Disney Anxiety and "Natalie Says"

Whelp, Natlaie made it one week in school before getting sick and she now has missed 3 days of school this week! She's finally back in school today but of the 8 first days of school, she's missed 3!! So much for finally getting into the groove of things - this sickness pretty much had us stuck inside for 3 days straight. It was just a high fever, which was gone by the time she woke up Wednesday morning, but I still kept her home one extra day just to be sure.

Natalie is like a super sponge these days. All of a sudden she's super into Disney Princesses and music. She requests music in the car (her favorites lately have been "A Spoonful of Sugar" and "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" from Mary Poppins, "Part of your World" from Little Mermaid, "For the First time in Forever" from Frozen, and "When Will my Life Begin" from Tangled.) My mother-in-law bought her these little Disney princess figurines and she is OBSESSED and wants to learn as much as she can about each one of them. So now music and books are typically centered around them. I love it, because I want her to learn about all of these characters, songs, and movies just as much as she does. I get so excited when she learns another Disney thing, because it just makes me that much more excited for the time we take her to Disney and she recognizes all these characters, but am I the only one who feels super, super overwhelmed introducing their kid to the wonders of Disney? Like - if I want her to know all the classics, PLUS all the current Disney and not to mention Disney/Pixar movies: I would literally have to devote hours upon hours a day/months/years for her to watch these movies. I know she doesn't have to memorize every Disney Movie by the time she's 3, but there's something to be said for the fact that most of these classics came out when I was a kid and as they came out, our parents took us to the movies and then we learned them from there. I didn't have all 52,000 classic disney movies sitting at my my fingertips from the time I was born.

There are 19 Disney/Pixar films beginning in 1995 with Toy Story listed on their Wikipedia page:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Pixar_films

Wanna know how many Disney classic animated films are listed on Wikipedia??

90. 

90 Disney Classic movies. I mean, a small handful I've never heard of but still!! Even if 20 of these are minor, insignificant movies, that's still 70!

So I guess my question is: Where do I even begin??

Well - I begin with my favorites, because, why not? So The Little Mermaid has been a popular one right now, and I love that she loves and watches it :) But now she's obsessed with that movie and only ever wants to watch it. I put it on for her, but inside I'm thinking "No! I have 119 other movies for you to learn, there's not enough time!! There's no time, there's never any time!!!" (anyone? eh? eh?)

Anyway, on to what this post was really supposed to be about. The funny things that Natalie says or has said as of late. She cracks us up all the time, and sometimes I forget to write them all down, but here's what I was able to document:

• Out to dinner on Saturday - I don't even remember what she was responding to but she clearly was reciting something she's heard me say before:
  "Are you KIDDING me?!"


• Leaving my in-laws house after dinner: "Bye water, Bye pool, Bye plant, Bye tree, Bye grass, Bye flowers,


• Natalie has been watching a lot of Dora these days, so now she has taken to saying "Gracias" instead of Thank You and it's really cute!


• This one is really weird. When Natalie goes to the bathroom, she often likes to cover her eyes and rest her head on my shoulder while I hug her. (I know...) But she usually says "Ima see better in the dark," before covering her eyes and hiding on my shoulder.


• "Thank you EVER so much!"- sept 2016 after getting a snack at a party


• Another weird one, and I don't even get it. But every night before I leave her room she goes "Mommy! We can pull some different hairs". I'm guessing it has something to do with her pulling my hair all the time and I have to yell at her - so maybe her suggestion is to pull different hairs? Not sure...


• "Bye bye home! See you later!" 9/4/16 as we pull out of the driveway


• "Ok mommy, if you say so!" - all the time


• Me: "Natalie, do you want fish sticks for dinner?
  Natalie: "Absolutely. Not." She's repeating me. Whenever I yell at her for doing something bad I always say "Absolutely not!" August 22, 2016


• Holding up a dried hydrangea: August 19, 2016
  Me: What is that Natalie?
  "It's a lollipop Nature!!”


• “Of course!” - she says this all the time


• With my dad after she asked him to watch Super Why and he said "Not now"
  Natalie: "Let's spell the word 'Super Why'" (they spell it) "Let's spell the word 'television'" (they spell it) "Let's spell the word 'watch'" (they spell it) - subliminal messaging much??