Habitual Utterances

I know there are things we say often because those things are echoed back to us by our darling children. Through these echoes, I've discovered many things about how our family operates. For example, we have an apparent lack of compassion for minor boo boos. I have found that anytime Claire hurts herself and starts to cry, Sarah immediately says, "You're okay!" It happens so frequently that Claire even mentioned it to me the other day. She said, "Mommy, I don't need Sarah to tell me I'm okay, I just need you to kiss the boo boo." Okay, sweetie. Message received.

And today I learned that (despite our lack of compassion for boo boos) we are full of love around here. Sarah feels that anytime the word "goodbye" is uttered, it must immediately be followed by, "I love you!" And this was made perfectly clear today when we were at Walmart. We stopped off in the restroom and as we were finishing up and leaving the stall, Sarah calls out, "Goodbye potty! I love you!"

Claire immediately looked at me with a puzzled look and said, "Did Sarah really just tell the potty 'I love you'?" I couldn't help but laugh at the sweetness of my youngest and the emerging snarky nature of my oldest. I guess I have only myself to blame.