Oh, the drama!

Loaf has her first loose tooth.

Last night, she was complaining of tooth pain on the bottom and when I checked, sure enough, one of her bottom center teeth has a slight wiggle to it.

She is SO excited. She has seen her sister lose six and reap the riches of the Tooth Fairy, so she’s dying to have her turn.

In addition to the excitement, the tooth has brought about a significant amount of drama. This morning while eating, she kept complaining of how much her loose tooth hurt.

"Oh my tooth, my tooth! It hurts sooooo much. I can’t eat my breakfast on this side so I have to keep my head titled in this direction,” she whimpered while tilting her head to the right.

What was she eating, you ask?

Well that is an excellent question. I’m sure you’re thinking it was an apple or piece of toast or some other hard, crispy food that requires the use of incisors.

NOPE!

It was a bowl of soggy corn flakes.

Not. Kidding.

My daughters are sweet and caring and tons of fun, but they are sometimes full of The Drama.

Fortunately, there is an end in sight. I figure she’ll lose that tooth in about . . . oh? 8 to 12 weeks?

Until then, I have a feeling there will be lots of head tilting and complaining about hard food and special requests for ice packs to soothe her aching, rootless tooth as it slowly releases itself from her gums. It's enough to make me want to lie on the floor and scream. I can't imagine where they get this from.

:::whistles and looks up at the ceiling:::

The V-Word

Driving home in the car yesterday with our new dog (because when life gives you chaos, why not ramp it up even more?), the girls and I were having a discussion about spaying and neutering animals: what it is, why it's important, etc.

Peanut observed that spaying involves cutting into the female cat's stomach, thus making the cat's stomach sensitive to the touch for many years afterward. I piped in with, "That's right. You know, when you were born, they had to cut into my stomach to get you out and the scar is still sensitive all these years later."

Lately, Loaf has taken to tormenting Peanut whenever possible. I always knew this day would come: revenge for all the taunting she took as a baby, I suppose. So she looks squarely at Peanut and in her most accusatory tone says, "That was for you, Peanut. I came out the right way."

ME: Loaf, do you know what 'the right way' is? How were you born?

LOAF: Through your vagina.

PEANUT: (joyfully) That's right, Loaf. You came out of Mommy's biscuit.

ME: (to myself) WHAT?!?!?
TO PEANUT: Where did you hear that term?

PEANUT: (giggling) I don't know.

LOAF: (Insert name of sweet little girl with outstanding parents) told us!

ME: (to myself) WHAT?!?!?

PEANUT: No! She didn't tell me. Maybe she told Loaf but (insert name of other sweet little girl who also has outstanding parents) told me!

ME: (to myself) Oy.
OK, listen girls. Whoever is using terms like that, well, it doesn't sound very smart. The correct word is vagina. And if we're being really correct, the word is vulva, because that includes all your girl parts down there. Do you understand?

BOTH: (reluctantly, complete with verbal eyerolls) Yessss.

Several seconds of radio silence.

LOAF: (accusingly) Peanut, I was born out of Mommy's volcano. You weren't.

PEANUT: It's not her volcano, it's her vulvana.

ME: (to myself) GAH! Maybe whoever came up with "biscuit" was on to something.

* * *
Dog pictures coming soon. He is a black lab, very sweet but completely insane. We have adopted "Marley's" second cousin evidently.

A girl's best friend, at any age

Yesterday, I met with Peanut's teacher to talk about her progress in school.

It was an overwhelmingly positive meeting. Peanut's teacher describes her as bright, happy and polite. She says she's already reading beyond what's expected of her for kindergarten and that she is doing well in all her activities. One thing she needs to work on is her handwriting, which has always been her weakest link. Those fine motor skills are slow coming to her.

Another is focus. She tends to get a little day-dreamy sometimes and needs a regular tap on the shoulder to stay on task. But otherwise, she's doing just great, which is a relief because we struggled with the decision of when to send her to kindergarten. We were afraid she'd be bored if we kept her out an extra year, but in hindsight, we definitely made the right choice.

