My kid is awesome.

I have been too tired/busy/crazy/etc. to write lately, so I am finally sitting down to do one huge laundry list of funnies.  Here it is.

1.  During prayers the other night, Rivers said at the beginning of her turn, "Dear God, thank you for Jesus and the Aggies."

2.  While in her crib, avoiding the dreaded afternoon nap, Rivers sometimes screams.  I ignore the screaming; she just doesn't want to take a nap.  She must have figured out I was ignoring her because ever so softly, over the monitor, I hear, "Momma, I have a cake for you..."  Does my kid know me or what?

3.  The other day, while visiting Aunt Rachel and Uncle Crockett's house, Rivers had handed a toy microphone to Chisum.  It plays a song when the button is pressed.  Using Chisum's finger, she presses the button and begins to walk away.  Chisum turns it off, and IMMEDIATELY, Rivers about-faced and marched back to turn it on again, telling him in a fairly self-important voice, "I'll turn this back on."  This happened 4 or 5 times, and each time, the same result using Chisum's finger to press the button.

4.  Chisum and I were talking at the dinner table the other night, and I said, "Well, that's one way to skin a cat."  To which Rivers replied, "Where's Tubby?"

5.  Chisum and Rivers watched Elf on Saturday while I was grocery shopping, and Chisum, being the great daddy that he is, explained to Rivers once more about Santa Claus and how he travels around the world all in one night to bring presents to good little boys and girls.  Rivers told him, "That's so nice of him to do that for me!"

6.  Rivers told me yesterday that her tiny stuffed penguin was tired and needed to take a nap.  I didn't think anything of it until I went into her room, the door of which she had closed, to find the penguin, covered gently with a blanket from Riv's bed, laying in the floor with the lights off.  If only she would view her own naps that way.

7.  Rivers likes music.  If you are unaware of this, you don't know my kid very well.  She has a framed Nirvana poster on the wall in her room, as well as a t-shirt.  She identifies anything from them whenever it's on.  In my car she always requests Justin Townes Earle, Foo Fighters, The Gaslight Anthem, or Horrible Crowes.  She sings along too.  "Momma, is this the sha-la-la song?" Chisum has just introduced her to Tom Waits.  She's a fan.  So, anyway, she'll pick up her guitar every now and then and play and sing.  The most recent is "They killed John Henry, they killed John Henry but they won't kill me."  It's that over and over again with a strum here and there.  I've got to find this kid a piano.

8.  On Saturday night, as I was making dinner, Rivers came into the kitchen (barely) carrying Tubby and telling him he should "NEVER get in cars with people he doesn't know."  Good advice.

9. Tonight, before prayers, I told Rivers, "Go to your room and get ONE book, and we can read it after prayers."  She ran halfway down the hall, stopped, came back a few feet and asked, "One book or TWO?" in her best "I know how I can make this even better" voice.

10.  Also, lately, she has been enamored with the slogan, "SC Johnson, a family company."  I hear this numerous times each day.  If the TV is on, and one of those commercials comes on, she cracks up laughing. I have no idea why this is so funny.

11.  Rivers seems to be fascinated with our pockets.  I found a ruler in mine the other day.  She had stuck one of those clear, flimsy ones into my back pocket while I was unloading the dishwasher.  She also always gets into our pockets and pulls out "cheese" or some other ridiculous item.  (Please understand we do not actually have cheese in our pockets.  It is imaginary cheese she finds.)

Just a few things I actually remembered and could share.  Chisum and I are as fine as we can be seeing each other only 4 days a week.  He's working hard and we're missing each other.  It's a good thing we have all of this technology.  I don't think I could go all that long and not know how he's doing.  I'm going to substitute orientation training on Wednesday, so I can work a little here and there to make some extra cash and get out of the house for a bit.  Probably only a couple of days or so a month, depending on the situation. I hope next time to keep up the blogging a bit better.  We'll see...