My 3 year old is obviously having a tough day

Mom: "Rachel, what are you doing?"

Rachel: "Just playing."

(Mom looks out in the hallway and sees Rachel laying down on her tummy playing with some toys.)

Rachel: "Actually, I'm lying here miserably with my feet up."

Show and Tell

Things Rachel has brought to Show and Tell at preschool so far this year:

Purse Elephant
Baby Aurora
Disney Princess jewellery box
Nets from Elefun
Elefun (but she wouldn't let the teacher turn it on to try it since we'd told her it was a basement toy!)
A picture of an elephant that she coloured
The WWF-Canada brochure from which we chose our animal to "save"
Hebrew animal picture book (more importantly, she showed the elephant page)

Apparently the kids in her class now guess "elephant" for whatever Rachel brings in. (The teachers have the kids give hints as to what they brought.)

I'm always amused by what she chooses to bring in. Oh... and for those of you who "know" them, Rachel has once again decided that she no longer needs Olly and Phil. They were sent to our room to take a nap yesterday and she doesn't want them back. I suppose we should be grateful that they are still out in plain sight. Rachel has requested that we let Grry hibernate year-round, out of sight. I know that Ben and I are finding it much harder to let go of Olly & Grry than Rachel is!

Profound statements

Said to me at 6:19 this morning as she came down the hall:

"Mom! All that sleeping made me awake!"

Shopping with Daddy

Just as Ben was about to leave to go pick up Rachel at preschool, I saw an ad for dirt-cheap tux shirts at a store not too far from the school. I sent him with some snacks for Rachel so that they could go check out the store before coming home.

Rachel accompanied Ben to the change room and the following was heard after he took off his shirt:

"Dad, you have a LOT of hair on you!"

When we were talking just now, Rachel informed me that Ben also tried on pants and he had a lot of hair there too. She wanted to know why Daddy has so much hair.

The end result was that Ben got 2 nearly-new tux shirts and a gently used pair of tux pants for a total of $45 including tax! Considering that I'd figured on spending $45 just on ONE tux shirt, this was a great find indeed!

Tzedakah Take Two

We recently got some mail from WWF-Canada (World Wildlife Fund) asking people to help save various endangered species both in Canada and the rest of the world. There were pictures of each animal along with information about what needs to be done to help save them.

We asked Rachel if she would like to help save an animal & of course she jumped at the chance to save an elephant! The cost was $40, so we opened up her tzedakah box and got to work adding up all of the coins. She had $32.80 so we pilfered the rest from Daddy's wallet. Rachel helped me find the word "elephant" on the form where we needed to check off the animal that we wanted to save. She happily mailed off the letter & accompanied Ben to the bank where they deposited all of the coins.

She doesn't quite understand what the money will be used for though. She's been asking us if her money is there yet and if the elephant has run out of food yet. We did talk about how it would help elephants to be in safe places (no, poacher is not in her vocabulary yet!) and that was a good thing. So now Rachel is convinced that we have to keep saving elephants because we don't want them to run out of food or not have a safe place to live.

Ironically, when Rachel learned that the money would go to save an Asian elephant, she specifically requested a girl Asian elephant with no tusks. (Female Asian elephants do not have tusks.) However, the literature we were given indicated that the money would go to help stopping poachers and the ivory trade.

Rachel knows that she will be getting a letter soon saying that she helped save an elephant, but she doesn't know that WWF-Canada will also send her a plush elephant. I don't even want to think about how many elephants that will make! Some girls play with dolls. Mine plays with elephants.

Today Rachel was sad because her tzedakah box was empty. She told me that she wants to save an animal every day. Hehe. She's torn between saving a sea turtle or an orangutan next. We did give her some more coins to put in, but it will be awhile before there's enough to do anything again.

Random comments

Mom: "Rachel, stop eating your hair!"

Rachel: "But it makes me smarter!"

*************************************************************************************

Mom: "Rachel, what's wrong?"

Rachel: "My feelings are hurt. I need some ice for them."

