Don't Forget Cuckoo Head

Life with children, especially chatty little children, is never dull.  Never.  Even after they've gone to bed, before Jim and I can sit down and enjoy the silence, we wait for the inevitable post-bedtime "emergency".  Last night, the emergency was "Jack and I don't have fresh water, and we're dying of thirst up here."  Never mind the fact that they finished dinner maybe 30 minutes before.  And then had water while reading books downstairs.  They had been left alone in their room for a whole five minutes and were dying of thirst.  If this doesn't constitute a true emergency, then I don't know what does.

From her earliest days, Lilly has been a chatty little girl.  The baby babble quickly turned into Mamas and Dadas and she never looked back.  Some of her expressions are just priceless.  I wrote about them here a few years ago. 

Around the age of two, Lilly started saying "Don't forget cuckoo head" whenever she says goodnight or goodbye to us, and that has stuck.  Neither Jim nor I remember where it came from, but it's important to her.  It's the last thing she says when she gets out of the car to walk into school, and the last words out of her mouth when you leave her bedroom at night.  She says it when she says bye to me and gets in the pool for her swim lessons and used to belt it out from her little line of ballerinas as she walked off to ballet.  The other parents always look at me and smile.  I used to feel the need to explain it--after all, it doesn't sound very logical.  But not anymore.  I smile right back at them, and secretly hope that Lilly says this to us forever.  Is it illogical to hope that she says "Don't forget cuckoo head" when we drop her off at college or when Jim walks her down the aisle at her (very very very far into the future) wedding?  Even Jack says it now.

Some of my other favorite Lilly (and subsequently, Jack) expressions include:

• That really creaks me out (when she's scared of something).
• Montessori Jack cheese (Monterey Jack cheese)
• Mum, the Pedex truck is here (an almost daily occurance, as the Fedex truck arrives at our house)
• I did it by nanaccident.  (Lots of things happen by accident in our house, if you can imagine...)

And a few classic ones that need a little bit more explanation.  The first is from a Thanksgiving song that she learned at school, all about the Pilgrims.  In Lilly's words, "...land where the mighty moose, ramble at will.  Blue skies and walking shorts, I will return once more..."  So one day, when I was singing it while wandering around the house (I've always got some sort of catchy tune stuck in my head), cue the following conversation between Jim and me:

                   Me:  ...blue skies and rocky shores, I will return once more...

                   Jim:  Oooooh that makes so much more sense!

                   Me:  What makes sense?

                   Jim:  The rocky shores part! I always wondered why they would sing about walking shorts.

We all learn things every day.  Even when we're 32 years old. 

The second song lyrics that we have yet to correct come from a catchy little Christmas song that for whatever reason, our children are obsessed with.  I don't even know how they heard it, but it's almost February and they ask to listen to it every single day.  The song is Dominick the Donkey (if you haven't heard it, it's worth a listen), and Jack and Lilly bounce around the house when it's on singing, "...jiggity, jig, he haw, he haw, it's time to kick the donkey" instead of "...jiggity, jig, he haw, he haw, it's Dominick the donkey".  So we sing songs about kicking donkeys.  I leave you with our end of the day rendition of Dominick yesterday, complete with toys all over the house.  It really was the end of the day.

Don't Forget Cuckoo Head.