"Help! I can't lift my backpack!"

Dressed in boots, a swimsuit cover-up and a tiara... Packing two sets of free-weights, some books, and a stuffed bunny, this kid is ready anything. If only she could lift her backpack.

Random Photo Tuesday, iphone style #1

I'm having computer issues so I'm posting from my iphone and sharing photos taken on my iphone. Unfortunately I can't figure out how to post more than one photo at a time so I'll be posting several times.

I'm not a phone person and even less a cell phone person so when my cell phone needed to be replaced I procrastinated. One thing I knew for sure us that I didn't need a camera on my phone because I definitely wouldn't be taking crummy-quality phone pictures when I have a perfectly nice camera.

Then Scott got me an iphone for Christmas. And I totally ate my words because, man I LOVE taking crummy-phone quality pictures with this thing.So many fun moments would have been lost were it not for my precious iphone...sigh... Oh and I can also check my email, listen to music, watch movies, all kinds of fun stuff. If only it didn't ring on occasion, meaning people expect me to actually talk to them on it, it would be perfect.

This photo was taken a month or so ago while we were waiting around for a prescription. I've been using the picture as wallpaper on my phone because it makes me smile and also reminds me that sometimes it pays to be nice. I'll add that story when I have more time.

Random Photo Tuesday #2

This one's just Alyssa being cute. Please note the ugly headband which she's wearing in a lot of these photos. She's into headbands these days and this is one of her favorites though for some reason she calls it her "ugly headband".

She says she doesn't actually think it's ugly and as far as I can tell it's not ugly so it makes me giggle when she runs through the house calling, "Has anybody seen my ugly headband?"

Random Photo Tuesday #3

This one was a couple of week's ago when Amanda's best friend, Rilie, spent the night. There's Alyssa on her laptop. The kid never takes a break.

Random Photo Tuesday #4

Searching for roly-polies or worms or something creepy-crawly. Yeah, ick.

Random Photo Tuesday #5

This one was taken last week on the first day of spring. I always insist on taking Alyssa's stroller whenever we walk somewhere -- just in case. Scott always tells me to leave it home.

"She can walk," says the guy who hasn't walked anywhere with Alyssa on a timeline and noticed her need to stop to closely examine anything even remotely interesting, to bark back at any dogs who dare to bark at her, to scale every short wall and walk it like a tight-rope. To throw herself on the ground and demand to be carried.

BUT it was the first day of spring and it was a beautiful day and a short walk to school and we were running early to pick up Amanda AND Alyssa asked ever so sweetly if she could take her baby stroller. So I said, "Sure, why not?"

And that's how I ended up lugging a baby, a baby stroller, a sippy cup and and a backpack that Amanda couldn't possibly carry because it was, "sooooooo heavy and the walk home is sooooooo long!"

And that is why I always insist on taking Alyssa's stroller whenever we walk somewhere -- just in case.

Random Photo Tuesday #6

This one was taken today on the way home from school. That's Holly in the middle and they were singing at the top of their lungs. "IIIIIII'm gonna soak up the suuuuuun..."

Random Photo Tuesday #7

Last, is one of Alyssa and her "friends" at Old Navy. When she first jumped into the display, I told her not to touch anything and the plan was to get her out of there ASAP. That was the plan until she started hugging them, ever so gently, one after the other. Then the plan changed to getting a quick picture before getting her out of there ASAP.

I'm so glad there's a camera on my phone.

March 12 on the 12th

Just click on the picture to get a closer view.

Hmm…(with perfectly logical explanation added)

This is the scene I found this morning. And I'm kind of curious about what's going on here. Or maybe I don't really want to know. I'm sure there's a completely innocent explanation like maybe it's just that nightmare where Barbie suddenly realizes she showed up at school naked. Or maybe it's a church service and Eve of "Adam & Eve" fame is the guest speaker but they confiscated her fig leaf at the airport. On second thought, I think it's better if I don't think about it.

Update: So we were on our way home from school today, taking Amanda's friend, Holly, with us. They were planning out their time together, starting with Barbie-time. Holly loves to play Barbies at our house because she says we have the very best Barbie stuff. That's right I finally live at the house with the best Barbie stuff. Not that this is about me.

So Amanda says, "Oh wait 'til I show you what I did...Mom, did Alyssa mess up the Barbies today?"

Me: "Umm, I'm not sure. So what was going on with the Barbies anyway?"

Amanda: "What are you talking about?"

Me: "Well, there was that big line of Barbies and then there was that one Barbie sitting in front of them all... and she was, umm wearing her birthday suit... you know, naked?"

(giggles)

Amanda: "Oh, well she was... she was wearing an imaginary bathing suit."

Me: "Ohhhhhh! Of course she was. I can't believe I didn't notice that. Now I understand."

(Long pause)

Me: "So how come she was the only one wearing her bathing suit in front of all those people?"

(Silence)

Me: "Was she teaching a swim class?"

Amanda: "Yeah, she was."

