Double Trouble

I'm very VERY lucky to have 2 little girls who play together for hours. They are the best of friends, and despite the once-an-hour-spat that I have to break up, they will seriously play together in their room all morning long. Recently, however, we found that there is a downside to best-friend-sissies... and it's called teamwork.

Layla is a very obedient, sensitive little girl (despite the recent talking-back phase) so she obeys the rules because she doesn't want to get in trouble. What she DOESN'T mind, however, is when Paisley gets in trouble... so Layla has become the (other) little devil on Paisley's shoulder. Layla plans the operation, Paisley carries it out, and then Layla blames it on Paisley. It would be a perfect scam if she didn't have 2 semi-intelligent parents who figured out exactly what was going on. Here are some examples from the last week or so:

I walk out of my room when I realize it's been quiet for far too long. I find both girls sitting on the floor, sharing a leftover cup of Sonic ice cream that's been hijacked from the freezer. Paisley looks up and says "Hi Mommy." then returns to eating her ice cream. (Being in trouble has never phased her much) Layla, on the other hand, panicks at being caught, and shouts "Paisley got it out of the freezer! And look what she did to my (ice-cream-covered) hands!" Now I have no doubt that it WAS Paisley who got it out of the freezer, but I'm thinking she was not responsible for sticking her sister's hands in the cup and forcing her to eat some. Just a guess.

The next day, I saw Layla whisper in Paisley's ear, and then Paisley went directly to the freezer and opened it. I said, "What are you doing?!? Stay out of the freezer!" to which Layla replied "We're just getting ice for our water." Okay, plausible, and I would have believed her if she wasn't contradicted a second later by her little sister who said, "No, we-o yooking fo mo ice cweam!" My oldest little angel is now blatantly lying to stay out of trouble!

Yesterday, they were coloring at the kitchen table, but when the incessant chatter stopped for a full 5 minutes, I knew they had moved on to more devious activities. As I got up to investigate, Layla ran into my room (with a sticky face and strawberry breath) and said, "Mommy, come quick! Paisley got into the cereal bars!" I find Paisley still hiding under the kitchen table, surrounded by 4 perfectly opened, empty wrappers. Strange, because Paisley can't open cereal bar wrappers by herself. Stranger still, that Layla had waited until the precise moment that every last cereal bar was gone to come tattle. Then there was, of course, the strawberry cereal bar all over Layla's face, and the fact that even Paisley can't down 4 bars in less than 4 minutes.

These daughters of mine are getting to be a regular Bonnie and Clyde. Well, you know, if Bonnie and Clyde had been a little less murderous and a little more hungry for sweets.

Nature or Nurture?

So, I'm a list-maker. A completely obsessive one. I'm not sure that they actually help me stay more organized, but that's the idea. On my desk right now are at least 6 different lists, from what I need to make the girls' Halloween costumes to the chores I need to get done this week. I know it would be more helpful if I had a planner, or if I kept all of my endles lists online, but then I wouldn't have the satisfaction of crossing things off by hand...so I continue to kill trees to satisfy my own mania.

Yesterday I found out that either Layla has been watching my list-making frenzy, or she's inherited some of my crazy genes and can't help herself. She was in my room, supposedly napping, and when I came in to check her I found that she had hijacked my pen and wrote herself "lists" completely covering 5 sheets of paper. I especially like how she mimicked my disorganization... main list in the middle, smaller lists that I forgot earlier running down the sides and top, and then the circling and "relocation" of things that I ended up putting in the wrong spot or didn't have time for. That's my girl. :)

Whew, now that I got this done I get to cross off "blog about Layla's list" and move on to the next thing. :)

Nom Nom Nom

We always joke about Paisley's ever-present wedgie... so naturally we decided to draw a face on her bootie and take pictures. I don't see that we had any other choice.

Let's see, time for some random Mac girl memories over the last several weeks...

Layla has started calling herself "Yay-yuh" when referring to herself around Paisley or any other small child. "Yay-yuh will get you a drink... do you want water?" You know, like I call myself Mommy. I think she's old enough to move out and get her own place now.

Paisley pronounces the word "fancy" as "dancy"... as in, "Yook mommy, that pwetty dwess is so dancy!" Fairly appropriate actually.

The other (particularly stressful) day, after I was apparently being impatient with my children, Paisley lined up her stuffed animals and was lecturing them, "No whining! That's not nice! If yo whining you need to go to bed! It's yate! Go wite to bed and I'll see you in the mowning. No hitting yo sis-toe! You hafto shay-o yo toys!" At least I always have instant feedback on how I'm doing as a mother.

