I think she's finally figuring out how things get done around here

It is 5:00 in the morning, when I awake to Reilly saying: "Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!"

"Yes, Reilly?"
"Daddy, I love you."
"Aw, I love you too, sweetpea."

I gave her a little hug, and went back to sleep.

Moments later, it is Reilly again, saying, "Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!"

"Yes, Reilly?"
"Daddy, can you get me a glass of water?"

Resistant to change

"Daddy, I don't like you anymore since you erased your beard."

I like coasting too

As Reilly's father, I feel that I should be teaching her at nearly every moment, and it is thrilling when she quickly picks up a word or concept that I have offered. Even more interesting, though, is when Reilly figures something out entirely on her own.

For example, the other day I was walking alongside Reilly as she pedaled her trike from the playground back to our house. This is typically a tedious process, as Reilly delays her trike ride as long as she can to avoid the inevitable bath that is waiting for her at home.

As we rode along, inch by inch, Reilly suddenly pedaled up ahead and said, "Look, Daddy!" as she lifted her feet off the pedals and coasted down the sidewalk.

I told her that what she was doing was called "coasting."
She replied by saying, "I like coasting."

The next thing I know, she is zipping down the sidewalk, building up speed so that she could get a good long coast.

We were home in just a few minutes.

Don't feed the alligators

I just remembered a dream that Reilly had over the break. She woke up with a cry, then shouted out:

"An alligator ate me and then spit me out."

"He put pepper on me."

Quite literal

As I was driving Reilly home from school yesterday, she remarked about a man who was jogging by: "Daddy, that man is running on the sidewalk! You're not supposed to run on the sidewalk!"

I corrected her and said that people are supposed to run on the sidewalk, and that if they ran in the street, they might get hit by a car.

To which she replied, "No, Daddy. It's called a side WALK."

Who won the race?

This morning when Reilly woke up, I told her that Obama beat McCain in "the race."

She replied by saying, "But I didn't see him!"

And I told her, "Don't worry, you'll be seeing a lot of him from now on."

Teachable Moments

From guest blogger Shawn Overcast:

Reilly took one look at my shirt this morning and said with a smile: "Obama!" She said this while pointing to his picture. I immediately saw this as a teachable moment.

My shirt said ‘Barack,’ not ‘Obama,’ so I took a pad of post-it notes and a pen and wrote out a “sticker” for Reilly that said “Obama.”

“No, mommy. The “b” should have two circles.”

So, below “Obama,” I wrote “OBAMA.”

Obama
OBAMA

“Thanks, mommy. Now we can show this to the people.”

“The people” are the campaigners we saw on the street corner the evening before, or as Reilly would say, “yester, yester, yester, yesternight.” Without our sticker, we were left to roll down the window and yell our encouragement.

Reilly wore her sticker all the way to school. I pointed out the different signs along the way and tried to share a little about the electoral process with her. We saw a sign that said “VOTE.”

“Vote, mommy? What’s vote?”
“Well, there are two people racing and we need to vote for one of them.”
“Do we vote?”
“Mommy and daddy voted.”
“I didn’t get to vote!”
“I’ll create a ballot for you tonight and you can color in the circle.”
“I’ll color in all the circles, like the two circles in that B.”
So smart, I thought.

“Reilly, two people are racing for this vote,” I said. “Their names are Obama and McCain.”

Feeling like I would be brainwashing her if I didn’t explain why Obama was our fave, I continued, attempting to explain politics to a 3-year-old in terms she’d understand.

“Do you know why we like Obama? Because he’s smarter, has more energy, has great ideas, and is nicer.”

“Mommy, two people are racing. McCain and Obama. That’s what you said, right?”

“Very good, Reilly!”

To this, Reilly broke out into song, “Obama, Obama, Obama-mama. That’s what you are, mommy!”

Lesson taught.

What I failed to mention was that if for no other reason, “Obama mama” has a much better ring to it than anything that could rhyme with McCain. And Reilly gives the BEST O-bam-a kisses. Just ask her for one the next time you see her.

If you had just one wish...

Yesterday, Reilly turned to me and said, "Daddy, you know what I wish for?"

"What, sweetpea?"

"I wish I could fly."

Wish I may, wish I might...

Last night, Shawn and I took Reilly on a stroll around the local park at dusk, something we try to do as often as Reilly is in the mood. As we rounded the lake, Reilly spotted a star in the darkening sky, and shouted, "Mommy, a star!"

Shawn responded by asking her, "And what do you say?"

To which Reilly replied, "ICE CREAM!"

To which I said, "Huh?"

Shawn explained that she had taught Reilly the whole "Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight..." deal, and that when they finished the poem and Reilly made her wish, Shawn would always ask Reilly what she wished for.

