America's #1 Game

Mary Grace:  JACK! Jack! JACK! Jack! JACK!

Jack:  YAH YA YAH YA YAH WAhahahahhhaHAHAHAH!  Woah woah woah woah woah!!!!

Mom:  Mary Grace?  Mary Grace.  Mary GRACE!

Mary Grace:  What?

Mom:  It's time to start calming down.  Please play something quiet with your brother.

Mary Grace:  We're going to play hide and seek!!!!

Mom:  No, you're not.  Do something quiet like reading a book to him.  It's getting close to bedtime.  Hide and seek is not quiet.

Mary Grace:  But it's America's number one home game!

Mom:  Go read a book. (straight faced)

Mary Grace:  Ok.

Mom:  (dies laughing)

***

In other news, Claire lost a tooth at school today, and her teacher suspects that she swallowed it.  Mrs. O made her a paper tooth to put under her pillow, but she got it wet on the way home and came in sobbing.  Luckily I heard her before she hit the door, so I had time to stick a Magical Golden Dollar Coin (tm) in my pocket.

I used a little sleight of hand, and now she totally believes that the Tooth Fairy came and put magic in Mommy while she was at school, probably during rest time, and that Mommy used that magic to find a coin in her mouth when she got home from school.

Phew!

***

PS - they're still not quiet and no one is reading anyone any books.  Mary Grace is teaching Claire how to play the piano (Mary Grace's first lesson was today) and BJ is swinging Jack upside down and throwing him at the couch.

"Childproof"

The new washer and dryer are frontloaders, which means that all their controls are right above Jack's head, within easy reach.  Buttons!  All the bright, light up, candy-like buttons that make SONGS when you push them!!!

It took him less than 24 hours to figure out the childproof control lock and turn it off.  Less.  Than.  24.  Hours.  I don't know whether to sign him up for speech therapy or enroll him at Purdue.  Seriously.

I told BJ this morning, "He is your son, and anything short of 'up-up-down-down-left-right-left-right-A-B-A-B-select-start' is just too easy for him."

Never Forget
(hackedgadgets.com)

So I'm back to putting a gate in the laundry room door to keep him away from the BUTTONS! which is troublesome.  There's no door there.  Happily, the downstairs bathroom is on the other side of the laundry room, so one gate keeps him out of both areas.

There is no way to keep him away from the dishwasher, though, and he knows how to turn it off (whether the childproof control is activated or not) by opening the door.  This stops the cycle.  We just run it at night or while he's napping, because otherwise we find a half-run dishwasher full of dishes sitting open and not running about 72 times per cycle.

The girls really lulled me into a false sense of parenting security.  They got into stuff occasionally, but Jack takes it to a new level.  Maybe I'm just older and more tired this time around.

A basement!  My kingdom for a basement!

The Voice

I've consulted one of our neighbors, who happens to be a speech therapist, about Jack's lack of talking.  His little girlfriends are speaking in full and complete understandable sentences...  Evana (2 weeks younger than Jack) says, "Amy loves you too!" and Meghan (4 months older than Jack) says things like, "Thank you for having us over, Mrs. Austin," (they're both so stinkin' cute I can't stand it!).  But Jack has been stuck on "na na" and "mama" and "dada" for what feels like forever.

I had hoped that when the girls were in school all day he would start speaking more out of necessity.  The process has still been a lot slower than I had hoped, but we're finally starting to see progress.

Our neighbor suggested that I talk to him all the time, so I've been making more of an effort to talk to him constantly the way I did with MG when she was a baby.  This morning we were getting ready to go, and I said, "Jack, where's your cup?"

"I don't know," he replied.

I looked at him, startled, and he had his hands his hands up, palms toward the ceiling, in that universal "Beats me" gesture.  I could have died laughing.  It was so cute.  I'll try to get it on video tomorrow.

This brings the Lexicon of Jack up to the following words and phrases:

Mama

Dada

Papa

Dog

Kitty

Tweet/Tree (these sound the same)

Moo

Woof

Oink (this one's actually a snort)

Up

Off

Go

No

That (which is more like "dat")

Cheese

Apple

Ice (which sounds like "ein")

Num

Nana

Choo choo

Vroom Vroom

Bad dog.

I don't know.

