What's to Come

It has been hectic. I have about 1.5 hours each evening when children are in bed. Do I post a blog? Write a freelance article? Go to the gym? Pay bills? Respond to e-mails? Respond to FB? "Who do I leave hanging," I ask myself, including my husband who I haven't seen all day.

It's been a few days since I put anything new up.  So here's a recent shot from their 4 year pics. The girls had their birthday, which they share with grampa. Dave and I had a 12 year wedding anniversary. I'll post some pics, some stories, and get back on track. As for tonight though, this is it. David is waiting for me in bed. He fascinates me, distracts me, and quiets my mind so I can sleep.  I'm talking, that is, about David Sedaris, author of "Me Talk Pretty One Day."  It's a good read, those 11 of you who follow me. Give it a try...

Ella's Corner: The Tale of the Youngest Stripper on the Block

Those of you who have or are raising little girls know how many times in a day they change clothes. With the twincesses, I try to keep a tight reign on that behavior because it creates massive amounts of laundary.  By the end of the day, though, weary from battles and reinforcing boundaries pushed to the breaking point by two strong-willed children, my guard often goes down and rules go limp.

We live at the bottom of a cul-de-sac and often walk to the top of it, around the corner the length of one house, and back home again. It's a good change of scenery without the committment of a long walk. All summer long, Ella has been practicing running to the stop sign on this corner and twirling around it.  After the first time earlier this summer when she flew around it and landed flat on her back in the neighbor's yard, she has gotten talented at - pole dancing I guess you'd say. It's the best way to describe it.

She jumps onto the pole and spins down it, her legs in the straddle position she learned at gymnastics. Or she kicks her legs out to the side and slides down, body almost parallel to the ground. I'm not making this stuff up. The kid is strong. Every gymnastics teacher she has is amazed by her strength, the tone of her muscles, and her ability to hold difficult positions the older girls have difficulty mastering.

Tonight after dinner, we decided to take a little walk. I had mowed the lawn and was in no mood to battle the girls on what clothes they wore. "It's just around the corner," I thought to myself.

Ella had her swimsuit on.

And her Snow White high heels.

The moment she shimmied down the pole I realized I hadn't thought this whole thing through very well.  As I look up, my fear of the how this looked was confirmed as I see the neighbors pulling up, laughing and pointing at my young hoochie mama look-alike doing a strip tease on the corner.

"Make no eye contact," I told myself, "and pretend this is all totally normal."

Dinner with a "P" In It

If I've told her once, I've told her a thousand times, "Ella, go potty before you pee your pants." This child uses all methods available for "holding it" so she can avoid interrupting whatever she is doing. She stands with her legs crossed, sits instead of standing, uses the one-hand hold it, the two-hand hold it, walks in circles on her tiptoes, and even jumps up and down. Dave calls this final method a "bad strategy," citing the jumping as a sure way for him to pee his pants.

Early this past spring I spent the better part of an afternoon telling Ella to "go potty," but she refused.   Forgetting about Ella's ignored need to pee, with Andi down for a nap, I hustled the girls out the door for fresh air.  The girls busied themselves with toys. Relieved to shed my role as their "entertainer," I started raking up all the dead trails of grass leftover from the vole who wintered in our yard. After a while, I checked on the girls. They were cleaning the bird feeders with their bare hands. There was "white stuff" all over them.

This was going to require hand washing, so I decided to send them in one at a time to wash up. I didn't want their fight over who got to stand on the little chair and use the sink first acting as Andi's alarm clock.

I went back to my raking and soon Sophia joined me in the yard with a ball, kicking it around. Always the caretaker, she leaves to check on Ella's hand-washing progress. When she returns from her motherly duty, she has news that Ella "pee'd her pants. Can you go help her?"

Irritated, I poke my head inside and tell Ella that she can find a new pair of pants in her drawer, but if there are not any clean, she'll "have to stay inside - and no TV."

A half-hour passes.  Sophia and I are putting dead leaves into piles and look up to see Ella strolling over to us in the yard. "Hi," she says to us non-chalantly.  "Hi," I say back eyeing her coat, shirt, and flip-flops.

I dart a look at Sophia's expression of the sight we are taking in. She looks a bit shocked. "Butts are private mommy," she says without taking her eyes off Ella. Ella, who could not find any pants, is unphased by the news that we don't walk around the front yard without pants on. I send her back in and eventually she finds clothes to wear.

Time to prep dinner, we all head in and I wash my hands and pick up my orange kitchen towel to dry off.  The chair, left in front of the sink for the hand-washing necessitated by touching bird-poop is put away by Sophia.  I throw my kitchen towel over my shoulder, using it for quick hand wipes as I whip dinner together. As I plate the food, Ella seems to remember something that she is proud to share,

"Oh mom! The chair isn't wet anymore. I wiped the pee up with your kitchen towel."

Insights on Creating Parenting Misery

At first, it startles me. My voice. When the deafness that has been produced by a long day home with children finally fades away and I can hear myself thinking, it catches me by surprise.  Tonight when I heard my voice, I began thinking about ways that we create our own misery.  I figured out that I create much of my parenting misery by being neurotic, thus, highly reactive.  Small children especially, seem to love overdone reactions.