Me: "Ah, okay. Got it. But umm... If she was teaching a swim class, shouldn't they... oh wait... don't tell me... were they in an imaginary swimming pool?"

Amanda: (clearly horrified) "Mommmmmmm... Can we talk about this later?"

Me: "Oh sure. Later."

If she thinks she's embarassed now, just wait until the next time I take her swimming and I wear my imaginary bathing suit.

Public Bathrooms

Lately, public bathrooms have become wildly entertaining to Alyssa. A couple of weeks ago we went to a movie and then out to lunch, but I think the bathroom was the highlight of the day for Alyssa.

When she jumped off of the toilet and it automatically flushed, she was mad at me. "I wanted to do it!" But then it flushed again and her jaw dropped. "MAGIC!?!" she said.

A minute later it was time to wash her hands. She looked at me funny because there were no handles to turn on the faucet. So when I showed her how to wave her hands to start the water she, again, was stunned. "It's magic!" Yeah wait until I show you how to dry them, kid. Wheeeeeeee... The line of women watching us were just giggling as she chanted, "Magic, magic, MAGIC!!!"

The photo was taken last week in a different bathroom when she was having a blast playing with the hand-dryer. She's at just the perfect height so that she can not only reach the dryer, but have her face almost blown off by the blast of warm air. She thought it was great fun and repeated the process until I made her stop.

Believe it or not we have taken her to public bathrooms before. It's not like when we go to McDonalds and she jumps on the Ronald McDonald statue's lap and yells, "Mickey Mouse!" and I don't bother to mention that we're not actually in Disneyland.

We haven't taken her to Disneyland yet, but she's been in public bathrooms. I avoid them as much as humanly possible though, because they totally gross me out. Not sure if my dislike for them is in the normal range but I always think maybe I'm a bit over-the-top. I especially notice this when we're camping. For the most part, I'm pretty laid-back about dirt. Kids get dirty. That's life. But I always wonder if the girls are thinking Mommy is a little bit crazy when one minute I'm letting them play in the dirt and the next minute, upon entering a fairly clean looking camp bathroom, I go all psycho, warning, "Don't touch ANYTHING! It's dirty in here!"

Umm, we're practically coated in mud, Mom, and you don't want us to get dirty?

A visit to a public bathroom with a preschooler is the worst. If you haven't experienced it yourself, consider yourself lucky. You'll pull out the paper seat cover, and place it carefully on the seat, ensuring there is complete coverage so your precious darling's innocent little bottom will be well protected from the nasty germ-infested seat, then you'll lower the little darling onto the seat, s-l-o-w-l-y so as not to create even a slight breeze that might send the critical paper shield flying off... you'll do this while chanting don't touch ANYTHING, I will hold you.

But if that precious little darling has a mind of her own, she may just jump from your arms and announce, "Nooooo I can do it myself!" while yanking the paper off of the seat, seconds before she grabs onto the disgusting toilet to give her some leverage so she can jump on and then she'll sit there holding onto the nasty toilet with both hands. You will simply have to look on in horror as she proudly announces "I peeing!" to all who are interested. Try to remain calm because next she will probably jump off of the toilet and reach for the flusher with her HAND.

Any public restroom-hater knows you should only use your foot to push down that little flush lever. But she will have no fear. Don't stand around wallowing in disgusted horror for too long though, because if you do she will drop down on all fours to peer into the next stall and then you'll have to douse her from head-to-toe with that anti-bacterial hand-stuff and then take her home to give her at least eight baths. Whoever invented this product knows exactly what I'm talking about.

Seeing Alyssa so excited about public bathrooms leaves me nervous. Because now that she's decided how much fun they are I'm afraid we'll be visiting them way more often than I'd like. I can say no to the toy store and no to Disneyland (okay McDonalds… she doesn't need to know!) but it's not like I can really say NO when she starts doing the potty-dance and it won't be long until she figures this out. Wish me luck. And if anybody knows where you can buy disposable haz-mat suits in toddler sizes please let me know.

The Target Addiction

Can anybody out there tell me the secret for getting out of Target without spending way too much money? I mean besides taking my husband with me. Because he can completely suck the joy out of any shopping experience what with all of his annoying do you really need that?-ness.

No, of course I don't really NEED THAT. Yes I know I already have one. In fact I already have a purple one and a green one, also one with stripes and one with polka dots but none that are even remotely as cute or as useful as THIS ONE. Yes, I NEED IT. Okay I mean maybe I don't NEED it but I WANT it. And I'm getting it. Why are you here again? Shouldn't you be in the electronics section or something?

I swear it happens every single time. I go in there with a specific plan. Today I needed a new backpack and tennis shoes for Amanda, cat food and toilet paper. And then I end up standing there at the cash register thinking CRAP! How did my cart get so full?

The dollar section always gets me. It was in the dollar section that for some idiotic reason I told Amanda she could have this rubber ball that squeaks the most insanely annoying squuuuuuuh-weeeeeeeak when you squeeze it. I think I told her she could have it just so she would put it down and stop that awful noise. I'm pretty sure I made her promise that she would only play with it while locked inside a soundproof room while I was in another country with headphones on listening to very loud music.