Today he actually said, "Choo choo.  Off," when he wanted me to uncouple his trains.  So he's starting to put phrases together into simple sentences.  I think the problem is that the words and phrases above really manage to convey everything he cares about right now.  He just isn't motivated to say much more.  I mean, all of the vowel sounds are represented up there...  Most of the consonants.  There's no reason why he can't put them together...  He just doesn't need to yet, I guess.

In other news, I broke the washing machine this afternoon.  It made a bad grinding noise, so I fast forwarded it to the end of a different cycle and walked away (mistake).  I walked past the laundry room on the hallway carpet and went SQUISH.  At first I thought the dog had an accident, and I was getting ready to beat her, when I noticed that the liquid was an inch deep and 10 feet across - much too big of a puddle for even the heartiest bladder.  I unplugged everything, covered the floor with every towel we have, and called BJ for help.

He came home and took it apart.  At first I thought that the seal had gone bad between the tub and the top, but when he took it apart we realized that there's no seal there.  We did some other stuff to try to figure out what was going on, and long story short the pump has gone bad.

Guess who got a new washer and dryer for Christmas?  Thanks again, Santa!

I think I'm going to put the old dryer, which still works even though it's really inefficient, on Craigslist for $100, or $75 if the same person takes the dryer too!

Milestone Moments

Mary Grace wasn't one of those children who got teeth without a lot of fuss.  Oh no.  My girl screamed like they were killing her.  Maybe she thought that if she was loud enough the teeth would change their minds and decide to stay out of her mouth...  Not sure.  We went through a lot of infant Tylenol, though.  A lot.  And I remember saying more than once, "Babies should not be allowed to get teeth until they are old enough to say, 'Mother, may I please have some Tylenol?'!"

Well.  Tonight she came up to me and pointed at one of her teeth and said, "Mom, this tooth is coming in and it's really bothering me.  Can I have some medicine?" and a chorus of toothy angels sang in my head.

Childproofing

My darling son has figured out how to open the "childproof" cabinet locks that we installed back when Mary Grace was a baby.  

Clearly he is gifted.

This morning I was on the phone in the living room, and he came in the room with a bottle of carpet cleaner in one hand, and a bottle of Clorox Clean Up in his mouth.

In.  His.  Mouth.

I've stuck wooden spoons in the handles, and that thwarted him for a little while, but he figured out how to remove those last night.  For now, this is my elegant solution:

When it's 99 degrees outside and you sit on your phone to keep your baby from throwing it,
sometimes you make steam between the case and the lens.

Zip ties.  We'll just have to cut them when we need to get into the cabinet.

I sure know how to fancy up the joint, don't I?  

It's a good thing kids are so stinkin' cute at this age (18 months), because you have to watch them like a hawk to keep them alive.  Other favorite activities include:

• Standing on the dining room table (maybe I could zip tie the chairs together?) 
• Throwing things behind the couch (at one point, before I discovered this, four of the five phones we have in the house were behind the couch)
• Jumping on the dog (maybe I could zip tie her mouth shut?)
• Trying to open the front door (locking the screen works.  For now)
• Bashing people over the head with toys (he has gotten both sisters in the past hour)
• Playing with the water in the toilet (keeping the bathroom door shut keeps him out of it, for now)  
• Putting tiny things in his mouth (I swear, if the girls' toys get any smaller we're going to need a microscope to play with them.  The people who invented Polly Pockets, Littlest Pet Shop, etc. obviously invented them for their youngest kids)
• Climbing up the couch to look out the front window, which would be fine except that sometimes he goes too far and falls behind the couch.  On his head.  And of course, of course, I can't reach him back there, so I have to coax his screaming head out.  Maybe we need to rearrange the furniture or put a trampoline behind there or something.

E.T.

"Who are those men?" asked MG in the scene where E.T. is dying.

"They're doctors, they're trying to help."

"I don't think they need a doctor, they need a vet."

I love this kid.

Why I Don't Watch Daytime TV

I turned on Dr. Phil yesterday while Mary Grace was at school and I was home with Jack and Claire.  I don't know why.  I almost never watch television.  I wasn't even really paying attention to it, and I couldn't tell you what the topic was.  I just wanted some noise, I guess.

Anyway, so Dr. Phil throws to a commercial for this:

...and Claire, who was sitting at the kitchen table coloring and wasn't even supposed to be paying attention said, "You should get some of that Mommy."

"What?"  I asked.

