Christmas

I am a lazy blogger. So if you want to know about Christmas, you'll have to look at my sister's blog for great photos and commentary.

Art

A lovely picture by E of Ursula the sea witch and Ariel the mermaid.

For better or for worse, I let the girls check out The Little Mermaid from the library a while back. I thought it was too scary for them, but then they saw the scariest part at the doctor's office (curse that office staff) and seemed to be fine, so I figured most of the damage had been done. Except, of course, the virulent Disney-i-zation of their little minds. There's been a lot (A LOT!) of mermaid play ever since. And mermaid art. So here's a sampling of mermaid, mermaid-inspired, and even some non-mermaid art.

Note that you can click on each picture for a closeup so you can study all the nuances of each drawing.

Exhibit one:

A horse saying "neigh" by E. Note that the horse is wearing mermaid gear, i.e., "shells."

Exhibit 2: a lame attempt at a mermaid by Daddy. He was roundly criticized by the girls and told he would have to study some mermaid movies and books to get it right. They even re-colored the mermaid's hair red. Duh, Daddy.

Exhibit 3: a sea witch, by M. My favorite part is the imagination she has drawn. Imagination is indicated by the bubbles on top of her head and the bubble next to her with a baby sea witch in it. Note that the sea witch also wears shells.

Exhibit 4: a mermaid (perhaps Melody) by E. She's climbing a big rock.

Exhibit 5: our family, by M. We LOVE this one. We are all standing in front of the house. The little protuberance on the top is the roof.
Exhibit 6: by E. Even though this says "Ursula" it is really Ariel. Note the shell next to her that hold's the mermaid's voice.
Exhibit 6b: by E
Exhibit 7: by M. Again note the imagination. This time the mermaid is imagining the little fish, Flounder.

Christmas is coming

Yesterday was our church Christmas party. The girls got to be angels for the nativity play. They chose their own costumes and looked smashing. E wore a gauzy lacy thing and fairy wings, and M wore a purple dress with ladybug wings. M was deeply offended that she had to stand with the "babies" and not with E on the main part of the stage. 

At the party they handed out nativity sets printed on cardstock that the kids could color and cut out and tape together to make stand up. The girls thought that was the greatest. M sat at the table for a good 30 minutes saying " 'I, said the donkey, shaggy and brown' . . . I'll make my donkey brown!" and " 'I, said the cow, all white and red' . . . I need to make my cow all white and red." E worked hard on hers all day and decided to set it up in the front window. She announced to me that she had had to climb up and stand on the table (grrrrr) but had gotten it just right. Her "nactivity" set faces the window so everyone can see it from outside, and she taped a star to the window for the finishing touch.

M is in high excitement mode and plans on being Santa. She's been practicing for days. She takes a pillowcase and fills it with stuff and delivers "presents" to everyone. She keeps telling me, earnestly and urgently, that I need to make her a Santa suit, and she's going to stay up all night on Christmas eve and deliver presents to the whole family. She tried to practice staying up all night last night, as did E, but fortunately, despite all the "hard things" they kept doing to keep themselves awake (reading stories, tying ribbons, playing with toys in bed) they finally fell asleep. 

They might just explode before Christmas comes.

Christmas is coming

Yesterday was our church Christmas party. The girls got to be angels for the nativity play. They chose their own costumes and looked smashing. E wore a gauzy lacy thing and fairy wings, and M wore a purple dress with ladybug wings. M was deeply offended that she had to stand with the "babies" and not with E on the main part of the stage. 

At the party they handed out nativity sets printed on cardstock that the kids could color and cut out and tape together to make stand up. The girls thought that was the greatest. M sat at the table for a good 30 minutes saying " 'I, said the donkey, shaggy and brown' . . . I'll make my donkey brown!" and " 'I, said the cow, all white and red' . . . I need to make my cow all white and red." E worked hard on hers all day and decided to set it up in the front window. She announced to me that she had had to climb up and stand on the table (grrrrr) but had gotten it just right. Her "nactivity" set faces the window so everyone can see it from outside, and she taped a star to the window for the finishing touch.

