Every time she would say it like that I could feel my heart fill with a love that is like no other and anything else that happened to be in my world at that particular time came to an absolute stop. Little did she know that at those moments she could have anything her little heart desired, not just comfort in my arms. Since then she has begun two mornings of preschool and suddenly has learned the different phraseology between hold me and hold you. Darn it. It is still sweet and I am thankful every day that she still is finding comfort with her Mommy, but its not quite as gripping.

With her new found sense of maturity, she is becoming quite taken with bags, purses, satchels, you name it, anything that will help her tote more stuff from here to there. Recently she had been given a little yellow purse, similar to a tot's version of a Vera Bradley, a zipper topped petite quilted mini duffel with matching ring hand grips and a stripe of red daisies vertically around the midriff. She thinks it is actually better than sliced bread and shoves everything she can into it: keys, scarfs, toy food, even those little 2"x 2" cardboard princess books...you know...everything she's going to need for the day.

The other day we went on a short walk after work pushing her in the jogging stroller down our usual route on the dirt road. Of course she came equipped with her purse, a blanket, one naked baby, and the ruby red slippers. Everything you need for a walk on a dirt road. If we let her walk too soon, we don't get much exercise, therefore we have a rule that she can get out of the carriage at the stop sign, because she likes to "run"...it's more like this heavenly prancing...similar to a deer gliding over a fence...very funny. So we get to the stop sign and let her out to do her thing. This time we decided to park the stroller because we were going to check out another route and double around, grabbing it on the way back.

We hadn't gone more than thirty steps before Senia Mae was screeching "Wait, wait, my purse!" sprinting back to the stroller and snatching her bag from the seat. She skipped happily back to us and went no more than twenty feet before she said, "Mommy, hold this", handing the pocketbook to Kim in her Reebok basketball shorts, T shirt, and running shoes, as she runs off to play with Birdie the dog. This is what is so hilarious, Kim who wouldn't be caught dead with a purse, is strolling happily down the road in her full sporting gear toting a mini Vera Bradley. Priceless!

On the way back the purse made it back into the stroller as I pushed and the two girls walked aside of me. Kim eventually got ahead of us as we were reaching the final stretch. Suddenly Senia Mae shouts "Mommy stop!". With honest concern, I bring the stroller to an abrupt stop, skidding in the gravel, wondering if I had accidentally run over her toe. She runs to the front of the stroller, grabs her purse and hurriedly unzips it, pulling out the scarf and the pretend bottle of soda, spouting off, "I need a coke!" I almost died with laughter, trying to hold it in so she would not become self conscious about her current task at hand. We would start up again and she forced me to stop several more times, about every five feet to repeat the same procedure. It was absolutely hilarious!!!

Apparently she is mimicking someone, possibly us, possibly someone else, but it makes me realize that our every word and action is being stored in her little Rolodex of memorized words and actions, things that adults do, things we are completely unaware that we say and do! YIKES!! Just when you think you are getting away with something sneaky....something as simple as eating a few M&M's while hiding behind the refrigerator...little eyes are watching!! Watch out!!!!