More Mana-isms

1. Weekend morning breakfast with M entails feeding her 8 oz of milk and if I am lucky, a fruit. The routine from waking her up to finishing the breakfast expends my energies completely and I dread the thoughts of having to do this all over again for lunch and dinner (I have realized btw, that this is one reason why I keep a job outside the house, the frustration that I cannot be that mom who can accomplish so much with her kids and home, and look so good, drives me out of my house! I am better off paying someone who is more qualified to do it! My way of helping the American economy :-))

Anyway back to breakfast time and M. So we fight on the milk, she gets through about three-fourths of the way and refuses to open her mouth for anymore. She has made up her mind that it will be it. I give up and after about 15 min get the banana out to at least make head way with that part of breakfast. There is no chance in hell this kid has any plans of complying. I realize it is a losing battle and attempt to bribe her with 'I will take you to the grocery store if you eat your fruit'. She still flat out refuses. So I give her the ultimatum that she can think about her options, fruit and store or stay home with the in-laws. I tell her to think about it and walk away. She comes to me in 2 min flat and says 'I will finish the remaining milk, will you take me to the store?' I am flabbergast at this 3 year old's deal making abilities! I actually lost this battle as I was willing to get at least one thing into her :(

2. We are getting ready for bed and M says she is itchy all over her body. So I advise her that it is because of the weather. Being winter, dry skin is common, I say to her and get her to move on with bedtime to avoid another distraction. She processes it for a fraction of a second and asks, 'So will my skin become wet in summer?'

3. Dinnertime, M chose to eat Mac n cheese, Mackena as she calls it. She had finished about 2/3rds of it when I could see her reaching saturation and so the disinterest in the food. So I tried to tempt her to finish by throwing the bait of Orange Soda as a treat. But my requirement was that she ate 'One Mackena - one soda -one Mackena'...you get the drift. Her response to it was 'No no no, I will eat One soda-one soda-one soda-one soda....' I kid you not, she repeated it about twenty times so I get the picture :)

4. M was sitting on the chair, which had a rounded back and eating her water melon, with the plate on her lap. She decided to place her plate on top of the chair, on its rim. So I told her that it won't work as it is not flat. Her response 'So does it tippy toe too?' A bit of a backgound , M is a tippytoer and her grand mother constantly reminds her to walk 'Flat Flat' :)

5. We were at D's friend's place the other day. In a conversation the girl called out loudly to her mom, Maa. And M says to her, 'li-ni, that is how you say my name'; thinking the girl was addressing her and was having problems saying her name :)