To Spend Time With Kennedy

A day in the life of Kennedy…

6:45am.
“Was that a noise?”
Opens one eye.
“Do I see a light in the kitchen?
Sure enough, Mom must be out there.”

She stumbles out to the kitchen and with her eyes half closed, pushes all the light switches up to flood the room and the proceeds to the recliner and crawls under a pile of blankets. Her head full of morning curls is usually all that is sticking out.

As soon as the kids come down, she is up and shouting orders.
“I want breakfast!”
“Mom, Dakota is chewing so loud!”
“I’m co-o-o-o-ld. I need a blanket to wrap in,” said in her best whiny voice!

She stirs her cereal, yogurt or whatever is in front of her.
She sips her milk, chocolate milk, with lots of chocolate, stirred only by her.
She eats one bite, slowly.
As soon as everyone else leaves the table, so does she.
She rolls around on the living room floor and talks to herself.

8:10 and the kids are out the door.
“Ahh, now I don’t have to share stuff!”
“Mom, can I watch something?”
No, finish your breakfast.
“But I’m not hungry!”

She then proceeds to follow me around all day, talking all the time.
“Can I change clothes?” (No, if I could stay in my pajamas, I would.)
“I want something to eat. You didn’t give me much breakfast.” (ha)
“Can I watch something?” (I already answered that)
“Do you know what Dakota said last night?” (Can’t imagine)

“Today I am going to visit my friends. My friends are Balerie, (Valerie) and Josie and sometimes Kiahna. My friend is also Siah, (Josiah) but Balerie and Josie say they don’t know Siah. I like to play with my friends. We are bestest friend.”

People who know her, do not believe us when we say she talks all the time. She comes across about as cold as the ice princess when someone speaks to her.
The other day when we stopped to talk with Rodney and Alanna, she just chatted away. When they walked away I exclaimed over the fact that she talked to them.
She replied, “Oh, but I don’t talk to real people!”

Let the questions of the day continue.
“Are we going somewhere today? I want to go to town.
When we are in town, I don’t want to go home. I want to eat somewhere.”
Yes always, she always fusses if we go home for lunch. She never wants to go home, even after we eat lunch. She knows her directions well and when you pull up to one particular stoplight, she’ll start yelling, “Mom, don’t turn, don’t turn, don’t turn! Go to another store, just go to another store. Don’t you need one more thing? Let’s go buy apples.” (Nope, not one more thing, in fact, I love going home!)

When we are in the vehicle, the temperature is never perfect. Too hot, too cold, too much air, too … whatever she can think of to complain about. The other day when she was hot, I opened her window because it was cooler outside. She was fine about that and soon I heard her window go up. Shortly after that, I opened mine a bit and she yells, “Mom, close yours! Our air is getting all mixed up and mine was just right!“

Back at home, it’s time to switch the laundry and she is right behind me.
“The dryer, the dyer, I want to push the button.
Wait, don’t close the door, leave it open while I climb up!”
Once on top of the dryer she does everything and touches everything else in reach before pushing the button.

Since the laundry is next to the game closet, she digs for treasures in that disaster. Usually, she has the hall full of all kinds of things before she finds the one thing she wants. If we play Memory, no one is allowed to collect “the girl” pairs, only her. If we happen to pick them, we must switch with her as soon as she gets a pair she doesn’t want, as in a “boy pair.”

I heard her talking to herself.
“It stinks! ugh. I didn’t fawt! Coda did.”
He’s not even here, he’s at school.
“Well, he weft his smell in here because I smell it!”

I pulled the mixer out and she comes running.
“Oh Mom, I just wub this part, when the people go to school, and me and you stay home, and cook stuff and do stuff.”
Ya, it’s a whole lot of the dumping and pouring kind of help!

She soon gets bored helping me cook, water is more appealing. She squatted on the counter, playing in the water and said, “Oh wow, my brain hurts when I do this!”

We made cookies one day to take down to Eric’s Grandpas. He has multiple names, Dawdy, Candy Dawdy, Grandpa, but that day I called him “Great-Grandpa” for some reason. Later I heard, “Um, don’t you know, that time, that time, that we sang songs for Good-Grandpa.”

I caught her up on the counter with her hand in the bowl and I asked, “Are you eating cookies?” “Umm …. (long pause) … no. Crumbs.”

Multiple times a day I answer the question, “Is it time to go get the kids?”
“Not until you take a nap!” And oh the weeping and wailing that begin. I have never seen a child who needs less sleep than she does!

When we do go get the kids, it’s “all by myself!”
“I can open the door. I can get in my seat. I can do my seatbelt. I can shut the door!”
The next day, as I prepare to allow her the privilege of doing everything by herself, I am presented with crocodile tears because no one is helping her.
Is it a typical three-year-old, female drama, or a combination of both?

As much as she loves her siblings and follows them around, wants to play, wants to help, wants to be with them and do everything they do, when they come home from school …  let the screaming begin. It is such a weary struggle, mainly between the two youngest and mostly because he loves to tease. A good scream is his delight and she supplies him with many laughs.

She is fiercely competitive, taught by the one and only brother who races for everything he does. We have found that she can’t pick up any game, or toys or anything really, because weariness overcomes her. However, if you suggest that she picks up 2, and you’ll pick up 1, and then after a bit you mention that she is winning, wow, pieces fly!

When I caught her eating chocolate, we had a little chat about asking for permission before eating candy.  Her reply, “But then you’ll say no!”

Her favorite exclamation is, “Oh my word!” She can’t pronounce the r sound, so you hear the word ‘wood’ instead of ‘word.’ She gives it her own little twist by drawing out that last word for an extra second.

One Sunday we were sitting in church and she was starting to squirm. I leaned down and whispered sharply in her ear. Without missing a squirm, she whipped her head around and looked at me and said, “Oh my word! WHO is wearing a pamper?”
(oops, bad breath)

One Sunday in church we sang, “Faith of our Fathers.” Midway through the song she looked up at me and said, “Oh my word! Why are we singing about farters?”

She loves bread. She got that from her Uncle Tris, not her mother.

Pink is her color. She would wear it every. single. time she gets dressed.
She wants every article of clothing to be pink. She wants her bedroom to be pink. Just everything basically. everything pink. Take her to Hobby Lobby and she goes a little bit crazy picking out pink things to put in her groom. A girly girl, to be sure, no blue for her.

We don’t really give her hair a second thought. It’s wildly curly and just does its own thing. I comb it down into a little bit of order and as soon as it’s dry, it is bouncing around again. We were in town one day and two little old grannies stopped right in front of us and looked at her and grinned. One finally said, “Well, how much time does your Mommy spend curling your hair?”

She is feisty and sweet, she is shy but lively.
She is particular and a perfectionist.
She fights with vengenece, buts loves equally.
She is our toodles and we love her dearly.

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