28 January 2016

The Big Five.

Well, it's been two years since my last post.  Ha!  This is a compilation of thoughts in no particular order or with any writing skill.

My little Apricot just turned five.  FIVE!  I made her a pinata cake for her birthday, and she just loved it.  When she cut it and the jelly beans spilled out, her face was pure happiness!

Obviously Apricot has grown (very much!) since her Last Day of Two.
She reads now.  Like, full-blown will read the instructions on her school work reads.  She's been reading like that for at least six months.  It's so cool to hear her reading signs in the back seat of the car as we drive.  Not so cool (but funny!) when she reads my texts as they ding on my phone.

We are homeschooling her, and she is (and has been) doing first grade work.  Most days she does her work easily and without complaint.  We were doing Spanish for a bit, but have since stopped for no reason other than lack of discipline and consistency from me.  She loved it and was really picking it up!

She is still an only child, and we are wondering what God has in store for us in that department.  Foster/adopt?  New baby born?  Both?  Neither?

She is a silly, caring, generous, sweet-hearted little girl who loves to get dressed up.  She loves dresses and heels and jewelry and scarves and anything girly.  She walks better in heels than her mother.  No joke.

She has a 10-month-old, 70 pound puppy who pulled her on the sled in the snow the other day.  That was super fun.  :)  We kept telling her she was the luckiest girl in all the land.

She talks about God and Jesus endlessly.  My Momma heart is so warmed by this.  She is always singing or dancing or playing something musical.  She knows how to play Joy to the World on the piano.

She is always asking us to play with her.   Most recently it's been "cops and robbers" or "Mary and Joseph".

Her pretend name is Rose, and her husband's name is Joe.  Their last name is Flower, and they have six children:  Ally, Lisa, Rachel, Aiden, Chase and Sil-o-brit.  (She just told me they had two more!  Lily and Jack.)  They also have a few dogs:  Al-o-ZEET-uh-no-MY-nee, Niffy, Rose and Rosalina.  And a cat named Fuchsia.  She comes up with this stuff all on her own and sticks to it like glue.  She's been Rose married to Joe for so long now that it's just the norm.  I'm her sister, Jane.  My husband's name is Amberson, and our last name is Cece.  We have a bunch of kids too:  Apricot, Clementine, Arrington, Anakin and Olive.

In real life, Apricot wants to marry a boy from church.  His last name begins with 'Z'.  We'll see what happens with that.  :)  His family is very nice, and I am hopeful he will turn out to be a wonderful man.  Who knows if anything will ever come about with it though, because she refuses to talk to him!  I told her I didn't want to hear her talking ABOUT him, unless she was going to talk TO him.  We talk about him a lot.  And there is a store and brand with his same name, so she sees his name fairly often.

Even though she is five and two days, she is still my little Nomma Cakes.  She is so sweet and soft and tender.

When we were doing her Advent calendar, sometimes she would get a couple of small treats each day.  Like jelly beans or chocolate chips.  She would ALWAYS offer Oak or me the first one.  That kindness blew us away.

She still sleeps with her animals:  Piggy, Bunny, Seal, Hare, Sven and Cherry.  Although, recently she's not been wanting Cherry in the bed.
Not that long ago she discovered the baby monitor (yes, we still use one) and I heard her talking through it to Piggy.  Telling him to lay down and whatnot.  haha

We are discovering that artificial colors and caramel coloring make her a complete crazy pants.

One of my favorite things about Apricot is her easy forgiveness.  She always says she'll always forgive me, and I say good!  because I'll always need your forgiveness!

This past year we cut off 10" each of our hair and donated it.  It was much needed for both of us.  Thankfully Oak and I seemed to mourn the loss of her hair more than she did.  Her hair was so long that it was past her tush.  but it was her baby hairs, so it was a little stringy.  I didn't realize how stringy, though, until it wasn't stringy anymore!  Speaking of hair, hers is still a beautiful reddish color.  copper?  strawberry blonde?  red?  orange?  I'm not really sure, but I know I love it.  And I hope it never changes.  She wants to dye it.

She calls a rash "radish".  She says "commission" instead of permission.  She calls a thief "feef".  She says "mistaking" instead of mistaken.  She thinks because is "pecause".  I correct her on some things, but I refuse to correct her on any of these.

She has enlarged adenoids that she and her Daddy have painstakingly learned to flush with the "nose squeezy".  It was a process.  A long, drawn-out, everybody hates it, lots of tears process.  But they both put in lots of hard work and do her nose thing nightly to clear out her sinuses.  It's either this or surgery, and we don't want to do surgery.  Adenoids shrink as a child grows, so hopefully this will be her worst years with it.  They started being inflamed fall 2014 and stayed inflamed until spring or so.  They started again this past fall and haven't quit yet.  We have her 5-year-old check up tonight with the doctor.  We missed her 4-year-old one.  We are hoping for a good report, and that she doesn't have to get too many shots!  Oak told me that he wants to take her to Chick-Fil-A afterward.

Also in Fall 2014, we took her to the doc for this adenoid issue when we didn't know it was the adenoids, and she ended up getting RSV!  I have since sworn her against playing with any of the toys anywhere we go, poor kid.

Just the other day I noticed a sprinkling of a few very light freckles across her nose and cheeks.

She hates jeans.  HATES.

She is very dramatic and sometimes has an attitude.  We tell her she needs to ask God to change her heart.

She loves fruit.  Frozen cherries are her favorite.

She asks the most direct questions.  The put-you-on-the-spot kind.  The there's-nothing-to-say-but-the-truth-because-anything-else-would-be-a-lie kind.

We had such a fun time last night shopping for her jelly-bean-themed birthday party.  We bought a pinata.  This should be fun.  Or disastrous, either or.  She wanted spiders to go inside "so that when they fall out, Daddy would fall down".  Daddy hates spiders.

Apricot still lets me rock her a bit in my arms at night when I'm saying goodnight.  I tell her she is my favorite girl in all the land.

She sometimes says things I can't hear and I ask what?  And she says nothing for Momma's to know.  Then I tell her it's all for Momma's to know and then she tells me.

She is the joy in my day, the spring in my step.  She is unknowingly my accountability partner.  She is my delight, and she makes me want to be a better person.  I am so thankful God made me her Momma.  I point to Him all day long (or try to) (or better yet, pray the Holy Spirit does it for me and in me) so that she sees Him and his goodness and lives for HIM.  He is what matters most.

We have lots of talks about God and Jesus and Heaven and Hell.  And how it doesn't matter if you're a good person or not.  She knows there are people in Hell, and she knows Satan hates her.  She knows that the only way to get to Heaven is by having a right relationship with God through Jesus Christ.  She knows that Jesus' blood covers her sins and that she is seen as perfect in God's eyes BECAUSE of what Jesus did for her.

She has talked to more people about Jesus than I would have ever dreamed.  And they listen.  And I love it.

I just read this post to her and asked her if she had anything to add.  She said yes.  Here it is:
I am getting to love Jesus more.
It is so important that I love Jesus.
Jack is learning how to talk actually now.
Rachel lost her mind.  She fell down and scraped her head, and she thinks that is losing her mind.  When it was all bandaged up, she lost her mind and started laughing.
I like kitties and I want one.  And if we get one, we'll name him Pimento.