The Christmas Report

Though our house is even more of a disaster than usual, we're still totally in the Christmas spirit around here. Well at least the girls and I are. Can't speak for Scott who has sometimes been confused with the Grinch in years past. He's at least going along with it as much as he can stand. A couple of nights ago, after the girls had their baths and were in their jammies, I filled their sippy cups with hot chocolate, dragged out the Nat King Cole Christmas CD and we were going to drive around to look at the lights. Scott decided to go with us! I was thrilled but said, "You're not going to rush us are you?" and he said "No! How 'bout we go out for 15 minutes and then come back?" Ummm... are you kidding? He wasn't. He was a great sport and lasted quite a while. Just as he was about to overdose we dropped him off back at the house and drove around a bit longer.

Some of you know that last year I was all excited about starting a new Gingerbread House tradition. That was before I'd actually made a Gingerbread House. It seemed like the kind of thing I would like until I actually tried it with two small children as helpers. It was one of those kits too, so it should have been easy but it wasn't. I've blocked out most of the ugly details but I do remember mumbling, NEVER AGAIN to myself pretty much the whole time.

Last weekend Scott and Alyssa went to a party while Amanda and I stayed home (Amanda had been sick and we didn't want to expose the whole party to cooties). Amanda was horribly disappointed about missing the party so when I spotted the gingerbread house kit at the grocery store I grabbed it and we had our own little party which included making a gingerbread house. In the spirit of embracing imperfection I told her she was in charge and could do absolutely anything she wanted. At the grocery store this sweet old lady saw the kit in my cart and started talking about how neat it was. She said a relative had made several of them as gifts and that most of them have lasted five years. She said the secret was keeping them in a cool dry place. I told her I have two small children and I’d be happy if ours lasted five minutes.

So Amanda and I actually had fun making our house. I let her do her own thing. Didn't say a word when she decided to use every single piece of yellow candy all in one spot. Right now I'm still feeling really positive about the whole Gingerbread House thing, but Monday I'm going to school and helping Amanda's class bake gingerbread and Tuesday they're building houses. So we'll see if I return to my NEVER AGAIN thinking after that.

We went to visit Santa last week too. Some of you may know that I have a weird fear of the whole "Mall Santa experience" but last week we braved it...and in the short version, let's just say that Santa obviously got the job because of his realistic white hair and beard and not for his charming personality. He called Alyssa "Booger Baby" after she put her finger in her nose. Alyssa then refused to sit on his lap to which Santa said, "What? Are you mad at me ‘cause I called you "Booger Baby?" That's when Alyssa scowled at him and said, "I HATE Santa," and there was no way she was going to sit on his lap. So now we've done it. We’ve pissed off Santa and I have no idea if Amanda will be getting her guitar (the only thing she asked for) or if Alyssa will be getting her baby doll. If it's up to me Santa's not getting any cookies and milk at our house and I may write an angry letter to Mrs. Claus. Call my kid, "Booger Baby"... Bah Humbug...

The Chaos Report

Things have been even more chaotic than usual around here. First of all we've got major plumbing problems. A lot of the houses around here have plumbing issues so this is nothing new to us but it's worse than ever right now. And my adorable perfectionist husband doesn't trust a plumber to fix things, so for as long as we've lived here, he's been handling the problems himself. The one and only time we did have a plumber here, shortly after we moved in, they sent out a female plumber, which I thought was cool, but it freaked Scott out a bit and he became more determined than ever to handle this stuff himself.

For some reason our washing machine drains into the sink in our garage and when the drain starts to get clogged, I can't get through a complete load of wash without turning the machine off to let the sink drain. I'm admittedly scatterbrained which leads to much excitement around here and we have floods on occasion. I also can't do dishes at the same time I do laundry since the kitchen sink and dishwasher also drain into the garage sink, causing the same flood issues. Did I mention that I’m scatterbrained in addition to having a couple little distractions running around here?

The last time Scott tried to fix the clogged drain, he broke a pipe. Currently the garage sink drains directly under the house, which is not a good thing. Right now, I'm not allowed to use the kitchen sink and I've been instructed to use the dishwasher and washing machine as sparingly as possible. So the laundry and dishes are piling up. But the good news that Scott is actually considering hiring a real live plumber!!! Does anybody know a good plumber? He won't trust just anybody and I'm not sure how much longer I can take this.

In addition to the plumbing problems, we also have ANTS. I hate ants! They're driving me crazy!!! I swear they’re like really bad houseguests. We finally get rid of them and breathe a huge sigh of relief. Then just when things are getting back to normal we wake up and they’re back again and they’ve brought friends. HUNDREDS of friends.

I've tried a few child-safe options in an effort to get rid of them... bowls of vinegar... ha...chalk and baby powder... supposedly hey won't walk through it. This actually seems to work but only until they find a new entry point. I can only imagine that they're laughing at me back at the colony. Baby powder??? You've got to be kidding! Yes they’ve been here for so long that I’ve begun talking to them and trying to figure out what they’re thinking.

Oh and they're coming in from UNDER OUR HOUSE... so it's not like we can just spray them with Raid or something... I asked Scott if we could get Stan-the-Termite-Man to spray for them and he said, “No! Ants are good. They kill termites.” Yes, but isn’t that why we’re paying Stan-the-Termite-Man? There’s no doubt in my mind that my darling frugal husband just doesn’t want to pay Stan to spray for the ants.

I finally gave up on the child-friendly stuff and and bought some ant-bait. They’re supposed to come in to get it and then carry it back to their colony and it’s supposed to kill them all. Supposed to. Sigh… The first kind of bait failed miserably. I moved on to a different brand and so far so good. They've been gone for a couple of days and every morning I wake up just hoping not to find them all over my kitchen or anywhere else in the house.

By the way, should you ever reach the level of insanity that I have, where you become fascinated with your nasty little ant-houseguests and start watching them like they’re the ant farm you never had or wanted, I highly recommend the type of bait that has a see- through lid. The first kind of bait was just frustrating. I had no clue if they were taking it or not. The see-through lid is far more satisfying because you can see them all in there dancing around… Ant party in the ant poison! Woo hoo! Eat up, guys… you’re all gonna die… But the next time I looked, the bait was empty save for two dead ants. That just ticked me off. Couldn’t they have gone somewhere else to die? I mean seriously, if you heard about a great party with great food but you showed up and there were a couple of dead guys laying there, would you stick around? Probably not.

The good thing is that so far the ants have only been in the bathrooms. I can’t figure that out. I swear that my children sprinkle crumbs throughout the house like fairies sprinkle fairy dust and have I mentioned yet that I broke the vacuum cleaner while I was sucking up ants? And don’t forget about the pile of dishes because I can’t use my kitchen sink or dishwasher. So it's bizarre to me that the ants haven’t left the bathrooms. It’s like they’ve landed right next to a fabulous vacation resort with all you can eat buffets as far as the eye can see but for some reason they’ve never left the airport.