*************************************************************************************

I'm attempting to refrain from blogging about today's adventures in "who needs a potty when you can squat down and pee on the floor" land. Oh. Wait. I will say that Rachel fluctuated between two extremes today. She took herself potty (when requested) three times and refused to let us help with anything. The rest of the day involved multiple outfit and bedding changes. If you're old enough to talk in full sentences, you are old enough to get OFF the bed in the morning instead of sitting there and calling "Mommy, Mommy!" and then peeing in your bed because Mommy was in a deep sleep and did not hear you calling until it was too late.

The answer is not 42.

Instead, the answer is 5:39. It could have been worse. When Rachel came into our room at 2:30 to go potty, I was worried that she'd think it was morning then! Thankfully she was easily convinced to go back to bed.

One day I will not have to worry about the toileting needs of other people

Until then, here's the current saga:

Rachel has been going through yet another phase of not telling us when she needs to go potty OR when she's already peed or pooped her pants. GRR.

This morning she was doing pretty well. After we dropped Ben off to adjudicate at Contemporary Showcase we headed for the mall to run some errands. As we were in line at Sears, I looked down at Rachel and saw "the look". I asked, and sure enough she needed to go. Fortunately, she hadn't gone yet, so we raced up the "magic stairs" (escalator) and made it to the bathroom in time! Yay!

As an aside, that was the first time that Rachel willingly went on an escalator without being carried. Apparently calling it magic stairs went over much better with her.

We got home a couple hours later after doing way too much grocery shopping. I suggested that Rachel use the bathroom and got this response:

"I've already went potty two times today. I think that's enough."

About 20 minutes later Rachel peed her pants. GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR. I'm aware that it's partially an attention-getting thing and partially something that SHE can control so she does, but this is getting ridiculous. About half an hour after she got changed (proving that she can indeed dress herself since I pretty much refuse to dress her after "accidents") she came in to me with another look on her face. Sure enough, she'd started to poop her pants but stopped just in time.

We had a very long discussion about telling Mommy and Daddy. She knows that we will not be mad if she tells us, even if she tells us after the fact. It's the not telling at all that is very frustrating. On a funny note, when I pointed out that she was putting on her last pair of clean underwear, Rachel asked me, "Will we not have underwear tomorrow then?"

And how ironic is it that Rachel can wake up 2-3 times per night to go potty yet she can't tell us during the day!??!? She fell asleep in the car tonight at 4:55pm and basically stayed asleep while we transferred her and changed her into her pjs. At about 7:15, I heard footsteps and crying. I ran upstairs to find poor Rachel sitting on our bed sobbing. I reassured her that I had just gone downstairs for a bit, took her potty, and put her back in bed. She still hadn't really opened her eyes or woken up.

I suppose that we should be rather afraid of what time she will surface for the day tomorrow.

Dr. Rachel strikes again

"Mom, is your uterus hurting you? Would you like some uterus lotion? Do you need a little or a lot?"

There are days when I regret teaching her the correct terms for body parts. Ah, for the good old days when she claimed to have a chicken in her crotch.

Read at own risk... (I can't help it if this one makes anyone cry)

It's been a rather long week around here. The day after my last blog post, Ben's Grandma Rae died. Rachel's been handling things really well all things considered, but for your "enjoyment" here is a sampling of the kinds of questions we've been answering and comments we've been hearing over the past few days:

"Why was it Bubbie Rae's turn to go?"

"Why did her body stop working?"

"Why are they putting that table in the ground?" (She thought the casket was a table, probably because it wasn't sitting on the floor at the funeral home.)

"Why are they putting dirt on top of it?" (Traditionally, family & friends will shovel dirt into the grave as a last act of respect. As Grandpa told Rachel, it's a mitzvah. And the rabbi explained it as being similar to putting a blanket over someone for the last time.)

"Even though I can't see Bubbie Rae anymore, I can still see Bubbie Faye, right?" (Yes, Rachel has been fortunate enough to enjoy not one but two great-grandmothers and a great-grandfather for over 3.5 years!)

"I want to thank God that we got to go and help say goodbye to Bubbie Rae."

"Why is Bubbie Rae in a special place?"

