My Two Daughters

I love the fact that I am able to spend so much time with my kids.  Since I work from home most days, I get to see them far more often than most of my friends do.  Our toddler is changing quickly from a baby to a little girl, and my six-year old will soon be seven.

Recently, our toddler Abby has discovered a method to get what she wants that is very effective. 

She will ask to be picked up, usually by saying, "Pick up my Abby."

When you pick her up, she will cradle your face in her little hands and say, "Do you want candy?" while smiling. 

The first natural response for any normal human is, "No, do YOU want some candy?" 

"YES!!!!!" she will exclaim gleefully, of course while still cuddling on you.

By then, you are trapped into providing said candy.

The other wonderful new saying that she has developed is a simple "OW!"  She utters this whenever you are doing anything that she doesn't really want you to do, such as wiping her face or restraining her from going into the street or just picking her up if you are trying to leave the grocery store.  She learned this one from her older sister Aleah, because Abby likes to sit on Aleah, or pull her hair, or grab her glasses off of her face.  She has heard it enough times now that she figures this is simply what one says when you are touching them and they don't want to be touched right then.

You can imagine the looks that this one gets us when we are in public, as it probably appears as though we are hurting our beautiful little girl unnecessarily. 

"Come here, Abby.  It's time to go (picking her up)."

"OW Daddy OW!  OW!     OW!     OW!"

I have never felt so guilty for doing nothing in my whole life.  The first time it happened, I was holding her upside down, which made me think I had honestly hurt her somehow.  We rather quickly determined that she is not injured in any way, especially since she never cries while saying it.

For a six-year old child, Aleah appears to be an incredible speller and she has an awesome memory for letters and names.  She clearly inherited our spelling bee gene.  My wife went to the National Spelling Bee in Washington, DC when she was in middle school, whereas I only came in third in our district (the top two went to the citywide competition).  My achilles heel was the word "rambunctious".  I still remember the heat of tears on my face when I lost.

At any rate, the other day Aleah asked me to help her login to one of her online computer games.  She knew the password and username, but needed help with the underscore on the keyboard.  It surprised me a little that her password contained an underscore, but I was even more surprised when I realized that it had THREE underscores.  It was something like, "g_ingittle_hzx_r".  I kid you not. 

It made me realize that my children will far surpass me in computer knowledge in the next several years, as I am moving at a dinosaur's pace and they are lightning-quick.  When Aleah casually used the word "avatar" at dinner the other day, I knew that I was officially getting old.

Thanks for your time reading this one!