Kateisms -

Kevin and I have noticed lately how grown-up Kate sounds when she is talking. She no longer talks with a slight toddler lisp. Her “r’s” are sharp and her “th’s” are clear.

For instance, she no longer refers to my sister Kristi as “Kwisti”. She clearly says her name as “Kristi” now.

Her vocabulary is so much more than I would have expected for a 3.5 year old. Maybe my standards were too low, but I honestly didn’t expect for a child her age to be able to correctly and accurately use the words ridiculous and fantastic, and I most certainly didn’t think that she would be able to tell me all about cumulus clouds. I digress.

She has come so far with language development, but she still says so many things that crack us up. For example…

When we get in the car, Kate likes to go fast. Always. I’ve been explaining to her that we have rules when we drive, and that there are signs on the road that tell us how fast we can go. And if we go too fast, the police will catch us and we’ll get in trouble. So the other day, Kevin picks up Kate and they are in their car on the way home, when this little conversation goes down:
Kate – “Slow down, Daddy. You have to go the speed lemon or you will get in trouble.”
Kevin – “Do you mean the speed limit?”
Kate – “No. I said the speed LEMON.”

In addition to the whole “speed limit” conversation, I have had to explain to her that one of the other road-rules is that she has to be buckled into her car seat. Though I have also explained that her car seat helps keep her safe if we have an accident, she isn’t always a fan of being strapped in. One day last week she decided that she did NOT want to be buckled in, so she and I had this conversation…
Me – “Kate, you have to be strapped into your car seat. It’s the rule.”
Kate – “But I don’t want to. I want to sit in the front with you.”
Me – “No, you can’t. You know that you have to be bucked in. Don’t you remember what will happen if you DON’T get buckled in?”
Kate – “Yeah. The police might catch us. But I won’t get in trouble. YOU’LL get in trouble. Not me!”

I typically take a picture of Kate on her first day of school and on her last day of school, holding a sign that says just that. A few weeks ago was Kate’s last day of school. I was trying to take her picture, and she kept holding the sign upside down. However, she did not agree with me that she was holding the sign wrong! This was how the conversation went:
Me – “Kate, flip the sign around. You’re holding it upside down.”
Kate – “No, Mommy. It’s fine.”
Me – “No, Kate. It’s upside down. You need to fix it.”
Kate – “No, MOM! It is right. It is upside up.”

Kevin’s dad was eating dinner at our house a few nights ago. He was sitting at the piano with Kate, and when he stood up to come into the living room, he had some pain in his leg. He said “Ow!” and grabbed it. Kate, being the concerned little mama that she typically is, said “What happened, Papa?” He told her that his leg hurt and she said “Don’t worry, Papa. It’ll get all better before you get married.”
He is almost 65 and has been married for over 20 years.

We were traveling this past weekend, and Kate ended up getting sick while we were gone. She was coughing her head off, had a fever of 102.8 and you could just tell that she felt awful. We cut the trip short and headed home at 8am on Sunday morning so I could get her to the doctor. Of course, since it was the weekend, we ended up at one of those Urgent Care centers and basically just had to wait our turn. It took forever. We waited for nearly 2 hours to go back. The whole time Kate was just asking to go home and get in her bed to take a nap. That just tells you how horrible she felt, because what 3 year old ASKS for bed? Anyway. We finally see a nurse come to the door and call for “Katherine”. We walk through the doors and Kate looks at the nurse and says “My name is KATE. And little girls don’t like shots. OKAY???”