I'm amazed by what they teach in kindergarten now. I remember kindergarten being about social skills, shapes, colors, number and letter recognition and not much else. Now they learn to read and write, start building the foundation for things like algebra, use the computer, learn Spanish and talk about Monet's impressionism.

They write every day - short stories and sentences. We're told spelling doesn't matter so much as sounding out the words and including consonants and vowels. Outside of her classroom, there was a bulletin board covered with the children's work. They were asked to write about what they'd do with $100. The kids wrote everything from "give it to poor people," to "buy Legos."

The apple did not fall far from the tree apparently, because Peanut has decided she will spend her $100 on something near and dear to my own heart:



Maybe by the time she gets to first grade, she'll realize she needs a few more zeros on that bill. I'm not about to break it to her.

The one where my daughter fails to use her inside voice

Scene: Target, Sunday afternoon.

We are there for two things:
1. To pick up a prescription and
2. To buy me a new bra

We have just visited the ladies room, because for some unknown reason the interior of Target seems to put my daughters' bladders into hyperdrive. I do not know why liquid passes through their body at a greater rate of speed in Target than anywhere else, but even the shortest of Target trips always require at least two potty stops, and one of them always comes when we are as far as humanly possible from the restrooms.

So I've learned--after nearly six years--to make a pit stop immediately upon entering the store.

We are just walking down the main aisle leading straight into the store from the main entrance when I say, quietly to Peanut, "I need to get a new bra."

And she says, at the absolute TOP of her lungs, "I'LL HELP YOU MOMMY! WHAT SIZE ARE YOUR BREASTS?"

I stop the cart and look up. Two teenage girls are standing at the side of the aisle. They are clearly horrified. Their mouths are hanging open and they are staring at me. Moments later, they turn and begin to laugh. Loudly.

On the other side of the aisle is a man in his 30s. Looking. Directly. At. My. Boobs.

Now I suppose, on some level, he really can't be blamed. We all know that men have a certain - um - fondness for them and we also know that their functions are not really so much ruled by the brain on their head as they are the head between their legs, but still. STILL. I mean the guy was practically drooling. A little dignity, please, because that, my friend, is not going to get you any where with any woman any time ever. PERIOD.

Peanut, by this time, has already reached the bra section and is riffling through an end-cap display of lacy black bras. "WHICH ONE, MOMMY? WHICH ONE? THESE SAY 'D'? IS THIS THE ONE?"

Drool-man looks like he is going to pass out any minute from all the excitement. I shoot him a dirty look, which finally seems to snap him back to the reality where I am a forty-year-old mother of two in Target on Sunday afternoon and not some stripper winding herself around a pole. He turns quickly and disappears into the ladies' clothing section (let's not even go there, OK?)

Peanut is standing in the aisle, holding a HUGE black lace bra up to chest and prancing.

"I LIKE THIS ONE!" she is shouting.

I can hear the teenage girls behind me howling with laughter. If nothing else, I feel assured that I have helped prevent two teen pregnancies with this trip. I'm a glass-half-full kinda girl, after all, and have to find the bright side somewhere in this.

I approach her. The bra she is holding up is a double D.

"Not this one," I tell her. "Smaller. B. We need one with a B on it. And not these - something a little less . . . fancy."

We search the aisles - her pulling every bright pink, loud patterned, adorned with 8-pounds of lace style she can find off the displays and me searching quietly for a basic, flesh toned, not overly padded, comfortable-looking bra. I finally find one, which I toss in the cart.

(And I need to say that at this point, though it's probably been no more than 10 minutes, Loaf announces that she needs to use the bathroom. Seriously?!? Is there some type of diuretic in the air in there?! So off we go - again - to the restrooms.)

We exit the restroom, hit the pharmacy, pick up the prescription and go to the other registers to pay for the bra, which I could have paid for in the pharmacy, but I completely forgot about.

I hand the clerk the bra and Peanut leans over the conveyor.

"IT'S A B," she states boldly. "I HELPED HER PICK IT OUT."

Standing behind me is another horrified teenage girl - eyes wide with shock, mouth hanging open and face flushing red. Score! One more teen pregnancy prevented.