"For your eyes," she said, as she pointed to the area below her own eyes.  Where the bags under my eyes have grown their own bags.

"No," I said, (I did not say, "No, smartass," though I wanted to) "I need your brother and your sister to sleep."

This, my friends, is why I almost never turn on daytime TV.

Pain

Somehow Mary Grace fell on her foot this evening and hurt it, and she has been hobbling around pretending to be crippled ever since.  It is not bruised.  It is not swollen.  She is just a drama queen.

Remember how I said that my kids drive me the most nuts when they're acting the most like me?  Yeah.

As I was putting her to bed, she said, "I sure hope my foot feels better tomorrow."

And since I've completely run out of sympathy, I said, "I think your foot feels better right now."

"Mommy," she said, exasperated, "you don't understand my pain."

Stay tuned, folks, because in just 7 short years, this kid is going to be a teenager.  And that's when the fun will really start.

Now you'll have to excuse me.  I have to go send another apology letter to my parents.

Wherefore Art Thou, Perry?

Tonight before bed, we were reading the girls' new Phineas and Ferb book.  If you've never seen the show, it's about two kids and their pet platypus, Perry.  Perry pretends to be a pet, but in reality he's a secret agent - Agent P.  He has a theme song, that says, "He's a semi-aquatic egg laying mammal of action..."

Anyway, we're reading the book, in which P&F build a submarine, and Perry escapes the submarine to go after the Evil Dr. Doofenschmirtz.  In the book, it says, "Perry donned his wetsuit..."

"Mommy," Mary Grace interrupted, "Perry is a semiaquatic mammal.  Why does he need a wetsuit?"

I just stared at her for a second, then I started laughing.  This kid doesn't miss a trick.

***

Earlier tonight we were telling the girls about Grandpa Bob's new job.  We explained that he's still going to be a nurse, but he'll be what's called a Charge Nurse, sort of like the boss of the nurses.

"He's going to be the brains of that outfit!" Mary Grace exclaimed.  Oh my goodness...

***

And because I love you and I want you to be happy, I am sharing the recipe that I made up for dinner tonight.  I'm proud of myself for actually writing down what I did, for a change, so that I can re-create this if I want to.  It made a ton.  BJ, Dad, and I each had one (too spicy for the girlies, they had soup and grilled cheese).  I think we'll get at least 4 more servings out of it, maybe more.  I served it with shredded lettuce and sour cream.  YUM!

Buffalo Chicken Enchiladas

3 cooked boneless, skinless chicken breasts, diced

1 small red bell pepper, diced

3/4 cup Frank's RedHot Sauce

1/2 cup Ranch dressing

1/4 cup sour cream

1 can 98% fat free cream of chicken soup

Mix all above in a medium bowl. Fill large tortillas and arrange in sprayed 13 x 9 pan.

Top with jarred salsa (about a cup, give or take) and shredded Mexican cheese (two cups or so).

Cover with foil.

Bake at 350 for 45 minutes.

Serve with shredded lettuce and sour cream.

Kindergarten Round Up Fail

In my first official act as "Mary Grace's mom" at her brand new school, I proved once again that I am a complete and utter tool.

I sat down next to two women who obviously knew each other.  The one farther from me in the noisy cafeteria asked me if I had a pad.  I dug through my bag for a second and said, "Sorry, all I have is this," as I sheepishly held up a size 1 diaper.  Might work if you're desperate," I said with an apologetic shrug. 

"What?  Oh, no, I said a pen," she replied.

And I died.

If Mary Grace had been there, I'll bet I would have gotten my first, "Mo-THER!" 

So I lied, "Well, hi, I'm Amy and I'm hard of hearing.  Thought you said pad.  Nice to meet you."

I can only hope that she forgets me by August.

PS - how is my baby already old enough for Kindergarten?

PPS - how is it that I'm this big a dork, and yet I still have awesome friends?  Be honest, are you all just hanging out with me for comedic purposes?

Zone Defense

First, a couple more cute stories:

During a particularly grouchy diaper change, I stuck my pinkie in Jack's mouth to soothe him.  I told the girls that they couldn't stick their pinkies in his mouth (fearing that they'd do it with less-than-clean hands) because Mommy's pinkies are special.

"Mommy," Claire said, "do your pinkies make milk too?"

***

Grandpa:  Mary Grace, how long did it take you and Daddy to make that giant snowman?

