Parenting 101?

** Update from Val 6/9/09: here's another Hannah quote, hot off the press: "I'm ready to lawn the grass" (they're going to mow) :) Oh I miss that little voice... with the dimpled smile & gleam in her eye!
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Ok, not really a "Parenting Post." This will actually be a list of Hannah's cuter quotables. I'm sure we'll get more during our road trip to Woodstock (Ontario) tomorrow. Val & I are taking the kids to visit her mom for 2 days, and her sister will join us there along with HER two kids. So it'll be a mom & kid PARTAY!!

-- Combining two Scripture memory songs ("Train up a child in the way he should go," and "You knit me together in my mother's womb") into one: "Chain up a child in my mother's room..."

-- after lunch, all in one breath, "Oh, I'm still hungry...let's see, what could I have?...how about those cookies we made!?" as if THAT wasn't pre-meditated... give her a few months and she'll even have believable pauses thrown in!

-- chuckling to herself while looking at her belly, "Oh, baby June. You are kickin' me!"

-- "Mommy, did you pick up that snake we saw?" "Oh no, I would never handle a snake!" "Why not?" "Because I'm not trained as to how to do it." (totally blank look) "But, Mommy, you're potty trained!"

-- "Now I can get a hula-hoop, 'cause I've got the right hips!"

-- once again mangling a Bible-verse song: "You knit me together in my mother's room..." (hmmm...) (oh and then Chris used the actual Bible verse in his pastoral prayer in church... Val & I about lost it)

-- someone commenting on her new baby sister "Oh, she's so precious-- I could just take her home with me!" Hannah, seizing the moment; "how 'bout you take Noah?"

-- Sometimes Noah closes his eyes, which is very good when we pray.

-- as I discussed how only Jesus will make us happy after her sin (driven by an obsession with lipgloss) led to sad consequences for her: But I want to be happy in Jesus AND lipgloss! well... at least she's honest.

--looking at the cowlick at the back of Abby's head "That looks kinda like when Stuart [Little] fell into the washing machine!"

...but nothing makes me laugh quicker than the way she says "Stuart" (yes, she's able to relate most of life to that movie)... it sounds like "Sthtuart." I'm gonna get such weird looks walking around saying it to myself when I get back home, I just know it.

Really good book on parenting: Aren't They Lovely When They're Asleep?- lessons in unsentimental parenting... I really really hope they print it in the US, because I want one!! One of Chris' relatives sent this to them from the UK as a baby gift, and I've been enjoying it SO much! Shepherding Your Child's Heart is still my favorite, but it's sort of a different category. Anyway, this little book is brief, biblical, practical, balanced, and funny! Check it out!