first thing in the morning

Neither of the girls like to eat breakfast the minute they wake up, but about 45 min after they wake, they are hungry. Vivian likes to ask for lollipops first thing. Then, when we get in the van to go somewhere, she asks for gum - especially in Costco for some reason.

The other day, she was singing "Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do". It was interesting, b/c I have not sung that to her in a good 6-8 mos. Her musical memory and intelligence is incredible. She has a very broad repetoire of songs she knows.

One day after she pushed her cousin Ashton down, she told me, "I wannoo say sahwee Asston". She remembers lots of things like that. She says to me, "Are you sad because your mom died?" and "Are you sad b/c G.G. died?"

About a month ago, we were in the grocery store and the person who helped us take the groceries to the car had a strange tic. He would say streams of numbers and information conversationally, but it took you a few seconds to realize it didn't make sense. He was sort of like Rainman or something. It was our first encounter with a special person like this. Sophie just sort of looked at me sheepishly and wasn't quite sure what to do. She was a little scared.
I tried to make conversation by saying, "Isn't this man so nice to help us with our groceries?"
After we said thank you to him, and he went back into the store, Sophie looked at me as I strapped her into her car seat and whispered, "Mommy, I think that many was kind of strange."

I was proud of her that she had an innate sense of tact - she did not shout out anything like I probably would have done at that age, "Hey, what are you talking about???" She was careful to make sure he did not hear her comment and she was naturally nervous about the strangeness. That tells me her intuition is working fine.

Then the next week, we went to the dr. office for my TB test so I can be on the substitute list at the girls' preschool. A mentally retarded younger adult man came in, tended by 2 women. The girls were playing a game on the floor "Jumpin Josie" where I sing a song and they do the actions. When it got to crawling, the M.R. guy wanted to crawl around with them, and they were very scared. Except, I think Vivian thought it was great fun. The poor guy did not know how scary his roaring was, and Sophie jumped in my lap cowering, but Vivian thought it was hilarious.

Also, the other night at bedtime, Sophie asked me about cigarettes and what they were. That was a first.