Mary Grace:  I don't know, I can't tell time.

***

Well, I guess that, "...and then everything was fine," would be a boring story.  Claire came down with a stomach flu last night.  We brought the kids downstairs and BJ slept in the family room with Claire (good thing we have two couches in there now!) while I slept in our room with MG and Jack.  Loft beds are fun, except when someone's puking, and if we'd left MG upstairs alone she would've spazzed.  She was up most of the night, anyway, even before her sister got sick.  By some miracle I slept from about 5:30 until 9:45, so I'm feeling a little more rested.  Unfortunately, I was up almost constantly from 1:30 until 5:30. 

I frantically called the doctor once we got everyone settled at 5 am (luckily our doctor was on call), and he reassured me that I didn't need to take the baby to a hotel.  BJ wanted me to take Jack to my mom's today, but I don't want to drive that far alone with him, and I don't want to pack up all our gear, and if we go to Grammaland everyone's going to want to see him, which will expose him to more germs than if we just stay home, and if he does get sick, I don't want to be 90 minutes from our doctor... so instead we've quarantined ourselves in my room and his room while the girlies and BJ are in the family room.  The girls have been bickering a little more the last hour or so, so Claire must be feeling better.

I'll tell you what, it KILLED me to tell her I couldn't snuggle with her.  Poor baby.  I know Daddy's taking good care of her, but it was so hard to say, "I can't give you what you need, because I have to stay healthy for your brother."  I did go in for a quick cuddle right before I changed my clothes, then I washed my hands for like 20 minutes.

(aside)
Daytime TV sucks.

So I'm working on thank you notes and laundry and wrapping gifts today (of that list, so far I've managed two whole thank you notes!).  Maybe this is the universe's way of making sure that I rest.  The last couple of days have been pretty busy and tiring, between visitors and getting ready for Christmas.  But today I've pretty much been in bed with my baby, and if I weren't so worried about all my little ones, it would almost be nice.

The Things They Say, part 2, now with more Daddy

Claire is having trouble with the term "hand sanitizer."  Yesterday it was "appetizer."  Today it's "hamentizer."

***

I was wearing this top (in green - LOVE it) yesterday at Dairy Queen.  We stopped there on the way home from the doctor because BJ got his pertussis shot* and he was very brave.  By the way, the Reindeer Bites Blizzard (lizard?) is awesome.  I already want another.  Anyway, I mentioned that the top wasn't optimal for breastfeeding, because it's tight under the chest.  BJ said, "Maybe, but it is optimal for getting out of speeding tickets."  I guess I was having kind of a Pamela Anderson day, considering that my milk came in.  Hee!

(*I had my pertussis - DTAP - shot before we left the hospital.  I also got an MMR.  I said a very bad word, but it's totally worth it.  Thanks, J.Lo!)

***

Speaking of nursing, after I nurse Jack when I break his latch, he'll usually try to suck a couple more times.  It sounds like he's blowing kisses, so I choose to interpret it as, "Love ya, Mom, thanks for the snack!"

***

Mary Grace lost another tooth, and the very unprepared Tooth Fairies were fortunate enough to find a Sacajawea dollar in a jar of coins on Daddy's desk (PHEW!).  When she got up we were trying to explain who Sacajawea was.  I told her that she was a Native American, but I couldn't remember what she did.  BJ said, "She helped Lois and Clark..." then he and I busted up laughing.  I guess sleep deprivation is setting in!

***

 This one is more serious than funny, but I don't want to forget it...  Mary Grace and BJ went shopping yesterday.  On the way into the store she asked BJ for some coins for the Salvation Army.  Last time we gave them something, they gave her a candy cane.  She excitedly said, "Maybe I'll get another candy cane!" as they approached, but when she put the money in the bucket the bell ringer didn't offer her a candy cane.  Instead of throwing a fit, she just said, "Merry Christmas!" to him and went into the store with her daddy.  (At this point in the story, as BJ was telling me, I started crying.  My good girl!)

So they go through Walmart half a dozen times, and she didn't ask for a single thing until they got to the check out and she asked for an 88 cent box of candy canes.  Did my girl get candy canes?  You betcha.  And she came home and shared them with her sister.  What a love. 

I guess we're doing something right.