Mission accomplished, in all ways, we leave the store.

Rub the bible and get three wishes

Scene: Sitting on the couch last night.

Loaf: Do you believe in God?

Me: I do.

Loaf: Does he live in New Jersey?

Me: Um. No. Definitely not. He is in heaven.

Loaf: Is that in the sky?

Me: Yes.

Loaf: Can he see me?

Me: Yes, he can.

Loaf: Can he see my bones?

Me: Yes, he can see your bones.

Loaf: Can he see me if I hide under the chair?

Me: Yes, even then. He can see you anytime.

Loaf. Oh. ::pausing:: Can he see if I don't eat my dinner?

Me: ::trying not to laugh::Yes.

Loaf: Can he help me find my lost dinosaur?

Me: It doesn't really work like that. I'll help you find it.

Loaf: Is he magic?

Me: Well, not exactly. He can conduct miracles though. He is all powerful.

Loaf: ::pausing to consider this:: Kind of like the genie in Aladdin?

Oy. OK. I get it. Time to focus on some sort of serious religious education. Which is going to fall entirely on me.

Awesome.

Like I don't have enough to worry about.

A cautionary tale about the importance of paper

Scene: The girls are painting with watercolors in the kitchen.

Loaf: I want to do another one.

Peanut: Me too!

Me: I’m sorry, but those were the last two sheets of paper. We'll have to get more at store. Finish up the ones you're doing, OK?

::Leaves room for a few minutes::

Five minutes later, I returned to find this:

Snippets, part II

(After telling Peanut that her grayish-green eyes are very pretty and somewhat unusual).
Peanut: So that must mean Loaf’s eyes are ugly and ordinary.

- -

(Mark looks at the new underwear I bought for the girls).
Mark: You bought them Granny underwear.
Me: Would you rather I got them a pack of lacy thongs?

- -

(Driving by a farm, we spy a horse standing by a fence, so we stop to look at it).
Peanut: Is it a boy or a girl?
Me: I’m not sure.
Loaf: It’s a boy.
Peanut: How do you know?
Loaf: Because it has a pair in the back.
Me: Wait. What? It has a . . . WHAT?!?
Loaf: A pear. Like the fruit. There in the back. A BIG one!
Me: :::bangs head on steering wheel:::

- -

(Later in the same car ride, one of the girls passes very stinky gas).
Me: Did one of you just have gas?
Both: No!
Me: Are you sure? Because it smells like gas in here.
Loaf: It was Daddy!
Me: He’s not even in the car. We're miles from home. If that was him, we’re in serious trouble.
Loaf: It was him and HE is in serious trouble.
Me: It was you, wasn’t it?
Loaf: ::shakes head vigorously with huge of-course-it-was-me smile on face::

To read previous Snippets click here.

Let us eat cake

Last night, as we sat in the kitchen eating dinner I casually reminded the girls that they did not have school today.

“Oh yes,” said Peanut. “It is somebody’s birthday.”

“That’s right,” I said, smiling at her. “Do you know whose?”

“Somebody’s king,” she said, rolling her eyes to the ceiling to think. “A king of something.”

“Close – Martin Luther King, Jr. We have a holiday to honor him. Do you know why?”

She shook her head.

I launched into a discussion of dark skin and light skin, and of laws that used to say people of different skin colors couldn’t drink from the same water fountain, or attend the same schools.

She listened raptly. “Tell me more about that,” she asked.

I explained how people — lead by Dr. King — fought against those laws. How Dr. King stood up and talked and got people to listen. How he led the country to slowly change.

She sat transfixed.

“What do you think of all that?”

“It’s not fair,” she said. “It’s not fair that people couldn’t do the same things. Why was that?”

Taking a deep breath I carefully explained how some people with light skin thought they were better than people with dark skin.

“That’s wrong,” she said breathlessly.

“It is. It’s so wrong. But things are changing. This week this country will have the very first president with dark skin.”

“Barack Obama!” she interjected excitedly.

