Here's to the Sunny Slopes of Long Ago: My Kids are Weird.

My kids are weird. I suspect that other people’s kids are weird too. But here is the latest from mine.

Leah is completely obsessed with my armpit. It is a long story. It was not too much of a problem over the summer – basically when she wanted comfort she would snuggle on my lap and stick her hand in my armpit, or at night she’d roll over in bed and try to wiggle a finger into my armpit. It sounds really strange, but I had gotten used to it. Now that the weather is cooler and I’m wearing long sleeved shirts, my armpit is no longer as accessible. Leah started screaming in anger, “Where’s Mommy’s armpit???” the first time I had on a long sleeve shirt. So, lately we’ve been having armpit battles. She screams, “I want Mommy’s armpit!!!” I try to console her that she has the rest of Mommy, so that should be enough. I hate to admit it, but Leah often wins these battles by her persistence, and she is getting adept at wiggling through a long-sleeve shirt to reach the armpit. Arrrggh.

As for Eliana, she has started lying about her age. She tells everyone that she meets she is 5 years old. EVERYONE!!! The lady at the supermarket, her teacher at church, kids on the playground. I think she is starting to believe it. She tells me that when Leah turned 2, she turned 5.

Leah has become a lot more verbal, and is better able to articulate her fears. She calls anyone threatening or scary a “mean guy.” This applies to Halloween displays in all the stores, and it makes it easy to know when she is afraid so I can comfort her. But she also says it about random people (the cashier in the store, the friendly older man who came over to say how cute the girls were, etc.). The weirdest one though is the Geico gecko. As soon as the commercial comes on she screams, “Mean guy!!!” and wants the channel changed.

Eliana has been claiming that she does not sleep at night. When she wakes up in the morning and I ask how she slept, she says, “I stayed in my bed, but I was awake all night.” She says that she never dreams because she never sleeps. Last week, in the middle of the night she woke up crying and afraid of something. Even in that upset state, she claimed that she had not been asleep!!! She definitely believes this one!

Leah’s latest obsession is “Elmo Robot.” Nobody really knows what Elmo Robot is, or where he came from. She likes Elmo. And at some point she started to like robots. But now every time she gets paper and crayon in hand she demands that I come over and “Draw Elmo Robot!!” In fact, if I am busy and unable to do it, she demands that Eliana draw Elmo Robot for her. (Did I mention that Leah has gotten really demanding lately???) Basically we just draw an Elmo face with stick legs and arms, and it appeases her, but Eliana and I are both hoping she forgets about Elmo Robot soon!

Lastly, Eliana is obsessed with drawing pictures of Hell. To be fair, she draws Heaven too. Although the Hell drawings are clearly her artistic passion. Bryan, a very sweet boy from our church "cell group," got her started with the Heaven/Hell drawings when he gifted a few of his own to her. It is really fun that Eliana’s drawings are starting to have more clarity and story behind them! I can’t wait to see what will be next after her afterlife phase!