Birthday Wishes

We have two birthdays to celebrate, each for a Marmot Uncle. MU #1 turned 32 last week (32? yes?) and we figure he had enough fun celebrating in ROME to last at least until 33 (one can only hope, anyway. We might go to the local gelato place in his honor). MU#2 turns 41 (which I understand is "the new 40") tomorrow. Must have been a curse to grow up with an April Fools' Day birthday. But many happy returns all the same, to both of you. (We did remember Midwestern Marmot Aunt's birthday back in February but apparently marked it with a moment of silence rather than something as festive as a blog entry. Many apologies, MMA. We don't function well in February, what with all the snow and cold and darkness. Makes you wonder why we chose Feb. to get married.)

Theology 101

E's nativity play last week, as reported by Marmot Dad:

"OK little Jesus, it's time to put on your swaddling clothes. You're just the funniest little savior. Now, you need to wear your swaddling clothes to be a good example to all the other babies."

M has her own issues regarding the Holy Family. She insists that Joseph, not God, is the father of Jesus. "Well, Mommy," she explained (patiently, and speaking slowly, for Mommies of somewhat dim intelligence), "the people who are with the baby are the parents. So Mary and Joseph are Jesus's parents. Joseph is his real father. Heavenly Father is just his extra father." Heck, it makes sense to me.

Finally, E got a little ribbon at church a couple of weeks ago that said "I am a Child of God." She loved it and wore it to preschool the next day, although once we got to school she asked me a few times if she ought to wear it into the school. She was afraid that maybe the people at school didn't go to church or believe in Heavenly Father. I assured her that they probably did. But after school we stopped at the city rec center to sign up for swimming lessons and she took it off then (for the same reasons). (Although, let the record show that she had no qualms about asking the kid sitting in the entryway who his favorite princess was. Sure, she'll proselytize for Disney but not for God.) Anyway, I suggested that it would be just fine to wear her ribbon even around people who didn't go to church or whatever, and then if they asked her about she could tell them what it meant and that she went to church etc. etc. etc. Her eyes lit up as she suddenly understood: "like a missionary!" Then she took it one step farther: "When we get home, I'll put on my ribbon, and we can walk to the end of the road, and if I meet anyone who doesn't believe in Heavenly Father I'll tell them about him! I'll be a missionary to the end of the road!" 

(Some of us feel as if perhaps we were missionaries to/at the end of the road at one time.) 

Alas, when we got home and went to the end of the road no one was to be seen, believer or infidel.

. . . but screw your courage to the sticking place . . .

Our little E is positively Shakespearean in her expressions sometimes. Today on the way to preschool we were waiting to make a turn into a parking lot during class break. The college students just walk along without ever noticing any cars that might be about to run them down (like ours), and E finds this very disturbing. "They don't pay attention at all!" she huffs. "That is very dangerous! They could get run over!" Today she found new words to express her exasperation: "they just fix their minds on what they're doing and don't think about cars that might run over them." Fix their minds. She kills me.

More Love

So Marmot Dad passed up an opportunity to broadcast live from Carnegie Hall in June so he would not miss the birth of Marmot #4. True love. (Of course, he also hates to travel, even to as exciting a location as NYC.)

More Vomit

Today I had another coughing fit, this time in the car. E said "Oh no, Mommy, here it goes again. I'm so sorry." Then after some more violent coughing while I was trying to cough and drive and all that she said, "hey, please hand me my backpack." It was sitting right next to me in the front. "Why?" I asked between coughs. "Oh, just because." But I know this child well. So I asked, "Are you afraid I'm going to vomit on it?" Sheepishly, E answers, "yeah." Ah, she is her father's daughter.

In other news, M came to preschool with me today to read stories to E's class. Here's what she wore: one purple tutu, paired with some green silky athletic shorts and pink cowboy boots. Plus a blue necklace and a great big pony. She looked like a dream.

Tomorrow is our very own princess party. Wish me well. It might kill me.

So This is Love

** Note: This is for immature audiences only. Actual adults may be offended by the yuck factor.**Particularly you, Aunt.**(She seems to think that our family does nothing at all but talk about diapers and vomit.)

Our neighbors sent us home last night with a Disney songbook, so we spent family night singing the girls' favorite songs, invariably the sappy love songs and not classics like Zippity Doo Dah which are what Marmot Pa and I would have chosen. But as it turns out, those darn love songs were prescient. Almost immediately after we stopped singing, I was seized by a violent coughing fit and vomited into a metal trashcan. (It would perhaps be Too Much Information to inform readers that I had had a copious amount of broccoli for dinner [sidenote: Tooie is utterly cute when he says "broccoli"].) Anyway, Marmot Dad offered of his own volition to clean out the trashcan for me, and then he did. Bless his little marmoty heart. If I hadn't known it before, I know now: he is my knight in shining armour. This is not, I might add, his only vomit salvation. When E was a child he caught her vomit one night in his bare hands. I teared up. Now you must understand that there are few things that gross me out more than vomit, especially little kid vomit from kids who have not learned to chew properly yet. Although I have to admit that I have gotten a little desensitized to the whole enterprise. I've been known in the last few months to have grabbed Tooie as I hear him gagging and direct his little vomit directly onto my own chest in order to save the bed from a terrible fate. Oops--I hear someone gagging in the back now (I'm not making this up). Such is the fate of us parents of small children with quick vomit triggers.

Revenge of the Fairies

Today was the fairy tea party at the library, the event that I stood in line for an HOUR to get tickets for (so humiliating). The tea party itself was fun and all, but the best part was the after-party play. It was fairy tea party land at our house for hours afterward. At dinner, Fairy M was our helpful fairy and insisted on climbing on the shelves in the pantry to get out dishes for all of us, and served us tea at the table (out of an old yogurt container), and ran to get towels when things were spilled at the table (multiple times), and referred to her father as King of the Fairies, or sometimes just Your Majesty. Then when the girls and I were picking up their very messy art table and Marmot Dad was sitting on the couch, she solemnly observed that "the Fairy King is a lazy king."

It was charming to see the little girls dressed up in their finery. E did not wear a plastic bag tied to her front (as she did to school last week), but she did wear a gold sash around her elbows (???), and M insisted on wearing only one glass slipper . . . you know, like Cinderella . . . making her sound like Peg-leg Pete as she clomped through the library. M's dress turned out just fine despite the fact that I finally gave up on the zipper bottom that wouldn't come straight and just wadded up some fabric and sewed over it until it lay flat.

Perhaps their favorite part of the tea party was when we went downstairs to the library and they each got to choose about five books and we read them ALL right there on the library couch for about an hour with no little brother climbing on us or escaping somewhere.

I'd better go see what His Majesty is up to.