Annie's Gangham Style Dad

Some kids have imaginary friends who like tea parties in princess gowns.  Annie likes tea parties and dressing up like a princess, but her imaginary friend doesn't:  his name is Gangham Style Dad, and he is a pudgy Korean rock star.  He wears sunglasses and dances like he's riding a horse...

The thing about Gangham Style Dad is that he is sooooo much cooler than her real parents.  Whenever we tell her "No, you can't have candy for dinner" or "Sorry, sweety, but you don't need a new toy today," she pouts and says, "My Gangham Style Dad would let me."  I also hear that he lives in a huge house with a pool and it's made out of candy, and....and it's fun there.  Oh, and there's no bedtime either.  

Annie's imaginary friend Psy

It's really embarrassing when she starts singing, "Hey....sexy lay-day" at the top of her lungs and dancing gangham style in respectable places like the Dr's office or grocery store (read: not Wal-mart).  I just look people straight in the eye and say, "What?   Your kid doesn't have an imaginary Dad?"  

Ty was a little offended at first, since he's not imaginary and also super fun, but it's hard to have bad feelings toward Annie for long because she is so dang cute. She just smiles her little smile and says, "Daddy, I want you to put me to bed tonight,"  and it's all better.

Annie running around crazy at Target

Annie is our hipster child, I guess.  Even when she first learned to talk, she was quick to pick up on kid slang. Last year she went through a phase where no matter what you said to her, she would reply: "Not funny.  Not funny at all."  

One day I said, "What do you want for breakfast, Annie?"

She glanced casually in my direction and replied, "Cool.  That sounds fun."

Less cool is how she's really taken to the "Bloody Mary" story.  Some lame kid showed her a Google video of Bloody Mary and she's never stopped talking about it since.  It's totes presh when Moms call to tell me that their little girl came home asking who Bloody Mary is after playing with Annie for an hour.  Yes!  Mom of the Year right here.  I can't wait till I get "the call" in a few years from her school- the one after she beats up a kid for messing with her big sister.

Annie with food on her face...

She's not all macabre and Korean rock loving, though.  She's got the whole sugar and spice package:  she brings us all joy every day with her cute little personality.  One time I found her trying to pick up three pairs of my shoes at once.

"MOM!..." -labored breathing- "I need help!"

I don't know what I was thinking, but I just said, "why?"

"Because I'm trying to be like Jesus."  

After I carried them to her room for her, she sat down on her little step stool and tried on all three pairs of shoes.

She's just a funny kid.  I love her so much.

Memory Lane

When Alli was born I started not one, but two baby books.  They had places for me to record the dates of all her "firsts" and fill in the blanks of sentences like, "Baby's favorite books are______ and Baby loves to________," alongside glued in pictures.  I had a really hard time filling out those generic sentences, but I kept my shoulder to the wheel because I loved my new daughter and wanted to do the Mother-thing right.  Alas, once Maddie and Annie came along I had already thrown out the rule book, and no baby books will be forthcoming...  Instead, I've tried to write little snapshots of their life.  It isn't as thorough as I'd like, but I hope they know I love them all the same.  Here is an apology for time lost and an anthology of conversation snippets I recorded last year:

Since my girls love to pretend, I'll start with a couple in that vein.  Over the past few months, even Annie's learned the lingo, which happens to all my girls at about t-minus 3 1/2 years old.  I've observed that to initiate a pretend game, you have to first set the stage for the players, assign parts, and use a lot of past perfect conjugations like, "So pretend I was the monster and you were scared..." In fact, at breakfast this morning Annie said, "pretend you were my mom, and I was your baby?" said in the characteristic valley girl uptalk used to initiate a game.  I replied, "Um, I don't have to pretend.  I already am?"  I recorded the following two conversations from car rides during the beginning of 2012.

      "Pretend we were teenagers...?" Alli began.
      "Ok, pretend I was getting married to Batman," Maddie replied.
      "We're teenagers, Maddie.  We're too young to get married."
      After thinking for a minute, Maddie finally said, "Fine.  Pretend I was getting married... tomorrow."
      This was enough to totally derail the game.  Alli was ticked.  "MADDIE! You can't just get married.  You have to date and date each other first."
      I have a feeling I'll hear this exact conversation again in 20 years.

      Another day, Maddie started the game with: "Let's pretend you're the Mom, and I live in an orphanage with Anne."
      This time I couldn't help interjecting, "why are you in an orphanage if you have a Mom?"
      "You aren't our Mom yet.  You have to come buy us." (What a lovely commentary on adoption.)
      Alli got involved at this point, and there was some disagreement about who was going to play what, so Maddie had to amend her original plan. She tried again with, "Pretend I'm 16, and I have a purse...because I'm big enough."
   
My girls are really intrigued by orphanages for some reason.  I tried to tell them that kids in orphanages have to scrub floors all day and don't get toys, but that only lead to them scrubbing our floor while singing "it's a hard knock life..."  Just call me Miss Hannigan.

      On another day in October, Maddie was again pondering marriage.
      "I can see my future, Mom," she said, seriously.
      "Oh, really?" I laughed.  "What do you see?"
      "I'm going to get married and go on a mission.  I'm going to live in the best house... and I'm going to live in Florida."
      "Oh, great.  I'll visit you there," I told her with a big smile.  Wouldn't that be the best?  Grand kids to visit in Florida?  I was liking this conversation.      
      "Wait!" She said suddenly, interrupting my idyllic twilight years fantasy.  "Does Santa come to Florida?"
      "Yep.  Yep, he does," I said.
      "Ok, then, yeah.  I'm going to live in Florida."

I love Maddie's sense of humor.  It's so funny because it usually involves her saying hilarious things in all seriousness.  It's really endearing.  My favorite Maddie one liner happened last summer when we were driving past a brick storage shed next to the Draper Temple.  The workers had the garage door up so we could see the lawn mowers and tools inside.  Maddie turns to me and asks, "Is that Jesus' garage?"  We laughed for days after deciding that, yes, it was his garage.

Having three girls has been quite an adventure.  I've laughed and cried lots with them, and I wouldn't miss it for the world.