M is in high excitement mode and plans on being Santa. She's been practicing for days. She takes a pillowcase and fills it with stuff and delivers "presents" to everyone. She keeps telling me, earnestly and urgently, that I need to make her a Santa suit, and she's going to stay up all night on Christmas eve and deliver presents to the whole family. She tried to practice staying up all night last night, as did E, but fortunately, despite all the "hard things" they kept doing to keep themselves awake (reading stories, tying ribbons, playing with toys in bed) they finally fell asleep. 

They might just explode before Christmas comes.

We Sneak Because We Care

We got a package of lovely, apparently imported chocolates from our favorite Iowa cousins today. The girls (and the boy, I might add, who has learned to say chocolate) went wild. I got down our special crystal bowl to put them in because when else are we going to use a special crystal bowl? Which of course I knew was a bad idea from the get-go. I passed by the front room once and saw E with her hand in the bowl. She jumped and said, a trifle too quickly and too loudly, "I'm just looking at these!" Moments later I spied her sneaking down the hallway with a suspiciously full bag. Once again she saw me, quickly tossed the bag into her room, slammed the door, and leaned innocently against the hall wall. Mom: "what's in the bag?" E: "What bag?" Mom: "The bag in your room." E: "um . . ." Mom: "I'll just take a look." E: "No! Wait! I'm going into the front room for a minute! Don't come in! Don't look at me!" So she went sneaking back to the front room, bag in hand. After a few rustling noises she came out with an empty bag. "See Mommy? Nothing in the bag." Then a third time I caught her and M red-handed, or rather chocolate-mouthed, and then banned them both from said chocolates (convenient to my purposes--more for me).

Daddy cut Tooie's hair again today. Tooie now looks like the world's smallest escaped convict with almost bare patches here and there on his head. Marmot Dad claims you just can't tell when a baby is going to throw his head around when you have clippers in hand. A convenient excuse, I say.

Honesty

A conversation on the way to preschool today:

E: I used to only like one grownup in our family. Just Daddy. I always wanted you to go away somewhere, Mommy. But now I like you AND Daddy.

M: Well, I like everyone in our family except you, E.

We have a child who eats

It's true. We have finally had a child who will actually eat food. Little Tooey will eat almost anything you put in front of him, and one of his favorite words is "cracker" ("kaa-kaa," said in a hopeful voice).

I made pumpkin pie last night, and when Marmot Dad said something about pie, Tooey's little eyes lit up. He came running into the kitchen saying "pie! pie! pie!" and pulled at my pants leg until I gave him a piece. Then we heard nothing more from him as he sat in his booster seat and quietly devoured two adult-sized pieces. We repeated the same routine at breakfast. He is a boy who is very serious about his pie.

Tonight I made mostaccioli for dinner. He wanted to watch every step of the process. And he bugged me until I fed him two bowls of sauce. Then two bowls of noodles. Then after we were sure he had eaten his fill and dinner was over, he caught sight of the finished dish and signed "more! more! more!" until I gave him two more bowls of baked mostaccioli. Then he stole two pieces of cauliflower from his father's salad and ate those. 

I tell you, it's an absolute miracle.

Here's what M has been up to. We went to DI yesterday to get Christmas mugs for the festive drinking of the festive hot chocolate. She chose a beautiful (to her, anyway) angel mug, but while waving it around to show her sister when we got home broke it immediately in two. Then she promptly broke her sister's mug. All within an hour of getting home. Fortunately we had gotten two backup mugs, but I had to almost make myself pass out by gluing the angel mug back together with some noxious glue.

She has also discovered her hidden talent of peeling carrots. It take her an eternity, but she finds it immensely satisfying. She peeled about six carrots for some soup I made a couple of weeks ago and was so triumphant by the time she had finished that she announced that "you will never have to peel carrots again, Mommy. I will always peel them for you. Just tell me if you have any carrots to peel. Is it OK if I left some of the peel on?" Fortunately I was making the soup in a crock pot and could just add a carrot every ten minutes or so as she finished. A few days later she insisted on carrying all the groceries in from the car, one item at a time. This just added to her feeling of omnipotence: "I can peel all your carrots and carry all of your groceries, Mommy. I am such a good helper."