The Amanda Report

Amanda is five and is enjoying Kindergarten but frequently complains that she’s not learning anything because she’s having way too much fun. Guess she must have picked up the reading and writing stuff from all that educational TV she watches. (Some of it is educational, I swear!)

She has not one, but TWO, boyfriends. I had one of those scary parental moments when I was taking these pictures of her and trying to get a real smile instead of the fake one kids her age are famous for. I was talking to her about all kinds of stuff and she mentioned her boyfriends and I asked her which one of them she wanted to kiss, fully expecting her to say, "EWWWWW! Gross!!!" or start giggling but instead she got this dreamy expression on her face and said, "Dante... no Anthony... no Dante... no both... can I kiss both?" Good thing I didn't drop my camera!

She's doing really well in school, in fact she just told me that she and one other girl are the only two in the class who have made it through all of the blue books, which is apparently a Big Deal. That means she's doing great at reading. That's my girl! But I've realized in the last few months that she's a total perfectionist in many ways. Homework can be incredibly frustrating because she completely falls apart if she makes a mistake. I still remember asking my mom what "perfectionist" meant after my own Kindergarten teacher called me one, so I know Amanda has it in her DNA... I'm sure she got some of it from her dad too.

I've been trying to emphasize that making mistakes is OKAY and part of the learning process. I'm always reminding her that everybody makes mistakes and it's no big deal. It took me a long time to figure out that mistakes can actually be a really good thing. Creatively, they can take you in a direction you had no idea you wanted to go. So my current motto is "Embrace Imperfection" and when I'm working on various projects I tell myself that mistakes are charming, kind of like a homemade quilt. I've come a long way... But I've also realized, in my effort to be a good example to Amanda, that sometimes I totally relax and don't worry about mistakes and other times I'm... well I'm a totally anal-retentive control freak. So I'm not quite THERE yet, but I'm still working on it. Nobody's perfect, right?

I've been volunteering in Amanda's class on occasion, which is a lot of fun. I don’t go as often as I would like because it can be tough to get a sitter for Alyssa but the teacher is so happy to have help that she really doesn’t mind having younger siblings along, so occasionally Alyssa comes with me which is always exciting.

Last week after a particularly long day of crafting with 5-year-olds, Alyssa was standing right next to me when the teacher said, “Let’s all thank Amanda’s mommy for coming to help us with our project.” So the eyes of 18 Kindergarteners and two other moms were all on me at the exact moment Alyssa somehow managed to tip over a shelf sending a flood of approximately 5 million crayons, 2 million colored pencils, 50,000 markers, buckets full of scissors, glue sticks, erasers, and every other school supply known to man into a huge mess at our feet. And all I could do was stand there and sigh. “Sure! Anything I can do to help! Same time tomorrow?”

The following conversation took place on the way home from home school today:

Me: So did you have a good day at school?
Amanda: Yep. Something really big happened today.
Me: Really? What?!?
Amanda: Dante kissed me today!
Me: (trying to remain calm and not crash the car) REALLY! Wow! How did that happen?
Amanda: I don't know. I was just sitting in the computer lab and Dante came over to help me with something and then all of a sudden he kissed my cheek!
Me: Wow! So what did you do?
Amanda: Nothin' I was just telling him not to do that and trying to get him off my cheek.
Me: Yeah? And then what happened?
Amanda: Well now he's my boyfriend for real. I mean since he kissed me. It's serious!
Me: It sounds like it. So are you two gonna get married?
Amanda: Yes, we are.
Me: You are?!? When?
Amanda: When we're all growed up. You know, when we're 16.

(Oh and just for the record, Dante is the blonde haired, blue-eyed boy that Amanda thought was so cute on her first day of kindergarten.)

Finally an update - The Alyssa Report

I know, I disappeared again. But since I've got a TON of stuff to do to get ready for Christmas, what better way to procrastinate than by blogging? I started writing yesterday and didn't stop 'til I reached about 6 pages. Either I don't talk at all or I can't shut up. So anyway, in order not to overwhelm anyone who may actually ever bother to still check in on the-blog-that-never-gets-updated, I thought I'd break it down into smaller pieces so I don't completely overwhelm you. It's feast or famine here. Sorry! So first the update on Alyssa...

She turned two in October. Really, extremely two. She has a mind of her own, knows what she wants (I believe she makes her choices based on finding out what I'm trying to give her and then immediately deciding she wants something else entirely) and will go to any extremes to get it. She’s completely fearless and despite my constant attempts to stop her, she has developed an extreme fondness for heights and once she climbs up she doesn’t want to climb down, she wants to JUMP down. It’s also getting nearly impossible to get her to keep her clothes on. If early childhood behavior is any indicator of future career paths I’m terrified she’s either going to be a stuntwoman or a stripper.

Getting dressed can be a huge battle too. I'm a pick-your-battles kind of girl and "Get dressed NOW and wear exactly what I want" is not a battle I choose to fight unless we're going somewhere important anytime soon. But at those times we often go through the "I hate this shirt, I hate those shoes, I hate clean di-pah... Want udder (other) shirt (preferably dirty), udder shoes (preferably Amanda's), want udder di-pah (I just got this one the way I like it, why are you taking it off???)" And then five minutes after going through the trauma that is Getting Alyssa Dressed, she will run through the living room singing happily, "I nakey, I nakey!!!" Yes I see that.

I swear to you that as I was typing this she started stripping right in front of me... I said, "Alyssa DO NOT take your clothes off. Do not take your clothes off. If you take your clothes off, you can't go with me to pick up Amanda." She disappeared for a second, returned completely naked and I said sadly, "Oh no! Now you can't go with me to pick up Amanda because you're naked!" So she went to put on a pair of shoes and returned to proudly announce, "Okay! I ready to pick up Uh-Nanda!" I said, "But you don't have any clothes on. You can't go pick up Amanda without clothes on. You'll be too cold!" So she ran off and brought me her jacket and said "Okay, now I ready to pick up Uh-Nanda!"

Her language is just taking off, which is so cool, but it also means a whole new bunch of headaches. If she's trying to tell you something and you can't figure out what she's talking about, it can get ugly. And the HATE word. I've been monitoring all of our speech patterns to see who is responsible for that little gem that is her all purpose tool to express her unhappiness with any given situation. (So far we're all guilty, Amanda hates almost every kind of food on the planet, Scott hates his job and I hate ants. By the way, know of any surefire kid-safe ways to get rid of ants? I HATE THEM! But back to Alyssa...) I imagine if she had the words she would say, "Why are you so stupid? Why don't you know what I want?"

Instead if I say, "It's time to eat lunch," she says, "NO, I hate lunch." If it's time to go to bed, it's "NO, I hate bed." And it can be something that she loved only a second before. Doesn't matter. The other day I was in a time crunch. Can't remember now what the heck I had to do but I had a limited amount of time to do it and I needed some quiet so I was happily going to let PBS entertain her while I did it.

