Amara this weekend...

What a bad mom -- I'm halfway through October and I haven't taken ONE photograph! We had the fall festival Saturday, too, and while I had the camera with me, I didn't even take it out of the bag. Ugh!

Amara was full of funny stuff this weekend, and I know I won't remember all of it! She talks and sings so much, that I just can't commit it all to memory -- especially if I'm slacking at writing it down til the end of the weekend! So I'll share what I can remember. Maybe Jon can fill in some blanks....

Amara has become quite the singer -- most of the time you can even recognize the tunes she's singing. Today she sang "Children of the Heavenly Father." She knew most of the words, though a couple times I thought she was saying "hungry Father" instead of "heavenly Father." She doesn't know all of them, but she's got the tune down pat.

She's also starting to be very creative in making up songs. She was singing something odd to the tune of Jingle Bells. I couldn't really hear her words, but it was close to dinner time and she was very hungry -- all I know is the words were basically saying "Come on Mom, make us some food!" to the tune of Jingle Bells.

She has a cute little stuffed Yorkie dog that she was playing with today. She told me I had to hold her... so I did. Then she gave me a spoon and told me to feed her. I scooped the food from Amara's belly, hoping to tickle Amara. Amara was getting annoyed, so I told her I was getting food from her belly. She looked at me, exasperated, and said, "No Mom, you have to pretend!"

She's still milking her broken collar bone, even though the docs told her it was fine. Whenever she's not getting the attention she wants and she would like to be fed (at the table), she says, "I can't, my shoulder hurts."

Amara has figured out how to avoid trouble when she's caught doing something we'd rather her not doing. We always are telling her not to suck on her hair or to keep her fingers out of her mouth. This isn't something she actually gets into trouble for, but we remind her not to do it. One day I told her, "Amara, get your hair out of your mouth." Her response: "I'm just getting the ketchup off of it" -- I don't think she had ketchup that day. Later that day, "Amara, get your fingers out of your mouth." Her response: "I'm licking the syrup off them." Oy...

We had a near scare this weekend. Amara woke up from her nap yesterday calling, "Mommy, I comb my hair." I got to her room -- one of those 8 inch black narrow barbers combs was completely tangled in her hair. I probably worked for 1/2 hour, trying desperately to free her hair from the teeth of the comb. I was near tears and desparate to figure out how to get the comb out. All the while, Amara kept saying, "I sorry Mommy. I won't comb my hair anymore." Finally I had a lightbulb go off -- I cut off all the teeth of the comb, snapped the edges off so I had only the inch-long knot left, then pulled the hair as tight as I could and cut the tangled teeth as close to the hair as possible. Miraculously it was out within minutes. I was SO relieved! Of course it was tangled right in the center/top of her head, mere inches from her scalp -- cutting off the hair would have been horrible!

This weekend has been very musical at our house. Amara has a mini piano, maracas, tambourine, and drum (thankfully, she couldn't find the drum... we didn't help her). She carried ALL of them (yes, at the same time) wherever she went this weekend. Of course, she'd drop them... which made crazy amounts of noise! She kept trying to stick the maracas down her diapers to use them as pockets! Gross! Lysol was at the ready. At the fall festival, she heard the band warming up and asked me, "Mommy, I go play news-kick, too?" (News-kick is Amara speak for music). It was fun to see her identify what was going on -- she couldn't see the band at the time she asked the question.

Amara's most endearing trait right now is her willingness to help... with everything. Now as you might guess, help from a 3 year old typically isn't very helpful! We've learned that she enjoys "helping" by telling us what steps are next, so that makes things like cooking bacon (i.e. too dangerous for her) easier to accept her help. Her favorite chores to help with: making meals (she especially loves mixing things and building grilled cheese sandwiches), laundry (she's good at tossing wet clothes into the dryer), and sweeping (she holds the dust pan while I sweep up the piles. Sometimes she'll help by putting things in the refrigerator, throwing away the garbage, etc. She'll often sing a song she must have learned in Sunday School: "Clean up, clean up, everybody do their share." I like this song!

And now for a question... ever since her birthday, Amara has been saying "Jump ropes and little cups." That's the complete sentence. I have NO clue what she's talking about, and she hasn't been able to elaborate for me. Any clue? Anyone?