The Laundry Fairy

Yesterday evening I had two big piles of unfolded laundry on our dining room table, one in the dryer, and one in the washer.  I sighed and said, "I wish the laundry fairy would come and fold all these clothes for me."  Then I sat down on the couch and put my feet up, planning to resume the laundry after I rested a bit.

A few minutes later Monkey walked into the living room wearing her big pink wings and smiling.  "What are you playing honey?"  I asked.  She said, "I'm the laundry fairy and I'm here to help you!" That was so cute I forced myself off the couch and back to the laundry.  Monkey is a pretty excellent helper in general, and she really was a little laundry fairy last night.  She kept getting distracted by her arguments with the "invisible baby tooth fairy" who kept trying to get her to leave and go collect teeth in the neighborhood, but she sternly told the invisible baby tooth fairy, "No, I can't go right now" repeatedly, and stuck to her job.

Now that the laundry has been washed and put away, I'm hoping Turtle will stop complaining, as she did all last week, that "Nothing in my closet is pretty," and "my clothes are all ugly" and "I look stupid" and all the other four-year-old versions of "I have nothing to wear."  It was really aggravating and of course, worrisome, but I think the problem was that her three favorite dresses had been dirty for awhile and she couldn't stand the choices presented by the other dozen+ beautiful dresses in her closet, most of which she has picked herself.

What I'll be when I'm a grown-up

This is Monkey's list of what she'll do when she's a grown-up, she just gave it to me in a sing-songy voice:

"I'm going to go to space, and build things, and fix things.  And do ballet.  And art.  And be an old woman."

This came after Turtle's announcement (she was mad at me) that when she was a teenager she was going to go a whole week without talking to me.

I'm pretty sure both girls' statements are true.

Discussions

In the past week, Monkey has all of a sudden started saying, "Oh. My. Gawwd" like a 1980s teenager, and pretty much using it in the proper context.  I asked her today, "Monkey, where did you hear someone say that?"  "From you," she replied.  You know, like in those commercials about smoking pot? "I learned it from YOU."  Anyway, I thought that was the case but wanted to make sure I was right to be feeling so mortified by my vocabulary.  

This morning I was taking the girls to a bouncy house (!) playdate, and we'd been in the car about 2 minutes when Turtle popped out with, "Mommy, does God live in space?"  So after I struggled through that answer, she immediately asked, "Mommy, which one is your sweet tooth?"  I burst out laughing, but was able to give a shorter and less tortured answer to that.

 

Conversation and Pink baseball gloves

This morning on the way to school one of the girls asked, "Mommy, when will I be 4 and 3/4?"  This turned into a conversation about birthday parties.  I asked, "Where do you want to have your birthday party?"  They replied, in unison, "Pump It Up!"  I have been to approximately ten thousand birthday parties at Pump It Up and was chagrined to hear this.  They then suggested another bouncy house place where I've only been to five thousand birthday parties.  I suggested a few non-bouncy places that they seemed to think were ok, so we kind of tabled the location discussion as this conversation ensued in the back seat:

Turtle: "Sissy, want to have a Cinderella birthday party?"  [cut to Mom in front seat, closing her eyes and shuddering.]  Turtle continues: "I mean, a Princess party?"

Monkey: "Sissy, I don't want to have anything nice.  I want to have a Star Wars party."  [Mom grins.]

Turtle: "Well, how about a Wizard of Oz Party?"

Monkey: "Maybe."

Turtle: "I could have a Dorothy cake and you could have a tin man or scarecrow or whatever."

Monkey:  "I want a Yoda cake.  And a Pin the something on the something Game.  Pin the sword on Luke."

Turtle:  "Pin the light saber on Yoda!"

Monkey: "Yeah!"

We were at school at that point, so the discussion is on hold.  We always get two cakes, but I think we may have two themes this year, too . . . .

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On a side note, I'd like to report a follow up to my long ago post "No More Pink Baseball Gloves." (May 2009).   I drew a line in the sand in that post, and while I have had to give up many, many of my preconceived notions about what I would and would not do as a mother to girls, I am happy to report that this one has stuck.  Twin Daddy took the girls to get baseball gloves at Academy a couple weeks ago, but before they left, he gave them (Turtle) a talk about what color glove was acceptable (brown or black) and what was not (pink, blue, purple), no matter what was at the store or what our neighbor had.  They returned from Academy with respectable baseball gloves and happily played catch in the backyard.  Turtle may play catch in a pink dress with sparkly silver dress shoes, but at least she's got a decent glove (and a decent throwing arm to boot!).