I think my uncensored reactions create situations such as: 

• Andi waits til I am looking at her and then puts her fingers to her mouth, as if to eat a small object and then makes a chewing motion.  "NO!" I yell, panicked. "What is in your mouth?"  She smiles as she sees me running to her. 

• Ella chooses moments we are trying to leave in a hurry to play games with my frazzled mind. Games like...

This One or That One

She asks me if a certain shoe goes on a particular foot, or if the shirt she is about to put on is backwards, etc.  I tell her "nope, other foot".  Then she looks at me with a dead serious look on her face and says "this one?  not that one?".  "Yes, Ella", I tell her.  Then she gets rolling, still dead serious, "this one? not that one? this one? oh ok, not that one, but this one".  As she is doing this, she moves the shoe/shirt back and forth and I'm trying to keep up "Yes that one! No not that one!  ELLA JUST PUT IT ONNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!"

• They do not respond with lightening quickness to my demands.  

On the eve of Professional-Pictures-Getting-Taken-Day, I realize 2 things about my house:  it's dead quiet AND my black permanent marker is missing.  Adrenaline pumping, I find that I am LOCKED out of the bathroom. Knocking, I ask what they are doing.

"We're trying to get our mustaches off".    

"Let me IN RIGHT NOW!" I yell, banging on the door. 

Used to my panicked screaming voice they casually tell me,

"Just a minute."

"Just a frickin' minute my ass," I think as I grab the pen I keep on the bathroom door frame  (does the fact that I keep a pen on the door frame tell you anything?)

When I break into the bathroom with my trusty pen not only do they have black mustaches, but they have drawn on RED eyebrows with another marker. And GREEN CHEEKS. 

"What are you doing? Oh my gosh!" I am so high pitched, it sounds like a squeak. My eyes bulge, I drop to my knees in front of them and they smile. 

Frantically scrubbing their faces, caught between wanting to laugh and wanting to strangle them, I scold myself for enjoying too much silence during the witching hour that normally occurs as I try to prep dinner. No good comes from silence.


Except hearing my own voice.

Exploiting My Children's Need for Fantasy Play

Can I just tell you how much I hate starting the day due to the Battle-of-Getting-Ready and have you believe me?  When they were one, they wouldn't hold still to get dressed. When they were two, they needed a bit of help to get dressed, but didn't want help. When they were three, they could get dressed, but didn't want to. Now that they are nearly four, they are fashion conscious, "I'm not wearing that. People will laugh at me."  (But it's brand new, and it's cute, and I spent my hard earned money on it, please wear it.)

So this morning instead of asking, pleading, yelling, crying, begging on my knees for them to PU-LEASE get ready so we can run errands for your party (bribery), I looked at Sophia and told her,

"Sophia, your baby (Ella) needs to get dressed, get her hair combed and brush her teeth. Can you please help her?"

Let's just say,

"BLOODY FRICKIN' STROKE OF GENIUS"

They are up there getting ready, I am getting stuff done, my eyes are not bulging from my head with stress, my heart rate is under 100 beats per minute, I am not about to pass out with frustration.

Score 
Mommy 1
Twincesses  BIG FAT 0 

Read it and weep girls.

Ella came down with a dress and headband on. Her teeth brushed. Everyone is smiling, their fantasy play seamlessly flowing, they are still in good moods.

Ready to go on the errands I ask Sophia a question that saves us from an awkward moment at the store, "Was your baby good?"

"Yes, but she wouldn't let me put her underwear on."

I'm still calling it a victory.

Are We There, Yet?

My ears are still ringing from hearing this question, which was asked 92 times at least, on our way to IA and back to MN.

Once we arrived, the girls stripped off their clothes, I slathered them in sunscreen, and their slippery little bodies headed out to Bobo's (gramma's) pool.

Uncle P (formerly known as Uncle Pancake when the twins couldn't say Patrick), joined us. Andi had fun, too. She moved her arms, kicked her legs, and tried to duck her face.

We did some blueberry picking after gorging ourselves on Dutch Oven pastries. Not that I grew up on a farm, but it felt like home, being out there in the green grassy fields.

The girls, giddy with excitement, told Bobo about having a verbal exchange of "hi" with the mailman - a celebrity in their mind. We didn't stop our pursuit of celebrities there, though. We hopped a ride on a "city bus." The busline in Ames, AKA Cy-Ride seemed a great way to satisfy their desire to meet a bus driver and get to experience the thrill of riding a bus. Sophia backed out at the last moment, wanting to shop with Bobo.

We waited for the bus for 15 minutes, "I'm done waiting" Ella told us. "This is all a part of the experience," I told her.

The bus arrived, the doors opened, and a ray of light shone upon the driver - or at least that's how I think it looked for Ella. She was frozen with excitement for the whole ride. She took it all in. I'm not even sure she was breathing - it could have been the fumes, though.

And Then She Did It

Andi's been a little wild lately.  Climbing onto furniture, jumping on furniture, jumping off furniture (usually doesn't end well for her), and climbing the stove. On the 4th, she went overboard with her wild behaviors...she got a piercing.

Stay tuned. I'll tell a bit about our travels to IA highlighted with run-ins with local celebrities.