I turned on Sesame Street. "No I hate Ehmo Wuh! (Elmo's World), wan Bonny (Barney), so I turned on Barney. "NOOOOOOOO!!! I hate Bonny! Wan Ehmo Wuh!" I went back and forth between the two with the same response and then she said, "No, I wan Cheh-wy!" Sherry? "No, Hate Sherry." Cherry? "NO!" Jerry? "YESSSS! Wan Cheh-wy!!!" Oh thank goodness!

You may wonder why I even bother trying to figure out what she wants at times like these. It's because if and when I get it right, I am met with all the overwhelming gratitude and pure delight a 2-year-old can muster. It's as if I have just performed some kind of breath-taking miracle and I don't know about you but I don't get that kind of appreciation elsewhere in my everyday life.

So Alyssa and I had a happy bonding moment over "Jerry" and over this major breakthrough in our mother-daughter communication and then, sadly, I had to ask, "Who is Jerry? Jerry Seinfeld? Jerry Lewis? Tom and Jerry? Jerry Springer? You wanna watch Jerry Springer???" The trauma started again and I finally turned Barney back on and fought the urge to say, "Look kid, Barney ATE JERRY. Jerry's not around anymore. Barney is it for you. I'm going to curl up into a ball and cry now. You watch Barney!" but instead I just said, "You can either watch Barney or I'm turning the TV off, to which she sweetly replied, "Okay Mommy, I love Bonny."

The first day of Kindergarten

5:38 am

Am I too old to be having that nightmare where I oversleep and miss the first day of kindergarten?

7:32 am

At what point did I switch from trying to make this a peaceful, relaxed morning to coaching Amanda through every bite of her waffle,"Eat faster, eat faster! Do you want to be late to school on your very first day?!?"

9:25 am

Welcome to one of the longest mornings of my life. Kindergarten. Who knew it was going to be this hard?

Okay I suspected it. I was afraid that as hard as I tried to put on a brave face, I would end up a blubbering mess of tears. I thought that my pockets would be overflowing with wadded up Kleenex and that I might scare the children by sobbing loudly and uncontrollably. I thought Amanda would probably do okay other than being horrified that her mother was making a spectacle of herself. She’d be in the corner whispering to another kid, “Who is that lady? How embarrassing!”

Yesterday was my first indication that things might go a bit differently than I was expecting. Amanda went to a birthday party for a pair of twins that she has grown up with. She’s gone to almost all of their birthday parties and always had a blast. So I had absolutely no reason to believe this party would be any different. But do you remember those old Folgers commercials…the ones where they would show a scene in some five-star restaurant and a smarmy voice would whisper, “We have secretly replaced the regular coffee at Café de Foo-Foo with Folgers crystals. Let's see if these picky coffee-drinkers can taste the difference…” Well if that voice had been at the party yesterday it would have said, “We have secretly replaced Dione’s happy little social-butterfly of a daughter with a nervous kid who will be terrified if she loses sight of her mother for even a second.” I could tell the difference immediately and it freaked me out more than a little.

Since Amanda was a baby she has been happy to hang out with pretty much anyone, any time. I might have had a hard time leaving her but she never seemed to have much of a problem leaving me. Amanda has never been clingy, never had a problem talking to other kids or adults for that matter. In a situation where she doesn’t know anyone she will act shy for a few minutes but then she warms up, makes friends and ends up having fun. So yesterday was weird. And it cranked up my anxiety level for the first day of kindergarten, oh about 150%.

So back to today, the good news is that I didn’t cry… Well okay I teared up a bit when I saw Amanda’s name on a red apple hanging on the window outside of her classroom. For some reason that got me. This is Amanda’s classroom! How did this happen? But then I sucked it up and managed to keep my brave face on until I got home.

Amanda on the other hand? She was the crier. After a few minutes in her classroom, Amanda started crying and told me she didn’t want me to leave. “Please don’t leave, please stay with me, Please don’t goooooooo. I don’t want you to leave, Mommy.” When the teacher suggested that any kids who needed to go to the bathroom might want to go before she started class, Amanda said she wanted to go and she wanted me to go with her. I knew this was not going to be pretty.

As soon as I managed to cram myself, Amanda and Alyssa into the tiny little bathroom (with this tiny little kindergarten size toilet) Amanda had a full-fledged meltdown. The tears started flowing freely, and she was sobbing, “Please Mommy, please Mommy I want to go home, pleeeeeeease…”

On the outside I was smiling brightly and sticking with the, “Oh this is going to be so much fun, Amanda. You’re going to make friends and you’re going to sing songs and you’re going to love this, Sweetie, I promise,” thing, but on the inside I was thinking, “OHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhh nooooooooooooooooo… what if she doesn’t have any fun and doesn’t make any friends and they don’t sing any songs and she HATES this and we have to do this all over again tomorrow?”

It only got worse after that. Amanda totally wanted to leave Kindergarten but Alyssa totally wanted to stay. So Alyssa was fighting me, practically tore my shirt off while desperately trying to jump from my arms so she could play with the fabulous selection of toys while Amanda was sitting on her little corner of the carpet holding onto my leg, unsuccessfully fighting back tears because she wanted out of there badly. Did I mention that she was the only kid crying? She was. I think I was the mom that all the other moms were relieved not to be at that moment. The other parents were great though, very sympathetic. A couple of them tried to get their daughters to befriend Amanda but Amanda wasn’t having it.

The other parents were leaving a few at a time and I finally decided that I was just going to have to do it, just hug her good-bye and hope for the best. She tried to follow me out the door, but then she turned around and stayed. I stood outside with another mom talking for a bit and when I peeked in the window I saw that Amanda was marching around the classroom with the rest of the kids, miserably marching, but at least marching, which was a good thing.

10:08 am

I call my mom to report the morning's happenings and ask her how my first day of kindergarten went. Did I cry? Nope. Did she? Yep.

11:10 am

I had all of these grand ideas about how I would spend the four hours (actually 3.75 hours) between the time I drop Amanda off at school and the time I pick her up. Now I’m just mostly hoping I’ll be able to spend it doing something other than obsessively worrying how she’s doing. Is she okay? Is she still crying? Is she making friends? Is she having fun yet?

12:45 pm

So the first thing I noticed when I picked Amanda up from school was her huge smile. No tears in sight. (insert enormous sigh of relief) Her teacher even sent her home with a little red happy face paper, which apparently, in kindergarten teacher speak, means Amanda had a good day.

Actually according to Amanda she had a great day. Not that I was concerned. During crayon time, she wrote down her thoughts… She doesn’t write much yet so this was mostly just lines, not actual words, but she read it to me slowly so I could type it out for future reference...you know, like maybe tomorrow morning in case she decides to barricade herself inside her room and refuses to come out until she's old enough to skip school completely and just get her G.E.D.. So here’s the scoop on school in Amanda’s words:

"I had such a good time at school. I want to go tomorrow. I don’t know all the kids at the school but I know some. I hope other people get to come here on their first day and they have a lot of fun. I didn’t eat any of my lunch at school but mommy sent me some lunch. I did not get into trouble the whole time. I made three friends. Every day I want to go to school but I can’t because some days I have to be off of school."