From Layla a few weeks ago; "I can't wait to be a mommy, so when I grow up I'm going to look for a boy..." (she pauses and looks at me--apparently I look like an emotional pregnant basketcase) "But... we don't have to talk about that right now."

Oh, and earlier that day Layla has been asking me about each kind of animal and whether it laid eggs like a chicken or had babies like mommy. (this pregnancy has been quite educational for her) After the zillionth animal she asked about, she concluded "So... it seems like animals that have fur have their babies like people, and animals without fur lay eggs." Sometimes she's so smart it's scary.

I'll end with a quote from me: "We don't put beetles in our panties." While this is one of those truths which I held to be self-evident, it wasn't at the time. Well, it sort of was, in that WE did not put beetles in our panties. In the long, long list of things I never thought I'd say... that one ranks near the top.

Random cute things my kids have done lately...

Time goes to warp speed when you're a parent, and I've let way too many adorable sayings go by without writing them down. Anything not etched in stone is bound to get lost in the meandering maze of my mommy-brain, so, alliteration aside, here a few of the things I haven't forgotten yet.

Paisley and Layla both called bananas "mee-maws" when they were little...Paisley has now switched to calling them "ba-mee-maws"

Paisley has started fixing her L's, which is heartbreaking. She now, with obvious effort, calls her sister Layla instead of "Yay-yuh" :(

Both girls are absolutely obsessed with their baby brother (or "baby bru-dough Thatch-oh" as Paisley calls him) They love hugging and kissing my belly, playing with his diapers and tiny clothes, and asking lots of questions about him. Layla is really excited to see him be born, and after countless youtube videos of women giving birth at home, she's all prepped for the big day.

Both girls are ABSOLUTELY OBSESSED with books. They wake up around 6:30-7:00, but they don't get up until around 7:30. Until then I can hear Paisley "reading" in her bed over the monitor. It probably adds up to 3 hours a day of reading, sometimes more. Luckily for me most of that is on their own...there are only so many times I can read the same book without going insane. (which must be completely baffling to them-- the more the better!)

Today when I got out of the shower Paisley informed me that I had a nice bootie and boobies. Apparently someone has been spending too much time around Daddy. This was refreshing after the many, many less...uh, positive remarks about my birthday suit. (wow, you have a big bootie mommy!, mommy, you look weird!, ha ha, I see yo boobies!) Motherhood can be hard on one's self-esteem. After Paisley's encouragement, both girls started following me around asking lots of detailed questions, which led to some speed-dressing on my part.

I have many more to add, but it's hard to remember the sweet, adorable things your children have done recently when they're fighting and arguing while whining and begging for lunch. I'll add more...eventually.


*New quote from Layla*
"Mommy, you won't have to take care of baby brother-- we'll do that. You will have to milk him though, because our boobs aren't big enough."

She also informed me that when she gets older she will be marrying Josh (Clark)...though that was only after I explained to her that she couldn't marry her cousin Brayden. Sorry Josh, second choice is still pretty good.. :)

Sometimes I wish my daughter wasn't so smart (or curious)...

I always said I'd be completely open with my kids...if they were old enough to ask, I would tell them whatever they wanted to know. Little did I know my first child would be ridiculously intelligent with an insatiable need to understand EVERYTHING in her world.

Sometimes it was just a little uncomfortable for me, like when she asked about periods at 2 1/2 in a public bathroom. No big deal, but I wasn't exactly prepared with a speech. We covered the basics, and I explained what tampons were and why mommy needed them sometimes. (and no, mommy wasn't putting them in her bootie-- can you please use your quiet voice?!?)

Sometimes I was proud of her thirst for knowledge, like when she wanted to know how babies got out of tummys at age 3. It would have probably scared the wits out of a ten year old, but at 3 she just said, "Oh, they come out of va-jay-jays. I wondered how they came out." Though of course it didn't end there, because she has to think through everything until it makes perfect sense to her, so she came back a minute later and asked if it hurt the baby to come out that way. Did it hurt the mommy? Was there blood? How does the baby eat and drink while it's inside? How does it breathe? ...I was impressed with her reasoning, and not uncomfortable with the subject matter so we talked all about it-- she's probably more informed on the matter than most pre-teens are.

Which lead a few months later with a subject that made me break my own rule of "if they're old enough to ask..." How babies are made. I gave the generic answer, that it takes a mommy and a daddy. Of course that wasn't enough for her, and she asked, "But HOW?" So I told her that Daddy had a seed and Mommy had an egg, and when they were put together a baby was made. (Again, I didn't have a speech prepared about sex for my three year old.) Still not happy with the answer, she asked, "WHERE are the seed and egg?" Uh....In Mommy and Daddy's bodies. (not done yet) "Well how does Daddy get his seed to Mommy's egg?"...which is where I cut it off and broke my rule. I told her that we'd talk more about it when she got a little older. I was actually fine with going the whole nine yards, but I didn't really want her telling all of her friends things they didn't need to know and probably had never thought about. Yikes.

