yummy!"
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A frequent complaint while she is waiting for breakfast, lunch, dinner, or anything else at all for that matter: "This is taking a long time ago!"
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Her requests often go, "Mama, can you {fill in the blank} because I very want you to."
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Her version of the ubiquitous kid phrase, "Look at me!" is "Mama! I'll show you me! I'll SHOW you me!"
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"I'm yeddy!" is her happy exclamation when she's ready, for anything really -- breakfast, or to go on a walk, or when she's just gotten dressed in the morning.
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Singing to herself hopefully one day: "Hush little baby, don't say a word, Mama's gonna buy you a donut..."
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Stark naked after her bath one evening, as I combed her hair: "I'm a beautiful beautiful girl princess!"
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Making a pile of dirt and sand on the edge of our street and enjoying the process very much, she mused to herself: "This is looking really good, yes, this is looking really good." When this went on for a while I interjected, "How's it coming, Mol? Looking good?" She replied with exasperation: "Yes, I already said that! Please don't ask me again!"
{Hmm, I guess she's occasionally heard that phrase before... }
More technologically adept than any three-year-old perhaps should be, she requests, "Ayexa, pay Jesus." She means "Alexa, play Jesus Loves Me," and the strangest thing is that Alexa seems to understand this and obliges more than half the time.
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She climbs into her high chair at every meal and, needing to be scooted in toward the table, she yells, "Can somebody push me over?!" {Believe me, sometimes we are sorely tempted to do just that!}
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Hearing me say "PBS" one day, she immediately replied, "H-I-J-K-L-M-N-O-P!"
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"I'm yeady!" {I'm ready!}
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Giving herself a pep talk one day: "I can do it!!!!"
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When she wants me to close my eyes for a minute:
"Mama, turn your eyes off!"
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On one of the first sunny, really warm days of spring: "Mama, the sky is keeping me so warm!"
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Wearing short sleeves for the first time in spring, and clearly not remembering this phenomenon from previous years: "Oh wow, my sleeves are already rolled up! So that I can wash my hands!"
One of my favorite things about toddlers is their total lack of comprehension of time and numbers, and yet the way they'll confidently utilize figures nonetheless. They are keenly trying to figure out these things like time and numbers all the time.
"Mama, I have seven dollars. Can you buy me a quarter?"
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"When I was Nell's age, I was Nell's age!"
{How very ... astute?}
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When I was pregnant with Sylvie:
"Mama, when am I going to be in your tummy?"
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"Mama? I need sifty dollars because I need it. To put in my packpack."
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After her Uncle Andrew promised Nell five dollars for floating her on her back unassisted, Molly jumped in the pool and yelled, "Now can I have fifty dollars?!"
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"I was locked in the bathroom for seventy dollars before Nell opened the door for me! Seventy dollars... seventy... I mean, seventy years."
This girl has opinions and makes them known.
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Encountering a dinner she didn't want:
"No, no, I won't eat it, SORRY."
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Listening to Schubert one day:
"I don't like this, but I do like the poop song."
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When Mexican food was for dinner:
"I love cheese, I love sour cream, I love cheese, I love cheese... BUT. I. DON'T. LIKE. BEANS."
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She holds a strong distaste for the infamous Canon in D by Pachelbel. When the older two girls, who like the piece, requested we add it to their bedtime playlist of relaxing music Molly was adamantly opposed each and every time she heard it. I would be sitting downstairs and know when that song had come up on the playlist because of Molly's utterly horrified screams: "Oh no! This is not a lullaby! Oh no! No no no! This goes "Da, Da, Da, Da! {Yell-singing the bass line} This is not a lullaby!"
And yes, Nathan and I found this unendingly hysterical every night when it occurred.
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And when I asked her to put her shoes on one day before leaving the house, she declared, "Hashtag, I don't like you." Ahh, a child of the modern era.
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Outraged whenever she was corrected or chastised, she would (and often still does!) reply, "Don't 'peak to me that way!" Sometimes she'll come find me, wailing, "Mama! Mama! I do something and then Daddy 'peak to me that way about it!" {Translation: I did something naughty and Daddy spoke to me firmly about it -- and in true toddler-justice-warrior fashion, she finds this outrageous!}
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We can't help finding it hilarious all the times she'll come running to me wailing, "Mama GUESS WHAT?! Daddy said no at me!" Or very early one morning when she crawled into our bed as a somewhat unwelcome guest and I was awakened to her outraged, "Mama guess what?! Daddy tell me to lie still and I didn't like that!"
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Every time she gets in trouble from Nathan her bottom line is: "I don't yike Daddy. Daddy is BAD."
But for all her grumpy moments and bold opinions, she's way more than half sweetness, of course.
Snuggling early one morning in bed, she told me unprompted: "Mama you are nice, you are cozy, I love you."