In case that’s not enough for you, I asked her to give me the play-by-play starting with the moment I left:

• She cried for seven minutes (no, she can’t tell time) and then the little girl sitting next to her asked, "Did your mommy leave?" Amanda said yes and the little girl said, "Mine did too. Wanna be friends?" (Ahhhhhhhh…)
• She didn’t get to eat the snack I packed. None of the other kids ate snacks from their backpacks either. The teacher gave out pretzels but Amanda doesn’t like pretzels so she didn’t eat anything at all.
• They sang a song about Humpty Dumpty and an alligator song.
• There was a puppet table, a paint table, a play-doh table and a crayon table. The boys went to the puppet table, she wanted to play at the play-doh table, (of course) but there were too many kids and not enough chairs so she ended up at the crayon table where she drew pictures of me and Alyssa but not Daddy because he’s hard to draw with the beard, moustache and nose (?).
• It’s not okay to leave your stuff on the floor because one girl tripped over something one of the kids left on the floor.
• They can call the teacher “teacher” or "Mrs. P****r" but not "Mrs. P." One boy called her "Mrs. P" and she didn’t like it.
• They learned all about the letter “A” and tomorrow will learn all about “B”.
• She made three friends, one of whom high-fived her, without specifically saying that she was high-fiving her but that was okay cuz Amanda said “I was like, oh I know what you’re doing,” and high-fived her right back.
• The teacher was really nice and only got mad when kids didn’t listen and then they got time-outs but Amanda ALWAYS listened.
• They got to play outside two times and one of her friends fell down and scraped her hands up.
• They mostly sat on the carpet not in chairs and Amanda picked a square on the carpet that had a flower on it, but one time her friend sat in the flower square and Amanda had to sit in the boring old zebra square.
• When I asked her if there were any cute boys in her class she said, “Oh yes! The little boy who had to wait a really long time for his mommy was CUH-UTE!!! (She doesn’t know his name but he’s blonde.)

And best of all:

• She can’t wait to go back tomorrow.

Oh and as for me, I’m doing better too. We survived our first day of kindergarten and with any luck we just might survive the whole year.

Enough

These pictures were supposed to be all about the ice cream cones. The pure bliss of eating ice cream outside on a hot day after hopping out of the blow-up pool. What a total mess the girls were making of themselves and all that… But when I look at these pics I get caught up looking at the ones of Amanda…I was trying to figure out what it was about her that kept drawing me back and I finally figured it out: it’s the confidence. It’s the I’m okay exactly as I am-ness about her.

She doesn’t care at all that she’s in a bathing suit, with messy hair, ice cream on her upper lip; fingers still neon pink from painting earlier in the day. She’s so okay with herself. I’d give anything to be able to bottle up some of this okay-ness so I could hand it back to her one day when she’s not quite so sure of herself.

That’s one of the worries I have about sending her off to school: she’ll have to start dealing with the real world… the mean kids and the people who don’t think she’s the most amazing creature they’ve ever encountered. I hate to think about her confidence getting chipped away and battered.

I wish there was a way to ensure that a big part of her fearless okay just as I am self would remain intact. If only I could bubble-wrap it and put it in a fireproof safe for that day when some teacher makes her feel like she’s not smart enough or some boy makes her feel like she’s not pretty enough or some magazine makes her feel like she’s not thin enough. Even us as her parents are bound to damage her somehow no matter how hard we try not to. When the world tries to make her feel like she’s not ENOUGH I want her to hold on to this part of herself that doesn’t worry whether she’s enough because she just is.

Kindergarten Assessment

Amanda’s going to Kindergarten! Well at the end of August, that is. I know, it’s hard for me to believe too. Feels like we just brought her home from the hospital a few weeks ago instead of almost FIVE YEARS AGO. Somebody hand me a Kleenex, please.

Amanda went to Kindergarten Assessment a couple of weeks ago and I was a WRECK. That’s right, Amanda: totally fine. Me: complete WRECK. I remember my own Kindergarten Assessment and how stressed out I was about it because I did NOT want to go to school.

My brother went to school and didn’t like it so I wanted no part of it. I was perfectly happy staying at home playing Little People, watching Mighty Mouse and All My Children and having the toys, crayons and my mom all to myself for hours at a time. I think I wanted to fail my Kindergarten Assessment but when Mrs. Reynolds promised a treat afterwards I performed like a well-trained monkey. I got a fabulous piece of chocolate and a ticket to Kindergarten. D’oh!

For months I’ve been talking about how exciting and fun Kindergarten will be. There will be paste to eat, big vats of paint to spill on the carpet, boys to kiss, brown rolls of paper towels so hard you’ll get splinters when you dry your hands, games of I’ll show you my belly button if you show me yours with Tim Smith during naptime… Or maybe that was just my Kindergarten experience. But my point is that Amanda had no fears about the assessment or going to Kindergarten, which is how it should be.

I was nervous enough for both of us anyway. Because, let's be honest, I figured that if she didn’t do well it would be my fault. Oh and Scott’s of course, because he’s the one who vetoed pre-school. But I’m the one who didn’t demand it. I'm her mom and I should have fought harder for it.

Apparently that commercial about how going to preschool means you’ll do better for the rest of your life has not had quite the same impact on Scott that it has had on me. Some days it plays in an endless loop in my head followed by this nightmarish vision of Amanda out behind her third grade classroom smoking cigarettes and tossing beer cans onto the hopscotch field with all the other little thugs who didn’t go to preschool. These moments brought to you by: Mommy Guilt.

So back to the big assessment... we practiced for weeks: her letters, numbers, shapes, writing her name, basic math, anthropology, Latin, physics. Okay maybe not all that, but we studied and practiced. I took it as a good sign that her appointment was with a Mrs. Starr. Not only is star a happy shiny name, but it’s also the name of one of my very favorite teachers, Mr. Starr, my 6th grade teacher who is probably at least partially responsible for the fact that this blog even exists but I’ll write about him another time. My point is that I panicked a tiny bit when they told me, first thing, that Mrs. Starr was unavailable and that we would be meeting with the other teacher whose name I had a bit of trouble pronouncing. What? Uh oh.

But the teacher was wonderful and her classroom was happy and fun and Amanda marched right in there and… well I don’t want to say that she was trying to make me look bad. But she was. Yeah she was definitely trying to make me look bad. For instance the teacher asked her if she could count and Amanda said, "Of course," and then she proceeded to count to ten. The teacher then asked if she knew what came after ten and Amanda said, “Eight?”

You know how one minute you think you know exactly who you are and then something happens to show you that you’re somebody you don’t really recognize? Well that’s what Kindergarten Assessment did to me. One minute I was this totally laid back, low pressure, non-competitive you’ll get there when you get there kind of mom and the next minute I was - well, a crazy woman.