Then as soon as the dreadful squeaking had died down, this adorable little boy ran over and grabbed a matching ball and squeezed it… squuuuuuuuuuh-weeeeeeeeeeeak… and Amanda couldn't resist yanking her ball out of the cart to respond with another squuuuuuuuuuuuuh-weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeak which resulted in the two of them dissolving in giggles and started the most irritating non-verbal conversation you can possibly imagine. He would squeak, his mom's right eye would twitch, she would squeak, my left eye would twitch. And this went on until they were both dragged away in opposite directions. As we were walking away I actually said, "The only reason I haven't thrown that thing away is because we haven't paid for it yet."

So along with all the stuff I'd actually gone there in the first place for and that awful little $1 ball, I had to get a myriad of other random stuff… including Easter stuff, what with February being over YESTERDAY I had to jump on that, of course… and then there was this jacket that Alyssa needed because the poor child lives in hand-me-downs and apparently there was no cold weather when Amanda was this size.

So there I stood at the counter shaking my head, once again, thinking what have I done? I stopped going to the mall years ago because of this problem. But I can't exactly stop going to Target, can I? No. I can't. It's like air or food. Don't tell me to stop going to Target. That's crazy-talk.

Scrapbooking can be hazardous

We narrowly averted some drama on Wednesday. I knew when I made the scrapbook page several years ago that it was risky. I felt like the story should be told though. The whole family knew it already but I wanted it preserved somewhere for historical purposes just in case I got hit by a bus.

I thought maybe I should hide the page away somewhere until Amanda was a bit older because my hope was that she’d be flipping through her books and reading these stories whenever she felt like it and I was already picturing the exact embarassing scenario that almost happened this week.

But knowing how un-sentimental my husband is, if I did actually get hit by a bus, any pages not permanently affixed to the scrapbook would certainly be lost in the Everything Must Go! sale that would be held while the funeral home was still trying to figure out how to disguise the tire marks on my forehead.

So I made the page and put it in her scrapbook and from time to time Amanda pulls the book off the shelf and asks me to read her the stories. I thought I’d only given her the very PG edited version of this particular story, but apparently she knew the specific detail I didn’t want her to know.

So as we were getting ready for school I suddenly remembered, “Oh, today’s your sharing day. Do you have something to share?” They called it show-and-tell when I was a kid, now it’s just “Sharing.” And before they reveal the item they give three clues about it and let their classmates guess what it might be.

Amanda pulled the hot pink stuffed frog out of her backpack to show me and said, “Yeah, I’m taking this and I already know my clues!”

I was only slightly nervous when I said, “Okay, let’s hear ‘em.”

She said, "Okay, 1) It’s pink. 2) It’s really soft. And 3) When I was little I couldn’t say its name right so I really embarrassed my mom in the middle of the store because I yelled out,
“Fok, Fok, FOKKKKKKKKK!!!”

"Umm, we're going to have to rethink that third one. Your principal seems like a nice guy but I don't really want to get a phone call from him today."

Crisis averted this time but there are years worth of opportunities for humiliation ahead of us. I don’t think it would have been as bad as the time the son of a distant relative announced to his classmates during show-and-tell that, “My mommy was wounded in battle!” and then pulled out a pair of his mommy’s bloody panties as evidence.

(In case you missed it, the original fokking story can be found toward the bottom of this post.)

Dear Summer Vacation...

Dear Summer Vacation,
Have I done something to piss you off? We've always gotten along in the past. I mean okay, in recent years we haven't been the best of friends, what with you constantly pestering me to put a bathing suit on. (Come on, is that really necessary?) But when I was younger I adored you.

Your arrival meant I would spend long, carefree days with you running through the sprinklers, hanging out at the pool and waiting for the ice cream truck to drive down our street. Wearing flip-flops and halter tops and inhaling the glorious smells of chlorine and coconut-scented sunscreen. I always hated to see you go and I would spend the whole school year missing you and waiting for you to come back.

I was looking forward to you showing up this year. I really was. I was so excited about Amanda's very first school vacation. But now that you're here I feel like you're hellbent on killing me... one brain cell at a time. I should have figured something was up when the night before Kindergarten graduation included a heated email battle of the Kindergarten mommies. It got ugly. Really ugly. It was the kind of drama I didn't expect to see until junior high. So you didn't exactly make a smooth entrance.

But graduation went fine. It was a very hot day but that was okay because after the ceremony, the kids got to change into bathing suits and break out the water toys, kiddie pools, bubbles... Then after school we drove to Grandma's house so Scott could have a relaxing Father's Day weekend. Well what we hoped would be a relaxing weekend anyway. But oh no. You were already screwing with us, Summer. He played golf Saturday but then serious work-related drama broke out. Almost as soon as he got back from the course he ended up in serious stress-mode, on nearly hourly conference calls until the problem was finally resolved in the wee morning hours.

