Nice

One evening, Abigail was jumping on the bed, performing jumps and tumbles for us. She got down for a moment to do something cute, to which Lee responded, “Abigail, you’re so cute.” I followed it up with, “… and such a sweetie.” As Abigail ran back to the bed to continue her mattress jumps, she happily and matter-of-factly stated, “Yeah! And I’m nice too!”

Rocks

At the dinner table one evening, I told Abigail one of my favorite stories from my childhood, called Too Much Noise. It’s about an old man who can’t sleep because of the wind and tapping branch outside his bedroom window. At the end of the story, he finally falls asleep. At this point, I said, “And that night, the old man slept like a rock.” To which Abigail replied, “Mommy?” “Yes, baby?” “… how do rocks sleep?” HA!

Two weeks ago, we spent a lovely weekend and St. Stephen’s Day (a Hungarian national holiday) with my Aunt Lynne and Uncle Doug. During our time together, Abigail had grown very fond of them, and they of her. So, as we were saying our goodbyes after our last evening together, Uncle Doug told her, “Abigail, I have had so much fun spending all this time with you… having dinner with you, holding you while you took a nap, playing with you, wearing “funny glasses” with you, watching fireworks with you… this has been a really great time for us, hasn’t it?” to which Abigail responded, “I’m licking my shoulder!”

Our friend Amber came to Budapest recently and stayed with us for several days. Abigail loved having someone else to hang out with (Mommy gets pretty boring after a while) and the extra attention that comes with it. One of Amber’s pet names for Abigail is “chica.” While she was out one day, Abigail proudly informed me of Amber’s name for her. “Oh, that is so neat, honey. Do you know what ‘chica’ means?” “No,” she answered. “‘Chica’ is the Spanish word for ‘girl.’” “Ohhhh,” she said. So, I asked, “Are you a girl?” “Yes!”… “Are you Spanish?” “Noooo,” she said; and before I could utter the words “You’re American,” Abigail happily exclaimed, “I’m Hungarian!”

One morning, as Lee was preparing to go to work, he announced that he was going to jump in the shower. Abigail responded by saying, “Be careful, Daddy. It’s slippery!”

While on a weekend getaway last week, we were having breakfast at our hotel. It was a buffet, so we served ourselves, which means, of course, I was serving Abigail. After getting her a drink, she asked for a straw. Because there weren’t any sitting out, I said, “Okay, honey, I’ll see if I can find one,” as I busily went about getting some coffee to revive my comatose brain and some food. Well, I forgot the straw. I returned to the table several minutes later… “Mommy, I’d like a straw.” “Oh, I’m sorry, baby, I’ll ask the man if he has any.” So, off I went – again – to get some more food for Abigail and at least three other things. When I got back (having forgotten about the straw again), I lovingly set the food down in front of Abigail and asked, “How’s this baby? Would you like anything else?” “Yes.” “What would you like, honey?” … “A STRAW!!!”