"Why did she die?"

"It's good that Bubbie Rae isn't hurting anymore. Is she not hurting anymore?"

"We can't see Bubbie Rae but we can still see her apartment!"

In true 3.5 year old style, these questions have been repeated over and over and over. We've related things a bit to Sasha the cat (one of Grandma & Grandpa's cats had to be put down this summer) and I think that a part of Rachel thinks that Bubbie Rae is somewhere petting Sasha right now. Sasha is purring and no-one is in pain anymore.

I'll be curious to see what other questions Rachel asks, but she seems to honestly understand what happened. She probably understands it better than the rest of us in some ways. It's refreshing to see her innocence at the same time as Ben and I try to answer her questions without breaking down ourselves.

Baruch atah Adonai eloheinu melech ha-olam dayan ha-emet. We'll miss you, Bubbie Rae, but we won't forget you.

Hebrew vocabulary by Rachel

At preschool, Rachel learns a lot of Hebrew words. Yesterday she was telling us how one of the teachers told her the Hebrew word for elephant but she couldn't remember what it was. We looked it up online and discovered that it was "peel" - this was very exciting for Rachel! I also found her an alef-bet colouring page with a "peel" on it to colour. In fact, Rachel coloured TWO "peels" and brought them in for show and tell today.

After preschool, Rachel asked me if we could print more alef-bet pages. I agreed, and she came upstairs to choose some new pages. One of her choices was the giraffe. After it came out of the printer, Rachel decided that the giraffe was sick, so it got moved to our bed where it could rest.

A little later, Rachel and I were having a mid-afternoon snuggle on the bed. I asked her how giraffe was doing and she announced that the giraffe was dead and would have to stay on the bed for a long time. She followed up with this question:

"How do you say dead giraffe in Hebrew?"

She eventually decided that "dead giraffe" is "glooboo" in Hebrew. However, when I asked her if she was going to check it with her teacher, she said that she would not ask her how to say "dead giraffe" in Hebrew. I suppose that's a good thing.

Anyway, that's an example of how our days are going over here. Of course, the poor kid was also asking if I thought that the mice from our backyard were in their new home yet. (No, she is not familiar with the term "exterminator"!) We also said goodbye to our pumpkins last night. Rachel thinks that they're going to the Retired Pumpkins Pumpkin Patch. She initially wondered if they could come back in the spring when it got warmer but I explained that we would simply pick new pumpkins next fall. I suppose that one day we'll have to actually admit where some of these things are going, but I'm not ready for that discussion yet! Rachel would not have taken kindly to throwing out her carefully decorated pumpkins. Oh well. I'll tell her the truth about Santa Claus if that comes up. ;)

Diction is important.

We've recently gotten Rachel interested in listening to (kid) CDs in the car again. She loves one of the Kindermusik CDs because it has an elephant song on it. This morning Rachel was discussing the various versions of songs on our CDs. She doesn't quite pronounce "version" correctly though - here's what came out:

"After every virgin there's a crazy dance."

Yes, that's our kid!

Malloween

No, that's not a typo. We ended up going to Malloween last night for about an hour. Rachel was very excited to walk around the mall dressed up as an elephant. She was very good at saying "Trick or treat," taking the candy and even remembering to say "Thank you!" She also did elephant noises on request, thus ensuring that everyone in the mall thought she was extremely adorable. My favourite encounter of the evening took place at the Hallmark card store. We walked in and the three older lady employees started commenting on how they'd seen "him" (ok, gender is probably not obvious under a fleece elephant suit) in the mall and hoped that the elephant would come into their store. The elephant merited extra pieces of Hershey's Dark Chocolate at that store. Go, elephant!

Three cheers for the stomach flu!

Thanks to the stomach flu that took over my system at about 5:30 this morning, I have been subsisting on ice cubes and not much else. Oh joy, oh bliss. My only consolation is that if it's what Rachel had, she was done with it pretty quickly. I guess we'll see whether or not I get to play Mozart's Requiem on Saturday night. It would be rather appropos to play it while feeling like I'm on death's doorstep though. (Amadeus, anyone!?)