Never in a Million Years

I think every expectant parent can picture certain things in their head about what it might be like raising children. Things like watching first steps and hearing the babble of first words. Things like dropping your child off at preschool for the first time and loosening your own grip. We anticipate things like playing baseball in the yard and watching them play in the waves. We even prepare ourselves for things like bad behavior and hearing their first bad word. Side note. For Isis this was the "f" word which accidentally slipped out very innocently. She had no idea what the word was or meant but she said it then followed it with an "f***ing" which was splendid. We knew it would come one day.

Then there are those events which transpire that you would never in a million years imagine. You couldn't. You could never sit there and say, I think that one day I will have a child who will layer eleven pair of underwear on top of one another and run through the house singing "IIIII'm, hooked on a feeling, I'm high on believing..." Nope, didn't see that one coming. There are just some things you cannot plan for.

Nor can you really gage how a four year old will answer your simple questions. Questions like, "What would you like to be for Halloween this year?" In my mind I would expect a four year old girl to answer with something like...a princess...a nurse...a bug...whatever. You get what I'm saying. Not my daughter. Not my four year old. She wants to be Elton John for Halloween this year.

I've also recently come to terms with the fact that it is okay not to have all the answers. Kids will ask you a million questions and honestly, some of them are stumpers. So instead of making something up or pretending to be all-knowing, I've just started to say I don't know. Questions like...

Mommy, when can I save the day?

Why can't I squish my head?

Why do I know how to be awake?

Will Elton John go to heaven? Will he still be in a costume in heaven?

Can I see God if I just open my eyes a little wider?

Then there are the statements that kind of just leave me standing. Literally. Standing there speechless or laughing so hard because where in that simple little brain did something like come from. Things like...

Here Mommy. Here are some goggles for you. Thank you, but I don't think I need them. Yes you do, so Eliza doesn't squirt milk in your face.

Do Veggie Tales fart?

Will my name still be Isis when I get bigger?

Here's some corn but we won't have it for supper because that is double yuck.

I don't want my breakfast. I"m gonna move it out of my life.

When you were on your trip to Oregon Daddy didn't brush his teeth at all. (I especially like it when she lies because she sucks at it and usually lies about the things that don't matter and tells the truth about the things that do.)

Every once in a while she will throw out phrases that contain vocabulary words used correctly in context and I forget I am talking to a child. Last week she cuddled up with her stuffed frog and proclaimed, Mommy, Kermit pacifies me.

A few weeks ago I asked her something and she responded by saying, Good question my curious friend.

It's good having a four year old around. She kind of breaks up the monotony of day to day life and chores and schedules and medicine doses and diaper changes. I had a lot of ideas in my head about life with kids. And to be honest, most of them never happened. And the ones that did happen, would never have been thought of in a million years.