I’d be lying if I said I didn’t get worried whenever Kai spends any time alone with another adult. Because, let me tell you, the girl can talk.

In fact, just yesterday when I picked her up from tutoring her tutor (a fantastic godly woman who we just love!) said that Kai is 6 going on 30 and that she is so excellent at conversation. Oh. So. True.

On our way home I asked Kai what they had talked about at tutoring. “Oh, you know,” she said “I told her about what you said last night.”

At that moment, I knew there was a blog post in the making. Because the night before just before Kai had gone to bed I had called my mom to ask her something. My mom, weighing about 110 pounds and having not had lunch that day before drinking a pre-dinner glass of wine, was a bit tipsy on the phone. Not Spring Break 2010 tipsy. Just a little giggly.

So, when I got off the phone my husband asked what had been so funny. I jokingly told him my mom must have been drinking way too much wine because she was acting crazy. It didn’t even occur to me that Kai was picking up on any of this. At least not until she told me that she talked to her tutor about “what happened last night.”

Me: What exactly did you tell her about last night?

Kai: Oh, you know, that Nina is just drinking WAY too much wine and it makes her act so CRAYzayZAY.

Me: Kai! That is not true and that is definitely not something we say to other people!

Kai: Oh, Mom. Don’t worry! I told her that if she ever meets my Nina to pretend like I didn’t just tell her about how she drinks too much.

Well, that’s a relief.

And that is how I came to be emailing Kai’s tutor yesterday afternoon and reassuring her that Kai’s grandma is not, in fact, a falling down drunk. What scares me most is that this is just what she admits to telling people while I’m not there. It terrifies me to imagine what else gets said while I’m not around…

I may be the only person in the world who thinks this video is funny. But, Kai’s retelling of the story of Adam & Eve just cracks me up.

(Please ignore the annoying Sesame Street background noise. I just happened to catch this moment on the fly and didn’t have time to make sure the TV was off in the other room.)

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The Story of Adam & Eve from Land of Lovings on Vimeo.

For more Wordless/Wordful Wednesday, head over to 5 Minutes for Mom and Seven Clown Circus!

Kai and I used to watch John & Kate + 8 together sometimes. It seemed like a much better idea than the time I let her watch that episode of Hoarders with me. Though I suspect now she’ll never let her room get so messy we find a dead cat buried under Barbie clothes so at least there’s that.

But just recently she asked why we couldn’t watch Jon & Kate any more. And I explained why in a vague way. If you know anything about Kai you’ll know she is completely unsatisfied with anything vague. So, we talked a little about divorce. Which she doesn’t understand and hadn’t really heard of since no one in her daily sphere of family is divorced. Apparently I butchered the explanation. And thanks to this little exchange I got to overhear the following Barbie conversation:

Kai (imitating a man’s voice with her Ken doll): “Hey, Barbie. I think we should get a divorce.”

Ivy (in a falsetto Barbie voice): “A what?”

Kai (as Ken): “A divorce. It’s where we decide to stop loving each other. I’ve already decided to stop loving you so you should stop loving me so we can get a divorce.”

Kai (whispering in her normal voice): “Just say okay, Ivy, so they can go ahead and get divorced.”

Ivy (again with the falsetto): “Okay.”

Kai (as Ken): “Great. So now we’re divorced. Want to help me pick out a new girl to marry? And you can pick any of the other boys.”

Nice. Looks like I’m going to have to figure out how exactly to explain this in a way that sounds different than exchanging pants at Old Navy.

The other night at dinner it was Kai’s turn to pray for the food.

“Dear God -

Please keep giving us lots and lots of great stuff. And also, God, please could you change the words for tomato and potato to something else? Like, I don’t know, whatever you want. Just not tomato and potato because, God, that is really starting to get confusing to me. Thank you.

Amen.”
–

Honestly, I couldn’t contain my giggles at the table…

We found a home for the chicks at the beginning of this week. And Kai was absolutely devastated. In all fairness, she was like their foster mom. She fed them every day. Made sure they had water. And diligently checked the temperature in their brooder to make sure they were warm enough. So, in a way, they were her babies.

But I just couldn’t have them living in my dining room forever and we eventually had to find them a home. We ended up selling them to my college friend’s grandfather (via Twitter) and she came to pick them up. Kai bravely put each chick in the box and said goodbye, but the moment they were out of the house she broke down in tears.

And by tears I mean hysterical gut-wrenching sobs. For an hour.

When I finally got her to calm down I asked her why she was so upset and she said, “Because without those baby chicks we’re just a sad, small, lonely house now. We have nothing here to keep us company. All we’ve got is 3 kids, 12 chickens, a rooster and a dog!”

Ah, yes. That sounds lonely indeed.

