Nearly 4 Smarty Pants

On Sunday, on the way to church, I told the girls to tell Twin Daddy what we'd talked about the day before, about how once they turned 4, they would have to leave Loveys at home and not chew on them in the car anymore.

"So, we'll leave them at home, but you can still chew on Lovey while you watch TV or when you're in bed, right?" I said, summarizing our agreement.

"Yes," said Turtle, "but it will be ok because we'll have our big kid beds when we turn 4."

I turned around and said, "Big kid beds???"

"Yes, Mommy," chimed in Monkey. "You get big kid beds when you are 4."

Twin Daddy and I looked at each other in surprise, shock, horror, amusement. Then we both started talking at the same time, things like, "Really?" and "We didn't know you wanted big kid beds" and "We'll have to talk about it."

I was still looking and them, and they each were looking at me like I was crazy, which is a look I've seen before. But then, a first. They looked at each other and exchanged a glance that said, "Can you believe these idiots are our parents?"

I turned around in my seat, bewildered. Twin Daddy was muttering to himself and shaking his head. "Geesh. Twins. Two beds."

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Tonight I was reading a bedtime story to the girls, and when I don't like the message of a book, I edit while I read. Tonight the book was about Percival, a caterpillar who feels sorry for himself through the whole book that he is plain brown when all his insect friends are so colorful and beautiful. It ends NOT when he decides that brown is beautiful too, but when he turns into a colorful butterfly "and is not so plain any more."

So I had left out all the parts about how sad he was to be plain and in lieu of the last line I said, "and then he was all the colors of the rainbow." Turtle pointed to the pink stripe in his wings and said, "Pink is not in the rainbow." Then Monkey pointed to the white dots and said, "White is not in the rainbow either."

"Oh, all right," I said, "It shouldn't say that. Next time I'll say 'Then he was all the colors he had admired so much.'"

They looked a little dubious. I think they're on to me.

More words

Here are a few funny things I've heard lately.

"If a fox comes in, the lifeguard will blow its whistle so the children will know there is a fox here."

- Turtle, at the baby pool at Little Stacy Park

"Mommy is fat, right Sissy?"

- Monkey, out of the blue

"It's like a slimy, disss-gusting, decayed pumpkin."

- Monkey, describing poop

"Wow Mommy, you're amazing!"

- Monkey, after I showed her how to tear a perforated sheet of paper

"Yay Mommy, I LOVE you!"

- Turtle, after I told her that Barney is available On Demand.

Words

Tonight I got what I think is my first, "I don't love you Mommy!" from Turtle. I wasn't too taken aback, since I've heard that about twice a day for the last six months from Monkey. I think I was more surprised to suddenly realize, right after Turtle said it, that I didn't remember ever hearing her say it before. As hard as I try not to, I'm always lumping them together, and so in my mind, "they" said that all the time.

Each girl has had more positive phrasing lately too. In describing an activity she did in her Montessori classroom on Friday, Monkey said, "It's very challenging work." She kind of stumbled on "challenging" but she got it out, and I have to say I was pretty impressed. Then I heard Turtle recently talking to her dolls, saying, "Ok, here are your options."

Since I know they are picking up more complex language left and right, tonight as I read them a story I explained to them that a doll in the book was "symbolic" of something else, and did my best to explain what symbolic means. I don't know if they understood, but they were both quietly engrossed in my explanation, so I know they were at least impressed with my big word.

The Fire Truck series

Monkey has drawn a fire truck every day this week. She will ask for paper and markers, get them all set up, and then say, "I'm ready for my investigation." Then she goes and plays with her fire truck for awhile, holding it in her hands, looking at the ladder and the firefighters, pushing the siren button, and pushing the truck around on the ground. Then she sits down for about 20 minutes and works on her fire truck drawing. It's always an "abstract" drawing, and she has changed around the location of the tires and the ladder every day, and put different firefighters in each picture.

She also likes to alternately pretend she is a 10-year-old boy that we know, Texas Ranger Josh Hamilton, and a ballerina.

Just another little peek into the growing brains over here . . . .

Swiper

Out of the blue . . .

Turtle: Swiper (from Dora) doesn't swipe things anymore. He only swipes Nazis.

Twin Momma, startled: Did you say Nazis?

Turtle: Yes

Twin Momma: Do you remember what a Nazi is?

