Alisonisms

Ali was a great little trooper this weekend. We'd planned to go to the movies, make cookies, decorate the tree, shop a little, get our nails done.... but I got seriously sick and was in bed the whole weekend. I thought I was recovering and tried to help her with the cookies but thought I'd lose mine. It was terrible. But she didn't complain.

Jeff had planned to focus on a big case he's got, but he ended up helping with her -- a lot -- and taking care of me. They were both troopers.

Anyway, here's a collection of Alisonisms:

We were putting up the tree tonight (finally!)and Alison, still a believer, turned to me and casually informed me that Jimmy Vielee doesn't believe in Santa Clause. "And Jordan believes in the postal service."

***

I was combing through Alison's snarls, I mean curls, and I suggested that maybe we do something different with her hair. Lately she's wanted the "wild" look, which is no barrette, no even partial pony tail or braid. "No way, Mom." she said.

I asked her why -- she'd let me do whatever I wanted to before.

"I was more reasonable in the 1st grade," she said.

***

Ali came home with lots of papers in advance of our trip to Camp Tecumseh. On the last one, she added a little editorial note for me: No snaks. (translation: no snakes. She does love me.)

Speaking of snakes, we were struggling through some homework the other day. She didn't really want to do it and wasn't focused and couldn't come up with an answer as to why the author of Coyote Magic had wanted readers to learn from little Charlie's (I don't remember his name) angst about dogs and how the story had helped him.

I suggested that maybe Charlie had been so intrigued by the story of how the coyote had stolen fire for the villagers that it made him like the coyote a little bit, and that when he met the coydog he thought maybe it was a little bit like the coyote he liked and that when the coydog was soft to touch and wouldn't hurt him that maybe he'd learn to like all dogs.

"What do you think?" I asked.

"I think maybe you could learn a little lesson about how to like snakes," she said.

***

And finally, Alison had been totally freaked out about having to perform when she had to pretend to be a saint and give a little performance in the school gym as people walked around. She overcame it, though, with some great help from Miss Lawson, her teacher, and little support from home. She did just fine as Saint Elizabeth Seton.

A little while later, the Awesome Miss Lawson (Ali LOVES her and we do, too) asked me if I thought she'd be ok to do a speaking part when Class 3B led the Mass. I said I thought we should try it out.

She did it today, and Miss Lawsom reported that she'd done fabulously. Ali and I had talked about it for about a week and this morning, I asked her how she was feeling about it.

She wasn't worried at all. I asked her why she wasn’t – compared to the museum piece. She said, and I quote:

“Three reasons. 1. It’s a million times shorter; 2. I can read from this piece of paper right here; 3. I’ve done it before.”