My Chickadee.

Some things about Chick:

• She always says "gonna" twice. i.e. "I'm gonna gonna get you!"


• She recently went from saying "yeyyow" to "lellow" but very rarely can say "yellow" (at least she doesn't ever say "leyyow").


• Yesterday she had the hiccups and said, "I can't get the hiccups out of my body!"


• She is constantly singing. Often the same line or two over and over again. She surprises me by singing songs that I didn't know that she'd learned, but most often she sings songs from Mary Poppins.


• She likes to match. She likes to match her clothes to her sister's. She likes to match her clothing to those being worn on a show that she's watching (meaning that the white dress gets worn a lot because Mary Poppins & Hello Kitty & anyone getting married all wear white dresses. The blue dress gets worn for Cinderella).


• She is extremely sweet with her sister (within reason...she's still a stinky little 3 year old sometimes) and is SUCH the first child & wants to mother Monkey. It really bothers Chick that Monkey only wants Mama or Daddy when she first wakes up from a nap.


• The other day I was lifting something that was a little bit heavy, and she reminded me that it could hurt the baby.


• She says "P starts with Please" instead of the other way around.

(Chick reading her magazine to her baby dolls)

She's a caring little soul. This story is a little more personal than I usually share on this blog, but I want to get it written down.

The other day she stepped on a caterpillar that we'd been watching/holding. She did it on purpose, and I was horror-struck. Honestly, pregnancy hormones are raging. I started crying, and I'm afraid I made her feel really bad. I don't know why she stepped on it, but I'm sure she didn't really think about the ramifications of such an act...she's not a vicious little person. Anyhow, her grief-stricken mama explained to her that the caterpillar was fragile and we had to be careful with it, and now it was going to die. She walked away and wouldn't come back to me...and then she burst into tears. We hugged and talked about how the caterpillar would be happy in Heaven, and that she didn't mean to hurt it... but the first thing that she told HH when he got home was about the caterpillar.

She seemed normal, but then when she had been in bed for a while she started crying (SOBBING) and saying "I hurt the caterpillar!" over and over. I gave her hugs and repeated that she hadn't meant to do it, and the caterpillar was happy in Heaven with Heavenly Father and Jesus-- but I could tell that my words weren't doing much for her. Then I thought of all of the great moms that I see around me & the teaching moments that they have, and I decided that I had a good teaching moment in front of me.

So I explained about repentance. I told her that we all make mistakes sometimes, but that we can pray and ask Heavenly Father to forgive us. I helped her with just such a prayer, and she went to bed pacified.

Then I went back out to the kitchen and said my own prayer. That she'd have a confirmation of the peace that comes through heartfelt prayer. That she'd not be haunted by being a "caterpillar killer" or anything like that. That she'd understand that Heavenly Father was real and was listening when she talked. That I could be a better mother and not traumatize my children, who were innocent anyhow...kids are kids, after all.

I don't know what she felt or learned from her prayer (I know she liked it, because the next night she asked if we could say the "caterpillar prayer" again. lol). But I know what I felt and learned from MY prayer.

The answer to my prayer was that I really didn't even need to be asking Heavenly Father to "be sure and listen to my child", because my dear little Chickadee is HIS child. He knows her better than I do. It's hard to imagine, but He loves her far more than I EVER will. He wants her be be at peace and to know that she can pray to Him, even more than I want it for her. He knows that I'm not a perfect mother, but that I try. And He knew that I wouldn't be a perfect mother all along, but He still trusted me enough to take care of these precious little people.

Mostly I felt relief, though, that HH and I aren't the only ones looking out for Chick.