“That’s right! And he made it to president because of the bravery of Martin Luther King. Only about 50 years ago, Barack Obama wouldn’t be able to eat in the same restaurant as us in some states, but on Tuesday he’ll be our president. What do you think about that?”

“That’s really cool.”

“It is.”

“Can we have a cake tomorrow for the birthday?”

“Maybe,” I said.

***
My children are growing up in a country that has elected a black president. They will never sit around wondering if it will happen. It has happened. They will never think, "not in my lifetime," as I once skeptically did.

Tomorrow we will watch the inauguration. I will probably cry tears of joy - heart swelling with pride as a long-overdue realization of Dr. King's dream finally occurs.

***
We did not have cake today, simply because I spent the day at the office and they the day sledding with their father and friends. But I think tomorrow we will.

I feel like celebrating.

Can you hear me now?

Scene: Our house earlier today. Peanut is in the living room and Loaf is in the kitchen.

Loaf: Peanut! Can you hear me?

Peanut: No!

Loaf: Now? Now can you hear me?

Peanut: No, Loaf, I still can't hear you.

Loaf: How about now? Can you hear me?

Peanut: I said I can't hear you!

::silence for several seconds::

Loaf: Then stop answering me!

A clean sweep

Today, I swept the kitchen floor.

A perfectly ordinary task, right?

Except, today, I had help. Loaf was home and when she saw me go for the broom, she ran to her room to get her pint-sized version so she could pitch in. The floor was messy from lunch with crumbs and bits of food all around the table.

I swept it quickly into a small pile and set the dustpan up to collect it. Meanwhile, Loaf worked diligently trying to corral a lone peanut into the bin.

"Come on, little peanut," she cooed gently, as a errant sweep of her broom sent it careening in the opposite direction.

"No, this way peanut. This way," she persisted, knocking too far in the opposite direction this time.

I watched, patiently, for her nut to join the rest of the fallen food in the dustbin. Again, she pushed it along with the broom.

"This way, nut. Go in there," but once again, she missed the dustpan.

She paused for a moment, assessing the situation.

"I just pick it up and put it in," she finally concluded, stooping down to pick up the nut and toss it in the dustpan.

"That's great, honey, that's just fine," I assured her, trying not to laugh.

Which just goes to show that sometimes, even the most ordinary can become extraordinary when you least expect it.

An A for effort

Peanut is still sick. And, of course, like clockwork, Loaf now has the same thing.

They are feverish and cranky and scratchy-throated. The last two days, we've let them lounge on the couch watching way more TV than normal - movie after movie.

Yesterday morning while I was at work, Mark set them up with Cars, which may be the longest children's movie ever made. When it was over, he turned off the TV and offered to read to them for a while. But Peanut, recognizing this was way out of pattern and wanting to take full advantage of it, kept asking for another show.

"After lunch," he explained, "you can watch another one."

Without missing a beat she asked, "Can I have lunch?"

Time: 10:23 a.m.

Nice try.

I must remember not to forget this one

I don’t have a great memory. If I don’t write it down, put it on my calendar and/or send myself a reminder, it will most definitely be forgotten.

Lately, I’ve been even more scattered than usual. Last week, I brought the girls to school without their school bags or lunches. I didn’t even realize it until I pulled into the parking lot and realized they were not in the car. Smacking myself on the forehead, I declared, “Good Lord, I am getting old. I can’t remember anything anymore.”

Then I marched the girls to their classrooms, got back in the car, drove back home, got the bags and dropped them off at school. And that was the last I thought about it. The incident was, well, forgotten, if you will.

* * *
Flash forward to this weekend: Peanut found a bright pink stuffed horse that she wanted. Really badly. I told her we weren’t buying it, but that Santa was coming in a few weeks and he was watching and would remember it when it came time to bring her presents.

“But mommy, what if he forgets?”

“He won’t forget,” I promised. “He has a good memory.”

“But he might. He’s really, really old after all – almost as old as you and you’re always forgetting stuff.”

Oooookay.

::Note to self: no more self-deprecating age jokes in front of the children::

(And yes, I’m writing that down. Right. Here.)

The devil is in the details

Peanut: Mommy, is a pumpkin a fruit?

