Mabel Molanphy

We went to the Tulip Fes­ti­val at Thanks­giv­ing Point this week­end. It was real­ly fun­ny. Mabel pret­ty much thinks Aunt Stephanie is the fun­ni­est per­son she’s ever met, because she’s so seri­ous while say­ing such sassy things. 

It was a fun trip, con­sist­ing of Mabel’s first ever tater tots, Kona Ice, lots of “body flops” and a fam­i­ly por­trait of Sunskis. 

Sad­ly, they could­n’t all be togeth­er on stage, due to the pan­dem­ic, but they filmed and put it togeth­er. Despite it all, Mabel loved the opportunity.

Mabel has always liked “dress up clothes” and being on stage. When she was four, she did bal­let and tap lessons. When it was time to renew class, she only want­ed to do so “if she could be on stage.” So, we wait­ed until the sec­ond semes­ter, when she could be on stage. Clear­ly, there’s a dri­ve there!

Yes­ter­day were try-outs for the play, Annie, at which she gets to be an orphan. She’s REALLY excit­ed. That play will be in 7 weeks. Prob­a­bly on Flip­Grid, again, due to the pan­dem­ic still, sadly.

Mabel writes a lot. Poems, let­ters to friends, com­ic books, thank you cards. She likes to write. How­ev­er, what makes me the hap­pi­est is her heart behind the let­ters. And that it got us a new apart­ment! After we saw an apart­ment we real­ly liked, she decid­ed to write the own­er a let­ter, in hopes that he would choose us to rent it to. It worked. 🙂

Let­ter to home owner

Next, we received news that my Uncle Dale had passed away. This is Mabel’s grand­pa’s near­est broth­er in age and friend­ship as a child. Mabel and I had gone to vis­it Uncle Dale a few weeks ago, when we learned about his can­cer diag­no­sis which said he would­n’t live too much longer. Mabel asked him a lot of ques­tions about him and her grand­pa, and all the things they did togeth­er. It was a fun trip and I’m glad we took it. Upon hear­ing the news about her great Uncle, she imme­di­ate­ly wrote a note to her Great Aunt Lin­da (Uncle Dale’s wife) and her grandpa.

Let­ter to Great Aunt Linda

Let­ter to Grand­pa Dibb

When­ev­er I final­ly log-into here, I regret that I don’t post more often! Nor do I have a pho­to from “twelve some­thing” when this happened –

Last night, Mabel stood next to me while I slum­bered and half-yelled, “mama, I need you!” in the same tone she’s been using since she was two years old, and I taught her thet phrase, so she would­n’t stay awake all through nap time in a poopy dia­per [rather, I help her and the she would go to sleep.**] I heard it at least once before I could force my eyes open. I asked what she need­ed and she said she was hav­ing a hard time sleep­ing, so I invit­ed her next to me, and we cud­dled while I rubbed her bel­ly. I shared that when I have a hard time sleep­ing, it’s because I have stuck thoughts in my head, and invit­ed her to share. She thought for a bit, then told me about a non-scary dream that would­n’t stop play­ing in her head. I had her say out loud, ” …… isn’t real. Please stop telling me about it. I am done think­ing about it.” because some­times, our cog­ni­tive brain needs to hear us say it out loud, rather than an inter­nal voice. It worked. As I car­ried her to her bed and thought, “when did she get so tall, that her head reach­es mine?” I heard her say, “I’m sor­ry that I woke you up at twelve some­thing in the night.” My reply, “that’s what mamas are for.” After a brief pause, she bowed her head so she could snug­gle to my shoul­der and firm­ly stat­ed “I like that rule.” 

**which reminds me. I once called her pedi­a­tri­cian and asked how to change her BM sched­ule so it would­n’t hap­pen dur­ing nap time. I still remem­ber the tone of his voice … he was so impressed that I would con­sid­er how to do that and simul­ta­ne­ous­ly dis­ap­point­ed that he did­n’t know the answer!