Gardening with Abby

I have decided to let Abby have her own little plot of land this year and grow her own garden. This garden can contain anything she wants: flowers, fruits, vegetables, rocks, sticks, etc. Today we planted some seeds inside. I was really trying for this to be a meaningful mother-daughter time. I had purposely waited until Luke was down for a nap so he wasn't crawling around our ankles, scavenging for dropped clumps of dirt.
As we were filling her little pots with soil, I asked her what she wanted to grow. She replied, "Oreos." That's a new one! I tried to explain to her that you can't grow oreos, but I'm not sure she gets it. Anyway, we ended up planting corn, green beans, tomatoes, cantaloupe, zinnias, liatris (flower), sunflower, and aluyssum (flower). After we watered them we placed them in a sunny window well. A few minutes later she came up to me and excitedly reported, "My plants has growed up already!" Of course, I jumped up to check on the enormous sprouts...not. Anyway, I explained that it's going to take a while for her plants to "grow up." We had several more false alarms this evening about her plants being enormous already.
Other humorous things that have happened with Abby... this morning she told me I was a puppy. Then she took it back and said, "You are a puppy with sharp teeth!" If that's the worst insult she can think of, I think we're doing pretty well. I have also been called a cow with sharp teeth and a horse with sharp teeth.
Luke loves to crawl to the top of our stairs and scare the living daylights out of all of us, so Abby has made it her mission to stop him. Sometimes that means grabbing him by his ankles and dragging him backwards to wherever I am. And, sometimes it means standing spread eagle at the top of the stairs to stop him from getting to the edge. She was in this position yesterday saying, "Don't do it Wukie. It would not be fun to fall down the stairs. You will get a big owie, a bleed. You might die." She is taking this whole stair thing very seriously, it's nice to have her on my side on this one. She's a great help.
Abby also loves to quote books that we read together. The other night she called me to her room and told me she was "frightened." Funny, a book we read together has a little mouse who called her grandfather to her room and told him she was frightened too...hmmm. She also says, "Dancing is dumb. If you don't come to my 'idol' I will be angry." She is quoting a George and Martha (two great chums who are also hippos and hilarious...in this particular story Martha is in a dance recital ("idol" and George has decided not to come because he thinks dancing is dumb. Martha, who angers easily, replies that, "If you don't come to my recital, I'll be angry.") story. I encourage you to look up George and Martha, they were written by James Marshall.
Yesterday on our way home from church, we were in two separate cars; Corey was in the van with the kids, and I was in the car by myself. We took differing routes, and UNBEKNOWNST to me, Corey was seeing who would win. We pulled up at a 4 way stop sign within a few seconds of each other, but I was clearly there first and therefore pulled in front of him. We pulled into the driveway approximately 30 seconds later. As soon as the van door opened, I heard Abby yelling about something. As I got closer to the van I could make out the words, "You need to stop at the stop sign mom! That's fordiculous (ridiculous)!" I wonder if her dad coached her, or perhaps she just heard him talking out loud to himself??
Well, there are many more Abby stories. Many are not appropriate for this blog (kind of embarrassing too), which is sad to say when your child is only 2 1/2. God help us in the years ahead!