She's My Little Runaway

Hasn’t every kid at some point in time decided they were going to run away?  To be honest I don’t remember going through it myself, but I have heard stories from friends, and I kind of recall my sister Megan deciding she was going to leave at some point. A few weeks ago, Sonya decided she was done with this place.  

We were arguing about something.  Who knows what?  She wasn’t listening to me, throwing attitude my way and I was apparently annoying her.  It's been a trend around here lately.  I'm fairly certain that this is just a small glimpse into the teen years.  She was outside with her sisters pouting for a bit, but then she came in and went straight to her room for about five minutes.  I wasn't sure what she was doing in there until she came out to the kitchen to grab a pear from the fruit bowl and took it back to her room.  It was then that I realized what was going on.  

I walked over to her room and stood in the doorway where I found her packing up a small backpack.  I'm not sure what she had put in there, but I knew there was one pear!  She was smart enough to bring sustenance.   

"Whatcha doing?" I asked, trying my best not to break into giggles.

"I'm running away," she told me.  She was also doing her best not to laugh, because she knew that she wasn't going anywhere and she was being silly, but she was out to prove a point dammit!

"Oh.  Huh.  Where are you going?"  I asked.

"That's not something you need to know right now," she indignantly replied.  I assumed she wasn't telling me because she didn't know where she was going herself.  

"Well, that's too bad," I said.  " You are going to miss out on movie night tonight and the special surprise we are taking you guys to tomorrow."

She shrugged her shoulders.

"Ok, well, I still love you and I'm sad that you're leaving," I told her.  "You are welcome to come back anytime you want."

She didn't say anything to me, so I left the room and let her continue.

It was then that the wonder twins came in the house and became curious as to what was going on.  

"What's sissy doing?" Lana asked.

"She's running away," I informed them.  

"Where is she going?!" They asked.

"I don't know," I said.  

They tried to go talk to her and find out her plans, but she wasn't giving anything up.  Then she marched out of her bedroom with her bag over her shoulder and headed out the door. She did manage a "bye" toward us over her shoulder as she walked out into the evening.
Keep in mind that it is around 5pm and starting to get dark and all of my girls are very much afraid of the dark.  I had a feeling she wasn't going far.  

The little girls ran over to the window to see where she had gone and reported that she was just sitting on the porch swing out front.   Lana started thinking about life without Sonya and asked,

"Hey mom! What are you going to do with her room?"

"Lana, she's not really going anywhere.  Don't worry about it," I told her.  

"She's leaving, she's leaving!!" They yelled.  

Apparently,  Sonya wasn't up for being watched so she decided to walk away in the hopes of making it look more real.  Lana bought it.  

"If Sonya really does leaves, I get to have her desk right?" She asked.  

"Lana...."  I gave her the 'that's enough' look.  Although I can't say I didn't laugh about that one later.  

I wasn't really concerned that she was really going far, but then I did start to worry that she might try and walk to one of her friends' houses.  Luckily that was about the time that Andy came home from running some errands.  He had run into Sonya in the driveway and she told him of her plans to run away.  He took the same approach I did and told her that was too bad, but wished her luck.  Look at us being on the same parenting page!  I gave me the rest of the story when he walked in the house.  

I continued to make dinner and let her go for a few minutes, but send Andy over to look for her out the window.  He couldn't see her anywhere so, okay, I started to worry.  I sent him out to see if he could glimpse her walking down the street. He started calling for her and didn't get a response but then found her just hiding behind one of our cars.  It was obvious she had no intention in going anywhere, just wanted to get a little attention.  I guess it did work for a bit.  

Andy coaxed her inside where she went directly to her room.  I heard her crying but he managed to hash things out with her. He's good like that.  Sometimes she and I butt heads so his intervening usually helps smooth things over.   I only hope it's this easy in six years from now.  She didn't want to go anywhere, and we worked things out, which was good for us.  Not so much to Lana's liking though.  She was really hoping for her own room with a desk.  Next time, Lana.      

Making Menchie's Proud

Several years ago I wrote a story on here about Sonya's gymnastics experience of climbing the rope. She was just five when she climbed that rope and so determined to do it.  Now she can climb that thing four times in a row.  Lana is still taking gymnastics but had yet to master the rope.  She would get about halfway up, look down and decided "forget it" then drop.  Sonya and I kept encouraging her to go all the way, but unlike Sonya, she just doesn't care as much about things.  She never got riled up about it or worried about it the way Sonya did.  She wasn't ready and really didn't care one way or another if she did it or not.  Just one of the major differences in those two.  Sonya will make herself crazy trying to do something and do it right.  Lana will do it when she's good and ready.  No amount of coaxing or bribing is going to make a difference.  She will care when she wants to.  The end. Although whenever she did get to the top, she knew she would get a trip to Menchie's, just like Sonya did.  