There I was sitting in a tiny little chair in the corner pretending to read a tiny little book while inside I was screaming, “Eight? Eight? EIGHT?!?” It was all I could do to just sit there and force myself not to turn into some obnoxious stage mother off to the side motioning like a lunatic to Amanda or loudly coughing “ELEVEN” into my hand… And then Amanda pulled the same routine with recognizing the letters of the alphabet and reversed the N & D in her name. While I’m thinking, “She KNOWS this stuff…I halfway expected Amanda to just whisper to the teacher, “Look, Mrs. P, my mommy didn’t send me to pre-school and my daddy doesn’t let me play with play-doh. I think we both know the direction my life is heading. Do you think I could take a quick smoke break to clear my head?”

Despite everything I’ve said to the contrary, the truth is Amanda did a great job at her assessment and the teacher said she had absolutely no doubt that she is ready for kindergarten. Highly questionable whether I am ready for kindergarten, but Amanda should do just fine.

As soon as we got outside I told Amanda what a great job she’d done, but couldn't resist asking her, “How do you spell your name?” “A-M-A-N-D-A“ Right, and what comes after ten?” “Eleven.” “And after eleven?” “Twelve.” “And after twelve?” “Thirteen.” “And…” “Mommy, can we go out for doughnuts?” “Okay.”

Moments

Last night I'd gotten the girls all ready for bed: baths taken, teeth brushed, jammies on. There was only a story waiting to be read when Scott insisted that I come watch the last few minutes of a show we'd started earlier.

The girls were happily playing with dolls in their room so I sat down to watch TV. About two minutes later they appeared in the living room and Amanda announced she was ready for her story. I said, "Just a second, Sweetie," and she said, "Oh Mom, no more just a seconds!" Then she went to her room, and returned with a pillow and blanket, laid down on the floor and covered herself up.

Alyssa walked over to her and Amanda pulled the blanket aside and moved over to make room for her sister. Alyssa laid down and snuggled up to Amanda who pulled the blanket up around them. They just laid there together so sweetly... Amanda taking such good care of her little sister and Alyssa clearly adoring her big sister. And I just sat there smiling at them.

Suddenly it occurred to me that this is what it's all about... these moments right here. This is what's so wonderful about having children... these moments that make your heart swell up so big that you think it might it explode.

Then right in the middle of my moment Alyssa looked around and then jammed her finger up her nose. Amanda looked over at her with what appeared to be total disgust but instead of saying "Yuck!" she jammed her finger up Alyssa's other nostril. Pretty much above and beyond the big sister call of duty if you ask me. But then I've never been a big sister, so what do I know? And umm, yes, these are the kind of moments that my wonderful children might not appreciate having posted on the world wide web. Luckily they can't read yet.

(photo taken in March 2007)

Great minds think alike

A few weeks ago my mom called and asked me if I wanted one of the birdhouses that my dad built. She said it’s supposed to be an outhouse. Without really thinking I said yes, and then a minute later it hit me, “Wait, it’s an outhouse for birds!?! That’s perfect!”

In case you think I’m crazy like my mom probably did, a while back in the play-doh post I quoted Amanda saying, “I'm building a toilet for the birds because I'm so sick of them pooping on my slide!” so it just made me all kinds of happy to think about this birdhouse.

As a kid, my dad spent a lot of time on his uncle’s farm and he had a thing for outhouses. He had a little collection of them (my favorite was the two-story outhouse - you never want to be on the bottom floor of a two-story outhouse) and when my parents retired to Hidden Valley Lake he started collecting and building birdhouses. He had a row of them up on posts circling their backyard that overlooks the lake. So the fact that he built a bird-size outhouse makes sense. And the fact that it has found a new home in our backyard makes even more sense. I don’t think this outhouse was meant for me at all, I like to think it was a gift for Amanda from her grandpa.

Grandma gave it a fresh coat of paint and we are searching for the perfect spot for it in our yard. Now if only somebody would have a word with those birds. Please tell them to stop pooping on Amanda's slide.

Happy Father's Day!

We love him because:

• He kills the spiders



• He mows the lawn



• He puts out the garbage



• He sometimes shares the remote control



• He works hard so that I can stay home with the kids



• He unstops the toilet

• He teaches us new things



• He carries the girls on his shoulders which always makes me smile



• He's easy on the eyes



• He has the attention span of a 6-year old so he makes great company for the kids



• He lets me pick the music in the car



• He does all the driving and takes care of the vehicles



• He puts up with us when we're grouchy



• He can fix electrical stuff and not catch the house on fire

• He never complains about how much money I spend (I'm kidding, threw this one in so I could see if he was paying attention)



• He loves leftovers and will eat pretty much anything without complaining



• He puts up with us when we're messy



• He has power tools and is not afraid to use them



• He's a great cook



• He takes us to fun places



• He cleans out the kitty litter box
  


• Because I know one day he'll pay for braces

• And therapy - lots and lots of therapy

• He makes us laugh

• We've been together a long time and who wants to train a newbie?

Happy Father's Day from your girls,

Dione, Amanda & Alyssa

Please don't drink the bath water

Last night I had both of the girls in the tub and I'd colored the water pink. I looked over and Alyssa was drinking a big cup of water so I said, "Alyssa! You know what happens when you drink pink water, don't you?" Amanda asked, "What?" and I responded, "You'll pee pink!"

A minute later I looked over and Amanda was standing up drinking a cup of pink water while peeing in the tub. I know... ewww. But I must say that her ability to multi-task is impressive. She was disappointed though because it turns out there must be a delay on the whole pink pee thing.

I bet mothers of boys think they're the only ones who get these special heartwarming kind of moments, but it's just not true. We get them too. Except sometimes our moments are pink.

So if you happen to be at our house, I highly recommend that you don't drink the bath water. Especially if it's pink... or umm... yellow... Well just don't drink it. Ever.

Alyssa at 19 months

A few random facts about Alyssa at 19 months. Alyssa:

