Out of the mouths. . .

A few cute stories before I forget. . .

1. One day in the parking lot at school Spencer was showing me his new bracelet. It was black and white beads. Since they were working on the letter "Z" this week, it was zebra-like. He was telling us as we were walking to the car, "Miss Caffy told me not to take it off or I will lose my beads." Jessa didn't skip a beat, and she replied very dramatically, "Well, I guess you'll have to keep it on for the rest of your life."

2. That night for supper we had (at Jessa's request) bacon and eggs and grits and toast. Their favorite part is the bacon. I have to keep the bacon plate away from them or they eat it all and nothing else. Jessa refused her toast because she did not ask for toast. Spencer, my good eater, always eager to please was just eating away at his plate. After a while, Jessa asked to be excused. Spencer was still eating. After a little while longer, he handed David a bite of crust from his first piece of toast. We thought, how precious, he is sharing. Then he picked up his last piece of toast, which happened to be the last bit of food on his plate. Then he grinned and turned to me and said, "Mommy, look, I cleaned my plate!" Bless his heart, he aims to please!

3. This next one may not sound as funny as it was, but I want to write it down anyway. . . After supper one night, Jessa decided that they were going to play some sort of diner thing. She was like the waitress, I guess, and he was like the cook. So she is on one side of my chair and he is behind it. She keeps hollering back behind her (in her thickest Southern Country fake accent she has), "I need some carrots and some broccoli. I need a tuna fish and some chicken." I guess she is placing her customers orders for them. Spencer has a stack of plastic bowls and is passing them to her after each order she hollers back to him. He is not saying a word.

After a minute, she looks in a bowl full of the pretend food that Spencer, the cook, has fixed and sighs and says, "They don't want it fried!" And hands it back to him. So the he fixes the pretend food again and gives it to her. She again, screams, "Not Fried! My customers don't want it fried!" This goes on for several minutes. He tried to fix the pretend, imaginary, invisible food the way she (and her customers) want it, but he is simply not doing it to suit her. I was contemplating intervening on his behalf when he figured out what she wanted. My sweet, smart boy got a bowl ready and as he handed it up to Jessa, he screamed, "NOT FRIED!" She smiled and still with the accent yells, "Not fried!" as she hands it to her pretend customer. Bless his heart! He "gets her" when no one else does. . . The rest of the time they spent playing, every time he handed her a bowl, he would say, "Not fried." And she was pleased as punch!

4. I have been telling them about the move and saying, "We are moving to Scott Air Force Base in Illinois." One afternoon, I was saying something to someone else about the move and Jessa said, "You mean to Scott?" I smiled proudly and said, "Yes, ma'am! You remembered where we are going!" And she said, "Oh yeah, I got it up here in my brain brain." I said, "What?!" She said, "Yeah, I have two brains so that helps me remember things better."

5. We were getting ready to go to over to the home of some of our college friends who happen to be here at Ft. Stewart. Jessa picked out a dress. She picked out shoes. She picked out socks. She told me how she wanted her hair fixed. She put on her best Barbie Pearl necklace. She found an Iraqi scarf that David sent her. She put on lip gloss. And she came to ask me how she looked. I told her she looked great. She said, "Well, I want to be the most fashionable person there. Do you think I look fashionable enough?" I told her she did. And when we arrived at our friend's house, they agreed!