Turtle and Monkey in unison: A bad soldier.

I have no explanation for this. I guess Turtle somehow connected the bad guys from the Sound of Music with Swiper. She didn't elaborate, just went back to bouncing around the house. Just wanted to share a peek into this little brain . . .

Still Here

Oh my goodness, where have I been? I'm so embarrassed by my sporadic posting that I've considered closing the blog down but I just can't bring myself to do it. I don't know if anyone will even read this as I'm sure even my most loyal readers have long ago stopped checking my website for updates.

So, I guess I can just write like no one's watching. And what would I write about if I thought no one was watching? Hmm. Let's start with Rob Lowe. He graced the cover of Vanity Fair last month and I've been meaning to tell someone that I nearly fainted in the grocery store check-out line when I saw it. You may think I'm exaggerating, but I'm telling you I saw a little black around the edges of my eyes and my heart kept jumping from my throat to my gut as I tried to catch my breath. The man is hot, is what I'm saying, and has been my #1 heartthrob since I was about 10 years old. Do you think it is just a random happenstance that I married a lanky man with dark hair, blue eyes and high cheekbones? I don't think so people. I had a Rob Lowe Tiger Beat centerfold pinned over the head of my bed that I kissed before bedtime for a lot of my tween years. Those looks were embedded into my consciousness.

As a side note, I did not buy the Vanity Fair issue. I can't have that thing around the house - it would be like looking directly at the sun all the time. The image seared in my brain is much easier to handle.

Let's see, what else. It's kind of been all-Oprah all the time over here. I am a huge fan (in substance, as opposed to solely in appearance as is the case with Mr. Lowe) and I accepted her departure with as much grace as I could muster. Having a weekly Oprah fix over on OWN will help, and I plan to save her final episode on my DVR indefinitely.

Several other noteworthy events have gone on here that are actually about me and not about my television friends. First off, I celebrated turning 39 last Sunday by completing a sprint-distance triathlon. I trained quite a bit for it and had a lot of fun and plan to do more this year. Secondly, I started doing some legal work from home on a part-time contract basis. And those two short sentences actually fully explain why I haven't posted a thing in this blog in nearly 2 months. Between squeezing training and working into the hours of 9-2 M-F and trying to do everything else that I used to do in those hours some other time and handling the resulting emotional fallout from being less available for Monkey, I stretched myself a little thin. So I'm taking a break from intensive training, and trying not to care about how "everything else" is no longer getting done. Those two things have already helped this past week with Monkey's behavior, which in turn has given me more energy, and voila, here is a blog post.

This blog is supposed to be about the kids, and next time it will be. If I could just force myself to sit down for three minutes a day and write the funniest thing they said that day, this would be a great blog. Unfortunately, now it's late and I can't think of anything I can write about them in 3 minutes or less so you'll have to be satisfied with my telling you that they are just fine. And that I'm too embarrassed to tell you how many episodes of Bubble Guppies they watched today. "Everything else" does have to get done sometime, doesn't it?

Turtle's Wisdom

There are a million things to write and I keep meaning to get them all down, but every night I look up and it's past 10 and I'm tired and I still haven't unloaded the dryer, and so I never get around to posting. But today Turtle said something too funny to put off until later. I was helping her get ready for her nap and she was twirling around the room - she likes to be a ballerina about 98% of the time. She asked me to dance with her so I did a few little pretend ballerina steps that I've picked up from watching Angelina Ballerina. She stopped, shook her head, and said, "No, mommy, you don't dance. Mommies just do the dishes and stuff like that." Then she plopped herself into her bed with Mr. Lovie and snuggled in while I rolled on the floor laughing.

She's not ALL ballerina though. They have been doing lots of little science projects at preschool and last week, after I handed her a cup of water, she said, "Mommy, water is liquid and ice is a solid." "Yes, you're right," I said out loud, thinking to myself, "OMG, we have got to start putting more money in her 529 account to pay for this science prodigy to go to M.I.T.!" Then the other night as she was going to the bathroom at bedtime, she said, "Daddy, pee pee is a liquid and poo poo is a solid." And she cracked up.

So I'm going to hold off on panicking about paying for M.I.T. It was a good cross-application of her science knowledge, but the girl's favorite punch line is still "poo poo."