We trudge down the steps together, all three of us have hair tufts, and are feeling “early”.
“Girls, do you want an egg or toast?”
“Egg.”
“Toast.”
My girls are birds. Would they ever eat both?
Want to make a child feel overwhelmed much? That would be how.
I make one of each. (The eggs are hard boiled, so really, I just cut one in half.) Deliver them.
Elle: “I DO NOT WANT JELLY ON MY TOAST! I WANT HONEY ON MY TOAST!” (x10)
Me: “You like jelly- (She does) and you never told me honey, so unless you can come to the kitchen and ask me nice- you will have to eat the jelly toast.”
Elle: “I CAN`T! I DONT KNOW HOOOOOOOOW. I don`t know ho-o-o-ow to say it nice.”
Me: “Yes, you can. (We both know she can.)
Five minutes later, I walk by the table… to see an empty china plate, with a little jelly smeared on it, and a happy 4 year old with blackberry jelly around her mouth- playing with her toys loading PBSKids on the computer.
Success!
I`m owning the ‘winning mother’ feeling inside. She caved, I think proudly.
“Elle, did you eat the toast?” I smile.
“I did”, she says.
Laila crows, “GOOD JOB! YOU EAT THE TOAST, OLIE.”
I stand in the kitchen and smile over the way Laila says ‘Elle’ (Olie). I savor the moment, even though I feel grouchy/happy (half and half) on this Monday morning.
The silence is broken with sounds of raucous crying and wailing. Elle is annoyed that Laila can`t say her name right. (That is SO the kind of thing that would annoy her.)
“Say ‘Elle’, say ‘Elle’.”
I am standing in the kitchen- and the little one comes barreling in crying. The older one barrels in after taunting:
“I smell poopies! I smell poopies!”
(That is exactly the kind of thing that Laila is very sensitive about, and of course Elle knows this.)
I check Laila for poopies (just in case) and there are none. Laila wails in a martyred kind of way. She knows she doesn`t have them- and she feels falsely accused.
I guess I don`t blame her- I mean it`s the adult equivalent of your husband whispering “Oh my stars, you need gum” right before you walk into the banquet. He insists I should thank him.
Actually. It`s me that would say ‘Oh my stars’- so maybe that wasn`t a literal quote about the gum. And now I`m confused as to which one of us would say that. It could be either. I am correcting this- or I might get a phone call from a stern, but fine lookin` PRINCIPAL this afternoon.
(Is it just me- or is it hard to find words for your husband when you think he is good looking, that are not cheesy or gross. For instance, here are a list of descriptive words that I think are awful: hot, sharp, dashing, handsome, dapper, spruced up, clean-cut, fine- pronounced faaaan, robust….)
Pressing on,
I tell Elle, “For crying out loud stop saying poopies to her, you know she doesn`t like it.”
They both grab my ladylike skirt pajama pants legs and chase eachother in circles, around and around my legs.
Elle is yelling, “I SAID MOOBIES, I SAID ROOBIES, I SAID POOBIES” (Anything that roughly rhymes with, but not is poopies.)
***
…Anyway, so that is my first rough draft for our circulating family Christmas newsletter this season.
Oh, bother.
Does it still need more work?
***
Then I will include this picture to show how much the girls LOVED taking our family pictures.
***
Our girls really can be the sweetest things ever- I just have to write posts like this sometimes, so when I brag freely on them later, you won`t think I`m completely delusional.
***
Well, I better go.
Now the girls are arguing about which one of them has a nicer mommy. I guess that would mean my grouchy side- warring with my sweet-as-sugar side. Go, Sugar!