Lately her inquisitive mind has brought us both to tears... like when she heard that sea turtles live longer than humans. She thought about that for a while, and then asked how long humans lived. I told her about 100 years. She said, "You mean I'm going to die?" (tears begin here-- for both of us) I tried to tell her that she had a LONG LONG time before she needed to think about that, which made her realize that I was older than her, which made her ask if I was going to die. Ugh. I felt a huge temptation to tell her no, that we would both live forever and our lives would be filled with candy and puppies and laughter... but she's too smart to fall for that, and I don't want to shield her from life, I just want to hold her while she finds out the bad things. Well that's a lie. At that moment I very much wanted to shield her, but I didn't. I told her that all people die, but they live a LONG LONG time, and they get to be babies, then kids, then teenagers, then mommies, then grandmas, then great-grandmas.... and we agreed that she could start worrying about people dying when she turned 40. Unfortunately I'm sure she'll hear soon about a child or mommy dying, and we'll have to talk about that... but the fact that people die at all was enough sadness for one day.

Which brings us to our most recent conversation (about an hour ago), where she, at almost 4, figured out that not all mommies and daddies stay married to each other. It began out of the blue-- I think Shrek was on in the car, but obviously her little mind was somewhere else. "Mommy, Papa is your Dad and Grammy is your mom, right?" I told her of course, she's known that for years. "But who is Grammy's husband?" she asked. I told her she knew who Grammy's husband was, but I could already see where she was going with this. "Well, Grandpa Dennis is Grammy's husband, but shouldn't Papa be? Grandpa Dennis isn't your dad." she told me. I took a moment deciding how to procede with this... I really have no excuse for not having thoughts prepared on every subject matter imaginable by now-- I should know she's going to ask, but somehow she keeps catching me unprepared. I decided she'll know kids with divorced parents soon enough, so I might as well tell her. I told her that Grammy and Papa were married, and they had Aunt Fifi and me, but then they decided they didn't want to be married anymore, so they got a divorce. Lots of years later, Grammy married Grandpa Dennis. I told her that some married people didn't stay married forever, then I reassured her that mommy and daddy loved each other very,very much and we would always be married. She asked, "You mean we'll always be a family?" (thanks to pregnancy I'm tearing up at this point) and I told her "Mommy PROMISES. I will always love your daddy, and we will always be a family. Mommy and Daddy are never, EVER getting a divorce." To which she replied, "Oh, okay." and happily began singing along with Shrek. I'm glad she recovered so well, but I need a nap. :)

I'm obviously a committed blogger.

My second-to-last post was about my daughter turning three...and in 3 months she'll be four. I definitely need to get on the ball here. How about a quick overview of the past 6-8 months? I'll assume you just said, "Why yes, please! Fill us in!" :) Okay, since you asked... Layla turned 3, the girls became playmates (yay!), we got pregnant and miscarried :( , we went to San Fran for Christmas and had a great time with Jacob's family and the Hacketts, we came back and got pregnant again (woo-hoo!-- EDD is Oct. 7th), Paisley grew up (seriously-- it was like overnight. She started talking in sentences, listening to her parents, stopped getting in trouble, learned her colors/shapes/letters/numbers...I think she was just ready to be a big sister).... I think those are all of the highlights. Coming soon: Paisley turns 2, Mommy turns 28, Angie graduates highschool, and Layla turns 4!

Okay, now that we're all caught up, I'm going to try to blog once a week. Ha.

Are you kidding me child?

So I'm sitting next to Layla watching cartoons in the family room, and I realize Paisley has been awfully quiet in the kitchen. Though that usually spells trouble, I am not concerned. I have installed child safety locks on every kitchen cabinet, locked the water and ice dispenser, and put door knob locks on all downstairs doors. I've even bought trash cans that were too tall for her to reach into, and that have lids that are wedged under the first pantry shelf so she can't remove them. I am not concerned. And then I see a small fuzzy head peep up into my line of sight OVER the kitchen bar, and hear a squeal of pure delight. She has just scaled a chair, pulled herself from the chair onto our pub-height table, and is now dancing with glee. Luckily, she doesn't fall off before I can grab her. Even luckier, my camera is handy. If we make it to 2 before we visit the emergency room, it will be a miracle.