Mama Knows

Juliana came over to me one day last week, told me there were four stuffed animals under her shirt and instructed me to guess the names of each. Her only hint was that two were dogs. I thought for a moment and said, "Um....Ick and Stripey and Sunny and...Girly Girl" to which she exclaimed, "How'd you know?!" I replied in disbelief, "Am I right? Really? All of them?!" She was tickled pink that I guessed them all correctly and happily went off to play. Now, admittedly, I knew she was playing with Ick and I could see a zebra poking out the top of her shirt and correctly guessed its name was Stripey, but I pulled the dogs names out of nowhere and there's no telling who actually got stuffed down her shirt since there are no fewer than 5,000 stuffed animals residing in our home. I actually know my child. That feels good.

For the record, Ick is her new raccoon that daddy brought her from his conference last week. She is named after a baby raccoon featured on Little Bear. As I already mentioned, Stripey is an aptly named zebra. Sunny and Girly Girl are two of her favorite puppies. Sunny is a Yellow Lab (get it?) Webkinz that Juliana got for Christmas because Santa does not bring dogs to kids who already have a cat. And, no, we cannot get rid of the cat so Santa will bring us a dog. Because, we've had the cat longer than we've had the kids and that's not a nice thing to suggest about the cat who has never said a bad thing about you.

Any suggestions for excuses why we can't get a dog after the cat kicks it are welcome.