Sunday morning, exhausted after weeks of sick kids and bad nights, we decided…gasp!…to sleep in and go to late Mass. So 8:45 a.m found me on the Nordic Track, attempting to multi-task the time as brain-quiet time. I knew better, of course. Julianna stepped lightly into the room in her white-and-purple dress, her boots on the wrong feet, carrying a book, and held it out to me. “Wee boh?”
“Book,” I corrected.
“Bo-koh.”
“When I’m finished exercising. But it’s going to be half an hour.”
She stood and watched me for a minute, then let out a long stream of jibberish I couldn’t follow. But I caught the words “wa bee bah,” which is watch baby signing times, which is code for “I want a video.” The rest, however, completely escaped me.
She kept repeating that “rest,” however, for the next six hours. Clearly she was trying to communicate something, but “Pee-poh Jah-yu-yigh” did not ring any bells. “People?” I kept asking, and she’d shake her head.
In the afternoon Alex and I went out for a while, and when we came home, among the madhouse that met me at the door was Julianna carrying this:
Christian gave me a wry grin. “That’s what she wants for a movie today,” he said, and Julianna said happily, “Pee-poh Jah-yu-yigh!”
Purple Jazzercise.
(Disclaimer 1: this video was a gift.
Disclaimer 2: there is nothing “burlesque” about this DVD except their annoying tendency to say that every body part is “sexy.” Last week while I was snowed in, the kids alternately watched and danced with me to this and my other workout DVD.)
This reminds me of the last time Julianna desperately wanted to communicate something to me. Another stream of unintelligibility she kept repeating for hours as I wracked my brain and came up with nothing. “Yi-yi wah-oh.” Finally she signed “pool,” and I caught it: swimming lessons.
They weren’t sure their IQ tests were quite accurate this year when they did the re-eval, because she can’t talk. Until now, she’s been pretty easy-going and didn’t have a lot of trouble communicating, because her desires were pretty basic. Now, however, she really wants to talk, and does. It’s a good thing, but hoo-boy, it’s a brain stretcher!
Now, on to the “other random kid-ness” I indicated in the title:
Item 1: Apparently from here on out, thunder snow is the norm for mid-Missouri.
Item 2: What with President’s Day, an intestinal virus, and eleven inches of snow, Alex and Nicholas went to school one day last week; Julianna went two. Our street never did get properly cleared, and now we have another several inches dumping on us again…and another snow day.
Item 3: After last week’s lackadaisical attitude toward closures caused havoc on local streets, everyone is gunshy, and the entire city has closed down: busses, schools, universities….doctors’ offices…
Item 4: Which means it is time for Nicholas to wake up crying at 5:30 a.m. after three days of runny nose…because his ear hurts.
You’ve met a character named Murphy, haven’t you?
Kathleen M. Basi 
God gives marvelous gifts. One of them worth praying for is the interpretation of tongues. On the natural and spirit level, it’s a blessing.
You know, I had never thought of it that way…