Mess of the Day

I made the mistake of taking a shower while the twins were loose. What they didn't leave on their bedroom floor, they walked down and dumped on the bathroom floor. Their dresser was completely empty.

Sometimes I wonder, do I really need to take showers? Is it really worth it?

The Red Eye

Elizabeth's school has automatic flushing toilets. I'm sure in the long run this is a good idea, since kids are notorious for not flushing. For certain members of my family, the automatic flushing toilets in an elementary school are simply the Worst Idea Ever.

At the end of the first day of kindergarten, I received an email from Elizabeth's teacher. She said that Elizabeth was afraid of the toilet there and refused to go in, even with a sticky note on the sensor.

The next day of school I got a babysitter for my other 3 kids and took Elizabeth to school. We walked inside the building and dropped off her coat and backpack in her classroom. Then we entered the Forbidding Realm of the Red Eye.

I tried to show Elizabeth how to cover the red sensor with a piece of toilet paper, and then it wouldn't flush while she was sitting down. She flatly refused to even get near the toilet. We said a little prayer, I offered to hold her hand, I told her I knew she was a big girl and could do this, etc.

She wasn't having it. Anything to do with that toilet was bad.

I asked her why. Her reason? The red light was an eye and someone was watching her. Even with the toilet paper over it, she just knew someone was watching her bum. Like our video recorder at home.

That IS creepy. If that were the case, I wouldn't get near it either.

We talked about it some more, how it was absolutely NOT recording her, and it wasn't so big that she would fall in, etc. etc. She is very imaginative when it comes to reasons to not use the toilet.

I finally had to pick Elizabeth up and put her on the toilet. And it didn't eat her up or anything. The deed done, we walked back to her classroom. I hoped that once she used the toilet, with the bribe of ice cream when she came home, would do the trick and maybe she could move on.

Unfortunately, no. I got another email from her teacher saying she hadn't gone again that day. The following day, the same thing. But the following day I got an email saying that her teacher had asked Elizabeth's preschool teacher to take Elizabeth during to the restroom during her break. Poor woman, but oh so sweet of her. That went on for a couple of days, while I encouraged Elizabeth from this end that if she could go alone, there would be brownies.

Finally one day this week, Elizabeth got off her bus and yelled for the whole neighborhood to hear, "Mom! I went potty in the electric toilet ALL BY MYSELF! Can I have a brownie?"

You bet, Elizabeth.

Just Like Emma

The best thing about being the oldest sister in our family? You have three willing sisters to dress up however you want in your clothes.

Kick Him When He's Down

Once again, we needed milk. It only takes 15 minutes on average to drive to Safeway, buy the milk and make it back home. Ryan offered to take that quick trip to Safeway, while I finished the end of the day clean up.

Ryan got in our minivan, started it up and noticed one of the head lights was out. He drove it a block or two, but turned around. It's a holiday weekend, and surely there are "emphasis patrols" out and about.

He got into his truck and started it up. His truck, which hasn't sounded right for a couple of days now, sounded just awful. Ryan's description of the engine noise was, "rough" and "clanking." So, he hopped back in the minivan. Certainly he could make it.

Fast forward two minutes. Ryan is now in the Safeway parking with flashing lights parked next to him.

"Do you know why you were pulled over?"

"I have a good guess. How come?"

"Your headlight is out."

"Don't forget my front right turn signal. It's out too."

Ryan was given a warning for both lights, and was let to go buy milk. He got back into the van, pulled out of the parking lot and headed back up the hill to our house. That's when the OTHER headlight burned out. In front of another police car.

Enter the second set of flashing lights.

"Sir, do you know why you were pulled over?"

"Yep."

"Why did you turn off your headlights?"

"Well, uh... I didn't turn off the headlights. I had two headlights earlier today. The first burned out on the way to get milk for my kids. And I was pulled over not 10 minutes ago to tell me the fact. The second one burned out just now as I was driving home. The only thing that make this better would be for a chicken to hop out of my car and you could write me a ticket for poultry at large. I suggest you don't follow me home, because at the rate of deterioration, my back wheels are liable to fall off and hit you."

