Observations

It's 630 in the morning and I should be eating my breakfast and getting ready for the day but I had to just take a minute to post Anabelle's latest quotes before they slip my conscious forever.

The things that come out of Anabelle's mouth lately seem to be her way of making sense of the world, she's trying to figure things out, and she lets you know every observation she sees along the way - at least when we're at home. She did say she was frustrated at school that there is never enough time to say what's on her mind about the topic of the day. But I know full well that my Anabelle has a lot to say.

Okay, so we watched that new Disney movie EARTH, and well, quite frankly, I was disappointed. I wasn't aware that it was simply a full length documentary of Discovery Channel/BBC Planet Earth!
We had already watched most of that season thanks to the library. But, Mike, Kat, and I seemed to be the only ones bored so we watched on. It is breathtaking scenery and we all laugh hysterically at the birds.
Knowing the footage, I fastforwarded with a slip of hand past scenes of little animals experiencing nature's way.
But at the end I was gone, and Mike had fallen asleep.

****SPOILER ALERT if you've never watched a nature documentary****
I got home and Anabelle huffed, "It was a good movie except the papa Polar bear didn't make it." Her eyes teared just slightly. "They are just stupid."

I frowned. "The bears were stupid?"

"No!" She put her little hands on her hips. "The people who made the movie!!! Do they think little kids want to see that?!" She walked away mumbling and judging by her body language, if I didn't know better, she was probably saying, "Who writes this crap!?"

Fast forward to last night's car trip to Wal-mart. Over and over, I hear Anabelle saying, "Merci!"

"Honey, do you even know what merci means?" I ask.

"Nope. But it was in a fancy nancy book and I just LOVE being fancy too."

I explain what merci means and she asks how to add "very" to it. It was HILARIOUS watching my kids (Sam joined in) trying to say merci beaucoup. Asking how to say the same thing in spanish, they delve into mispronouncing and causing me to giggle some more.
Next, they want to know how to say please in Spanish then French.
It was an enjoyable drive.

We get to Wal-mart and when the greeter hands up a cart, my daughter is suddenly transformed and holding the poise of a queen when she turns slightly and with a nod says, "Merci!"
The greeter's doubletake combined with Anabelle's poised manner almost were my undoing.
Next, the vegetables. Sam and her are helping bag the various veggies I've pointed out when a hispanic family moves next to us.
Anabelle unabashedly stares at them then turns to me and says, rather loudly, "Allright! What's coma estas mean again?" Clearly frustrated that she can't understand the family next to us.
But apparently they understand her as they snicker while I try to explain.

Sam needs soccer socks, so we are checking to see if anything meets that need in the sock aisle before heading over to sporting goods. As we're looking, Anabelle is standing in the aisle. She gasps, and shouts, "Oh my goodness!! They have women's underwear but with PICTURES of them in the underwear!"
Sam and I both try to redirect her attention to the socks when she continues to shout, "I don't get it! Why would they do that? They don't do it for kids' underwear! That's just SO embarrassing!!!"

I hope it takes a while before she screens announcing her thoughts, because in a way they do make you stop and think, uh yeah, why does the world do it this way? And well, frankly, her passionate expressions just make me smile - she definitely speaks her mind.