My daughter never ceases to amaze me. She says remarkably . . . old things.

As she and Daddy were starting out for their walk the other day -- a time that Daddy often uses to tell her stories or talk to her about what he is reading -- she said to him, "Daddy, tell me more about Lewis and Chesterton."

Brown noser.

Later that night, Matt gave BC a copy of the Great Illustrated Classics version of Ivanhoe. She eagerly leafed through it and looked at all the pictures while I was making dinner last night. On their walk later that evening, she said to Daddy, "Daddy, Ivanhoe has lots of battles in it, doesn't it?" He sounded surprised when he affirmed that it did. "Oh, okay," she said. "I read the whole thing tonight before dinner. I thought so."

This morning Matt very generously watched the kids while I got a little more sleep. Apparently my daughter, who is an 80-year-old in size 3T clothing, ate several prunes with her father and enjoyed them heartily. She told me all about it while she was in the bath. I told her it was time to get out and the old lady responded, "Oh, Mommy. I'd like to stay in and soak a little longer."

The cuteness

Daddy: "I just can't get enough of my Elker Pelker!"
Ellie: "Thank you, Daddy. I can't get enough of myself either."


Ellie: "Look, Daddy! My dolly is cute!"
Daddy: "But my Ellie is cuter.
Ellie: "Yes. I am very cute."


Ellie to Mommy: "My dolly is going to come to Mass with us. But she is very quiet. She is much quieter than your son."

JK Rowling, step aside

So my kid wrote a book. (Thank you to her sitter for recording it for her. You're like Milton's daughters. Truly.)

It's a book about a dragon. That would be charming, except she named the dragon . . . wait for it . . . Elisabeth. That's right. My kid thinks I'm a dragon.

It's okay, though, because she makes a point of noting that this is a "nice dragon." In fact, she's such a nice dragon that she rescues a little girl named Eleanor and a little boy named Matthew. Together, the three of them go on to rescue other little children. 

And the best part? (Sorry. **SPOILER ALERT**)

THE DRAGON DOESN'T EAT THE CHILDREN!

Given its inauspicious start, the story ends about as well as I could've hoped. Stay tuned for a sequel, in which the dragon has a really crappy morning and DOES eat the children. Perhaps Matty will survive to dictate that one. If he ever starts talking.

Struggles

I continue to wonder what it takes to "offer it up." Clearly I have gotten no further than to have posted the desire to know earlier in the summer. But I wonder if it doesn't have something to do with recognizing when I've been had but refusing to accept the spiritual results of defeat. In my case, that means not responding to my child's fixations and tantrums and attitude problems and general unpleasantness in kind. (Not that I fixate in response to her fixations, but I certainly can have a bad attitude.) I can't do those things alone. I have to seek strength from Our Lord for it. So I have to give him the situation either to fix or to make bearable. 

I have to offer it up? 

Yes, that's most certainly part of it. Now if I could just figure out the part about offering it up as a sacrifice rather than a prayer request, that would be awesome. 

In the meantime, I will have to figure out how to deal with a screaming, raging, hitting, slapping, biting toddler without wanting to do the same! 

But this will tide me over: 

True Confessions

When you end up in the fetal position on your bed in the middle of the day because your three-year-old has figured out how to get the better of you EVERY TIME, you realize that you need to change something. Your own attitude? Perhaps. Your child's attitude? That would be super, but it's unlikely to happen without other changes. Your discipline techniques? Yes, sure. But how?

One way is to cut the guilt. Stop feeling guilty that you don't scrapbook your kids' lives, or that you don't do cute crafting projects with them, or make their clothes, or bake bread for them every morning, or even have a chore chart. Okay, maybe make the chore chart. That would be good. But don't feel guilty that it isn't made yet, or that when it is made it's likely to be on a crafting level with a kindergartener's Christmas tree paper chain.

But there's also just recognizing that you need to "offer it up." This is my blogging record of learning what that means. While I do it, I also want to start catching the blog up with old news. 'Cuz that helps with the guilt! Overall, though, I want to focus on "offering it up."

Today, after headbangers galore with my daughter, I ended up snapping completely. I yelled at her. I hate that about myself, but it happens far too often. And then, predictably, I called my husband and vented to him about it. He was so honest with me about the problem. He didn't disagree that her attitude needs to change and she needs to be more respectful, but he pointed out that I did not have a poker face EVER, and that she knows she can poke at me to get me to react.

Exactly.

And so here I am, realizing that I need to learn to offer it up. But what does that mean?

I have no idea. I've heard it said so many times as a solution to my problems, but I don't know what it means. I know it has something to do with not being in a funk every time I feel as if someone has imposed on me. Not venting to my husband or my mom or my friends every time I feel like a martyr or a champion of virtue. Not flipping out on my kids because they won't follow my sage advice or listen to my sensible rules. But I know it means more.

And I will try to learn what that is. Blessed Mother, be my example.

Literary analysis

I am often amazed by my child. I will freely admit that she frightens me, and I am certain that she is smarter than I am. But I am watching her absorbing the literature that she loves so well and I am continually gobsmacked at what she will say. Perhaps these are not the two best examples, but they stuck with me.

We were listening to an audio recording of E.B. White's Stuart Little in the car today. We got to the part when Stuart tries to borrow the car from the dentist and learns about the button that makes the car invisible. Suddenly I hear BC say, "That's a ring problem." I asked her to repeat what she said because I didn't understand. "That's a ring problem, when the little ring slips on your finger and you become invisible." Sure enough, she was comparing Stuart Little's car with Bilbo's ring.

Matt said that last night, they were listening to the same recording, but were at the part when Stuart was lowered down into the tub drain to retrieve his mother's ring. BC said, "Stuart is like Gollum." He had no idea where she was going with this and he questioned her further. "He's like Gollum because he's slimy." At that point, the narrator said that Stuart needed a bath because the drain was quite slimy. So not only had she made the comparison, but she had remembered from her first two times listening to the story that the drain was slimy and made Stuart similarly so.

I think she's going to be better at literary analysis than I am by the time she's 5.

Mini-vacation . . . of 3 hours

We have our kitchen completely torn up right now. We are living in the basement, where we have a second kitchen. I suppose some might snarkily say that they are unsympathetic to the complaints of a woman with two kitchens. Fine, I say. Live with my children in a basement for 2 days. Then we'll talk.

And so Daddy volunteered to take them to his dad's house tonight for mommy's mini vacation. And I sat at a coffee shop and read about how to teach my child to read. Because when you have small children who are smarter than you are, your "alone time" takes on a slightly different meaning.