Me: Yes, it is.

Peanut: Is it also a plant?

Me: Yes, all fruits are plants. So are all the vegetables and all the flowers, trees, bushes, grass and anything else growing outside in the ground.

Peanut: All the stuff growing outside?

Me: Yep. But we also have some plants inside. I have lots of potted plants throughout the house.

Peanut: Oh. You have lots of pot plants?

::In a flash, my mind runs through the endless list of people - her teacher, other mothers at the school, family members, the school's director - to whom I don't want her blabbing about Mommy's non-existent pot plants.::

Me: NO! No, no. Not pot plants. PottED plants. Plants in pots. Mommy does not have pot plants, OK? PottED plants.

Peanut: Ooooooh.

The tree giveth, the tree taketh away

While reading The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein today:

Me: Once there was a tree . . . and she loved a little boy. And every day the boy would come.”

And then Peanut interjects: “He went to her every day instead of going to school and he didn’t learn to read so he couldn’t get a job and was very angry and had to sell her apples and chop her down for a house. The end.”

Well.

That certainly puts a new twist on that one, does it not?

The ugly side of politics and people

Twenty-five years ago (← Yes, I know, I’m old) I stood in the record aisle (← I’ve already said I’m old, I might as well hammer it home by admitting I once bought *gasp!* records) of the local Kmart with a friend from school, pointed to Michael Jackson’s Thriller album and told her that I thought he was hot.

You would have thought I told her that I wanted to go out in the parking lot and look for a piece of dog poo to snack on, because she gave me a look of utter horror. Because, you know? We were two white girls from western Massachusetts and he was (at the time) *gasp!* black.

And apparently, nice, white eighth-grade girls were not supposed to think black men were hot. Such a disgrace to my race I was.

And apparently, I still am, at least in some circles.

Lately, I’ve been alarmed at the undercurrent of racism that still courses through our society even on this hallowed northeast, Blue State soil. It slaps me in the face via an email I received labeled, “The Obama Trap,” that shows a photo of a crate with a watermelon inside it. It assaults me in the form of a whisper from a woman in my town asserting that she simply “cannot vote for a black man.” It smacks me with the gravely voice of a relative telling me that “dirty Muslim” is going to ruin this country.

Then, we have this horrifying video where you can hear a woman shouting a vicious racial slur about Obama during a Palin speech and even worse, Palin doesn't bother to stop speaking to tell that person that type of "support" isn't wanted. Or acceptable. Which leads me to wonder if maybe she thinks it is?

Shocking.

Finally, we have a segment of the male population who are throwing their votes to Sarah Palin because they think she’s hot.

::insert sound of crickets::

***
Last week, for fun, I asked my daughters who they would vote for in the upcoming election: John McCain or Barack Obama.

“John McCain!” came Peanut’s enthusiastic reply.

Why, I prodded?

“I don’t like that other guy’s name, Mommy. It sounds funny.”

So then of course we had to have a serious discussion about people and diversity and while she listened carefully, she still proudly declared her support for McCain when I was done. (Probably simply for the shock value it renders in our household. She is going to make an awesome teenager; I can’t wait.)

***
I don’t care if you don’t want to vote for Obama because you don’t like his policies, or because you think he’s too inexperienced. But just because he’s a black man with a “funny” name? Come on, people.

Let’s please try to elevate our level of thinking at the polls next week beyond that of the average five-year-old.

Just stick that knife in a little deeper, then give it a good twist

Scene: Our house. Peanut is exhausted and asks to be carried off to bed. I lift her up.

Me: "Oh you are getting so big. Haven't we talked about how I don't want you to grow any more? Yet you keep doing it."

Peanut: ::giggling:: "I can't help it, it just happens."

Me: "What I am going to do when you're too big to sit on my lap? Who am I going to snuggle?"

Peanut: "No one."

Me: ::gasping for air:: "Uh . . . What?"

Peanut: "Or you could snuggle your grandchildren."

Me: ::passes out::

A real leg-crosser

Scene: My house yesterday morning (Monday), getting ready to leave for my town's Labor Day parade.

