It just started out of the blue. Rock started saying: "Mom, Mom... It's 10 o'clock. Time a-go-a zoo!" Funny thing was, I had just decided that I was going to take him sometime in the next week. So, it worked out well. We went one sunny morning to the Houston zoo. It was really a chance to be with Rock on his own terms and we had a great time. Ever since then, he has been praying like this: "...bless Dad-a-come home, and we can go a-zoo." Every night.
My zoo pass expires Friday. I think I can answer his prayers one more time if I hurry.
Another day: driving in the car to dance class. Elle and I are talking about how Rock really wants to take a dance class too. She says "Well, it's ok if Rock takes a dance class -- he is going to be a 'girly-boy' anyway... with all his sisters and everything."
From his car seat Rock yells -- totally incensed: "I NOT GIRLY-BOY! I ROCK!" I don't think he has any idea what "girly-boy" means. But it struck an intuitive chord with him. He is not that!
Sometimes we talk about nicknames in our family. Elle likes to list them. Elle can be "Els" or "Elle-McMonkey-McBean" or "Jumprope" or lately we just say "Harry Potter" so we can get her attention!
Ava --- is "Ava-lou" or "A-V-A" (Elle just spells it) or "Sweet-tooth". We never call Ava "Sweet-tooth" but it truly defines one of her major motivations in life. She is always thinking to the next treat, or sweet! So, we are driving to dance (a great place for conversation apparently), Elle is asking me questions from a stack of cards with trivia about different prophets. (She loves it because she can stump me 90% of the time and she gets great pleasure from that.) Along comes the question: "How many wives did Brigham Young have and how many children?" Elle laughs. "What? That's silly..." Then she reads the answer. "2 wives and 25 children!!!!" Now it is my great 'opportunity' to tell them some sort of explanation about polygamy. Elle says something about how she is glad she doesn't have to be married like that. To which Ava responds in all seriousness, "When I get married, I'm going to have 2 husbands!" Elle chuckles. Then Ava says "Actually, I'm just going to buy gum." You have to appreciate the magnitude of that idea :)
And now about Elle. Bless her sweet heart. She loves her teacher, thank goodness, but hasn't found a kindred-spirit friend yet. She had a hard day where the girls she was trying to be friends with formed a club and told her she had to answer 10 questions to see if she could make it into the club. So they all stood around her firing questions at her. The kind of questions you can't ever get right because they can change their minds. "What is our favorite color?" on and on... until the last question. #10 "What is our favorite dog? We will give you a hint. It starts with 'p'."
Elle cried when she told me. "I should have known! But I was just so flustered... I said 'poodle'! but it was pug!" What did the girls do then? They said "Sorry, you can't be in our club." and they left Elle standing there.
Yes, here is where you cry!
But Elle is plucky. The next day she started her own club. "The dolphin club" She got a few members for a day or two. Then on Thursday some of the girls quit to go play with other friends. So Elle said that she decided that now her club has a holiday on Thursdays. It is called "Quitting day." Everyone can quit on Thursdays and play something else and come back on Friday.
I thought that was a pretty good lemonade she made from those lemons. She'll be ok. Nice girls have the hardest time of it. It won't ever be easy for her because she is nice and sweet. But she is smart, and plucky... and she will be fine.
