I got to sleep late this morning, really late. At 9am Emma climbed in the bed with me and was chattering away being her sweet little self. I laid in the bed for a few minutes listening to her jabber with my eyes closed. When I opened my eyes I almost had a heart attack, Emma looked like something from Lord of the Flies. I jumped out of the bed, sure my mother was either asleep or tied to a chair and knocked unconscious with Aubrey’s new pink baseball bat she got for her birthday. (Thanks Nana!)

Instead I found my mother and Aubrey had matching paint jobs.

“Mom, is that paint washable?” I asked my mom.

“I certainly HOPE so…”

Yeah, me too.

Emma (3) was very leery of going to church this morning, for some reason she has been a real “Momma’s Baby” over the last week. In order to get us all out the door (sort of on time) I told her she could go to big church with Mommy and Daddy, kind of hoping she would forget before we got there.

Of course she remembered, so we dropped her sisters off in their classes and found seats in the worship center. I had come prepared, with a clipboard, pens and a purse full of gum and I wasn’t too worried as Pastor Greg took the podium at Seacoast Church, that she would act up.

She sat with her hands primly folded in her lap for about sixty seconds before the fidgeting and extremely loud whispering began. “MOMMA, WHY IS HE TALKING?” she whispered loud enough for everyone in the balcony to hear. “MOMMA, I WIKE YOU NECK-WACE! IT SO COOT!” She kept on “whispering” until I finally offered her a piece of gum to give her something else to do with her mouth.

She happily chewed her gum and rolled the wrapper in her hands to make a little ball, which she promptly pitched over the balcony.

Oops!

My apologies to the random stranger she no doubt beaned in the head…maybe they thought it was God moving…

Her favorite part of the service was definitely snack time, i.e. communion, where she helped herself to a handful of bread. Thankfully for everyone in the balcony, she overlooked the community goblet.

At the request of several readers here are some recent pics of Emma “helping me.” Here is Emma dressed for a successful day of hanging on the sink like a monkey washing dishes, dressed in nothing but a pair of tights. Isn’t that what you wear to wash dishes?

The next pic is another fine example of Emma’s fascination with body art. I actually have dreams all of the time that she comes home from pre-school with real tattoos covering her body…creepy, on a three year old anyway.

The big girls have been a in “dress stage” for the last few months. This means anytime they are wearing clothes (which I’ve already admitted isn’t very often) they want to wear dresses. I have tried to accommodate them as much as possible and have bought more sundresses as they have grown out of their clothes.

A few weeks ago, a little boy got busted trying to peek at Emma’s panties. Today, her teacher told me I need to start sending her to school in bike shorts because when the class is on the playground, Emma’s dress is spending a lot of time over her head AND “last week when she wore her green sundress, she completely took it off on the playground.”

I asked her this evening if she was pulling her dress up at school. She looked at me with those enormous blue eyes and said, “No Momma, I not!” As solemn and serious as a preacher on Sunday. Aubrey gasped and said, “Oh, Emma! Yes you did! God told me!”

I think I need to start asking Aubrey to intercede for Emma at night.

One of my friends totally busted some little pervert on the playground trying to lift up Emma’s (2) dress, to see her “My Little Pony” panties today. I asked Emma what happened. For the sake of the child involved I won’t disclose his name, my husband would probably leave work and be waiting for the child to wake up from his nap so they could have a “talk.”
Emma said, “He twied to wook at my coo-coo Momma.” (Look, you have to call it something. That’s the best I could come up with.)
I told her the only time it is OK to hit is when a boy is trying to look at her coo-coo and to slug him next time…no child of mine is going to be a victim!