Squishy Belle

I’ve had to do it–I’ve put the writing on a moratorium and am knitting as often as possible. I’ve forgotten how liberating that is… and how refreshing to the ol’ cranium. I’ll be SO ready to write again as soon as Christmas has come and gone. I’ve even let an extra day come and go between blogging–but that was mostly due to falling asleep in front of the television when my blog moment came… and staying asleep as it went!

But what can I say? It’s Christmas, the semester has ended, and I feel inclined to celebrate another semester of survival–huzzah for me, I didn’t kill any one. (Although I was tempted to kill a few people, especially when I caught another kid STEALING SOMEONE ELSE’S WORK to put his name on it! It’s a good thing guns aren’t legal on campus.) Let’s just say I treated myself to some yarn and quiet knitting time today–it was awesome, but it wasn’t enough. Hopefully I’ll remember pictures, because I’ve done some pretty cool stuff so far–and if the glubs actually get completed by Christmas eve, I think they’ll be awesome.

So, about mama’s Squishy Belle… Squishy Belle is Ladybug’s other nickname… it’s the one that I call her most often when I’m kissing her plump little cheeks or her squishy little tummy, and I’ve got to tell you, she’s living up to every bit of delight and despair a two year old can dish out. Are you ready for some examples?

Every morning Squishy Belle comes out of her room and says, “Look, mama–my Christmas Tree!” And then she goes behind the chair and plugs in the lights. “Merry Christmas, mama!” We never showed her how to plug in the lights. She saw her father do it. Once.

The other day, she was sitting on my lap and I was watching The Day After Tomorrow–the part where the rabid wolves were attacking Our Hero, Jake. “Look, mama!” she exclaimed, pointing to the screen and clapping her hands. “Poodles!”

“Poodles?” I said, surprised. “Those are poodles?”

“Yup!”

“Well that settles it, Squish–if you can’t tell the difference between a poodle and a wolf, I’m not letting you outside again, EVER!”

Of course her older sister was cracking up, but I’ve got dirt on all the kids, so I clued her in. “Go ahead and laugh, Chicken–when you were this age, you saw a truckload of fish spill out on the road in Kangaroo Jack and told us all, ‘Look! Semen!’.

Chicken laughed harder. “Semen?”

“You know, instead of ‘salmon’?”

“Well, at least I was close!”

“Yeah, yeah, you know a swimmer when you see one–you may possibly go outside by yourself before eighteen.” She thought this was more than fair.

And finally…

This morning, Squishy was in line for gymnastics, and her teacher, JoAnna, was standing in front of her. JoAnna’s sort of a gruff woman–the kids adore her, but she prides herself on not being manipulated by cute little kids, and at this moment, she was dealing with a fractious little girl, so she had her game face on and her hands in her pockets and her shoulders hunched because she wasn’t gonna take this little hellion’s crap and we all knew it.

Then I noticed what Squishy Belle was doing.

She had her hands in her pockets and her shoulders thrust forward, and her lower lip jutted out.

“Psst… JoAnna…” JoAnna looked up and I gestured to Squishy. “She’s trying to be just like you!”

And that did it. JoAnna grinned, picked up Squish and kissed her Squishy little cheek… because she’s not just my Squish sometimes, and she knows it.