E's Birthday

Our little E is finally five years old. She is officially a girl and not a baby anymore. She had a good day overall. We had a little party for her with three neighborhood children. Since we weren't planning anything for the party besides eating cake, and since the Mommy of the family is deeply opposed to more plastic toys in our lives, we sent out requests in our invitations for homemade or recycled gifts, and that worked out nicely. E got a variety of hand-drawn pictures and a used stuffed horse that she adores. She wanted a pony cake (these words struck terror in the heart of a mommy who did not want to put too much effort into a cake this year)--and explained that the pony cake she wanted was a plain sheet cake with her pony toy stuck on top. Hallelujah! I could just about do that. She wished before she blew out her candles "that mermaids would be real." Don't we all. 

The poignant moment of the day came after all the festivities were over and E and I were talking before she fell asleep. She wanted to know if she would still have birthdays after she was dead (yes, this is our most morbid child). We decided she would. "Well, then, Mommy," she said, "you could just pile my presents up next to me, or put them next to my grave." Enough to break a mommy's heart.

The Special Love of Christmas

Last night Tuey and I turned in early and left Marmot Dad to deal with the fallout of the girls at night. He roped them in by putting two blankets down on the quiet room floor in front of the Christmas tree (which we had just finished decorating). Each girl was told to stay on her respective blanket. Then he put on some Christmas music and turned on the lights of the tree and told them to look and be silent (which of course they were not, but a man has to dream). After a while, though, apparently E told him, "Daddy, I really do feel the special love of Christmas now."

M spent the day yesterday wearing E's purple long underwear all day long. It makes her look pleasingly marmot-like. For about twenty minutes in the morning she sat on the floor and sang into a metal trash can so her voice would echo.

Tuey, the Goodest Little Baby in Town, slept all night last night (a first). He woke up at 6 a.m., had a little snack, pinched my nose for a while, and then went back to sleep until 7. What a kid.

An Amazing Sight

Picture this if you can:

M is wearing a long-sleeved striped turtleneck. Over that she has on a striped short-sleeved shirt, inside out. Both are shades of pink. She has on yellow pants. She has on a red polar fleece hat (in case of sudden indoor snowstorms). She has taken my eyeliner and blackened her nose and drawn on whiskers on her face and some fur on her feet. (Just for the record, I did not ever actually purchase eyeliner. This is a little sample left over from my last Mary Kay soiree, which I think I attended in 1996 or thereabouts.) Anyway, she has on this getup. I come upon her standing in the bathroom with a bottle of conditioner in one hand and a grout brush in the other. She is scrubbing eyeliner scribbles off the toilet, using the conditioner as soap. She has also actually "scrubbed" some of the grout with copious amounts of conditioner. I ask, rather calmly, considering the circumstances, what the *%^$& she's doing. "I know sometimes you need me to scrub, Mommy," she announces. And then the non sequitur "you're not always mean to me, Mommy." What could I do? I shrugged my shoulders and left.

Tuey spends a lot of time these days dancing little dances and barking at dogs.

Three Children for Sale

Here are the highlights (or rather lowlights) of this eventful day. Early on, E came to tell me she needed a new dress because hers was wet. Why was her dress wet? She had had an accident . . . on M's bed . . . on the goose down comforter and the quilt (sigh). ("You know, Mommy, even BIG girls make mistakes sometimes. Even MOMMIES make mistakes sometimes.") Not two hours later, just as we were supposed to get into the car to go to preschool, M announced from the back yard that SHE had wet her pants, and of course since she was outside her pants were both wet and covered with mud. So we got her all cleaned up and made it to preschool and then ran a couple of errands. When we got home, I had to pick up all the little playdough crumbs the girls and Tuie had gotten all over the floor, the carpet, the couch. Then it was time to go back to preschool. The girls got their insect and bird cards all over the car (which I had told them not to do) and were having fights about who was going to eat and who had eaten what candy (which the neighbors had given to them yesterday, curse them). After we got out of the car I noticed that Tuey had something white and sticky in his hair. Gum. I HATE gum. It was in the neighbors' candy bags. E had gotten gum in his hair. So after more bickering and getting into stuff I banished the 2 girls to their rooms for half an hour (they were just lucky it wasn't the rest of their natural lives). Meanwhile I was trying to clean the kitchen floor some more because it was worse than unsanitary. Tooie found some cake on a paper plate covered with a ziploc bag. He loves cake, we just discovered. And he's very enterprising. So he grabbed the bag, turned it upside down, and shook for all he was worth. I could see what was happening, but it was like one of those slow-motion dreams where you try so hard to run but you just can't make any progress. I got to him just as the cake hit the floor and he grabbed it with both hands and ran, stuffing it in his mouth as he went. He made a perfect arc around the table of lemony cake crumbs. When the girls were finally released from prison, I started on dinner but was interrupted by little Tuey wails and blood on the kitchen floor. He had pulled a BIG jar of peanut butter down on his mouth and now has the fattest lip in the world. It's just about thirty minutes 'til bedtime, and I can HARDLY WAIT. These children are all available to the highest bidder.