• Weighs 25 lbs., 8 oz. And is 33 inches tall.
• Loves baby dolls, phones, remote controls and her sister.
• Demands equality. If Amanda has a whole graham cracker Alyssa will not be satisfied with a small piece of a graham cracker. She will throw down the inferior graham cracker in disgust and cry NOOOOOOO!
• Likes to sing her ABC’s and the bumblebee song. A few notes and words are actually distinguishable.
• Loves baths. I've had to remove the word "bath" from my vocabulary for the second time in my life. The first was when I was a kid and if we uttered the word "bath" our dog Rusty would fly thru the house and into hiding because a bath was the worst thing imaginable for Rusty. The complete opposite is true for Alyssa. If I notice Alyssa suddenly stripping her clothes off and running down the hallway toward the bathroom I start giving the evil-eye to Scott and Amanda asking “WHO said it? Who said the WORD?”
• Is not fond of getting shots.
• Is learning new words daily. Most frequently heard at our house: Where Dada? (Where’s Daddy?), Where Nana? (Where’s Amanda?), Where baby? (Where’s baby doll?), Where ga-ga? (Where’s kitty-cat?), Where Mama? (You can run, but you can't hide.), Bah!!! (Want bath), Bah!!! (Want ball), Moh! (Want more) Migh! (Mine) and Noooooooooo! (Noooooooooo!), I 'tinky, said while pinching nose (Go grab a diaper I have a special surprise for you.)
• Enjoys playing peekaboo and patty-cake.
• Is a lover AND a fighter. She likes to gives hugs and kisses but also likes to hit and pinch.
• Is a total kleptomaniac. She’s constantly stealing anything she can get her little mitts on: pens, Amanda’s toys, remote controls, DVDs, spoons… You name it, she’ll take it and find a really weird place to hide it.
• Loves to be naked. Avoids getting dressed at all costs.
• Is completely fearless. I swear she just sits back watching Amanda do the stuff she's not supposed to do and figures out ways to step up the danger level. Alyssa can scale the side of a dresser using the handles as her toe-holds. Putting something up high is not a deterrent, it’s a challenge.
• Is a huge helper! If I need someone to remove every item from the lower shelves of the pantry and toss them all over the kitchen, I look no further than Alyssa. If I want someone to take the stack of freshly folded laundry and wad it into a big pile on the floor, she’s my girl. Need that new roll of toilet paper unrolled? Want the dirty dishes removed from the dishwasher? Need someone to distribute cat food over a widespread area? Alyssa can assist!
• Is a total joy each and every day (she gets that from me) and occasionally a total pain in the butt (we all know who she gets that from).

Slideshow of Alyssa pics

http://www.jumpcut.com/view?id=63BB27820DA611DC9D58000423CF4092
If there are problems with the audio, try waiting 15-20 seconds and then restart the slideshow.

Mixed Signals

It suddenly occurred to me this afternoon that Alyssa had a doctor appointment this afternoon. Can’t believe I forgot. Oh I know, so maybe it’s not particularly shocking to learn that I forgot something. I’m not exactly known for being extremely organized and on top of things but I’m usually pretty good about appointments. (Really, there’s no need to rub it in my face that I talked about missing a hair appointment on this very blog. Do you think I don’t know this? I don’t have to come here, you know… and yes, it's kind of surprising that I remember to, isn't it?)

Okay, so anyway brief detour into panic mode while I tried to figure out how I was going to get us to the doctor’s office on time. I looked around and realized we were actually in pretty good shape all things considered. Usually by this point of the day somebody has either bathed themselves in some random sticky substance or rolled in the dirt, often both. So the fact that all of us were dressed and clean was slightly miraculous by my standards. I even managed to locate my purse, my keys, Alyssa’s immunization card and matching shoes for all of us. Who says I’m not organized? Oh right, me.

So by this point in the story I was actually feeling slightly competent and even rather calm. I went to the bathroom to brush my hair and as I did, I looked around and wondered…where’s my lipstick? I swear it was right here… where did I put that lipstick?

Of course that’s when I heard Amanda screech, “Mommeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee, come see what Alyssa did!!!” It was right about here that the whole competent/relaxed feeling completely drained from my body as I ran to see.

Yep. Guess who found my lipstick?

See those two little lipstick-covered hands? By this point they’d already been all over Amanda who had bravely wrestled the lipstick from her little sister with little consideration for her own safety or cleanliness... And as I tried to clean her up those same little hands got all over me.

(You’d think I’d know better considering we had a similar scene last Saturday right before my mother-in-law arrived except on that day instead of lipstick Alyssa opted to cover herself in the dark brown paint her dad was using to paint the trim on the shed. And on that day I opted to forego the photo shoot. Sorry.)

So after I got us all cleaned up and into clean clothes, we managed to make it to the doctor’s with a few minutes to spare. I decided it could have been a whole lot worse. When Amanda pulled the lipstick routine a few years back, she used one of those long-lasting lipsticks and it took days for it to wear off of her eyelids.

Perhaps you're wondering what I have learned from this little drama? Not a thing.

What has Alyssa learned from this little drama? That Mommy sure does send some mixed signals. I can only imagine that if Alyssa had an instruction manual, the following rules would be in there somewhere:

• Find a way to get my hands on something I've been told not to touch.
• Apply liberally to self/clothing/walls/carpet/furniture.
• Feel overwhelming sense of glee & satisfaction.
• Wait for Mommy to discover how brilliant and cute I am.
• When Mommy arrives there may be strong signs of displeasure and distress, and a lot of "No, no, no's" being tossed around. Wait patiently.
• Smile sweetly when Mommy whips out the camera to record how brilliant and cute I am.
• Repeat often.

This post is for Courtney

I'll be posting a few more photos soon, but as soon as I saw the photo below I knew I had to post it for my niece, Courtney.

She noticed Alyssa's talent way back when and here she is once again, as Court called her, the amazing Tongue-Rolling Child-Prodigy!

Sprinkler Fun (for some)

I sometimes tell myself that scrapbooking helps me to be a better parent. In the face of minor catastrophes like chocolate syrup all over the carpet or crayon on the walls, some parents take deep calming breaths. I take pictures. (Often deep breaths too.)

But if I'm going to give my scrapbooking habit credit for making me more patient, I figure I need to admit that it also makes for some less than stellar parental moments... like when Scott was fixing the sprinklers on Sunday and Alyssa ran in and then realized it was a really bad idea and just stood there, horrified as the sprinklers sprayed her again and again.

Did I run to her rescue? Yes. But first I ran for the camera. Oh come on, it's not like she was trapped under a piece of furniture. It was just a little cold water on a very warm spring day.

To prove that she survived the trauma completely unscathed, here's a pic I took of Alyssa a few minutes later, minus the wet clothes and with the addition of a swim diaper. And one of Amanda actually enjoying herself in the very same sprinklers.

Yosemite

I know I said I’d do a separate post about Scott's new job but since I’m leery about sharing too much personal info on the web (well other than the personal info that nobody wants to hear about) I 've realized I shouldn't mention what company he’s working for or where the company is or even what he’s doing for them (that last one is only because he’s not exactly sure what he’s doing for them yet). Anyway the main thing is that he’s finally working! The company is nearby so he has an extremely short commute. And after being off for so long, he seems to be getting back into the swing of things and is enjoying it so far. I probably don't have to tell you that I'm thrilled to be returning to life as usual.

The day he got the job he said, “We might as well sell the van. We’ll never use it again.” If I ever wonder where Amanda got her flair for the dramatic I think we have our answer right there. So before he returned to work we took one last camping trip. At least that’s what Scott kept calling it.

We went to Yosemite which was amazingly beautiful, as always, but to be perfectly honest, we didn't always take the time to enjoy the scenery as much as I would like. I remember talking to a park ranger once who said there are two types of tourists: the kind that stops and immerses himself in his surroundings and really takes it all in and the kind who stops only long enough to take a few photos so he can say, “I was here.”

I’d like to think we lean more toward the first kind of tourist but these days we have to make a decision about whether dragging two kids out and then back into their carseats and the possible drama that goes with it is worthwhile. Definitely can’t totally blame it on having kids because I remember taking a long road trip with Scott many years ago when not stopping the car for spectacular scenery became a running joke. We would say things like, “Look! It’s Hoover Dam! You can see everything you need to see if you will quickly turn your head and look out the back window of the car. Oh, too bad. You missed it.”

