Tree of my Favorite Things: Cookie, Hiccups, and a Pet Dog

We're big fans of the number tree around here. Nell has a way of working the number tree into just about every conversation, and Ben and I have both fallen in love with teasing her about it. When I give the kids snacks she'll ask for tree of them. Never mind that Reid and Coraline each get a handful of teddy grahams, Nell is totally content with just tree. It is adorable!

Anyway, I thought I'd write up a quick post about my tree favorite little people and something they do that makes my heart swoon.

The few words Coraline knows just crack us up. She calls both Ben and I Mommy. Reid and Nell are both Weed. She has the sweetest, softest little "hi, hi, hi-y."  She just recently added "bye-y" to the mix. She loves saying "go, go, go, go" whenever we are on the move -- even if it's just from one room to another. It's the most upbeat and enthusiastic "go, go, go, go" you'll ever hear. After her first weekend away at Grandma and Grandpa's she started saying "puppy." All animals are "puppy." This past week I started watching our little neighbor kids again and on the first day Coraline woke up from her nap, spotted the 8 month old girl, grinned as wide as she could and said "puppy" then she looked at me with this determined little consternation. She knew it wasn't quite right and she tried again "buhppy. bahppy" I slowly said "baby" and she got to work practicing her "baby, baby." Her most common phrase might be "uh-oh."  Everything is an uh-oh (or a go, go). But last night she topped them all off. I handed her some kind of treat and she said, clear as day, "cookie!" She doesn't quite know ten words but one of them is cookie. I bought some monster trail mix today and she eagerly shouted for her share of the "cookie." Apparently all sweets are cookies. What a good girl!

One of my absolute favorite things about Nell, and this is something she's done since she was just a baby, is that she gets the hiccups if she giggles too much. Whether I'm tickling her or Ben's wrestle-fighting her or she's just making up silly songs about poop -- if you get that girl really laughing she is bound to get a serious case of the hiccups and I just love it! I could make it happen tree times a day and still never tire of it. I hope she never grows out of it.

As for Reid, this morning he asked me if I'd blogged about the puppy story. I haven't, so I better. He takes a pretty big interest in my blog and asks me to read it quite often. The puppy story took place at 6:00 yesterday morning. I heard him crying a little bit at his bedroom door and I said "Nell, juts go to the bathroom." It sounded so much like her little girl whimper and it is much more like her to wake up and immediately need attention. Reid gets up and goes back to bed without disturbing anybody. While he was using the potty I could tell it wasn't Nell and I could tell the cries were pretty sincere. When he was done I asked him to come crawl in bed with me. A few nights ago he came in at 3:30 because of nightmares so I assumed we were dealing with them again. I was wrong.

He buried his head in my shoulder and said he wanted it to be Easter. Totally confused, I asked why (this year's past Easter wasn't all that great so how could he possibly be longing for it?). He said a few things over and over again, but his sobs were so hysterical I couldn't understand a thing. He wasn't crying loudly and he clearly wasn't angry (which is his usual cry style). He was totally heartbroken, and I finally made it out. He had a dream that it was Easter morning, and the Easter bunny brought us three puppies. A brown one with short hair, a white one with medium hair, and a black one with lots of fur. "I wa--wanttt a -- puuuppppeeee" he sobbed and sobbed.

At breakfast he was finally calm but full of questions. "Is this our last baby? Daddy said we can't get a puppy until we don't have babies anymore." "How big does the baby, how long after the baby do we have to wait before we get a puppy?" "We need a water bowl and a spot for some food." "We need a puppy I can train. I want to teach him lots of cool tricks." And on and on and on. All morning long. Ben came home with the Dog Breed Bible he'd picked up at the library, and we're hoping a little browsing will settle his desire until that day -- far, far away -- when we are finally ready for a puppy.

I thought it was pretty funny he wanted me to blog about that. Usually he gets upset when I repeat any instances of him crying, but these tears certainly were different than all the others. I just wonder what exactly was going through his head when he transitioned from that dream to our reality. He certainly woke up brokenhearted. It's rough being a pet-less kid. Not that I'd know anything about that (nod to my animal loving mom).