Monster Night

On a recent family night we had a monster drawing contest, with some amazing results:

This was my addition to the festivities->

A two-headed, androgynous monster.
M's monster is standing in front of a house with many windows.
Here's another M creation next to a front door with a doorknob and a wreath.
Marmot Dad made big points when he introduced the cooperative monster--head drawn by Daddy, body by Mommy, feet by E, all without looking. The girls are still talking about how surprised they were that Daddy drew a snake head.

E's monster with a house.

Another lovely E monster, this one with handcuffs and chains on.

Next time I'll have to post our bug drawing contest results, and perhaps even the mermaids (although Aunt's mermaid met an untimely demise and now resides in the outside garbage can. Sorry Aunt.)

We are so talented

Yes, we are sooo talented that we have managed to come up with two girls and two boys for our children. And not only that, we managed to have them in blocks, girls first and then boys. And one of each child in different seasons, a fall boy and a spring boy, a fall girl and a spring girl. Well, what can I say? It's hard to be so good, but someone has got to set the example for all those other silly families that have, say, all girls or all boys or a disconcerting mix of the two.

(Unfortunately we are not talented enough, apparently, to figure out how to upload the ultrasound movie . . .)

Revenge of the Righteous

(Disclaimer: If any of you have been laboring under the false notion that E is a perfect child or that I, heaven forbid, am a perfect mother, please read no further unless you want your illusions shattered.)

So this morning we were (or at least I was) rushing to get us all to the library in time for storytime complete with a picnic lunch we could eat on the way to preschool. E was being unusually recalcitrant, especially on the subject of socks and whether she would wear them and which ones she would wear and if she would wear them or not unless I cut off all little dangly strings and if she would put them on herself or make me do it. On top of this, when I sent her to her room for stealing her sister's hat THREE TIMES after being told THREE TIMES not to she told me that "you never ask me if I want to do anything, you just always tell me, and it's not fair!" This just happened to be the straw that broke the exasperated Mommy's back.

So, judge me as you will, the top of my head exploded and I ranted and raved at her for a bit. Mommy ranting, E crying, M jumping around saying "Mommy, I'm doing what you say! Look, I have my shoes on already," Tooie dabbling in the breakfast he threw on the floor--it was quite the scene. 

By some miracle, we made it into the car all together with no broken bones or blood vessels and turned on some soft music to soothe all of us savage beasts. E wanted me to turn off the music so she could sing something. So I turned it off and waited, and she started singing . . . "I see my mother kneeling with the family each day etc. etc. etc. love is spoken here."

I would have felt like a real worm if she hadn't sung it in such a self-righteous way, and if it hadn't been so funny when you think about it, and if I didn't know that darn it, she had a little lecture coming to her anyway! And I suppose I did to, and she gave it to me.

Heaven help us all.

More about Christmas

I forgot to write about our most important Christmas event--trying to persuade the girls that Santa is not real. We've never hyped Santa, and we've always told the girls that he is not real. And logically, they know that. But they don't really believe that it's true. So after Christmas, after the presents magically appeared under the tree and in the stockings, they had some hard questions for their parents that went something like this:

kids: "If Santa isn't real, then how did our presents get into our stockings?"

mom: "Well, do you think maybe mommy and daddy put them in there?"

kids: "Oh mommy! Of course not. You and daddy would be asleep at night!"

Ditto for the tooth fairy. At least we tried.

(This reminds me of my favorite StoryCorps story from the Christmas season. A woman who had raised six or eight or nine children on her own after her husband left them told her son about how she had managed to have Christmas for her big family on a severely limited budget. She told him, "In our family there was no Santa, of course. I wasn't going to let any man take credit for that." Or words to that effect. My other favorite Christmas StoryCorps story was about a doorman from a big apartment building or hotel in NYC or Chicago who had some actor or comedian come to him at Christmas and ask what the biggest tip he had ever gotten was. "$50" he answered. "Well, here's $100" said Famous Man. "By the way," he continued, "who gave you that $50 tip?" "Well, sir," said the doorman, "that was you, last year.")

The girls also spent much of the Christmas season playing one of their favorite games, Holy Family. They took turns being different people. For a while, King Herod was a big draw, but they couldn't remember his name and so would call him "King Whatever-his-name-is" or "King Haggard." One day Marmot Dad heard them playing King Herod. E was narrating the action: "Mary was caught in King Herod's ropes (he used a lot of ropes to tie people up during their dramas) and the Holy Ghost said to Mary, 'Run, Mary! Run!' " Kooky kids.

It's all your fault, Mommy

Everything is always Mommy's fault. I told the girls for a long time that they couldn't check out Aladdin from the library because it was too scary (see The Little Mermaid, below). Of course I eventually caved because M, in particular, assured me that she would NOT be scared, absolutely not, not her, nuh uh. Well, they got the movie from the library, watched it immediately, and of course M started calling out that she was . . . scared. I told her to stop watching, but she wouldn't. After the movie was over, she confronted me, tearfully: "Mommy! That was really scary! I got really scared! You shouldn't have let me watch that!"

As a followup, though, on Friday night we had "family movie night" and watched Aladdin all together. Afterwards, Marmot Dad said to M, "You weren't scared at all this time." "Of course not," she answered, "I'm in Primary now!"

Rapunzel Rapunzel

Here are two takes on Rapunzel by the amazing girls:

This is Rapunzel "with piles and piles of hair" by M.
Here we have a somewhat more nuanced treatment of the fairytale by E. Note the bird's nest and mama bird and the tower.
This has nothing to do with Rapunzel, but last week in church M drew all of this music and then used it as her personal hymnbook for the singing of hymns. She cracks us up.