Me to Loaf: Please use the potty before we go.
Loaf: I don't have to. I just went.
Me: (Skeptically) You just went? When did you go?
Loaf: Ummm . . . Friday.
Me: Friday?
Loaf: Yep, Friday.
Me: Uh huh, well, you better go again. You know, just to be safe.

Inside the mind of a three-year-old

Recently, two items in our home went missing.

The first was the right shoe to one of Peanut’s favorite pairs. Actually, her very favorite pair. This caused much whining and moaning on her part, which was quite unpleasant.

The other was a brand-spanking-new toothbrush. Fresh from Tarjay, the toothbrush was bright orange and featured Eve from Wall-E. Despite me telling my little heathens cherubs not to open the package, they did. I found the packaging carelessly tossed on the dining room floor. The toothbrush was nowhere to be found.

For two days, I looked high and low for both items searching all the logical places: under couches and beds, on shelves, in the big basket of Barbies and Barbie clothes, in the dress-up box, and on the seats of all the dining room chairs. I conducted a thorough search of each bedroom, both bathrooms, the dining room, the kitchen, the living room, the porch and even the basement. I scanned all the built-in bookshelves in the living room, the end tables spread around the house and the bottom of all the closets. I looked on window sills and even inside wastebaskets.

Nothing. Nada. Zip.

Both items appeared to have been sucked into a vortex along with half the Polly Pocket princess dolls my daughters’ got for Christmas, a handful of books, too many socks to count, the remote control to the DVD player, one of my weight-lifting gloves (calluses are so damn unladylike), dozens of tubes of Blistex and my round brush that’s been missing since March. (Where the hell is that thing?!)

Then, earlier today I stumbled upon both items in two unrelated, random finds. Instantly, I realized the err of my ways. To repeat what I stated above: “I looked high and low for both items searching all the logical places.

Do you see what I’m getting at? Where I went wrong? No?

The key word here is “logical.”

Because when you are looking for something that has been hidden away by a naughty clever three-year-old girl, you must abandon all logic.

Shoe on the bottom shelf of the pantry



Toothbrush in the dollhouse shower



When I asked Loaf about this, her answers were very straightforward. The shoe was hungry. And the tootbrush? Well, Eve was dirty. She needed a shower.

Perfectly logical after all.

Dirty secrets

Yesterday morning Peanut wanted to help me clean up the kitchen. Grabbing her child-sized broom, she stood next to me, sweeping crumbs of toast and pieces of cereal into a small plastic dustpan.

After a few minutes, Loaf wandered into the room.

“If you think we’re playing, Loaf, we’re not,” Peanut asserted. “We’re really working here. This is serious business. You can’t just imagine dirt like this.”

Fannnnn-tastic. Now even my own child knows what poor housekeeper I am.

My backup(s)

If things go south with Mark, it appears I have a backup plan in place.

You see, I’ve had two marriage proposals lately. Considering it took Mark over 10 damn years to propose (not that I’m harboring any bitterness about that or anything), I’m thinking this is pretty cool.

And what’s more? They came within seconds of each other.

Plus, the two proposers even fought over me. How lucky am I? It went something like this:

Peanut: Mommy, I love you. I love you so much that I want to marry you someday. Will you marry me?

Me: Oh, that’s so sweet. I’m flattered.

Loaf: NO! I want to marry Mommy.

Peanut: Nope. I asked her first. I am going to marry her and live with her forever.
(turning to me)
Can I live with you forever?

Me: Uh . . . .

Loaf: Mommy, you marry me? You marry me forever?

Me: You are both just the sweetest girls in the world. I’m such a lucky Mommy.

Peanut: No! I asked her first. Mommy, can we get married someday? I will wear the dress and you can wear a suit like Daddy.

Me: How come I don’t get to wear the dress? I have to say, I'm kind of all about the dress.

Loaf: If you marry me, we both wear dress.

Me: Hmmm. That’s a pretty good offer.

Peanut: OK, you can wear the dress too. We can all wear them.

Loaf: We both marry Mommy!

Me: Sounds like a plan to me.

Peanut: Yay!