From the Mouth of Helen Grace

The best $1 that Granddaddy has ever spent. Isn’t this how you feel at 7 a.m. on Monday morning?!

When I asked Helen Grace what happened on Easter, she said, “On Easter, Jesus came out of dead, and he goes in my heart.”

She saw a cute kitten video and said, “Oh, that’s cute to death!”

We ran into a classmate and her mom at Yolo, and she asked HG how old she was. “I’m 4, but my mama wants me to stay this size forever.”

HG was pulling the ends of my long, flowy shirt up around her head. I said, “You look like Aunt Jemima!” She said, “Who is ‘ain’t your mama’?!”

We left a restaurant one night when John and I each had our own cars. I suggested she ride with Daddy, and she squealed, “Yay!! So we can talk!!”

HG has figured out a way to make us both happy- to fulfill my wish for her to stop growing and to fulfill her wish of having chocolate for breakfast. "Fill me up with sweets, and I'll stop growing."

“This show really funnies me out!”

Leaving a party for baby Rebecca last weekend, she told me, “That party was super duper fun. The best part was helping Camille.”

As I tried to sneak out from under her in bed one night, she sleepily grabbed my hand and said, “I never want you to go.”

“Everyone [‘s body] is a cross because we come from Jesus.”

She asked me, “How old are you?” When I told her I was 33, she said, “Ok, I have to remember that for school.” Obviously, she was working on her Mother’s Day questionnaire.

She told me the other day that the kitties were “doing their business.”

“How could anyone say ‘no’ to chocolate?”

On the way to school, she looked up at the clouds and said, “Looks like a cold front is coming in!”

“Everyone looks beautiful if they have a kind heart.” (We are trying to distinguish between people being outwardly pretty and inwardly beautiful.)

To a guy in traffic that cut us off- “Well, boo on him!”

She and I were in a heated discussion about how she wanted to sleep across the foot of the bed, while I wanted her to sleep with her head on the pillow. She told me, “My heart’s telling me I need to sleep at the bottom of the bed.” For the record, she slept with her head on the pillow.

In bed on Sunday night, she asked me, “Do I get to go to school tomorrow?” When I said yes, she screamed, “Yayyyy!”

“Google knows everything.” When I asked her what Google was, she said, “It’s a website that knows things you don’t know.”

After the world’s longest day today, she told me, “I’ve been waiting for bedtime my whole life.”

And three other points of interest…

• Snapping: She came out of school one Friday snapping. Lilah apparently said something about how her sister was 8 and couldn’t snap, and that spurred the entire class to start trying to snap. She’s been close lately, but that day she was really finally snapping. She played soccer that night snapping, she snapped the whole way through dinner, and ultimately, she created a BLISTER on her middle finger from SNAPPING. She was *not* happy to be held back from perfecting her new talent for a bit while her finger healed.
• End of Year Conference:  We had our end of year parent-teacher conference last week. Again, Mrs. Gossett explained that she had ‘blossomed’ so much this year. Her motor skills have exploded, she is the one that the teachers can count on to comfort a friend, and she plays well with the whole class (she couldn’t even pinpoint a best friend because she flits between everyone). She is starting to read and will be well prepared for SK next year. We couldn’t be more proud.
• The Dreaded Shots:  On Saturday morning, she woke up and said, “I want to get my 5 year old shots today.” At her 4 year old check up, I told her she could go ahead and get them over with, but she refused and wanted to stick it out for another year. She’s even been a bit resistant at times about turning 5 because she knew the shots were coming. So after I picked my mouth up off the ground on Saturday, I called the doctor’s office but found no open appointments. This morning, I did find one opening on Monday afternoon at 2:30, so I checked her out of school a bit early and had sweet tea and ice cream (and Tylenol) waiting for her in the car. Of course, when she saw me, she was confused why I was picking her up early. I took a deep breath and told her I thought we could get those shots over with since she was ready, and she said, “Oh, goodie, let’s go.” I was shocked but rolled with it. Her positive attitude kept going through the car ride, waiting room, exam table, and until the first needle hit her arm. Then the silent tears started. When the second and third shot came, so did the crocodile tears and “Ooowwie!”’s. She was still crying as I carried her out to the car, but she soon pulled it together, although she wasn’t terribly happy. By the time we got home though, she was laughing a bit and wearing her Bandaids like badges of honor. Within 30 minutes of being home, she was exercising with me and playing like nothing had happened. SO. GLAD. THAT. IS. OVER. (Until she’s 12, anyway.) And while we were playing outside, these friends came up to say hi…

Our lake is full of ducklings and goslings this spring. Our neighbor has counted as many as 17 ducklings, and we spotted three goslings on our walk tonight.