Conversations With Lin-Ley

* A few weeks ago we spent an entire Saturday at home. I concentrated on cleaning the floors throughout the house. Lin-Ley was keeping a close watch on me and decided that we should play Cinderella…
“OK Mom. Let’s play Cinderella. You will be Cinderella and I will be the evil step-mother. Now Cinderella, scrub those floors! When you are done with that start on the laundry and then the windows!” Needless to say this went on for quite a while….

* A little later Tru was scooting over a freshly mopped floor. Lin-Ley stepped in, “Tru, don’t do that. Mommy is trying to get everything clean and fresh for when Daddy comes home in November!”

* We were on our way out the door for school one morning. Lin-Ley was the first to leave the house but the door was locked. I caught her yanking and pulling on the doorknob with all of her might. I told her to stop and then went over to unlock the door for her and the doorknob was very loose. I told her she could not pull on the doorknob like that because it might fall off and we could not get back into our house. She said, “Well that’s OK Mom. If that happens we will just buy a new house.”

* The kids were having breakfast on a Sunday morning before church. I fixed Lin-Ley and Tru chocolate milk. Lin-Ley’s was in a cup and Tru’s was in a sippy cup. Tru started getting upset because he wanted a big boy cup like Lin-Ley. Lin-Ley said, “Tru you are a baby and you get a sippy cup. I get a big cup because I am almost a teenager.”

* Lin-Ley has been very excited about Tru’s new leg. The day before he was to get it she told me, “I’m going to tell everyone about Tru’s new leg. I want to call all of our relatives and tell them. Can you help me with the phone numbers?” By the way, she does tell everyone about Tru’s leg: friends, classmates and strangers. Her teacher emailed me and told me that she has overheard several conversations in the classroom about Lin-Ley’s brother’s leg. The children are all very curious about it so when Tru is up and balanced I think he will be making a visit to Kindergarten for a Q&A.

* The following morning I was talking to Lin-Ley about Tru’s new leg and the fact that he can take it on and off. When I told her about this the look on her face was priceless. She could not imagine how it was possible to take off your leg. But we started talking about the fact that Tru would now have two legs just like everyone else. Lin-Ley thought about it and said, “So Tru won’t be like a flamingo anymore?” I asked her what she meant. “You know, with one long leg and one short leg.” Hmmmm, pretty clever.

* Lin-Ley's first comment upon seeing Tru's leg, "Ahhh, it's cute."