So here, in no particular order are a few highlights from our Yosemite trip (aka our last camping trip ever):

• Stopping on the side of the road so Amanda could play in a bit of snow! She said she was making ice cream for the animals.
• Amanda thrilled to discover a fallen tree making a bridge across a ditch behind our campsite spent much of her time practicing her “tightrope walk”.
• Alyssa throwing herself into a mud puddle about 10 minutes after I changed her into a clean outfit.
• Lunch at the top of Vernal Falls, enjoying every little thing after that LONG hike: the food, sitting, shade, the amazing view, taking a break at last.
• Amanda narrating in great detail, for all to hear, everything that went on each time we used the restroom. Asking whether I planned to poop or pee and announcing, “Look! I did a small poop like a jelly bean!”
• Scott discovering after repeated tries that the charcoal would not light and sending me off in search of something flammable. Yes, the bug spray saved dinner! And in case you’re wondering, there’s a very subtle difference between mesquite flavor and mosquito spray flavor.
• Scott looking in the rear view mirror and reporting, as I was changing CDs, that Alyssa was sound asleep. Then as the music started, looking back to see her whip her eyes open and start dancing in her car seat.
• Amanda after complaining much of the way to Vernal Falls, “I’m tired and hungry and I just want to be back at the van!” seeming almost as unhappy on the way back because she was having so much fun she didn’t want to leave.
• Scott offering his impressions on the beautiful Mirror Lake (he and Amanda biked there on our first night): “Small and uh… yeah pretty, I guess. People swim in it in the summer.”
• Amanda after falling down the fourth or fifth time on our hike: “I sure have banged up this knee a lot. It’s good that I have another one!”
• Watching the sun set on Half Dome while being serenaded by a bag-pipe player.
• Laying in the pitch-black darkness between the girls, trying to get them to sleep. Complete silence for a long time. And then from out of nowhere a loud giggle from Alyssa followed by a louder giggle from Amanda followed by the entire van shaking with laughter. Guess the joke was on me. I really thought they were asleep!
• The sad moment we discovered that the fudgesicles Grandpa sent with us had melted before we could eat them.
• Alyssa waking us all up at 7:30 by saying loudly, “DA?” and then going right back to sleep.
• Managing to get camp packed up by 9:59am with a minute to spare before check-out time. A personal best.
• Amanda, when asked how many waterfalls we saw this trip: “One, two, three, four… I don’t know. I was asleep a lot.”
• “Woopty-woos” – Scott’s term for those stretches of road that make your tummy feel funny as if it’s suspended in air for a second before it drops down with the rest of your body.
• Upon seeing the breathtaking Yosemite Falls… Me: “Wow Amanda, isn’t it beautiful!?!” Amanda: “Yeah, it’s pretty. Can we go now?”
  

You have a what stuck where?

The big news at our house is that Scott got a new job. He started Monday. Yay!!! But I’ll write more about that in another post. I’m here now to tell you about what happened at home while Scott was busy at his first day of work.

I was folding laundry or eating bon-bons or whatever it is we stay-at-home moms do all day when Amanda came running to me crying, saying that Alyssa had crammed a rock up her nose. Way up her nose. Amanda's nose, that is. She was crying hysterically and I was thinking great, Scott's gone one day and I'm gonna have to go to the emergency room.

Well not that we'd actually have to go to the emergency room, being a weekday and all, I guess our pediatrician could have gotten us in but I wasn't thinking logically... because I was in high-drama mode and trying to determine if a rock crammed up your nose constitutes an emergency. I mean the daughter of a friend had a bean stuck up her nose for ages. And aside from bad breath and some nasty drainage she was just fine. But back to Amanda, this was no bean, it was a rock and if she sucked in too hard it might go flying and smack the side of her brain or something. There was some speculation about how big the rock was and did she really just stand there helplessly while Alyssa slowly took aim and jammed the thing as far as she could up her nose?

So anyway, mostly I was just trying to remain calm and keep her calm because that's what good parents are supposed to do right? Besides, when she cried, she did that snot-sucking thing that was just a brain-injury waiting to happen. So of course I tried to get her to blow it out. She tried and tried but it just would not come out. Oh and it turns out this wasn't just any rock; it was Rilie's rock. Rilie is her new best friend next door. And every single time Rilie leaves one of her toys here something bad happens to it, so this just added to Amanda's trauma.

Eventually we located a flashlight and I'm happy to report that I could see the rock... and like an idiot I said, “No biggie, I'll just pull it out with tweezers.” From her reaction I could tell I might as well have said, "I'll just go get a really big knife and... " At our house, Splinter + Scott + Tweezers = Scary. She started doing that really hysterical cry again and as I'm trying to soothe her, Alyssa walks up and just smacks Amanda in the head. You've seen those movies where some lady is hysterical and then someone slaps them across the face and suddenly they're fine? Well I now know that it works. Amanda stopped crying for long enough to get really ticked off and yell. "Alyssa hit me!!! She HIT ME... "

So anyway, before trying the tweezers, I googled the problem... can't remember exactly what words I used but it took a few tries: “object stuck in nose,” “item jammed in nostril,” “how to remove rock from nasal cavity,” before I came up with something called the KISS technique... in which I would hold closed the nostril that did not hold the foreign object and blow into Amanda’s mouth and hopefully that would create enough pressure to push the rock out.

This made me laugh because I once dated a guy who actually used this as a kissing technique. Clearly he'd gotten some misinformation. Probably read some medical journal on the KISS technique and got badly confused.

Just picturing the whole scenario got me laughing and as I tried to explain it to Amanda she started laughing and would go back and forth between laughing and crying. She's at the age where she understands the power of an injury and knows enough to milk it until she gets cookies or ice cream or something. So she knew she must continue to cry but I couldn't stop laughing and that made her laugh and eventually Amanda laughed so hard the rock shot right out of her nose.

Of course that was a huge relief. But then I had this rock. This smooth tan rock... bigger than a pea, smaller than El Capitan... and after washing it I set it aside and tried to determine what I was supposed to do with it, you know, after showing it to Scott. It seemed like one of those weird things I was supposed to keep. And for a moment I imagined us in one of those sappy Hallmark commercial kind of moments with Amanda at around age 13 rummaging through my jewelry box and saying, "Mom what's all this stuff?" And me saying with a dreamy faraway look on my face, “Oh, Sweetie, those are your baby teeth and a lock of your hair and that's your appendix, and ewww I have no idea what that thing is, but that's the rock your sister crammed up your nose when you were four. Gosh it seems like it was just yesterday..." Then music would come out of nowhere and we'd hug.

So I'm sure you can imagine how upset I was when Rilie came over and announced she wanted her rock back. “Really? Do you know where that thing has been? It was UP HER NOSE. Ick... Eww. You don't really want it, do you?” She said, "I can wash it." Fine then. Take your icky rock.