The Things They Say

On Thursday afternoon, before we went to the hospital, Claire yelled, "COME OUT AND PLAY!" at my tummy.  Mary Grace came running in and said, "Yeah, come out!  You have presents!"

***

A couple of days before Jack was born, Claire came to me and very seriously said, "So Mommy, are we going to have to put this baby in a manger?"

***

So of course, at the hospital, Baby Jack's crib was "the manger."

***

This is probably going to embarrass everyone involved someday, but it's too funny not to share.

I guess I never mentioned to Mary Grace that there's a way to tell the difference between boys and girls that has nothing to do with hair style or color preference.  We were changing Jack's diaper yesterday and she said, "Baby has a stick coming out of his bottom!"

"Yes," I said, "That's his penis.  That's where his pee comes out.  That's how we know he's a boy."

She ran out into the dining room where Uncle Chuck, Aunt Mimi and Grandpa Bob were, and said, "Baby Jack has a peanut!!!"

Frightful Weather!

My bonus mom, my siblings, and their significant others were supposed to come down from Grammaland today, but couldn't because of the weather. 

Claire is all worried because she thinks they can't come down because of a lizard.  Hahaha!

MG seems to be coming down sick, so it's probably for the best.

Nothing goes according to plan.

Explain this 3-Year-Old Behavior

11:15 am - Mommy, I want some soup.
(You can have some for lunch in a little bit.)
11:16 am - I want soup.
11:17 am - SOOOOOOOUUUPP!
11:18 am - Mommy, I want some soup right NOW.
11:20 am - (crying) Please can I have soup.
11:21 am - (screaming) AAAAAAAAAHHHH!  WANT SOUP!!!
etc.
11:59 am - (fainting with hunger and frustration, whispers) sssssoooooouuupppp....
12:00 pm - Here's your soup, Claire.

Amount of soup eaten?  One bite.  Seriously.

And she did the same thing with cookies (COOKIES!) this afternoon.

What.  The.  Hell?  Seriously!

Mommy, Is Kitty Still Died?

I have a lot to say on the topic of kids and death tonight, so if you've recently experienced a loss of any kind, from a cat to a loved one, you might want to proceed with caution or come back later.  I don't want to say anything that's going to cause you pain, but since I don't know your particular situation, I'm just going to have to trust you to click that red X if you can't handle a (fairly irreverent) monologue about death right now.

First of all, all the books about death for kids suck.  I need to write my own.  I went to Barnes and Noble yesterday after endless questions about the cat to try to find something to help the girls understand that Daddy couldn't fix kitty (after all, he fixes their toys, he is the Fixer of All Things, why wouldn't he be able to fix kitty?!) and that death isn't something you get better from (Claire said, as she patted my arm, "Kitty be all better tomorrow, Mommy.")

I was looking for Elmo's Pet Frog Croaks or something.  Instead I got to read a bunch of books that were way above my kids' pay grade.  One memorable one even had a line that said something like, "Sometimes someone you love may get really sad and kill himself or 'take his own life.'  This is called 'suicide...'"  Um, no.  Not for the preschool set, obviously.

I eventually settled on Lifetimes, a rather artsy-fartsy description of how everything is born and everything dies, and the in between part is called living.  It was repetitive (like a board book, so a familiar presentation), but light on actual concrete information such as, "Kitty isn't going to rise again in three days and have a big party with an egg hunt and lots of chocolate."  What?  Easter is their primary experience with talking about dying at this point.

I also bought When A Pet Dies (Mister Rogers' Neighborhood First Experiences Book).  It was the 1970s disco version.  I found it oddly comforting, since Mister Rogers was practically family, and since the leisure suits and mustaches of the 70s still speak to my inner child.  The kids, however, were less than enthralled.

(By the way, those are affiliate links.  I'm shamelessly profiting from my cat's death and the grief of my children.  This is probably a new low, but hey, you guys haven't been clicking through like you used to and Mommy's e-book budget is thin).

Where was I?  Oh, so the books sucked, but what sucked even more was standing in B&N reading all of the options to find the best (or the least horrible) one, bawling my eyes out.  I seriously went through a half a pocket pack of Kleenex.  The front of my shirt was all polka dotted with tears.  Fortunately they weren't busy, because I made quite the snotty fool of myself.