Was it your bright idea to send Amanda's best friend, Rilie, away for a month? I mean come on. A MONTH? All Amanda talked about for weeks was how when school got out she would get to play with Rilie all day every day and then this? Thanks a lot, Summer.

I was okay with the major heat wave you sent our way. I blew up our teeny pool and after much begging, dragged it to the bottom of the slide and the girls had a blast on our somewhat lame version of a water-slide. When my friend, Wendy, sent me some great pictures of her kids playing in their blow-up pool, complete with a blow-up slide it made ours look just that much more pitiful and I just HAD to have one like she had, especially when she offered to have her husband pick one up for us and deliver it to us at Luciana's birthday party that weekend.

We continued to use our teeny pool while we waited and I felt a teeny bit guilty about my impulsive purchase. What with being married to Mr. Frugal, do I really need to buy new water toys every year? He was not going to be thrilled about this. I felt that way until on day two of operation-teeny-pool-at-bottom-of-slide, Amanda showed up in her old polkadot bikini and I asked her why she didn't have her new suit on. She thought it WAS her new suit... Really? Doesn't that thing look familiar to you? I admit I was less worried about her circulation being cut off than I was about what kind of mother people would think I am when they see photos of the kid wearing the same suit year after year. Later I dragged out an old scrapbook and showed her some pictures from summer 2005 when she was wearing the same suit! Then she pointed out that she was standing in front of the same teeny pool.

Oh, well maybe these pictures would do us some good after all! If Scott had any complaints about the new pool I'd just drag out the photos from four summers ago and talk about how deprived Amanda has been. In that same pitiful little pool and the same pitiful suit year after year after year...

S.V., I was so excited to bring home the 14-foot Banzai Cannon Ball Splash pool after Luciana's birthday party. I was ready to set it up immediately but Scott said no. He was being all practical, talking about water rationing and such... Plus he'd spent the day cleaning and refilling our hot tub (yeah, uh huh, water rationing). So we all jumped in the hot tub and I told the girls to wait til Daddy went back to work and we'd blow up the pool.

Except that when Monday rolled around, so did the cool weather. Too cool for the pool. Thanks again, S.V.. But there are some things I just HAVE to let my kids try specifically because I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that my mom would have said NO, NO, NO... so with that in mind, I blew up the slide and set it up in the living room. My mom would have said no way, perhaps with good reason. But channeling my inner 5-year-old... what could be better than a big inflatable slide in the living room?

S.V., I didn't like it all that much when Amanda was on the phone with my mother-in-law and reported that "Mommy just tried to go down the slide in the living room except she couldn't 'cause she's huge." Uh... did you have to tell Grandma I was playing on the slide in the LIVING ROOM and worse, did you just call me HUGE?!?"

Thanks for the colds, S.V.. First Alyssa got one... then she started to get better but not before passing it to Amanda... who then passed it right back to Alyssa who ended up in full blown misery the second time around. So I haven't slept in days because either Amanda is up having coughing fits or Alyssa is waking me up at all hours of the night to say, "Mommy, my nose is blowing." All this time I'd been blaming Kindergarten for getting us sick but this time it was YOU!

And did you think I would let you off the hook for the fires? Seriously? 400 wildfires throughout Northern California? Really? The dry lightening. The crazy winds. Now that it's finally cool enough to open the windows we can't because it's so smoky outside. And everybody is nervous because nobody is really safe. Way to go, Summer.

Could you possibly make my children bicker any more, S.V.? I swear there are days when I think if I have to hear even one more minute of arguing and complaining my head might explode into a zillion tiny little pieces. It's mine, no it's mine...no it's MINE. I wanted the red one! I hate the blue one! She got more than me! And the worst: I'm bored. There's nothing to do, Mom... This day is so boring!

School hasn't even been out for two weeks and I feel like we've run through all of our options. We've played games, we've played Barbies, we've played school, we've given each other manicures... I've even already dragged out the big guns: the paint, the 6 billion piece craft kits, the moon sand... Was the moon sand your idea, Summer? Because it really wasn't a GOOD one. Just sayin'. Let's give the kids sand to play with. Let's bring the beach INSIDE! Yeah really bright. We've made trips to the park and the dollar store and Target and still, they're bored.

I thought my mom had the ultimate cure for boredom but it's not working for me, Summer. When I went running to my mom whining about being bored I always got the same answer: "If you're bored, go clean your room." Umm. Did I say I was bored? I didn't mean bored. I meant... I'm gonna go play... Or read a book... Or... yeah... anything but clean my room. Brilliant, Mom. It was brilliant.

And I might as well mention that unfortunately my dad used the same tactics to permanently cure me from punctuality. If I was ready for school early or ready to go anywhere early he'd say, "You have extra time? Why don't you go clean your room?" So I get ready early and I get punished for it? I think not. I haven't been ready on time for anything since. Not my dad's smartest move.