Night life

We like to play a game at our house called "musical beds." Here's how it went on Thursday night:

Marmot Dad had to go to a concert in the evening, so the kids and Mom piled into the king-sized bed to read books and go to sleep. M was eventually banished to her own bed for squirming, whining, wallowing, giggling, and general bad behavior. The three remaining fell asleep in the "mommy sandwich" configuration (Mom in the middle with one child on each side squooshing me). 

After Dad got home we moved E to her own bed and fell asleep again (briefly). M soon woke up and announced, "I want to snuggle your arm!" So Mom went in to join her in her bed. Shortly after that E woke up with a bad dream, and Dad went in to comfort her. He may have slept in her bed for a while, I'm not sure, but she eventually ended up in the big bed with Dad and Tooie. Then Tooie woke up and started whispering "pihs, pihs" which means "please" which means "I want to nurse." So I went back to the big bed to feed him. He decided after his 3 a.m. snack that he wanted to sing, so he sang until 4:30, a sweet song, but entirely unnecessary at that time of day.

Then I think there was snoring from someone who will remain unnamed, so I went back to M's bed. At 5:30 I was rudely awakened by Marmot Dad carrying in little Tu who was once again saying "pihs, pihs." Fortunately, everyone slept until about 7:30. But that's a lot of travelling around for one night. No one ended up in the bed that he or she started in. This is our life

Labels

E always has some important jobs to do around the house. This morning she decided to label the drawers in the bathroom.

This one says "stuck" (in case you were a little worried), and she put it on the "drawer" in the middle that isn't really a drawer but just there for show.

This one says "do," as in "do open this drawer and use what is inside." She showed me that it has useful things like baking soda (in case you get a bee sting or something--don't ask me why I have a box of baking soda in my bathroom).

This one says "don't," as in "don't get into this drawer!" She found some matches in here, and we all know that children shouldn't play with matches!

A post from E

M is sometimes mean to me. We like to play Ariel together. We like to draw pictures together. We like to write letters to each other. We write them to each other. Sometimes we are paper girls. We got to milk a cow once. When we went to the farm. When M was a baby she was cute. We like to watch many movies, scary or not scary. We like to watch Alice in Wonderland. [from M: I don't.] We like to watch Shanti and Mowgli movie. [M: We like to watch My Little Pony.] We like to play my little ponies, we like to play it. I'm going to tell you one more thing after this: hmmmmmm. Hmmmm. I didn't want you to write hmmmmm. We like to explore with magnifying glasses. We like to write names on the computer. [M: and we like to play Away in a Manger.] Just write "E doesn't like Joseph." [M: We like to play Laura and Mary.] M, we're done! And we like to ride ponies. [M: I like it when Aunt comes over to OUR house.]

They do love us after all

From M:

"Will I marry when I am 15?"

mom: "No, I think 25 is about the right age."

M: "Well, when I am 25 I will marry Daddy, so I can stay here in this family forever and never leave."

From E:

"Mommy, I don't just love you because you give me things, I love you because you are so sweet to me."

Sanctimony take two

Perhaps you will recall that the other day the girls were both trying to be like Jesus (yeah, whatever). On Friday E told me that, rather, she was trying to be like "the ponies" (eek!). "But," she informs me, "even they make mistakes sometimes."

Art

M was particularly prolific last night in the art department. Let's see if I can figure out how to add photos here:

This is my personal favorite. It's a bunny rabbit. With an invisible body (duh!). And a carrot.

This is the Little Mermaid (note tail). This iteration has short hair. M informed me that "she cut off her OWN HAIR." Mom: "did her mommy take away her scissors?" M: "She has no mommy. [wishful thinking, no doubt] She only has the Sea Witch and she is far far away." Mom: "Then did her daddy take away her scissors?" M: "She has no daddy. She only has a fish friend. And he wasn't watching when she cut her own hair." Lucky mermaids.

