My Almost Kindergartner

August 16th my oldest child is going to be our little test pilot and test out the Yakima Public School system on behalf of the family. Poor Yakima schools they have no idea of what's coming their way.

Izabella often has a talent for surprising me with her abilities. Recently she learned to "listen after you pray."

I am as you know, one of the most organized moms on the planet. (total sarcasm by the way.) I am forever losing things and then running late to go somewhere since I've lost a crucial item for our trip.

The other day I couldn't find my backpack diaper bag that also had my car keys on it. We were already running 10 minutes late and I had been looking for it for a half an hour. I was downright ticked off at everything when my little angel suggested that we say a prayer.

Since I was in no mood to say it, I asked Izabella if she would offer the prayer and she cheerfully did. After the prayer I sat still for a moment. When Iz asked what I was doing, I explained to her that I was listening and that's what you should do when you ask a question in a prayer.

When I invited her to listen, she told me that the backpack was upstairs in Spencer's room. My thought was that it was in the hallway.

I went upstairs and low and behold, there was the backpack in the doorway of Spencer's room.

Then the other day my keys were missing from the hook that I keep them on (when they are not attached to the diaper bag.) Again I was mad that I couldn't find them when my little sometimes innocent daughter suggested that we should say a prayer.

We had barely finished saying the prayer when Izzie popped up from her knees and went back to playing. I was kind of disappointed that she didn't stop and listen afterwards.

When I reminded her she said she already got her answer during the prayer and she prayed that "Daddy would come home soon." I gave her an inquisitive look so she went on to explain further. "Daddy has the keys and he'll give them to us when he gets home." Then she resumed playing.

Sure enough, 10 minutes later Tygh got home from work and sheepishly admitted that he had accidentally grabbed both sets of keys in the morning and he came home as soon as he remembered that I needed to go somewhere.

It's official. Izabella is a little stinker.

Why can't I get answers to prayers that easily?

Now just so you don't think that she's some perfect little spiritual child, I want to share another story that happened this week.

I was washing Lucie in the bathtub when Izabella came upstairs and told me that she had a "earring aid like Jacob."

Now her cousin Jacob does wear hearing aids, but not like this. One of her pearl necklaces had come apart into little beads. Apparently she was playing with the beads pretending that they were little stud earrings when she decided to shove one into her ear canal.

When I peered into her ear, I could barely see a little bit of shiny pearl peeking out from deep down.

Did I mention we've got terrible health insurance? Well we do.

It covers all well child visits and immunizations, but other than that we've got a $2,500 deductible. I frantically got online and looked up what procedures they would do at the doctor's office to remove the bead.

I started to add up in my head how much it would cost, which only motivated me to try and fix her problem at home. This web page said that they would probably do a saline rinse and apply suction with a vacuum tool. So I grabbed a bottle of saline spray that I had on hand and used my big ol' mouth to create some suction.

After about a half an hour of watching the bead travel further and further to the surface, the little bugger made it's way out. We kept it as a souvenir of yet another Lybbert life lesson learned.

I just hope her Kindergarten teacher will be able to handle my little destroying angel.