But back to you, Summer Vacation. We'll be together for a couple more months. Cut me some slack will you? Send Rilie back to us. Heat up the weather enough for the pool. Put out the fires. And if there's anything you can do to cut down on the whining at my house that would be fabulous. Oh and stop bugging me about the swimsuits. Either that or make my thighs smaller. And if there's anything I can do for you, just let me know. Thanks!

Love,
Dione

(Photos to be added later... maybe.)

Ten Minutes

These pictures were taken last weekend while the girls and I were waiting to go to Costco with Scott. They were going stir-crazy by the time I finally managed to pry Scott off the couch to start his ten-minutes-to-out-the-door routine. So to entertain them for a bit, we headed outside and took some self-portraits with the remote for my camera. Mostly the girls just fought over the remote, which is supposed to be so tiny that you can't see it in photos but it didn't turn out that way. I guess I could edit the remote out of the pictures but right now it makes me laugh because I spent so much time telling the girls to keep it down and out of view and then I notice that I'm the doofus holding it up to the camera for all to see.

"I can be ready in ten minutes."

I’ve heard that line approximately three million, four thousand, five hundred and forty-six times during my relationship with Scott. I don’t know if it’s a guy thing or just a Scott thing but he swears that he can be ready for ANYTHING in 10 minutes. From a prone position in front of the TV or sound asleep in bed he can be showered, shaved, dressed and out the door in 10 minutes. Whether it’s a trip to the mall, or the end of the world. Just give him 10 minutes warning. He will be ready.

AND he would prefer that the girls and I be completely ready to go before the 10-minute warning is given. If he could have it his way we would not only be READY but sitting in the car with the engine running. Because nothing on earth is worse than sitting around waiting for your wife to get ready. Because you never know how long that could take.

Because after your wife says she’s ready she always has at least eight more things to do before she’s actually ready… And even then she probably won’t really be ready. She’ll have to run back inside for the sippy cup she left on the counter or run to the bathroom just one last time or SOMETHING.

You might be wondering if he can actually get ready in ten minutes, and yes, he can. Because anything he can’t actually achieve within ten minutes can simply be delegated to ME.

In the early years of our relationship, many a battle was fought during the 10 minutes before we were supposed to walk out the door before a wedding or Thanksgiving dinner, when I would already be running around like a crazy woman and he would say, “Could you find me some brown shoe polish?” or “Can you find me some black socks?” or “These grey pants don’t fit me anymore, can you find me something else to wear?” or my personal favorite, “Hey, could you iron this shirt for me?”

Can I iron this shirt for you? Are you f*#ing nuts?

Those might sound like reasonable requests to most people but being ready on time has always been something I’ve struggled with. A lot. I know this about myself so if I’m going somewhere important I do as much preparation ahead of time as possible. This includes getting clothes, shoes, jewelry and any other random accessories all lined up and ready to go. During that preparation time I ask Scott, usually multiple times what he’s going to wear and almost invariably he will say, “I don’t know. Don’t worry about it,” or “I’ll figure it out later.”

Uh huh. I know exactly when you’re gonna figure it out.

But that particular battle ended long ago when I started telling him if he needed anything found, washed, shined or ironed he better tell me long before it was time to leave because I would not be available at ten minutes before take-off.

I knew just how far we’d come when shopping for work clothes for the job he’s doing now. He carefully checked all the labels and wouldn’t buy anything unless it was marked “wrinkle-free” or “no ironing.” When he told the sales guy “My wife doesn’t like to iron,” other women might have been embarrassed but I wanted to kiss him right there in the middle of the department store. Ahh, look at him, he’s come so far!

And as long as I’m wandering off in random directions I will never forget when maybe a year or two into our relationship, we broke up for a while. It was a friendly break up that we’d both agreed was for the best and in a very un-Scott like moment during the big break-up speech, he wanted to talk about what we’d learned from each other.

Anyone who knows us knows that Scott is an extremely practical guy and I am his polar opposite. So I guess it makes sense that when he reeled off his list of what he’d learned from me they weren’t practical things at all… they were in fact very warm and fuzzy things… I wish I could remember now what they were, but imagine Scott saying something like, “I’ve learned to look for the good in people and to stop and smell the flowers and that sometimes it’s okay to let people go in front of you in line at the store, and always take your shoes off when walking through the grass…” It was total sunshine and puppies stuff. Totally not Scott, but totally me.

I was STUNNED. But then when he asked what I’d learned from him I just blurted out: “OH! I learned that if you fold or hang up your clothes as soon as you take them out of the drier you will never have to iron again!”

He was also stunned. But not in a good way. “That’s it? That’s what you’ve learned from me?” he asked, totally deflated and sad.

"Well no of course not. But that’s one of the big ones. I didn’t mean anything bad by it. Not at all. I mean do you know how many hours of my life I’ve wasted IRONING? I totally could have spent all that time smelling the flowers or running barefoot through the grass. It’s big. But I’ve learned other things too. Like do tons of research before making any large purchase. Never buy anything unless it’s on sale. Coupons are our friends. Max out your retirement plan. Never ever use the ATM at someone else’s bank…Open an IRA. Lots of stuff! Really, I’m a better person for knowing you, okay?"