Oh and later I said to Amanda, "So tell me the truth, did Alyssa put that rock in your nose or did you?" She started laughing and said, "I did. I was just being silly." I said, "Yeah, I figured." She asked, “How did you know?” and I said, "Well umm... when I was around your age I stuck a nickel up my nose. And I'm pretty sure I blamed it on my brother."

I figured that would be our little secret but of course now she's telling everyone that "Me and Mommy put stuff up our noses." So two can play at that game and that’s why I’m telling you this little story. It’s true: me and Amanda put stuff up our noses. It’s one of those you have to try, but only once. At least that's what I thought until I asked Amanda to pose for the picture above and she asked, "Do you want me to put it back in my nose?"

A few pics from Easter, finally

The Great Debate

When you start thinking about having kids there are all kinds of things you’re supposed to discuss and come to agreement on. How will you pay for them? How will you discipline them? What about religion? Education? Childcare?

What’s the one topic nobody ever warns you about?

Play-Doh.

At our house we’ve been arguing about Play-Doh. Here’s the thing… I LOVE Play-Doh. I love how it smells. I love how it feels. I love that it comes in so many fun colors. For me Play-Doh represents fun, creativity and endless possibilities. In my mind Play-Doh is critical to the childhood experience.

Scott, on the other hand, HATES Play-Doh. Play-Doh is messy. Play-Doh is stinky. Play-Doh is a choking hazard to the baby. Play-Doh is evil.

Huh? What? How can we possibly be talking about the same thing?

Did you know that it is difficult to argue about Play-Doh in an adult manner? They say one whiff of Play-Doh can make you feel like you’re right back in Kindergarten. In our case this seems to be true. When Scott said he didn’t want Play-Doh in the house I kept wanting to say: “Oh yeah? Well you’re not the boss of me!” And when I asked why he didn’t like Play-Doh he said, “Because, just because,” to which I wanted to respond: “Oh yeah? Well I’m gonna tell my mommy on you!”

Of course I can’t actually tell my mom. Because I know if I called her right now she would say, “I HATE Play-Doh.” It’s true that I might be in need of intense therapy regarding my Play-Doh issues. And of course I blame that on my mom and try to make her feel guilty about it whenever the opportunity arises. This seems like a good one so bear with me.

Play-Doh wasn’t allowed in our house when I was a kid. I longed for it; begged for it; put it on every Dear Santa list I ever wrote. But Play-Doh was off-limits until the day my friend, Stephanie Lysett, showed up to my sixth birthday party with the gift to top all other gifts, the Play-Doh Fuzzy Pumper Play Set. Yes!!! Mine, it was all mine, the best toy in the world! Or it would have been the best toy, if my mom had ever allowed me to play with it, that is. But I had these shelves in my room that went right up to the ceiling. And the very top shelf is where my Play-Doh lived, taunting me, torturing me from its cellophane wrapped box.

I’m sure I asked the question “Can I play with the Play-Doh today, Mom?” at least a billion times and I’m sure I risked breaking an arm or leg more than once to climb up and fetch the box so I could drool over it up close. But I was a goody-two-shoes and never dared to actually tear off the cellophane and play with it because I knew I’d be in big trouble. I don’t remember playing with that Play-Doh even once. Clearly I’ve been permanently scarred too. Hear that, Mom? Scarred. Permanently.

So fast-forward 30 years or so to when I hear my darling husband say things like, “NO Play-Doh. I don’t want to see it in the house ever again.” And my inner 6-year-old starts twitching. “Umm. ‘Scuse me? You’re kidding me right? Am I on Candid Camera? You can’t be serious. Did my mother put you up to this?”

But he was indeed serious and when I realized how much it bothered him I tried hard to be reasonable. I thought I would compromise and not let Amanda play with it in the house (well umm, at least not when he was around) but I brought it with us on our last camping trip and again, he flipped out. I responded with, “Yeah… you said no more Play-Doh in the house. We are not in the house.” But then I figured he was worried about the precious Eurovan. He can be kind of weird about The Van and I try to be sensitive. Because I suppose I’d get a little tense if he tried to use one of my scrapbooks as a coaster. So I put the Play-Doh away.

But the other day when I was desperately searching for something, I made the mistake of opening The Cabinet. The Cabinet is where all of the off-limit (and therefore most strongly-desired) toys are kept: the slippery high-heel princess shoes I’m afraid they’ll break their necks wearing, the washable paints that aren’t as washable as I would like, the annoying whistle, the toys that come with a hundred teeny-tiny choking hazard pieces, the toy hammer used mostly to bang on the furniture or each others' heads… and, of course, the Play-Doh.

I’m starting to think that when I open The Cabinet it emits some kind of low-decibel sound that only my children can hear. I honestly think that even if they were in a deep sleep the sound of The Cabinet would awaken them and bring them scampering as fast as they can to throw their little bodies in between the open door and The Cabinet making it impossible for me to close The Cabinet until they’ve made several emphatic requests. Alyssa starts pointing at the ball and chanting, “Bah, bah, BAH!” and Amanda screeches, “PLAY-DOH!!! Mommy, can I play with the Play-Doh, pleeeeeeeease Mommy?”

Since I can totally relate to the intense longing to play with Play-Doh and since I don't want Amanda to be Permanently Scarred like I am and since Scott was gone for a while I let Amanda play with some Play-Doh outside on the patio. I honestly didn’t think he would care since it was outside. But I was wrong.

She was still playing when he got home and… did I already mention that we seem to have a difficult time acting like grown-ups when it comes to this subject? Well I’m not even going to tell you about how he marched out to the table and picked up the tray of Play-Doh and unceremoniously dumped the entire thing into the trash while Amanda and I looked on in horror. I also won’t tell you about the tantrums that followed, except to say that Amanda was not the only one who had one.

We talked about it later and finally agreed that we would put the Play Doh on hold for a while since I can’t really argue the fact that it could be a choking hazard for Alyssa. Even though I didn’t let her near it… wait, I said I wouldn’t argue… So anyway, have to tell you my favorite part of the story…

While Amanda was playing with her Play-Doh I said, "Hey, what are you making?" and she said,

"I'm building a toilet for the birds because I'm so sick of them pooping on my slide!"

If you ask me, this is exactly the kind of creative thinking that our world needs more of...The kind of thinking that is encouraged and nurtured by a lump of fragrant, neon-colored, moldable dough. Just think, maybe 30 years down the line Amanda will be telling her children, "You'll never believe this but when I was young, birds pooped anywhere they wanted! Thank goodness for Play-Doh."

If anyone is actually reading this blog I would love to hear your comments. Especially if you have any persuasive arguments for why the Play-Doh ban should be lifted. Come on people, help save the Play-Doh!

*Photo of Amanda taken in November, before the start of the Great Play-Doh Ban

Kiss your sister!

We went to the St. Patrick's Day Festival in our town and now we're all sick. Just the joy of Fair food, I guess. On the brighter side, here are a few more pictures from yesterday.