Mabel Molanphy

For some time now, Mabel has been pre­tend­ing to ride a bike by sit­ting and rid­ing just about any­thing that she could find, includ­ing the iron­ing board, the humid­i­fi­er, and any­thing with wheels – in and out of the house. So a cou­ple of weeks ago, mama bought Mabel a bal­anc­ing bike (a bike with no ped­als) to get her start­ed. Well, need­less to say, Mabel loves it. 

Here are a cou­ple of clips of her ‘rid­ing’ her bike. Apolo­gies in advance for the shaky video – I typ­i­cal­ly walk beside her to make sure she does­n’t go on the street (not that she lis­tens to me). 

Dur­ing tonight’s bed­time rou­tine, I was able to record Mabel singing her favorite hymns to her dolly.

Love Is Spo­ken Here
I see my moth­er kneel­ing with our fam­i­ly each day.
I hear the words she whis­pers as she bows her head to pray.
Her plea to the Father qui­ets all my fears,
And I am thank­ful love is spo­ken here.

Mine is a home where ev’ry hour is blessed by the strength of priest­hood pow’r,
With father and moth­er lead­ing the way,
Teach­ing me how to trust and obey;
And the things they teach are crys­tal clear,
For love is spo­ken here.

Child of God
I am a child of God.
And He has sent me here.
Has giv­en me an earth­ly home.
With par­ents kind and dear.
Lead me, guide me, walk beside me.
Help me find the way.
Teach me all that I must do.
To live with Him someday.

Mabel has had a very spe­cif­ic bed­time rou­tine since she was born – well, prac­ti­cal­ly since she was born. The rou­tine goes as follows: 

1. Announce it’s time for bed.
2. Bath — some­times real­ly short, some­times long.
3. Taco-time (dad­dy wraps her in a tow­el like a taco — when­ev­er he gets to be there).
4. Brush teeth (more like suck tooth­paste from brush).
5. Comb hair (now that she has some).
6. Run around nakey for a lit­tle while while we pre­pare her dia­per and pajamas.
7. She picks her paja­mas (typ­i­cal­ly goes for the lady­bugs or the flowers).
8. Now we get down to busi­ness and wres­tle her into her night gown (a pouch that zips her in like a cocoon). 
9. As soon as she’s in that, she knows play­time is over.
10. She lays on mama’s or dad­dy’s lap on the rock­ing chair — don’t for­get her pur­ple dolly!
11. And her pink dolly. 
12. And bear.
13. And big dol­ly — or oth­er pink dol­ly if they hap­pen to be around. 
14. Scrip­tures (Jesus sto­ries), books, and/or frog­gy sto­ries — as many as she can con us into. 
15. Songs and hymns — again, as many as she can con us into.
16. Prayer — typ­i­cal­ly said by mama or dad­dy, with Mabel inter­ject­ing when­ev­er she feels prompt­ed to. 
17. Hugs and kiss­es while she con­tin­ues futile attempts to get some more sto­ries or songs.
18. Crib — don’t for­get her dol­lies. And her blanket.
19. Finally…bed time. Now she sings to her­self for about 15 min­utes and then she’s out.
20. Mama and dad­dy lay in near-comas wher­ev­er possible.

It’s been a fun week with Mabel…as usu­al, I sup­pose. A few fun­ny things have hap­pened that I want to record:

Mabel decid­ed to shove play-dough up her nose. I han­dled it qui­et­ly and with­out frus­tra­tion, but I was amazed how much she could fit up her tiny nose! It took a com­bi­na­tion of tweez­ers and an aspi­ra­tor to clear it. The next day, she shoved it in her ear. I’m afraid what’s next…

While tex­ting the sto­ry to my friend Becky (“Aun­tie Becky”), appar­ent­ly my fin­gers were typ­ing quite rapid­ly, as Mabel announced, “mama’s fin­gers are dancing!”

Today at swim lessons, Mabel’s for­mer teacher, teacher Ang­ie, had on a blue rash shirt rather than the red one she wore for all of Mabel’s lessons. Mabel of course noticed, then announced it. And then dur­ing night­time prayers, prayed for teacher Ang­ie’s shirt.

I am amazed at her mem­o­ry and I love her descrip­tions of things.

Odor­ant = deodor­ant (dad­dy’s)
Gra­nola = umbrella
Straw­baber­ries = strawberries
Bamoon­amoon = ballooon

She can­not pro­nounce “r” nor “l”, which makes some words extreme­ly dif­fi­cult to under­stand. Such as “roll,” which is her term for dad­dy to wres­tle with her. You nev­er real­ize how many words in the Eng­lish lan­guage have both these let­ters until your 2‑year old is repeat­ing an unknown word repeat­ed­ly while you stare won­der­ing what in the world she is try­ing to say! For­tu­nate­ly, she is patient with me. 🙂

Mabel loves to swim.