The Little Mermaid take two. This one apparently didn't have access to scissors.

This is a boy who took off all his clothes (hence the visible belly button) and put on a tiger costume. He has on a mask so he can't see and his mommy has to lead him around everywhere (this is what M wants me to do with her cougar costume).

This is M's self portrait. What looks like a second mouth is her chin.

This is the Sea Witch with her tentacles (M's word) all curled up instead of straightened out.

Pre-Halloween Festivities and Sanctimony

We carved pumpkins tonight (after having promised the girls we would last night and not getting around to it because we had dinner too late). They were extremely excited about it. E drew on the picture on her pumpkin and Tuey's, and then M spent a loooooong time drawing hers: "I'm just putting on some finishing touches." They mostly have teeny tiny eyes and noses and enormous mouths with itty bitty teeth. Tuey's came out best. M made me carve about a hundred circles all over hers ("those are the touches" she explained). Then she danced wildly in front of them after we had lit them so they would look like they were dancing.

Speaking of dancing, here is the latest favorite activity of the girls: after it gets dark, and preferably on a night when the moon is bright, they put on their fancy Cinderella slippers and go outside to dance with Marmot Dad ("Prince Erik"). If they are really into the story they'll run down the sidewalk and leave one slipper behind for "Erik" to find and bring back to them. M started crying the other night because "I want to have stairs in front of our house!" You know, the kind of stairs Cinderella runs down at the stroke of midnight.

This post is apparently all about M. Here's one more story about her. E has been having fits left and right lately for no apparent reason. As soon as a fit starts, M will look at me solemnly and slightly sanctimoniously and say, "I would never treat you like that, Mommy."

Of course, both of them assured me last night that they were trying to be like Jesus and only do right things. M opined that she would probably be like Jesus by the time she was 20. One can only hope.

Tuey, for his part, is a full time walker now. Only occasionally does he have a need for speed so pressing that he has to scamper on hands and feet with his sweet little bottom in the air. He also has lots of words to say. His favorites are please (said "pih! pih!" while signing please and looking hopefully at my chest) and cheese (which he doesn't particularly like to eat, but he likes to say it).

I am losing my mind

Yesterday was a big day for us. We went to the library for story time, then I stuffed the kids in the car and gave them their lunch on the way to preschool. (Tuey, for his part, smeared peanut butter and Nutella all over his face and in his hair and then promptly fell asleep.) Then I came back home with Tu and M and then went BACK to preschool to get E and on the way home we went to the grocery store to pick out pumpkins. (Aside: it takes kids FOREVER to pick out pumpkins, especially when part of the time they're pretending to be Wilbur the pig walking on the barnyard fence or when they're getting their feet stuck in between pumpkins. M, of course, was wearing a long skirt and a fancy, silky tunic.) Anyway, I stuck the pumpkins in the front of the van because there was no room in the back because the stroller was back there. OR WAS IT?? After Marmot Dad got home from work, we put the kids in the car again to go out, and I looked in the back and noticed the stroller was GONE. Left on the sidewalk at the library. Yes, this is my brand new double stroller that I paid for with my hard labor this summer in the classroom. The good news is that it was still on the sidewalk when we went racing back to find it. Someone had even pushed it into a corner out of the way. I just can't believe I forgot to take with me a great big RED stroller. (Of course Marmot Pa says it's good I forgot the stroller and not the kids.)

The Blind Leading the Blind

A conversation from our ride home from preschool:

M: Brooke says purple in a funny way. She says "puhpol." (NB: M and E both say purple as "paypul.")

E: Well, she just talks different from us. She's little. (She's older than M.)

M: But she says paypul like puhpol.

E: No she doesn't. She says paypul.

M: No she doesn't. She says puhpol.

E: No she doesn't. She says paypul.

M: Mommy! E's contradicting me!

And here is E's take on everything in the world. We went for a walk tonight with the girls riding bikes. They are not allowed to ride their bikes across streets but have to get off and walk across. Sometimes M doesn't want to, so we tell her to watch how E does it and follow her example. Tonight Marmot Dad was trying to get M to hustle on off her bike and across the road and was trying to throw in some positive reinforcement along the way, so he said, "here, get off your bike and we'll walk across the road and you can be an example for your sister." At which point said sister cried out, shocked and appalled, "No! No one has to be an example for me, ever! I am ALWAYS an example for EVERYONE ELSE!"