After the girls’ party this year we decided to do video thank you notes to send to their friends. It seemed like a fun way for them to say thanks in their own words (since they can’t really write yet) and for their friends (who can’t read yet) to hear from them how much they appreciated everyone coming to their party. We’re still getting them all finished because it was quite an undertaking (each Thank You takes several takes to get it somewhat coherent) but we’re almost done.

This particular outtake I just loved. The girls loved this present given to them by some good friends of ours, but they were just confused about which thank you video we were doing. Still, I love how sincere she is until she realizes she has no idea which present she’s saying thank you for. Needless to say we tried again for take number 2 after I reminded her again what present we were talking about…

Kai gets worried a lot that other people (particularly siblings) are going to be able to do things she can’t. Or do things better than she can. So we always make a point to tell her that there are things she is going to be good at and things she might need more help with and that is okay. And that it makes her and her siblings a good team because they complement each other.

Yesterday she decided to apply that idea to her preschool theology.

Kai: “Daddy, can God really do anything?”

Thomas: “He sure can. He can do anything you can think of.”

Kai: “Well, I think there are things that God can do that I can’t and things that I can do that God can’t. Do you think that’s true?”

Thomas: “Hmmm…can you tell me some things that you think you can do that God can’t do?”

Kai: “Well, God can’t sleep in my bunk bed ’cause He’s way too big and wide for that. So, I can definitely sleep in bunk beds better than He can. Don’t you think?”

Not quite sure what to say to that one. I guess if God really wanted to sleep in bunk beds He could probably do it better than anyone. Still, this girl of ours sure does keep us on our toes…

What I love about kids is how unexpectedly sweet they can be sometimes. Kai sometimes blindsides me with something so precious and sincere that I just don’t know what to say.

The other day, out of the blue, she came up and put her face on my cheek and inhaled loudly. Slightly unnerved, I asked her what she was doing.

“Smelling your cheek,” she said very matter of fact.

“Why, Kai?”

“Because it smells so good.”

Thinking I’d regret asking this question, I went ahead and asked the obvious.

“What does it smell like?”

“I don’t know, like…Mommy.”

“What does ‘Mommy’ smell like?”

Kai thought and thought and looked at me so seriously and said, “You know. Like…Love.”

Be still my heart. I sure do love that girl.

We play this game at our house. Usually it’s one of those things we do when we’re stuck in the car or we’re waiting on food at a restaurant just to fill time with something somewhat “educational.”

It’s the rhyming game.

Pretty simple game. Nothing new. I say a word and the girls take turns rhyming words with the one I’ve chosen.

The other day in the car we were playing when I announced the new word we were gonna rhyme with: WORD.

I could think of lots of words to rhyme with it: Bird, Herd, Third. You get the idea.

But, Kai excitedly uttered the one word I never expected. Can you guess it?

Yep, Turd. It came out of nowhere because that is not a word we ever use. Honest. I have lots of other words I shouldn’t admit to using and do, but this one just has always grossed me out and never made it into my vocabulary. And I think she was just putting consonants in front of the vowel sound because she didn’t seem to know what it meant. Until I started giggling.

I tried hard not to. Really, I did. But something about that moment just caught me off guard and I couldn’t stop laughing.

And then she asked what it meant. All I could think to say was that it was a not very nice word for poopy. Which made it of immediate interest to her.

I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised later when she said:

“Mom, can we hurry and find a bathroom? I have to go so bad I might just turd in my pants.”

Awesome. Seriously, can boys be any worse than this?

I’m putting Total Truth Tuesday on hold this week, because (truth be told) I’m feeling a little bit too steeped in reality to be dragging up any deep dark secrets or to be silly about any of my more ridiculous ones. I promise to dig up a doozy of a Total Truth for next week! In the meantime, here’s one of my favorite recent Kai quotes…

Last night Kai and I watched The Navity Story. The live action one that came out a couple of years ago. And, though you might think she’d be too young to get what was going on she seemed to comprehend it pretty well. But, by far the most interesting conversation came as a result of the circumcision scene after Mary’s cousin, Elizabeth gives birth to John.

Now, don’t go getting all worried. They didn’t show anything gruesome that would scar her for life but it did make her ask what exactly was going on. And since she’s going to have a baby brother in less than 4 months I thought it might be time to go ahead and start explaining these things.

Me: “So, Kai, do you what makes boys and girls different?”

Kai, very seriously: “Yes! Girls get excited when they get clothes as a present and boys don’t.”

Me, giggling: “True…but they are also different in another way.”

Kai, gesturing with her hand: “Boys have a…um….pickle, right? Wait! Does that mean Daddy has a pickle, too?!”

Ah….the next few months will be interesting indeed!