The other part of yesterday that profoundly sucked was the endless interrogation.  I mean, I expected questions.  I was prepared for a conversation.  I didn't expect the conversation to go on for the entire day.  Just when I'd put it out of my mind, they'd ask me some question they'd already asked 50 times, and it would all come back like a Mack truck.  I know, it's a cat, and I even said several times, "I understand that this is a disproportionate response..." to BJ, but I didn't get a single minute to put it aside all day.

And it didn't help that when the kids asked things like, "What is the vet going to do with Kitty's body?" my mental imagery immediately went to some Nazi-mustached vet tech throwing Kitty's stiff, lifeless corpse onto the top of a blazing inferno of other animal corpses.  (We had her cremated.  I didn't want to bury her in the yard only to have some neighborhood critter come and dig her back up again.  That would be traumatic.  So, the vet's office sent her off to be cremated in a batch and not returned to us as ashes because I am not the ashes-on-the-mantle type.  No offense to those who are, it just gives me the creeps.)  So, the kid asks a perfectly reasonable, innocent question, and my mind's eye goes to a perfectly unreasonable (although now that I think about it, after that Mister Rogers book, the mustache thing kind of makes sense), perfectly un-innocent place.  And I would ugly cry.

Of course I didn't say, "They're going to burn it up into ashes," but that's what I thought, and since I'm not really all that comfortable with cremation (let's face it - all of the options for disposing of remains suck.  I don't want to be buried or cremated.  I think I want to be made into jewelry, to be honest...).  Instead I sobbed and tried to choke out something about, "The vet is going to keep her body someplace safe, but Kona doesn't need her body anymore..."

Before you have kids you have this image of how you're going to handle these sorts of things, these Major Life Conversations.  I imagined myself getting down at their eye level, earnestly taking them by the hands and saying something poetic, comforting, and beautiful.  Maybe prettily wiping away one errant tear...  That's not at all how this went.  By the end of the day I was laying in Claire's bed, sobbing, while she interrogated me about feline mortality.  I finally cried "uncle" - went into the bathroom to wash my face and blow my nose, then I got into Mary Grace's bed for a snuggle, only to have her to start in with the questions.  At that point, I kind of lost my cool.  I was tired and sad and I'd been answering questions ALL DAY, and I said, "That's it.  I quit.  I'm done for the night.  No more questions.  I need to go to my room," and I just sat down and cried.  By that point I had a splitting headache and more than my fair share of hormones, and I was finished.

Fortunately, today, the kids went to the neighbor's while I went to work.  It was just the break that all of us needed, and I've been much more accepting of the situation today.  She was a good cat.  She had a good life.  BJ and I talked about some of our funny memories of her - the time that she stuck her head down into my glass to drink my water and got stuck, or the way she used to climb the screens when she was a kitten and just hang from the top, looking out at the world.  That was what I needed, and now I can heal.

I'll tell you what, though...  I'm glad that my kids' first close-up experience with death was a cat, and not a person they loved and had a relationship with.  That would be brutal at this age.  I don't know how people handle preschoolers who've dealt with a profound loss, like MG's friend from school whose mom died this spring.  I hope I don't ever have to find out how that works.

If I had it to do over again, I'd probably do everything I could to distract the kids and give myself time to get over it before I talked to them about it, just so I'd be a little bit more calm and less soggy.  If you're dealing with the loss of a pet, my advice is to take your kids out of the house somewhere (but not to the bookstore) and get everyone's mind off of it.  It'll be a little easier tomorrow.  If you're dealing with a more difficult loss, I've got nothin'.  Sorry.

So, that's how yesterday went. 



I feel like I should end this on an up-beat.  While the kids were at the neighbor's today, my friend Chelsea was getting them into swimsuits to go play in the sprinkler.  She was putting her youngest kid's suit on, and MG said, "My father would KILL my mother if she bought me a bikini like that!"  Fortunately Chelsea thought it was funny.  Our next big talk is apparently going to have to be about tact.

If You Give a Claire a Potato Chip

If you give a Claire a potato chip, she may start to exhibit symptoms.  Symptoms which might cause you to spaz and call the triage nurse at your doctor's office.  You might even curse a couple times when you find out that your doctor's on vacation.  The triage nurse might offer you an appointment in 15 minutes with the back-up doctor, to which you'll reply, "Do you think it's that serious??" and she'll say, "No, but I think you should get her checked out today..." and you'll be like, "Ok, but I'm not dressed."  You'll be horrified that it's 10:45 am and you just admitted that you weren't dressed to someone who has probably been at work since 7:30 am.  (In your defense, though, you will have been folding laundry all morning, which does not require clean, silky hair)

The triage nurse will give you an appointment at 2 pm.  Then you'll call your mom and she'll tell you that Claire has Celiac's disease and you'll spaz, thinking of all the birthday cake that your poor baby will miss out on if that's true.  Then you'll Google.