But the ironing thing? That's huge.

A bit of an update

Here's the scoop on what's going on here lately. We're all okay other than the same crummy cold and nasty cough that just keeps going around and around and around in our house.

Amanda has already started blaming me for everything that goes wrong in her life. I didn’t expect this to happen for a few years but apparently she’s very advanced in the highly emotional drama and angst department.

She'll say,“I wish I were in the early class instead of the late one.” I know, Sweetie but it was up to the teacher. I told her we could do either one and she decided. There’s nothing we can do about it now. “It’s all your fault.” Well no, it’s not really. “I’m going to blame it all on you anyway.” Okay.

And…

“I really want to go to the drive-in tonight, Mommy.” I know, Sweetie, I really wanted to go too but your Dad says no, so we’ll go another time, okay? “It’s all your fault.” But I’m the one who wanted to go in the first place. I’ve been trying to talk your Daddy into it all day. “I know, but you couldn’t. So it’s all your fault.” Okay.

Wow. What have I done to this kid? I told you she’s a teenager disguised as a five-year-old. I’m telling myself that she’s practicing the whole mad thing on me because she feels safe with me or something. Because it’s easier to tell myself that than to write a Dear Dr . Phil, I think I must be a bad mom. Can you help me? And while you're at it, can you come to my house and plant cameras everywhere so the entire world can see how inept I am at this mothering stuff instead of just the people reading my blog? letter.

Other than that, things are not too exciting. Though I have to admit there’s a lot of drama around getting dressed these days. And I'm not even talking about me. Because I'm not about to admit to the entire world wide web that I'm packing some extra pounds right now that are making it NOT FUN to get dressed. I'm talking about my little sweeties. Both of them. And I say that through my smiling gritted teeth.

Amanda is all about wanting to be a grown-up right now. Look like a grown-up, dress like a grown-up, act like a grown-up. All she wants to wear are jeans, a long sleeved t-shirt, preferably one of her three grown-up looking ones, a headband in her hair and pink sketchers on her feet. (The pics are of her in her "uniform".) Fine, whatever. But it's getting warmer. So I bought her these cute little denim capris. They’re JEANS only shorter. so I thought she’d love ‘em.

“I AM NOT WEARING THOSE THINGS! Those are BABY PANTS, Mommy.” When I pointed out to her that Kailani, Luciana and Ariella were all wearing baby pants that day she said, "Yeah well they can but I NEVER will." And the next day when her fashion diva friend, Holly, showed up in them I said, "OH! Look… Holly’s wearing baby pants! Doesn’t she look cute?”

“Yes Mom. They’re cute….ON HOLLY. But I’m never wearing those things!"

Alyssa, after going through a month or two of being satisfied to wear whatever dorky thing I put on her has returned to being extremely picky too. It seemed to start the day I decided to try on her Easter dress. Yes, in retrospect, that was a really stupid move. Considering all the trouble it has caused, what difference would it really have made if on Easter morning her pink sundress had turned out to be too big? Couldn't I have just scotch-taped it to her shoulders like any other decent mother and been done with it? OH NO. I had to be sure that it fit so I could buy a different size if not.

But Alyssa doesn't seem to understand the concept of "trying it on" yet. So after we put on her cute little dress and her cute little pink and green matching sandals and proclaimed her the cutest thing on the planet earth as she twirled around and around and around the living room, for some reason she did not want to take the dress off. She pitched a fit at just the mention of it. A BIG fit. She wanted to keep her pity dress on. PITY! PITY! I PITY!!!

Now she's all persnickety about everything she wears. “I hate this shirt!!!” she will say as she frantically tries to take it off twisting and turning as she tries to remove it as quickly as possible like it's burning her skin or something. “I hate this shirt, I hate these pants...”

Why the hate? Can't we crank it down a level? Hate is a pretty strong word. Especially for a harmless purple shirt that you loved only an hour ago.

Mostly all she wants to wear are pretty dresses. Apparently Amanda went through the same phase at this age because when I dragged out a box of Amanda's old warm weather clothes for Alyssa I was thrilled to see that we are now rolling in pretty dresses. No occasion is too small to get all dressed up. Going to pick up Amanda from school? Want pity dress. Going to the grocery store or Home Depot? Need pity dress! Going to bed? Can I sleep in my pity dress?

There's a whole lot of pity going on around here.

Oh and Shutterfly is featuring my "50 Reasons I Love You" scrapbook on their home page! How cool is that? Of course the first thing Scott wanted to know was, "How much are they paying you?" Umm, nothing. "Well what did you say to them?"

"I said, 'Thank you!'" 'cause how cool is that?

All in a day's work

Yesterday, in addition to the normal everyday messes, I cleaned up the following:

• A full cup of piping hot coffee and the broken pieces of a coffee mug off the bathroom floor, walls and toilet (my fault)

• A puddle of cat puke off the living room carpet (cat’s fault)

• A piece of Styrofoam packing, ripped into teeny tiny pieces and scattered all over my bed and floor (Alyssa’s fault. She was supposed to be quietly watching a show with her sister. Amanda didn’t report the incident until it looked like the ceiling had opened up just in time for a snowstorm. When I asked Amanda why she hadn’t taken the Styrofoam away or come to tell me earlier she said. "Well I was going to but she was having so much fun!")