So there you have it.

She also informed me that "preschool is so pleasant when Sam and Averie aren't there."

Tooey is getting good at walking, although he needs to start bending his knees.

True Stories

So, many years ago, before E was born, Marmot Dad had a dream that he was holding a little Mongolian boy in his hand and the boy's name was Tajil (or Tadjil, or Tagil, or what have you). We called E Tajil until she was born. Last Saturday I was asked to go to a law conference dinner to help host some of the international guests. I was initially seated at a table with three Mongolians. And one of them was named . . . Tajil. No kidding.

A few weeks ago my ditsy neighbor was over in our yard asking her daughter how school had gone. Daughter said that she was not allowed to eat her marshmallows for a snack at school because they were a sugary snack and their class is not allowed to have sugary snacks at their snack time. Neighbor says, "Marshmallows? I didn't know they had sugar in them." Flabbergasted, I reply, "marshmallows are ALL sugar, and a little bit of gelatin." "Oh great, that's all my two-year-old eats." Sigh. Sad but true. I saw someone over at said neighbor's house a few days ago measuring for an appraisal. I was hoping they were getting ready to sell, but no, they took out a second mortgage to finance the opening of a jewelry store. But we figure either way we win: if the shop does well, they'll move into a big fancy house in a big fancy neighborhood. If it does poorly, they'll move back to Idaho.

Another true story: E ate fish and liked it. Hallelujah. She even asked for some for breakfast.

And finally, E and M have discovered a new favorite game: ponies go to college. I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried.

When Ponies Go Bad

On Thursday while E was at preschool, M and Tuey and I went to one of our favorite haunts, D.I. We scored big time. The girls want nothing more than My Little Ponies for Christmas, but I've been severely griped about spending $5 (each!) for ugly plastic ponies that, frankly, look a little slutty. Well, someone apparently cleaned out their pony collection, and I managed to select six sparkly ponies, one with wings (that always makes the girls happy) for $.25 each. I thought I was so clever to hide them in the basket under a pair of pants. But I guess M has pony radar, because she found them somehow and almost went through the roof with joy. So as a compromise I told her she could select ONE for herself and one for her sister to play with right now, and then we would put the rest away for a surprise for Christmas. So she did, and it worked out pretty well (even though she told E "there are two more of these for you!" but I'm hoping she forgets). And the girls have played with them nonstop since Thursday. I mean nonstop. They even took them over with an extra for their friend Max to play with yesterday.

So today I'm sitting on the floor picking things up when I hear "oh no! A wild animal! Get it!" I look around to see an orange pony and a purple pony holding PISTOLS and they both say "BANG BANG!" and then go to get the wild animals, skin them, and eat them. Yes, pistols. The girls had taken little pegs out of the CD tower (the pegs that hold up the shelves) and shoved them into the ponies' hooves and then taken their maurading gang of ponies around the house to destroy and devour.

Marmot Dad says this is particularly ironic considering the ponies' general effete and lackluster looks and personalities. Aren't they supposed to love everyone and fly around spreading happiness or something? (I missed out [thankfully] on the whole '80s pony phenomenon. MBC??)

I also found the game Operation at DI and have put that away for E's birthday (she's thought she is an underprivileged child ever since she got to play the game at a neighbor's house).

Now here's a recipe (from Moosewood Cookbook) we had at a neighbor's house last week. Very tasty on crusty bread:

grind in food processor or blender:

1 C walnuts

some parsley

add and blend to a smoothish paste:

1 C feta cheese

1/2 C milk

1 clove garlic

pinch cayenne or red pepper flakes

Eat and enjoy. 

Theology

A true conversation from this morning, which Marmot Dad told me "please blog. Please blog now."

E: I was so scared last night until you told me I didn't have a crack in my eye (she dreamed that she did). (pause) Mommy, why did you pray to Heavenly Father that I would only have good dreams, and then I had a bad dream?

Mom: (stymied)

M, the junior theologist: well, maybe Heavenly Father will help you some time (meaning some other time).

E: He helps me all the time.

M: Because he loves little children. (pause) And we are children. (another pause) I dreamed about the Jungle Book last night.