Never Google.

Just.  Step.  Away.  From.  The.  Google.

And by the time your dad (the nurse) takes his turn on Words With Friends, you'll be in full panic mode, wondering if 3 year olds can get Colon Cancer.

In your defense, you will have watched My Sister's Keeper the night before, and you'll still be pissed that they screwed up the ending and therefore the whole point of the damn story!  And you also might still be a little bit freaked out that something like that could happen to a child, and when you think about your kids in proximity to that thought, you might increase your blood pressure.

A lot.

So you'll frantically call Dad and say, "Thank God you're up, Claire has colon cancer!" and he'll be all, "No she doesn't," because your dad has known you for 33 years, and he knew you when you diagnosed yourself with prostate cancer.  And he'll say, "You know what really screws me up?  That Olestra stuff..." and then you'll remember.

You fed her the Pringles.

The ones with Olestra.

And that caused the mucus.

That caused all the panic.

And when you call at 1 pm to cancel your 2 pm appointment, they might laugh at you, but at least they won't charge you the penalty.

Because if they charge you the penalty, Claire will probably want a potato chip to go with it.



(In other news, Mary Grace lotteried into the charter school.  We're still hoping for the neighborhood school, but it's nice to have a choice - between the charter school and continuing one more year of preschool at our current school, that is - for pretty much the last time between now and college.)

Moments To Remember

BJ and Mary Grace are sitting at the kitchen table playing with her LEGO Mindstorms.  Claire and I are sitting at the table too, but doing our own thing.  Mary Grace stops, hugs her Daddy and says, "Thank you Daddy.  I really love doing this with you."

And Mommy cries.


These are the moments that I want to remember.  This is why I'll continue to write.  Your kind comments really helped, so thank you.  I appreciate the time that all of you spend here, encouraging me and laughing with us as we parent these two amazing kids.

My mom suggested in the comments (or was it on Facebook?) that I tell you the potty training story from the other day.  I always hesitate to share potty training stories, because they're inevitably a little gross.  This one isn't too bad, mostly funny.  It's important to know that our bathrooms are on top of each other in our two story house, and you can hear what's going on in the other one through the vent.

So Claire was having a hard time pooping on the potty, as you might know if we're Facebook friends.  She went through a brief phase where she'd go for Mary Grace and she'd go for Daddy, but not for me.  Well, the other day I got tired of waiting, so I sent MG in to help Claire.  I thought she'd read her the potty book that she has memorized, but instead I heard them talk for a few minutes, and then saw MG go up the stairs.  "What in the world...?" I thought.  Then I heard Mary Grace yell downstairs, "Claire!  I'm going poop right now!  Are you going poop too?"  And Claire yells back, "Yeah Mary Grace!  I pooping too!" and they proceeded to poop together. 

I was cracking up!

Only a big sister would think of that, and it would only work on a little sister.  Let's hear it for peer pressure!

Speaking of sisters, I realized the other day that I hadn't taken the girls to Grammaland in eons, so today we ran up for the day and went out for dinner with Uncle Trey and Mimi, and then Mimi, the girlies and I went sledding at the sledding hill where we used to always go when we were kids (Forest Park, for locals).  It was so much fun!  It was right around 32 degrees, maybe a little warmer, so it was slushy at the bottom and Mimi and I both soaked our jeans.  The girlies were so brave.  And according to Livestrong.com, I burned 300 calories! 

Life is good.

Darndest Things

On the way home in the car, Mary Grace said, "I told all my friends at school that Claire has an ear confection."

Almost Unbloggable

Claire has diaper rash. She didn't want me to put cream on it, because it's sore, but I had some powder so we compromised. She said I could put some on her.

(Come to think of it, when your kid is old enough to negotiate she's probably old enough to use the big girl potty.)

Anyway, I applied the powder and Claire sat up a little, looked at herself, and said, "I'm a snowman!"

Ha ha ha!