• A whole gallon of spilled apple juice (Amanda fault. And can I tell you, I’m still shocked at how far a gallon of STICKY liquid can travel when dropped from two or three feet above the floor. The plastic jug broke when it hit, it splashed nearly 6 feet up on one wall, all over a bookshelf, all over Alyssa and Amanda, all over the kitchen counters and covered a large portion of the kitchen and dining room floor, including under the refrigerator which is always fun. Though Amanda shouldn’t have attempted it, I knew it was an accident, so I tried to remain calm. Turns out it doesn’t matter if you say, “It’s no big deal, you didn’t mean to do it, no really it’s okay!” if you say it like a completely hysterical insane woman. Apparently it’s all in the delivery and if you say it wrong, your five year old will go flying into her room under the assumption that she will be in trouble for the rest of her life. BUT NO REALLY. IT’S OKAY.)

• About a gazillion pennies off the dining room floor (Alyssa’s fault…and if you’ve never had to pick up a gazillion pennies you would be surprised to find how time-consuming it actually is no matter how many techniques you try. The only thing that would have made this chore worse would have been if the pennies had been poured out onto the sticky apple-juice covered portion of the floor. Okay, if the cat-puke had been involved it would have been much, much worse. If the cat starts puking up pennies you won’t be hearing from me until I return from a short stay at a privately run mental institution.)

On being prepared...

There’s this part of me that desperately wants to be prepared for any situation. I tend to take too much stuff everywhere I go. My car runneth over with extra changes of clothes and maps and crayons and sippy cups and diapers and more crayons and bandaids and snacks and umbrellas and plastic bags and baby wipes and bottles of water just in case.

But still, often when a Situation arrives, I feel blindsided. For instance, it seems that I always carry an umbrella except during a storm. And it seems that I always have every map there is except for a map of the area I’m lost in. And it seems I keep at least two bottles of water with me at all times unless my children are actually thirsty. So I push my cart full of wet, giggling children through a rainy parking lot with plastic bags covering our heads and we’re okay. Or we drive until we find somewhere interesting to stop (often better than our original destination anyway) and ask for directions and we’re okay. Or we go in search of a water fountain or a cozy café or a drive-thru to get a drink and again, we’re okay and possibly happier than we would have been if I’d managed to be prepared in the first place.

So I’ve been telling myself that maybe my inability to be prepared may actually be preparing me somehow. A week or so ago, a couple of my very favorite family members were in a serious car accident. They’re okay. Or at least they will be in time. But it has sort of changed the way I look at things. Because when you think about it, there are some things in life that just happen completely out of the blue, unexpectedly, and you can’t really be prepared for them at all. Your entire world can be turned upside down in an instant. And then what do you do?

You just have to show up and hope that whoever you are is enough to stand up and handle whatever it is that’s thrown your way. You might not have the right clothes or a pen and paper or a working cell phone or even working legs. But somehow you will get through and find a way to make it work. Maybe in a completely different way than you ever imagined.

But I have to believe that somehow you’ll be okay. And who knows, in some weird way, maybe you’ll even be better off. At the very least you might learn something wonderful about yourself in the process. At least I’d like to hope so.

Not yet

I guess I need to face the truth: I’m not ready for a big kid bed yet. When it was time to part with the crib I thought I was so lucky because I wouldn’t have to deal with the “end of the crib era” trauma that most parents do. As babies (and often still today), Amanda and Alyssa slept with me so they didn’t spend that much time in the crib, other than for naps or the occasional nights when Scott insisted we try the crib. So I wasn’t that attached to the crib as a symbol of their baby-dom.

Amanda has only slept in the top bunk once since we got the loft bed. And though she seemed perfectly happy up there, she hasn’t been anxious to do it again. Scott tries to talk her into sleeping up there every night and for some reason it makes me a little nuts. He’s very melodramatic and does this oh fine then if you don’t want to sleep up there I guess we’ll take the bed back thing. I get a little gleeful even though I know he doesn’t mean it. I don’t understand why he’s pushing it. I don’t get what the rush is. Am I the only one who thinks she’s too little to be sleeping on the top bunk? What’s the hurry?

The second night we had the loft bed Amanda told Scott she didn’t want to sleep up there because she wanted to cuddle with Mommy. So she climbed into her old bed and I laid down next to her and then Alyssa jumped aboard and carefully wedged herself between us like she always does, saying, “MY mommy!” and then we read a couple chapters of Stuart Little until Amanda’s breathing slowed and I thought she was asleep and Alyssa was too but I kept reading for another few pages until I could be sure.

