Sometimes this happens when you turn 40

Sunday being my grand 40th birthday, I decided to take extra care with my appearance. I blew dry my hair. I wore makeup (such as it was). I put on my nicest tent dress that made me look least like a watermelon lurching around on two legs. Speaking of legs, I shaved them. Things were looking up. Then when it came time to leave, I couldn't find my shoes that matched my dress. So I had to wear very black sandals with my very pale blue dress. On my special day. (Just as well, probably, because my tan sandals, which I remembered where I had hidden about halfway to church, don't fit my newly swollen feet.)

The girls, especially M, were in fine form for the birthday festivities. M wrapped up a plate for me, a broken Santa Claus figure of hers, and a Japanese book of mine. She got soooo excited at dinner time and told me "Wait Mommy! Wait! You don't have to get a plate for yourself! Here! Open this!" And then I had to gush about opening my own plate for my own dinner. It was very sweet. She was also gratified by my surprised and pleased reaction when I opened my very own book that she had wrapped. (It makes sense, after all--I had already purchased it, so it MUST be something I like.) She rushed around the table and insisted on serving everyone. I had made some apple slices and carrot sticks for the kids, and she made sure that everyone had the same amount, lined up in the same formation, on their plates. That all was very nice.

But then came the greatest indignity of all. I was putting sweet little Tooie to bed with a bottle. He gave me his half-finished bottle and looked at me with a funny look on his face. "What's wrong?" I ask. "Are you going to vomit?" (NB: this is perhaps the all time stupidest question you can ask a 1 1/2-year-old when you think he might be about to vomit.) To his credit, he answered me with a weak "yeah." I had just enough time to grab him and jump (or rather lurch) off the bed before he hit me with the full force of his vomit capacity, all over my nice Sunday dress. We rushed to the bathroom where he did his thing for a few more moments, all over the floor and the bathmats and both of our clothes. Marmot Dad wants to know why on earth I didn't just put him directly into the tub when I got to the bathroom. I have no idea why. Perhaps I was just thinking that on my 40th birthday I was covered in pre-digested fishsticks and ketchup and bok choy and pine nuts. On my special day.

p.s. Oh yeah, Marmot Dad's birthday was on Monday. It was nice enough. No vomit.

Miscellaneous funny things

Here are some gems from the girls of late:

Tonight at the dinner table as M was trying to tell us something and E was interrupting--

"I'm trying to talk to you but E keeps destructing me!"

I took all the kids to the dentist on Tuesday (a fool's errand, I know) for my checkup. The girls had beads they were stringing on thread with needles, which keeps them occupied for long stretches and worked great. Until, of course, M broke her string and dropped all her beads, then lost her needle in the chair, and then sewed her necklace to her dress while she was working on it (after gathering up beads and needles again). But overall the children were exceptionally well behaved, even Tooie who sat on a chair and played with a pony. People kept coming into the exam room and remarking on how well behaved they were being. At one point the dental hygienist said, "you children are really being good while your mother is busy." "Well," answered E, "that's the kind of children we are." 

Of course, that's not always the kind of children they are. Last weekend Marmot Dad told E to get out of the muck and mud in the back yard, which muck and mud we have in spades. "No, father," answers E, "I must follow my heart." I think he almost blew a gasket.

And finally, little M has been having a great time playing Cinderella. This usually works out well for me, because she likes to do lots of cleaning and scrubbing while she's Cinderella. Of course, I get a lot of criticism while she's doing it, because of course I have to play the part of the wicked stepmother. One day when she was really getting into her role, she climbed up on a chair and confronted said wicked stepmother: "I always do all the work, and you always do all the play, and THAT'S . . . NOT . . . FAIR! So STOP BEING STEP! I am ALWAYS nice, and you are ALWAYS step!" So that's the new label in our family--as in, "wow, that person is really step!"

Tooie's latest tricks are singing an almost unrecognizable version of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and a pretty good rendition of Happy Birthday.