Because this girl is the one who inspired me to live with a bold confidence ♥
This year Scarlette was incredibly excited about trick-or-treating. She kept forgetting to say “Trick or Treat” at the beginning, because she was so engrossed in conversation with every single person handing out candy, that at the end she would turn and say “Oh! Trick or Treat! AND A VERY HAPPY HALLOWEEN TO YOU!”
Then she would run back down the driveway to us yelling, “CANDY! THEY GAVE ME CANDY! I can NOT believe this! I CAN NOT!” This happened at every single house we went to.
Until the third to last house of the night, when she came running down the driveway yelling, “BUBBLE GUM! I GOT BUBBLE GUM!” And I said, “That’s so great!” And then she replied loudly, “Actually, it’s not that great. Because you don’t even let me HAVE bubble gum, Mommy.”
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I got a little bit exasperated and exclaimed, “Scarlette! I have told you HOW MANY TIMES?!” And she tilted her head, put her chin on her fist, wrinkled her nose, and then said brightly, “Three? It was three, right? Is three the correct answer here?”
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I told Scarlette that she could not eat another piece of Halloween candy and she said, “WELL, Mommy. That has me feeling very DISMAYED at the moment.”
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How Scarlette woke me up at 6:30 on a Saturday morning: “Mommy. Mommy. MOMMY. I have a question. How old do I have to be to use OxiClean?”
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The scene: I’m downstairs doing laundry and Scarlette is in bed when I hear her start screaming “NINE ONE ONE! NINE ONE ONE! NINE!!! ONE!!! ONE!!!”
By the time I got to the top of the stairs she was standing there with her hands on her hips and she said all indignantly, “Mommy! Dere is a monster in my closet and I CALL-ED and CALL-ED 911 like the policeman said to do in an emergency so WHY are they not COMING?”
So then I explained to her about how you’re supposed to call 911 on the telephone and not by just shouting out the numbers and I feel in my soul that this safety lesson is going to end with policemen at my house.
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(On the way home from church today)
Scarlette: Mommy, I think we need to give God some monies.
Me: You mean like for the offering?
Scarlette: No! Because Jesus PAID for ALL THIS STUFF for us and he wouldn’t even let anyone give him any monies for it! He paid for lots of things, like his cross-ed and also a sword that is made out of fire. And now he doesn’t have any monies anymore!
So I think Scarlette has taken the hymn, “Jesus Paid It All, All To Him I Owe” exceptionally literally.
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I’m feeding the baby in my room when I hear a bunch of thud, thud, thud noises in the backyard, so I look out the window to see Scarlette hurling something repeatedly at the playset in front of our back fence. And this conversation follows:
Scarlette: “Mommy! DON’T WORRY if the brush goes over the fence. The girl said if I threw it over she’d get it for me.”
Me: “What? What brush?”
Scarlette: “My HAIRBRUSH! You know, the gray one.”
Me: “Why is your hairbrush outside? And why are you throwing it at the fence?”
Scarlette: “BECAUSE OF THE SPIDERWEB.”
Me: “Um…wait, what?”
Scarlette: “The spiderweb on my slide! REMEMBER? You SAID to just brush it off!”
Saturday, 6:15am: Scarlette, standing over my bed waving Chutes and Ladders and yelling “HEY GUYS, WHO WANTS TO PLAY THIS GAME WITH ME?”
Sunday: 5:45am: Scarlette, who was told not to leave her room until it is not dark outside, stealthily cracks open our door, crawls across the floor on her belly, lays down at the foot of our bed, opens a book and begins whisper reading Madeline to herself.
Every single weekday morning, 7am: Have completed multiple failed attempts to wake up Scarlette for school. Basically half-carry a still sleeping Scarlette to the breakfast table and attempt to dress her while she moves as slowly as possible. Wrangle her into pants as though she has literally forgotten how to move her limbs. Startle her as she stands over the sink brushing her teeth because apparently she fell asleep with her eyes open.
This morning: Walk her in to school with three minutes to spare and listen to her tell the teacher “Sorry we’re late, my mommy just couldn’t get it together this morning.”
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Sometimes Scarlette will complain to J when I say no to something and he usually says, “I’m on the same page as Mommy.”
Tonight I heard him tell her no about something and then later she came and asked me. “Didn’t Daddy already say no to that?” I asked her
And she threw her hands in the air and said, “Well YES but I was just hoping that maybe YOUR page was DIFFERENT!”
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When Scarlette was in the NICU some of the nurses took to calling her “Pumpkin Pie” and it stuck. The other morning I woke her up all in a hurry after being up with the baby all night and she came walking in his room with big tears in her eyes. And when I asked her what was wrong she said, “Mommy! You didn’t say ‘Good morning, Pumpkin Pie!’ and you ALWAYS call me Pumpkin Pie in the morning! I just CAN’T go to school like THIS!”
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I lost an entire basket of clean laundry. I looked for it for a week and was completely baffled. I had looked under Scarlette’s bed but a few days later when we were cleaning her room I thought to myself, “Self, I do not usually store my suitcase under her bed. In fact, I do not actually remember putting it there at all.” And then I opened the suitcase. It was full of my missing laundry.
And Scarlette said, “Oh yeah, that’s for when I go on my trip with Tyler.”
(Tyler does not actually exist. Neither does said trip.)
I asked her why she didn’t tell me where it was any of the billion times that I asked her and she replied, “I DIDN’T take the LAUNDRY, I just took my CLOTHES for the TRIP.”
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We wanted Scarlette to attend half-day kindergarten this year vs full-day so we ended up putting her in a pretty conservative christian school. Today was Hat Day at said school. And so she walked in my bedroom this morning and said, “Hey Mommy, remember how today is HAT DAY? Do we have any hats with TWO DEVIL HORNS ON THE SIDES? Because I just really want to wear a hat like that.”
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Scarlette just leaned over really far and asked me, “Mommy, when I tilt this way does the Earth tilt with me? Am *I* the one making the whole Earth MOVE-ED?”
And I explained things like science and whatnot to her but secretly I’m like, honestly some days it definitely feels like it.
P.S. For more laughs and funny Scarlette stories, and to see how you can be inspired to live with a bold confidence, pick up a copy of my latest book, In Bloom, and get this gorgeous set of printable affirmation cards as our free gift to you!