And then I laid there thinking this is it. This is what I’m not ready to give up yet. It’s this kind of stuff that you don’t really notice you’re missing until it’s gone. Like the pacifiers that hang around in the drawer and you suddenly wonder when did Alyssa give those up? Or the stuffed giraffe you find at the bottom of the toy box, the one that Amanda, at one time, couldn’t sleep without. When did she stop needing Giraffe?

I’m so careful about noticing and recording the firsts: first tooth, first words, first steps, but it’s the lasts that I’m afraid will escape my notice and it’s the lasts I think I’ll end up really missing. Someday I’ll wonder when was the last time they ran to me so I could magically kiss their boo-boos away or when was the last time I rocked them to sleep? The idea that those last times could just slip away from me without even being noticed, let alone treasured, makes me sad.

I closed Stuart Little and slowly, quietly, picked up Alyssa and turned to tip-toe out of the bedroom, when Amanda’s eyes popped wide open and she said, “Kiss?” I kissed her goodnight and she rolled over to go back to sleep and that's when I knew for sure that I’m not ready to have her up on the top bunk where it will be tough to even hug her goodnight, let alone snuggle next to her while reading her a goodnight story.

Could somebody please explain to my husband that I’m just not ready for a big girl bed yet?

Parenting Mistake 4,768: The Loft Bed

We just passed our crib and changing table on to Cara and Rick who are anxiously awaiting the arrival of my newest niece in April. (YAY!) To fill the empty space, we bought a loft bed, which just might be one of my biggest parenting mistakes so far. Also on that list would be choosing to parent my children with a man who apparently believes he is completely indestructible and that he somehow passed on that genetic wonder to his two daughters.

The loft bed was Scott’s idea. My husband is a big fan of furniture that performs more than one task. A chair that is just a chair is just STUPID. We couldn’t get the coffee table that only held a few magazines and your drink. We had to get the coffee table that has storage underneath and a top that extends up and out to become a table so you can sit on the couch and comfortably eat your dinner in front of the TV.

Somewhere I have a photo of Scott sitting on his fantasy couch, this hideously ugly enormous blue microfiber sectional thing at Sears that must have comfortably seated at least 47 with two reclining seats (yes, one for each of us because he loves me like that!), built in heat and massage units, beverage holders in the arm rests, a storage compartment for the remotes, a built in ice chest and an optional sleep section. All we would need was one end table that turned into a microwave and another that turned into a porta-potty and he could have lived out his life happily without ever leaving his big screen TV.

So it’s not at all surprising that when considering a new bed for the girls’ room, the one Scott wanted was an all-in-one unit, a loft bed with a trundle bed below, seven drawers, a built in desk with a bookshelf and a large closet area extending the length of the bed. I had to agree that it made sense for us in terms of storage space which we’re in desperate need of in their room. What didn’t make sense was the potential it held to break the necks of one or both of my children.

A bit of marriage advice: if you’re married to someone, you might want to actually talk to them every now and then. You’d think after eight years of marriage, and even having noted in our wedding vows that we are total opposites, I would have figured out that we are likely to see things quite differently. But no, there are still times when my point of view makes so much sense to me that I can’t imagine Scott feeling any different. Meanwhile he is feeling the very same way about his totally opposite point of view.

After we bought the bed from someone on Craigslist (Please note that means it’s non-returnable), dismantled it, hauled it home and reassembled it in the girls’ room, it turns out that Scott and I have very different visions of how this bed will be used.

In my mind, it was obvious that my thrill-seeking two-year-old shouldn’t have access to the top bunk with all of its potential for jumping or falling. Call me crazy, but I like my children completely intact and unbroken. I asked Scott at least ten times if the ladder was as easily removable as it appeared to be and he assured me that it was. So from that I assumed that he and I were on the same page and that the ladder would be hidden away most of the time and only placed there permanently when Alyssa was much older.

Our disconnect became obvious when I noticed he’d bolted the ladder to the bed and wanted Alyssa and Amanda to sleep on the top bunk together on the very first night. He said I was crazy and overprotective and I said well maybe but at least I’m not trying to kill the children. There’s a warning right there on the bed itself that says to avoid serious or fatal injuries, children under six should not be allowed on the top bunk, and that there should never be more than one person at a time up there. There is no little asterisk with a note saying "Unless they're Scott's children and then it should be okay."

Yes, it’s probably true that I’m overprotective. When I said we weren’t taking the training wheels off of Amanda’s bike until she turned 23 it might have been a BIT overly cautious, but I think I’m being very reasonable when it comes to this bunk bed thing.

Scott insists all we need to do is teach Alyssa the basics of ladder safety, have her practice a couple of times and tell her not to lean over the side and everything will be fine. I say perhaps he hasn’t noticed that this is ALYSSA we’re talking about and we can talk to her for days about safety and then the second we turn our backs or more likely right in front of our eyes, she’ll be jumping off the side, swinging from the ceiling fan or worse.

We’re still in deliberation over the matter and will continue to be until he manages to see things my way. I’m hoping we can come to a peaceful agreement soon so I don’t have to set fire to the ladder while he’s asleep.