On Randy and Ralphie

This morning Emilia just about shocked the pants off of me by choosing to make her own bed.  This is exactly how it looked when she finished with it, and I am not even kidding.  I've never seen her attempt such a thing before.  In fact, she doesn't ever seem to notice if her bed is even made -- let alone the idea of someone actually doing it for her.  But there you go, she did it, and I give all the credit to watching too much telly. 

The three-and-a half-year-old has been mildly obsessed with the movie 'A Christmas Story', or as she likes to call it, 'Randy & Ralphie'.  And me, being a rather awful parent sometimes, have been putting it on for her to watch.  I do cringe throughout, if that is any consolation.  And I have vowed to chuck the thing in the trash the moment she calls someone a Smart-Ass.  But there is no denying that it is probably the best Christmas movie this side of Charlie Brown.

Anyway, you know that scene toward the beginning when Ralphie marks the page in a magazine with the ad for a Red Rider BB Gun, and then props it, ever so nicely, against his mother's pillow for her to see later?  The idea being that she just happens to see the ad, and then thinks what a great Christmas present a Red Rider BB Gun would be for Ralphie. 

My sweet little Emilia, not thinking to put her catalog on mama's and dada's bed, has placed it on her own.  I love this so much.  It just shows that rather than ask mama or dada for all the loot she has been scoping out, she goes to bed dreaming all the magical things that little kids dream.

What warms my heart even more is that when we sat in front of the computer this evening doing some Christmas shopping, she saw the catalog I had set aside.  I have had my eye on a piece of Mexican artwork, and because it is rawther expensive, it is not actually on my Christmas list year.  But it is beautiful, and one is allowed to stare, no?

And so, my sweet little thing, took the catalog from my hands, and said she would get it for me.  She then ran to find a paper to mark the page, à la Ralphie.  I found the catalog an hour or so later propped up against my own pillow.  And it made my heart glad.