What's that smell?

Eldon says I have an olfactory system that qualifies me for mutant status. It's true. I smell everything. Saturday night we were driving and I was telling him all about the book I'd just read (Sing You Home, Jodi Piccoult) and everything I thought about it when suddenly, mid-sentence, I stopped.

"Uggh, what's that SMELL??" I yelped, forgetting my previous train of thought.

"I don't smell anything, Honey." He responded. As usual.

"Are you serious? It smells like ... duck poop." I don't know. It just popped in there.

"Duck poop?" Now he's smiling at me, laughing on the inside. "How do you even know what that smells like?"

"Oh you know what I mean ... It's what I think duck poop would smell like."

"Aahhh." He says, still smiling, in that drawn out voice that means he thinks I'm crazy.

***

But really, the smelling thing is a problem. This morning Chiara had the nastiest diaper, filled with what I was certain was the tuna from yesterday's lunch. I almost threw up. Chiara actually thanked me for changing that one ... it's like she could smell it too. :)

(At her favorite park on a jumbo-sized xylophone.) 

Eldon and I fall asleep impersonating our child. Is that what other parents do? We laugh and talk to each other in her voice and throw fake tantrums and just delight in it. She has become a total Mamma's girl over the last couple weeks and it's so sad for both of us because we loved it when he was her favorite. Eldon loved it because he was the favorite, and I loved it because if I only got to see my baby for a couple hours a night I'd want to be the favorite too. It's like a consolation prize. But not anymore.

Last night Eldon (who sings like Josh Groban) tried to sing her a lullaby and she wouldn't have it.

"No noz, no noz*!!" She yelled, and waved her pointer finger at him.

He turned to me with a crestfallen expression.

"She just pointed her finger at me!" He pouted, devastated. "I never do that to her."

"I do." I said, trying to keep my laughter under control. It's so hilarious to me when she gets bossy. I mean, it's totally irritating for the most part, but there is that 2% funny factor ... like when she does it to Eldon and not me.

(A joy ride with cousin Drew in the power wheel a couple weeks ago.)

(* So, I hope this doesn't mean she is going to need speech therapy someday, but she says a lot of her words backward. Noz = song. Oosh = shoe. Weird, I know. In church yesterday when it was time to sing Chiara jumped up and yelled, "NOZ!!!!!" at the top of her little lungs. Eldon and I smiled exchanged one of those parental looks that say, "We are so going to miss this stage.")

Chiara has opinions about everything. She wants clips in her hair. Yellow on one side, pink on the other, and she can still tell you which side has which color that night before we take them out for bath time. She knows what dress she wants to wear to church. She knows which pens she wants to color with and which ones have to be removed from the table so she can create her masterpieces without distraction. She asks if we need refills on our water and rushes to the fridge to be the one who pushes the spout on the water dispenser. She pats my leg and asks me if I'm happy if I'm too quiet. She randomly announces that she's "happy now" ... as if to let me know that she hadn't been before that. She is confused by testimonies or talks at church when there are tears involved ... "Crying? Girl sad? Oh, happy now!" She'll think about a chore I've given her, like picking something up or taking something to her room, tilt her head, and then say, "OH ... okay!" 

(Of course she can't leave her doll behind ... even for swings.)

In short, she totally cracks us up. And there are so many, many things that, for the sake of the teen-aged girl she will be someday, I simply cannot mention in such a public forum. But she's hilarious.

She's in love with the movie Happy Feet. I have renewed it at the library a dozen times. She thinks penguins are the greatest animal God ever created, though when she shouts it out it definitely sounds more like an anatomy lesson than the word penguin ... if you know what I mean. The first time Eldon heard her say it the look on his face was priceless. I wished I'd filmed it. :) 

"Happy penguin!" (when he dances)

"Baby penguins!!" (when the eggs hatch)

"Lots of penguins!!!" (when the chicks are singing together)

"Mamma penguins!" (when the moms come back)

I wonder what our neighbors think. :) 

Oh, because it's been AFRICA hot and we've had every window open all day long. Bless the weather's heart for sending me some rain and cloud cover today. My heck in the whole world ... I hate being hot.

***

Today I was just drifting off to sleep after she'd been sleeping for about an hour when I woke up to a terrible sound. It was her pennies. She loves to play with pennies, so Eldon spent hours one time cleaning and bleaching a whole can of pennies for her to play with. Well, this morning she had insisted on putting all her pennies in her snow boot, and then she'd insisted on sleeping with that boot during her nap. I should have taken it off her bed after she fell asleep but I forgot. And the terrible noise that woke us both up was her pennies spilling off her bed, rushing against the wall on their way to the floor.

For the love. :)