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Back in February when I set the table nicely for a little Valentine's tea she exclaimed with delight: "Oh Mama I'm so happy at you, I'm so proud of you!"
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When I got home from a concert on afternoon she ran towards me, declaring, "You're my favorite Mama in the whole world!"
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And she's a very grateful girl -- she continually remembers her birthday back in March, and will still often say out of the blue, "Mama thank you for {fill in the blank} you got me for a present!"
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"I love you Mama, you're the best Mama forever I see!"
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She snuggled up against me while I was getting some work done on my laptop. Putting an arm around her, I said, "I love you, Molly." Molly replied, "I love your 'puter."
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She was my right-hand man for all things gardening all summer, and would get up nearly every morning and ask, "Mama, can I do some flowering with you today?"
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Late in my pregnancy with Sylvie I really couldn't carry Molly around much due to back pain and such, which I guess made both of us a little sad. A while after Sylvie was born and I lifted Molly up one day, she snuggled against me and said, "Mama, I'm glad your back is better now so we can do our carryin' again."
Molly: "I feel sick."
Me: "I'm sorry Molly, what doesn't feel good?"
Molly: "ME!!!!"
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"I'm too scary!" and "I will be scary!" are used interchangeably for being scared, her arms usually wrapped tightly around my neck in an act of bedtime desperation sweetness. And once after something happened that scared her, she declared, "Wow! That was nervous!"
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Watching a slightly scary movie (Herbie! Vintage movie classic!) on a family movie night recently, Molly did not like the way the movie was unfolding and declared: "I don't want this show to be rude to me!"
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When a sister laughs at her: "Don't be silly to me! Mama! Nell's being silly at me!"
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Putting her fingers in her ears and making a new discovery: "I'm putting my fingers in my ears and it turns it all down!" She took them out. "Turns it back up !" Put them in again. "Turns it down again!"
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Processing the pandemic: "Why can't we go somewhere? I'm not a 'birus'! I'm not!"
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Back in early May, when it snowed on Ree's birthday, Molly was very dismayed: "But Mama it's snowing on Mawie's happy boow-day cake!"
"Well, it's not snowing on her cake, but it is snowing on her birthday!"
"Well, can you take it off? Can you take the snow off?"
{I'm sorry, I find it difficult to remove weather from a day somehow... we all have our so-called Mom fails, I guess.}
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"I don't love bugs, but I do love grapes."
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Holding up a finger: "Mama, this little piggy is hurtin' me."
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"Bunnies have a different bum than my bum, actually."
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Brown-nosing from an early age, upon hearing a sibling making a scene over something:
"Hi Mama, I'm the one who's not being fussy."
Screaming in the middle of the night one night: "I want to go to church!!!"
{She is her father's daughter I suppose!}
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Me: "Okay Molly, maybe we don't need to name each of your poops..." (Although I'm sure her relatives will be honored.)
Pointing to a crackly spot on our ceiling "What's happening to our sky?"
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"I'm not tiny! Well I'm a little bit tiny but I'm not the tiniest!"
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"When I was a baby poopin' in my diaper I would say, "How 'barassin'!"
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Playing in her toy kitchen with lego people: "I'm pretending my guys are disobeyin' me."
Me: "Oh? And what happens when they disobey? Do you talk to them about that?"
Molly: "No, they just get cooked in the oven."
Me: ....
{Well then. That escalated quickly, as they say.}
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After Sylvie was born Molly would periodically ask, "Mama, are you gonna push the baby out?" Perplexed, I would answer, "I mean, Molly, I did... she's right here in my arms." And she seemed equally perplexed. I guess at the end of the day, a new family member can be a confusing thing no matter how much you prepare for it.
I remind her about how Sylvie grew in my tummy and was born at home and that the midwife came here to help, but none of this makes much of an impression on Molly. The midwife is a nice lady who "gived" us a baby. She remembers the day clearly and has it all figured out. "I woke up and went up to the attic to your bedroom but you weren't there. You and Daddy were in the family room with the lady. And Aunt Hannah and Uncle Andrew came. I remember! The lady comed to our house. She was so nice to give us a baby. I just love this baby sister."
And she sure does love her. She very nearly smothers her with love and affection, constantly kissing her and climbing on top of her with exuberant hugs. Occasionally these measures of affection are upsetting to Sylvie, and while usually Molly is unfazed and unconvinced {"No I'm not upsetting her! She loves me!"}, she occasionally sighs, "I wish we could get a new baby who doesn't cry."
In general though, her strategy is to blame the crying on something other than her own actions, so she runs to me and exclaims, "Mama, I was snuggling Sylvie, and... now... I didn't make her sad... I think she wants to go somewhere!"
Because it's 2020. If someone is sad, it must be because they wish they could go somewhere, right?! Makes sense to me.
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She was helping me in the kitchen the other day and she smiled up at me and said, "Mama I love you, it's good to have you."
It's good to have you, too, Mollywog.