Boys will be boys

Here's what gave Tuey great joy tonight. He was eating applesauce, and he always eats it as messy as he possibly can--puts his sweet little face right down in the bowl and gops. He got some in his nose, and then he thought that was the funniest thing he had ever done. He started grinning and snorting applesauce in and out of his nose and laughing hysterically at himself. I'm afraid we're in for years and years of burping contests and the like at the dinner table.

As I was making the applesauce, E came in and said, "Mommy, what is that delightful smell?" Oh yeah, she knows how to play me.

M took the Lego box outside this evening (somehow evading my watchful gaze), stripped down, filled it with water, and was going to swim (in 55 or 60 degree weather). I nabbed her before she got it completely filled and decided to let her swim to see that I was right about how freezy cold she would be. Instead, she sat on top of it and wee-wee-d into the water. That naughty girl.

How (Not) to be a Domestic Goddess

I get toast tonight as an after-dinner snack for the girls. With fresh, homemade peach jam on top. It was as fresh as it gets. E ate about four bites and then was done. I asked her what the problem was. "I don't want to eat this." "But you asked for it." "But I don't want to eat it. I'm afraid worms might start popping out of it."

Back story:

So a couple of years ago my sister came over and we decided to break out some apricot jam. When we opened the jam, said sister spied a small, well processed worm on the top of the jam. I've been a little leery of apricot jam since then, I must admit. I don't know if E can remember this at all, but she told me the whole story: "and then when Aunt opened the jam a worm came popping out." I assured her there was no popping of worms, just a little worm lying there calmly, waiting to be discarded. But she's not buying it.

The good news is, she remembers in her version of the story that AUNT made the worm-popping jam.

In my own defense, that is the ONLY jar of jam in about 20 years of jam-making that has EVER had a worm in it.

In other news, E asked me yesterday, "will I ever have to wear hoop skirts?" (Do you sometimes HAVE to let an alligator eat you?)

M and Tuey had checkups today. Shots for everyone. M tried soooooo very hard to be stoic. She bit her lip and held in her little tears as long as she could, but it all came bursting out. Tuey just screamed bloody murder. He weighs 19 lbs. -- 75th percentile for height, 3rd for weight, skinny little guy.

Yesterday M was the angel who came to Joseph Smith. She came and asked him, "How do I look, Joseph Smith?" I didn't know there were narcissistic angels in heaven.

The Wrong Trousers

(This is for those of you who do not read my sister's blog. If you don't, you should. At least read her version of this story.)

So Marmot Dad comes home last night looking like the cat who swallowed the canary, having stopped at D. I. and scored a great pair of second-hand pants. (May I just mention, and don't you deny it Marmot Pa, that said Dad is a little obsessed with pants. And T shirts. He never seems to have enough of them and always wants plenty of backups.) Anyway, he triumphantly throws them at me to show me, I suppose, that he is as good a dumpster-diver/garage-saler/second-hander as I am (ha ha ha ha ha as if). I check the size (to make sure I don't have to hem them, because we got him some pants at D.I. about six months ago that needed nothing but a little hem and I STILL haven't gotten around to it). They say "18." I say, "These are women's pants." He denies it vociferously. They were in the men's section, he claims. So what if they were, I counter. These are a "pretty plus" women's size. My sister backs me up. He tries them on. Now I must honestly admit that if I didn't KNOW they were women's pants, I would probably not notice anything amiss. But they do make his posterior a little . . . more . . . rounded. And he himself admits that he noticed that the pockets were in sort of a weird place, and the zipper was a bit shorter than normal. "I did notice that," he says, as if to defend himself.  I guess it's good to know that we can do his shopping at Lane Bryant from now on. And let the record show that I have actual photos of him wearing a hideous pink shirt and (horribile dictu) pink shorts (thankfully not at the same time).

Today (new topic) is Tuie's birthday, sweet baby. He took three steps today for the first time and has been his usual sweet self. Except that he thinks he's too big for his high chair (keeps standing up) and want to drink from a cup (which he does badly).

M, on the other hand, was apprehended writing her name in ballpoint pen on her very lovely and nice pink pants. I wasn't sure whether to praise or blame, since she was writing her name on her pants and doing a very nice job of it. After all, she's only three. I toyed with the idea of letting her put on the last letter, the only one she lacked. She explained that "I couldn't find the tag." Cryptic. Then I realized she had seen me write E's name in permanent ink on the tags in the extra set of clothes I sent to her school.