So, last night, she just skipped the poem and cut to the chase by shouting out her wish.

Unprompted, part II

This morning, while driving Reilly to school, Shawn called to check in on how our morning was going. She was in the car herself, en route to Orlando. My answer: we overslept, Reilly is whiny, and I haven't had any breakfast yet.

When I got off the phone, Reilly asked if I was just talking to her mommy. I told her that I was, and that her mommy said to be sure to tell her that she loved her.

Reilly was quiet for a moment, then said, "I love mommy THIS MUCH," and to illustrate her love, stretched her arms out as far as she could.

I asked her how much she loved her daddy, and without a moment's thought, she moved her hands about twelve inches apart.

Unprompted

When Shawn is away, Reilly always asks to sleep in "mommy and daddy's bed." When she asked to do so last night, I told her that she had to be a big girl and sleep in her own bed, an answer which had the effect of turning on her waterworks.

I waited through about five minutes of her crying before I relented and carried her over to our room.

When I put her in bed, she asked me to stay with her for a minute. "Just one minute," I said, and eased myself in next to her.

A few minutes later she had settled in and the room was quiet, except for a quiet whirring from the overhead fan. It was then that she rolled on her side to face me and said, "I love you, daddy."

If only

"Daddy, chewing this gum makes me bigger."
"No, Reilly. Apples and beans and chicken make you grow bigger, not candy."
"But if I chew it really fast, the gum will make me bigger, Daddy."

I couldn't argue with her. After all, the gum was Juicy Fruit.

Potato, Po-tah-toe

As we sat at a stoplight yesterday, Reilly pointed to a strip mall off to the side of the car and asked, "Is that where I was born?"

"No, Reilly, you were born in New York."

"No I wasn't, Daddy. I was born in The City."

The only person not enjoying our vacation

Upon learning that Reilly’s astrological sign was “Cancer,” I recall my mother saying that she would grow up to be a homebody. I laughed this off, I mean, my daughter is one of the most active children I know, and this constant motion made it all the more vexing when my active child did in fact turn out to be a homebody.

Case in point: On the way home from a side-trip to see a waterfall today, Reilly said, “I want to go home. Not the cabin—home!”

Don't worry, they'll be back

Reilly has been very interested and active in the different stages of sleep lately—and not just the going to sleep part, of which she is still the master manipulator/delayer/pain-in-the-asser, but also the dreams that come with sleep.

The other night Shawn sang to Reilly a song that her grandmother used to sing to her:

Now run along home
And hop into bed
Say your prayers
And cover your head.

The very last thing
That I’ll say to you:
You dream of me
And I’ll dream of you.

To this, Reilly said, “I’ll dream of you, mommy.”

In the morning, when Reilly trudged sleepy-eyed into our room, the first thing she said was, “My dreams are gone, mommy.”

Huffing and puffing

Today as we drove down the dirt road to the cabin, Reilly had the following conversation with Shawn:

“We can’t take a trip yet ‘cause I’m not bigger. I’m just still smaller.”
“Oh, and what do you like to do now that you’re smaller?”
“Play soccer, football, read little pigs and play croquet.”

July 9th

Last night, when I told Reilly that she would go to bed age two and wake up age three, she seemed a little horrified at the concept, that somehow she would change in a marked way—grow three inches, or have to start driving herself to her swim lessons in the morning. No matter how I tried to soothe her, she would say, “I don’t want to turn three! I want to stay small forever.”

When I told this story to Shawn, she just nodded, which I knew to mean, “That makes two of us.”

One small gesture

Last night, Reilly called me into her room not long after we had put her to sleep and told me, “I don’t think I like my bed,” which is code for “I want to sleep in mommy and daddy’s bed.”

Typically I don’t grant this wish, but I wasn’t feeling well and didn’t have it in me to fight it out with her, so I put her in our bed and settled in next to her to wait for the sandman.

Unfortunately, I kept coughing, and each time I did so, Reilly would stir, put her little hand on my forearm, and say, “Daddy, are you sick?”

What shape is a banana?

This morning, while peeling the banana I had just given her, Reilly said, "Hey daddy, what's this shape?

I replied that it was crescent-shaped.

"Nooooo, Daddy," Reilly replied, "it's not a crescent, it's a rainbow!"

Boo!

On Friday we went out to eat pizza with our friends Kristi, Cassius, and their son, Max (who spent the whole time playing video games with Reilly sans quarters).

After dinner, we asked Reilly if she had fun with Max, and she nodded her head, and then exclaimed, “We played the ghost game!”

It took Shawn and me a second to figure out that the game she was referring to was Pac Man.