Then we went to Disney on Ice a few weeks ago and Andy is certain that is what sparked her interest of finally getting to the top of that rope.  There was a point in the show where Ariel spun and did tricks on a rope above the ice.  I did notice after that she was more determined to try and get to the top of the one at gymnastics class.  There were a couple of classes she almost got there, but I wasn't there to encourage her or see it, so she didn't quite get there.  

Then last week before class she said, 

"I'm gonna do it today! I'm going to climb to the top of the rope!" 

I made sure I was there by the end of class just in case, and damn if that kid didn't do exactly what she said she would. 

You might be able to tell from the video that there was a point she contemplated giving up, but I started my encouragement yelling and I  think that helped to keep her going.  Well, at least that's what I thought.  

On our way home that night as I was congratulating her and telling her how proud I was, I asked her if she almost gave up.  She admitted she did.  

"Why did you keep going, because I started yelling at you to keep going?  Did that help?" I asked, feeling like a proud supportive parent.  

"No," she told me.  "It was because I really wanted to go to Menchie's."

Nice.  Well, whatever it takes I guess!

It's Only a Four Letter Word

Well, how were your holidays?  Ours were fabulous, thanks for asking!  No, I really mean that.  Well, after I got through all the preparation crap of the weeks before, once Christmas hit we had a great time. My parents were here and they are always super helpful, so I didn't do laundry or wake up before 8am all week.  It was awesome!  Thanks mom and dad.  Andy took the week of New Years off, so we were able to hang out and do some fun things as a family, like take the kids to Disney on Ice and complete our Star Wars Trilogy with Return of the Jedi.   Overall it was just what I needed.  What all of us needed.  A couple weeks to do nothing.  No running to school, piano, gymnastics, Girl Scouts, or music class.  I can't say that by Friday we weren't all a little over it, but still it was good for a while.

And what would the holidays be without a funny story?  Of course I wouldn't disappoint.  Although this isn't a holiday story per se, it is something that happened while my parents were here.

We were all sitting around after dinner one night, but Andy was still at work.  My parents and I were chatting and I was texting Andy to see when he would be home.  The girls were starting to get a little rowdy and had gotten up from their seats to play…hmmm…I'm not even sure the name for it.  It's the game where you slap  hands and say a rhyme.  Like "Miss Mary Mac, Mac.  All dressed in black, black, black…"  You remember.  Anyway, they were doing that.  I made Lana and Georgia do one that Lana had learned from one of the girls at school that goes a little something like this:

"Postman, Postman do your duty, here comes the girl with the African booty!"

Yeah.  I know.  I got raised eyebrows from both my parents.  All I could say was "Oh well!  It's what they learned from other kids at school.  Guess every kid doesn't have great parents.  Whaddya gonna do?"

We weren't really paying  much attention to them when they started another one I hadn't heard before.  I wasn't even sure what they were saying and was in the middle of texting Andy when I heard this:

"…then the farm got sick, how many animals got the DICK?! One, Two, Three…."

Yeeeeaaaaahhhh...so THAT happened.  

To be honest, I'm not even sure that's how it went.  All I know is I heard them say the word Dick.  Loudly.  In front of my parents.

I immediately looked up from my phone wide-eyed over to my mother who had the same horrified/amused expression on her face and she my father and I burst out laughing.  Threw my fits of giggles I asked the girls,

"Wait, wait, wait!  What did you say?"

And both my little girls shouted, "DICK!"  Which only made us laugh harder.

Sonya started to become concerned.  "What? What's wrong?" She asked.  "Is that a bad word?"

"Where did you guys get this one from?"  I just assumed it was another one picked up at school until they proudly told me,

"Sonya!"

I looked at her and asked her the same question and she said, "I made it up!"  Oh boy.

"Why?  What does dick mean?"  She asked.

"Well…." I said. "It's another word for a man's penis."

"Ohhhhh…" she said and her eyes got wide.  "Oops!"

Meanwhile the little girls are yelling, "Dick, dick, dick!" 

"It's fine." I told them still trying so hard to stop laughing.  "You didn't know. Let's just not sing this one again and certainly not at school ok?  And I know you were trying to rhyme with sick, but let's change it to Mick."

"Okay!" They all replied.

Then I thought about it a minute and asked, "You guys didn't tell this to anyone already at school right?"

They all shook their heads no and I breathed a sigh of relief until Lana said, "No.  I just learned it to my friend Audry."

Wait what?  "You taught this one to your friend, Audry?" I asked.

"Uh-Huh," she replied.

My parents roared with laughter and I just shook my head wondering when I would get the phone call from Audry's parents.