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."

Conversation

I heard the end of this conversation as we were getting the girls ready for bed tonight:

Monkey: ". . . . so boys work to earn money."

Twin Daddy: "Honey, listen. Both boys AND girls work to earn money. Mommy chose to stay home with you and take care of you. But before you were born, she had a job where she earned money. And she is looking for a job again. Mommy is very, very smart and does really, really good work at her jobs."

Monkey: "But she's not as good at cooking."

Twin Daddy: "Well . . . "

Me: "I'm very happy with honesty here. Let's not pretend."

Twin Daddy: "Maybe it's not her greatest strength."

********************************************************************************

It's no accident that my cooking came up tonight, a night when I threw the chicken I made directly into the garbage after dinner. Twin Daddy was the only one who ate any, the girls refused to eat it and I took one bite and then served the three of us cold hot dogs directly from the package. The potatoes were undercooked and the green beans were overcooked and I complained the whole time about how awful it all was. I do this most nights because, frankly, I hate my cooking. It's not usually "throw it directly into the garbage" bad, but I have a feeling it just doesn't taste very good to me because I'm so annoyed I had to cook it.

Saturday morning the girls were asking if Twin Daddy was going to make breakfast. We were all cuddling together in our big bed, playing around, and I asked who they thought was a better cook, Daddy or Mommy. This was a set up, because I certainly know the answer and was just curious what they thought. They both yelled, "Daddy!" and I agreed, saying, "I'm not as good as Daddy at cooking." Monkey certainly recalled that point tonight! I swear, sometimes I fantasize about getting a job solely for the purpose of persuading Twin Daddy to quit his and take over all cooking duties full time. We'd all be in food heaven, and Monkey would learn first hand that girls can bring home the bacon, too.

Jokes and More

Turtle and Monkey each made up a new joke over the weekend. Both have some basis in our continuing favorite subject, The Sound of Music. Monkey's joke needs a little set up. Toward the end of the movie, the von Trapp family sings in the Salzburg Music Festival, and when they sing their famous, "So Long, Farewell" song, Leisl and Freiderick sing "Adieu, Adieu, to you and you and you." So here is Monkey's joke:

Monkey: "What would happen if Leisl had the sniffles?"

Me: "I don't know, what would happen?"

Monkey: "She would say, "Achoo, Achoo, to you and you and you!"

Turtle's is more self-explanatory.

Turtle: "What do you call a nun's underwear?"

Me: "I don't know, what do you call them?"

Turtle: "Nunderwear!"

Here are a couple of other ridiculously clever things they said today. We met with Twin Daddy for lunch this afternoon, and when we got in the car Monkey said, "If someone tried to call us while we were at lunch, they had to leave a message, because we were in a meeting with Daddy."

Then there was this morning. I put together a simple craft project for the girls - making a little "garden" out of the base of a cardboard egg carton by pushing colorful popsicle sticks through the egg holders, and then attaching springtime foam stickers (birds, ladybugs, butterflies, flowers, etc.) to each stick and around their bases. This was the first time they actually both did a craft project that I assembled, to completion, following my instructions and with the finished project being as I envisioned. That in itself was exciting. But in the middle of it Turtle said, "Making my garden is so much fun Mommy! I'm glad you had this idea." I am too.