Ellen-isms

On one of our busy home days, I was making the 16th phone call to the insurance company to clarify our new benefits and Ellen was just getting up from "quiet time" and wanting some attention, of which I had little to give. She was teary - "I feel like you never spend time with me!!!" - and I felt guilty and awful. I scrambled to pull dinner together so we could all eat at Georgia time (i.e. 5:30pm) and then Erik put Georgia to bed while Ellen and I ran "fun" errands to buy birthday presents and shop the sale racks. She was a pretty good little helper, despite the fact that we only bought bday presents and clothes for Georgia and Erik. I treated her to an ice cream cone on the way home. As we turn on to our street ... "Mom, when I get dead, I will never forget all the things we did together."

I have NPR on my radio 97% of the time, of which Ellen is merely tolerant. (Erik has the "fun" car). As we ran errands, we were flipping through the stations, singing all the popular songs these days. Ellen switches gears:
E: I really love Life cereal.
Me: You do? (It's a school food)
E: Yes, it's really sweet and good.
Me: Well, it's really ..(cut off by Ellen)
E: And, it's the ONLY chance I have at school to sing "The Story of My LIFE ...."
(Song by One Direction if you aren't in the know and/or haven't spent any time with Ellen in the last 2 weeks)

Ellen, eating leftover pizza with meatballs for lunch one weekend day: "DAD! Did you know this meat has seeds???" (i.e. caraway seeds in the Italian sausage)

One Thursday morning, I was still drinking my coffee and reading with Georgia. Ellen was rocking back and forth in an antique child's rocking chair we have, but tipping back so far that she would have fallen backwards, except for the sofa stopping her. I asked her to stop, then she did it again (of course).
Me: "Ellen, stop it! You are doing that on purpose and if that chair breaks we are in trouble."
Ellen: I'm not doing it on purpose! You may believe that, but I don't. Everyone believes different things! You said so yourself!
Me, recalling a too-early-in-the-morning conversation about world religion and the fact that everyone can choose to believe what they want. DAMN.

Watching the Olympics:
"Mom! You missed it! Make the TV go fast-backwards!" (aka rewind)

Ellen likes to take showers by herself these days and, with a little coaching, she does a pretty good job. She was standing under the hot water the other day, relaxing, and said "Aahhh, this is the lifetime!"