Riley says the darnedest things. Here are a few I've written down for all to enjoy.
We've enjoyed teaching Riley how to pray. It's the sweetest to hear her little voice praying for you. I love that she will often include everyone she can see in her prayer. One day I noticed her start praying on her own. Trying to encourage the action I folded my arms as well. She promptly said, "Don't want mama to do it with me." Well then.
When we were first teaching her about prayer we would often tell her it was a beautiful prayer. For a while after she said amen she would immediately say, "That was a BEAUTIFUL prayer."
Sometimes when Riley yells at me or chooses to do something I'd rather her not I'll tell her that I feel sad because of it. Never wanting to deal with unhappy emotions she will often give me a hug and tell me I feel all better. One day when I was really feeling over it I told her that I was still a little upset after the hug. Never deterred she said, "But Bo's happy!"
I say that it's time for bed, Riley says she wants to play for one more minute, but I say we don't get one more minute tonight. Riley goes over to Alexa and says, "Alexa set a one minute timer." Then to me, "I get one minute to play."
Riley loves to know everyone's name. When we interact with someone she doesn't know she asks me, "What's her/his name?" Once when I told her the name was Brie she said, "Brie! Just like Fancy Nancy!" She also insists on knowing the names of all the characters in her books. :)
Sometimes when I pour Riley cereal I'll accidentally put a little bit too much and I'll say, "Oops that was a lot." Riley will respond, "Keep the lot!" She has even started saying that when I don't say anything, but to her the amount in her bowl looks like a lot.
Riley was playing with her Paw Patrols and they were going to the beach. In response I started to sing a song that goes, "Lets go to the beach, beach, lets go get away." Riley looks at me concerned and says, "Let's go to the beach, but let's not runaway."
Riley was trying on my sunglasses, but I told her that they were too big for her. She said, "Sunglasses are too big. Mama is too big so you can wear them." Good reasoning there kid.
It cracks me up every time this little girl says, "Oh my gosh!" She says it with such passion and it's usually because she has seen someone wearing a favorite cartoon character. Like, "Oh my gosh! It's Anna and Elsa!"
We are all about body positivity and awareness over here. We try to tell her all the proper names of body parts and talk about them if she is curious. One day she pointed to me and said, "That's mama's chest." I confirmed that she was correct. Then she looked down her shirt and said, "Chest is not there."
Riley has started not falling asleep during her nap time occasionally. That means some days she's extra tired. If we get to the end of the day and she's overly emotional I'll ask if she needs some time by herself or to go to bed early. To avoid having an early bedtime she'll try and convince me that she's okay. If she accidentally lets out a sob again she'll tearfully tell me, "That wasn't crying that was laughing!"
Sometimes the things we try to teach her can backfire. In order to try and help her handle different situations we'll say something like, "Wasn't that so nice that he shared with you? Sometimes kids are good with sharing, and sometimes they aren't," or "It's so fun to have dessert huh? Sometimes we'll have dessert, and sometimes we won't." The other day I said something to Riley that she could see was correct so she says to me, "Mama is right! And sometimes she's not right!"
We also try to teach her that mistakes or accidents are okay and we just clean them up without getting too stressed. Well she learned the lesson a little too well when she said, "It's okay to break everything!"
Another example of that, "If you make a mess in this house we need to make another one."
After the minute timer that means it's time for bed goes off, "That was someone else's minute."
"It's so funny that dogs lick people!" Said with absolute glee.
"We can't bring Owen this time because he's in Pennsylvania." "He's in Transylvania?!" So random the vampire knowledge she has because of the Vamperina books.
"Cross-stitching like Mama," while playing with some strands of grass.
"It's a little tricky, but I can do it!" That's right girl!
Britt asks her, "What was your favorite part of the splash pad?" Riley, "The water!"
Britt played me a new song by Lil Nas X. Riley immediately start dancing and says, "I LIKE this song! It's like (starts jumping around)."
Evidence of how many books we read to this girl is the way she'll phrase things like, "'That's so funny', says Mama." "'Please don't do that', says Mama."
After I told her I was going to jump in the shower, "Mama don't jump in the shower!" Good to hear those bathtub safety lessons are sticking.
I had just commented the other day that I hadn't noticed Riley being in the "Why" phase yet. Then we were driving home one day and I said something like, "What in the world are you doing?" To a motorist that was driving in someone else's lane and being very confused. Riley then asked me why I said that, I explained I was confused what a driver was doing, why are you confused, because they weren't following the rules, why weren't they following the rules, and so on.
A few days later, "Yay everyone's following the rules!"
The deep effect of the cicadas. When she was playing that Mickey and Minnie were going to the beach. She moved them from one blue part of the rug to another and explained, "He went to another beach because the other one had cicadas in it."
One of her cuter habits is asking us all, "How was your day?" For a while whenever we asked her how her day was she'd say, "So well!"
Spoken about a dog, but the racial energy in it made me a little nervous that she'd be overheard. "He's so cute! That's because he's so white!" Haha I will say that she still doesn't totally understand because correctly so I'm gonna blame it on that.
In order to try and calm down and eliminate future tantrums I tried getting Riley to understand that sometimes I don't realize that something I've done upsets her and I'd be happy to reverse it if she just explained to me calmly what she wants. So I'd start a lot of sentences with, "Oh I didn't realize..." She would eventually start using that against me in moments when I definitely did realize I was taking away something she wanted. She'd prompt me saying, somewhat anxiously, "Oh I didn't realize you wanted that to stay there!"
We do set meal times for Riley and she doesn't eat between them. (And when I say meals, there are snacks included in that...it comes down to 5 meals so don't feel too bad for the kid.) So she knows she's not supposed to just grab food off the counter. Every once in a while I'll leave something out she can get to. The other day it was some peanut butter crackers that had been part of her previous meal. As she snuck a few she came over to me and assured me she was, "Just having my leftovers!"
Alright these next two come with a crude warning, they do talk about potty things :)
One day she just said to me, "Pees are yellow, poops are brown, and toots are orange." She has since recited that to me numerous times and it cracks me up every time. I don't know how she decided on the color of toots, but there you have it.
Whenever I ask her to put all her pees and poops in the toilet she ALWAYS has to clarify, "But just one at a time!" Yes, I'm not asking you to do it simultaneously dear I just don't want to go to the toilet three more times before bed.
If any of the attitude in these previous comments surprises you just see below for proof that she really is this sassy and hilarious. :)