As for E, she told me today that "Hunter is a boy I just HATE." I explained that we could not really like people but we shouldn't hate them. She justified: "Well, I hate him, but I try to be nice to him." 

Out next door neighbors got a trampoline. It's getting me down.

Little Microwave on the Prairie

So E and M are both way into Little House on the Prairie play. They spent all afternoon today being Laura and Mary and going to the college for the blind and packing up their wagon and calling for Jack, the brindle bulldog. After a while they decided they were low on provisions, so they took the toilet paper holder and used it for a gun to go hunting. They caught a polar bear and a Canada goose initially. M hauled in the polar bear (a big stuffed bear) for me to inspect. I asked her what she would do with it. "Take off its skin and microwave it and EAT it!" she explains. Then she says she loves polar bear meat. And duck meat. And porcupine meat. I ask her what she will do with the porcupine that she caught. "Take off its skin and microwave it and eat it! (pause) But first we'll have to take its porks off so they won't poke us."

The truly ironic thing is that neither child will touch meat for real (except a piece of rotisserie chicken about once every six months). But tonight at dinner they chowed down on wolf meat (quesadillas) and duck meat (nectarines) and even tried the goose meat (roasted sweet potatoes).

The Evil Pixie

So I go to take a shower this morning. I enjoin the girls to "babysit themselves," which makes them feel big and important. They do so. They are in Thing One (henceforward referred to as "E")'s room when I get out. Probably coloring, I think. Great, I think. I get breakfast for the baby and get started on some for us older folk. When I hear a little voice saying, self righteously, "Mommy, M cut off all of her hair and it got ALL OVER my floor, but I picked it up so it wouldn't make a mess." There are several things wrong with this statement, but of course the "cut off all her hair" got my attention first. Sure enough, there was an evil little pixie with an evil little pixie cut-slash-mullet grinning at me, not a hint of remorse in her eyes. As the story comes out, it seems that E put M up to it and even did some of the slash-and-burn herself. The result of which is no girl is allowed to use scissors again until some time in November, if ever. 

I called Marmot Dad to tell him the tale. His reaction: "I guess it's good we're not vain people." Oh, but we are a little bit. I was just planning the kids' Christmas portraits just yesterday, and now we'll have two cute little kids and one Liza Minelli (sp?), Jr. Actually, she bears a striking resemblance now to two of her Iowa cousins (unfortunately, both boys). My vanity, slight though it is, might necessitate buying some hair clips and maybe a sign that says "I am not a boy I cut off my own hair don't any of you people have kids?"

Little Tuie/Tuey/Tooey is, however, sweet and good and kind. I'm glad I've got ONE who is on my side.

(In)credulity

Thing Two: Santa Claus doesn't really exist right? (this is what we tell the kids--to save trouble and despair down the road)

Marmot Mamma: right

Thing Two: (pause) But we got presents last year at Christmas . . .

MM: . . . . .

Thing Two: (long pause and thoughtful look with big, innocent eyes) . . . Why?

another conversation

Thing Two: When will Heavenly Father come out of heaven?

MM: ummmm, I don't know.

Thing Two: Maybe heaven is near India. (The girls are fascinated with India these days because they've watched The Jungle Book. Thing One wants us to move there and plans to take her bike so she can get around without riding an elephant.)

I want to be a paper girl

We took the kids to the park on Monday night. Thing One has been fascinated with paper girls and boys for a few weeks now since reading The Paperboy, a great picture book. So she and Thing Two both took their bikes, their helmets, and several old newspapers and a rubber band. We first played catch for a while and then the paper delivery commenced. Thing One sat down and carefully folded the newspapers and put the one rubber band on the first one. She strapped on her helmet and, with great joy, hopped on her bike and took off down the path. As soon as she got to the first set of pine trees *BAM* there goes the first paper (fortunately she has been practicing riding with one hand for many weeks now) and *DING DING* goes the bell. Then she stopped, took off the rubber band, and wrapped up the second paper. Repeat. Then it was Thing Two's turn. They were so happy afterwards that they had actually gotten to DELIVER PAPERS (granted to squirrels and bugs) that they had to ride around and around the park path singing at the top of their lungs. Now they're trying to convince me to let them stay up all night and sleep during the day (which they are convinced paper boys and girls do). Thing Three is now trying to impale the computer keyboard. He wants me to write about him. Next time.