Causing a Commotion - and other such things....

Here are a few fun tales of Kate from recent days.....

• Kate called me into her bathroom the other day, very frustrated as she was getting ready for bed. It seems that the bathroom light switch had accidentally been set to the "motion detector" status and, timing out, the lights kept going out on Kate in the bathroom since it was not detecting motion from her short self as she brushed her teeth. "Moooo-oooooommmmmm! The COMMOTION DETECTOR is MAKING me NUTS!!!!!!"
• Yesterday, Kate was very interested in the story of Thanksgiving. She had been asking what November had in store for her (since October had Halloween and she is at the age where she judges months based on what fun event happens during it's time....don't we all?!).  I began to explain Thanksgiving. I told her about the Mayflower, which prompted this response from Kate: "Mom! Do you know that flour is a food but flower is also a flower? It is the same word, but different meanings! Isn't that funny?"  After enthusiastic discussion over other words that sound the same but are different (pear-pare-pair, bear-bare etc.), back to the tale of the pilgrims et al I turned.  When I was done sharing all I could recall from elementary school about the thanksgiving meal, Kate asked me "So, when the pilgrims and the native americans were done eating their big dinner, did they all go into the living room and play the Wii?" She was very sad when I told her "no" and even more shocked and sad when I told her they did not even have electricity or televisions and certainly no "wii".  She said that maybe they would enjoy putting on plays for each other instead.  I told her I thought that sounded just great.
• Kate has taken to asking me a lot of questions about her food. She wants to know if things are organic, how they are grown, where they are grown and how we obtained it.  When it comes to meat in particular, she has made a point of asking me "Was this alive? Did this come from an animal? Did it have eyes?"  I answer her pretty frankly in saying "Yes it was, but it is our food."  She has yet to refuse it, but I wonder if I have a little veggie baby in the making.  
• Spelling is out. You know....that fantastic way that adults have of communicating with each other  in the presence of children when they do not want the children to understand the conversation and to avoid probing questions about adult topics from teeny people ("Well, they are getting a d-i-v-o-r-c-e", or "The guy was a huge j-e-r-k", or "The k-i-d-s are making me c-r-a-z-y").  I did not realize the extent of Kate's spelling talent until the other day when I was talking to my friend on the phone and said "I have to limit the c-a-n-d-y or there will never be b-e-d for the k-i-d-s and I have so much homework to do". i just did not feel like getting into a conversation about candy with Kate when Halloween candy was all that she thought about.  Kate, sitting playing with her toy puppy on the floor looks at me and says "Mom! But I WANT Candy! I will go to bed at a normal time!"  At least I was not spelling something naughty!