Chickens & Stars

Aaaaaahhhh. I love it when Makela gets enough sleep. Our new sleep chart is working -- not 100%, but she is sleeping SOOOO much better now. Which of course means that Mommy is sleeping better, too.

Can't say the same for Daddy, who is working like a dog these last few weeks. He *might* be averaging about four hours of sleep per night, and that's probably a generous estimate. He's been rolling in around 2:00 a.m. most days, and last Thursday he pulled an all-nighter. But at least he can sleep when he IS home.

So Makela's birthday party was yesterday, and it was a lot of fun. She was exhausted last night, and she slept for 12 hours straight -- 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. Yippee! And when she woke up this morning, she was happy as could be, and she stayed that way almost all day. In fact, I found myself laughing at or with her most of the day.

It started with our conversation over breakfast. Makela started talking about her friend Alice, who she plays with and who works at the library. I had absolutely NO idea who she was talking about, thinking "Huh? Did I miss something while I was hunting down those 'No David' and 'Charlie and Lola' books?" The only people we've talked to at the library are the two older men at the front desk, one of whom resembles a gnome.

Then it occurred to me who this might be. I asked Makela if this was her imaginary friend, and she told me "Yes." Later in the day, I learned that Alice wears a pink dress, has brown hair, and was going to be moving in with us tonight after she finished working at the library. Then plans changed -- as of bathtime, Alice was still not here, as she had decided to live at the library instead.

Last week, we first learned of imaginary chickens living in Makela's bed. Joe and I decided that those chickens probably explain her disturbed sleep -- it's hard not to wake up with all that clucking and pecking going on around you!

How did we learn of said chickens, you say? Well, Gram and I were headed home with Makela in the back seat last Thursday evening, and all of a sudden Makela starts talking about how she has chickens at home. I asked where they were hiding, and she said, "In my bed!" And then she told us, "I got them at a store called Babies & Big Girls R Us!" This struck me as pretty funny, since we'd only just visited Babies R Us that morning, shopping for a baby shower gift.

Back to today's antics. At playgroup this morning, which was held at one of our favorite parks (aka "Dinosaur Park"), Makela wanted Miss Kristen to push her (and of course Genevieve wanted me to push her -- monkey see, monkey do). She was chatting away, telling Kristen ALL about her new friend Alice. It was just a gush of words -- I'm not sure she took a breath for several minutes. I looked at Kristen, then looked at Makela and said with a grin, "Do you ever stop talking?" Makela got a coy look on her face, then said while giggling, "Noooooooo." Then she added, while looking up at Kristen, "I never stop moving. And I never stop talking. And I wear Mommy out." That last part is from her book "Olivia" -- about a little pig who reminds me WAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYY too much of Miss Makela!

There were also lots of questions today, as always. One of the first ones that stands out in my mind was asked on the way home from playgroup.

Lately, Makela has been fascinated with babies and why they are small, why they can't walk, why they are born, etc. We've explained that babies grow in mommies' tummies before they are born. I forget how the conversation started today, but from the back of the car I heard, as we were rounding the corner at Genesee Avenue, "Why do babies have to be in mommies' tummies?" I compared human babies to baby birds: "Babies start out VERY small. They need protection at first while they grow, so they have to stay in their mommies' tummies until they are strong enough to live on their own. Just like baby chickens. Baby chickens have to live in eggs until they are strong enough to hatch."

I think she got it -- she then said, "And like baby ducks." I agreed, reminding her that all birds hatch from eggs. I asked her if she could name other kinds of birds, and she rattled off geese and seagulls and something else I think.

Honestly, is it my imagination or are these sort of questions coming a bit early? I was thinking we'd have to answer these in another couple of years, at least!

The other questions that I loved from today were MUCH easier to handle. Granted, they involved some astronomy and physics lessons, but hey -- I'll take that over the birds and the bees!

We were on our way home from Costco around 5:30, and Makela spotted something, saying "What's that up in the sky?" I realized what she was pointing to and told her I thought it was an airplane. "No, that's a star, Mommy." I explained that it was moving very quickly and was super bright, so it probably was not a star. Makela paused and asked, "Why are there stars?" After THAT explanation, she had still more questions for me: "Where are the stars? I can't see them. Why can't I see stars now?" After all, the sun had gone down -- where were they? Of course it wasn't quite dark enough, with the sky still relatively light, so I offered to show her the stars once we got home. She ended up not wanting to see them after we unloaded our cold groceries, since it meant having to abandon all her new birthday toys. But Mommy was game!