Jane

Being Jane's mom is harder than I ever imagined. She always keeps me on my emotional toes. She knows exactly what I need--many, many lessons in patience, understanding, compassion and empathy. You know, I now have "the ability to understand and share the feelings of another" in cases such as not being able to get your food on your fork so you have a major FREAK-OUT. But I sure do love Jane. She has such a good heart.

Lately she has really been into learning about Jesus. She told me one day, "I feel in my heart that I love Jesus." And I really think she does. She talks about him a lot and always gets upset if one of us does something that might make Jesus sad. She's eager to learn what Jesus would like us to do. One day she said to Matt, "Daddy I don't want to be bad people's friend. I love bad people but I hate what they do. Like Jesus taught us to." Another day she told me, "I love Ursula, but I hate what she does." But she's still learning what is and isn't nice to say. She told me, "Mickey is not my friend because he talks dumb." Thankfully she was only referring to Mickey Mouse.

While eating canned mandarin oranges Jane said, "I want to call these squish-water oranges."

On our trip to Yellowstone we stopped at a gas station to use the restroom. It was a typical gas station restroom. But Jane walked in and said, "It's so nice and yummy in here!"

Jane and I had a conversation about love and marriage (one of many). It started with her exclaiming, "I'm almost big enough for it be real love, then I can get married!" I asked her who she was going to marry and she said, me. Later she changed her mind and said she'd marry dad. I said, "But if you marry dad, I won't be married to dad anymore." She cried like her life was over and said, "Oh, no, I won't marry ANYONE!" I had to concede and tell her we could both marry him.

When Jane was playing with her cousin Max she suggested a game where the bad people put you in jail. Max explained that bad people don't put you in jail, but the police put bad people in jail. She verified the truth of that with me. And then I explained that jail is a room that is locked so the bad people can't get out. A day or so later Jane asked me, "So, when I do something really bad to Jack, is my room jail?" I told her yes.

Jack was sick, and Matt and Jane both expressed that they felt sorry for him. Then Jane asked, "I won't get sick?" Matt said, "No you won't get sick." Then she said, "And I won't get a butt-hole either like Jack."

So you know how I'm "not supposed" to run? I put that in quotes because that's how I feel about it. Anyway, I broke down one night and tried it anyway. (Things did not work like they used to, so I won't be doing that again any time soon). Matt was not happy with me that I was going to go running. But I kissed him goodbye anyway. Matt says, after, I left, Jane said exasperatedly, "That girl!...Mommy is so just a jerk."

Matt saw Jane lying on the couch holding a stuffed animal fish staring off into space. She noticed Matt looking at her and smiled and said, "I was just think about Ariel swimmed away and shut the door. And went to her birthday party and had all the balloons and they didn't float away in the water."

One night I had a hard time getting Jane's shirt off her head. After succeeding, I said something about the head opening of the shirt. I can't remember exactly, but all of a sudden Jane was crying, grabbing her head, saying , "Oh, no! My head is opening!"

We stayed in a cabin at our family reunion. We put Jane to bed but she came out later and said she was scared. I went in with her and asked what was scary. She pointed to a phone jack in the wall that she had been staring at from her bed. I told her what it was. She asked, "I can't fit in it?" I laughed and said no, but she went over and put her head to it just to make sure.

I had just pulled in from a doctor's appointment and Matt was watching the kids. From the driveway I heard Jane yelling really loud and mean. I went in quickly because she was going to be in trouble! When I walked in I saw that she was yelling at the TV. She was watching The Little Mermaid at the end of the movie when it turns R-rated, and Ursula becomes giant and scary. She was yelling at the top of her lungs, "OCTOPUS! GET AWAY FROM HIM! OCTOPUS, GET AWAY! I'M GOING TO KILL YOU!"

In closing, here are some pics of Jane after attending a special princess party. Prior to the party we spent half an hour trying on dozens of jewelry pieces, crowns, princess shoes, etc. But every last item was "too _____". Too long, too big, too small, too scratchy. Thankfully she was willing to wear one of her dress-up dresses (which she no longer will wear now because it hurts her armpit) and some church shoes. And we ended up having a good time. I sure love my crazy girl!!!!!!!!