Ryan did make it home with my van in one piece. And he's scheduled to replace all those lights tomorrow after work.

Imitation

Little ones love to imitate. Annie and Maddie were helping me fold laundry that I was trying to get done this morning. I wanted to get through the couple loads of laundry as quickly as possible.

Annie and Maddie also were pulling clothes out of the laundry basket. They would grab an item of clothing, shake it out a couple of times, wad it into a ball and stack it willy-nilly on the floor. When they were done with it, I would grab it myself, fold it nicely and put it in the appropriate stack.

Not to be outdone, Annie and Maddie grabbed my carefully stacked clothes, shook it, wad it up and set it down again.

When finally that game was finished, I started grabbing stacks and putting them into the correct dresser drawers. Partway through, the phone rang. As I was talking on the phone to Elizabeth's principal about yesterday's bus problem (story for another day), I watched the twins destroy the folded laundry. At first, they would grab stacks of clothes and walk them down the hall to drop them on the floor somewhere. Then they decided to stack all the left over clothes on top of one another until we had a big mountain.

When I hung up the phone, I was wondering why I had even tried to fold the laundry while the twins were awake. It's not as if it stays folded in the kids drawers anyway.

Dinner for the Diaper Crew

We had dinner with a couple other families tonight. It was funny to see how alike our tastes were in boosters.

The Big 2nd Grader

It finally arrived. The first day of 2nd grade. Emma was so excited/worried/obsessing over her first day of school/new teacher/who is going to be in her class/worried that mom wouldn't wake her up in time/etc. that she had a rough time going to sleep last night.

Elizabeth, on the other hand, was a little less than ecstatic this morning: Her kindergarten class won't start for two days. Can you tell?

Emma went with a non-character backpack this year. My 7-year-old is suddenly too big for such juvenile accoutrements.

Seriously, how old do I look?

Tonight we attended the start of the year staff party for the high school. And once again, my age (or lack of looking like it) came up in conversation. And not once, but twice.

The first was when I met Ryan's new principal for the first time. He examined our brood (for they were all there eating hot dogs), asked their ages, how long we've been married and then asked my age too.

To be fair, Dr. S asked Ryan's age as well.

Later, some of the high school aged kids brought up how youthful I looked. Ryan thought it was a good time to bring up the following story.

6 years ago was Ryan's first year teaching, and no one had really met me yet. One day after school I was walking down the school hall with Ryan, holding his hand and watching an 18-month-old Emma running down the halls. Mr. Shearer (another teacher) saw us and did a double take.

"It's ok," Ryan quipped. "She doesn't attend school here. She goes to Zillah High School." (That's another school about 20 minutes from here.)

And we kept walking.

I turned to Ryan and asked, "Are you going to tell him you're joking??"

"Nah. I'll tell him tomorrow."

Everyone laughed at Ryan's story. I just squirmed while they evaluated how not-old I look. One or two of those high school kids thought I looked their age. I look at them and think they look like babies.

So..... I look like a baby too? Sigh.

For (N)ever and Always

Today is our wedding anniversary. I was thinking about how my life is now, versus how I'd imagined it would be 9 years ago. (Wow, 9 years ago, right?) And you know what? It's exactly like I'd imagined.

There are never shoes on the couch. We always eat balanced meals.

My floors are always clean.

I always take a shower every day.

My kitchen tools are never borrowed for other purposes.

The laundry never stacks up.

The car is always picked up, and full of gas.

My kids are always clean. No snot anywhere to be seen.

My kids never leave food on their plates.

I am never so tired that I'm not sure how I'm going to get through the day.

My angel children are always happy.

They never run around without pants.

They are always "gentle" and "soft" and "kind" to each other.

They always have good fashion sense, and/or let me pick out their clothing.

I am never driven to eat any chocolate I have on hand, since there are no insanely long and awful days.

On anniversaries, babysitters never cancel.

I never have to share dates with the other women in my husband's life.

Our dates are always romantic.

With really good food.

And there is ALWAYS chocolate cake. (Thanks Ryan!)

It's a good thing life turned out the way I always thought it would. I wouldn't trade it for any other.

Bubbles

Last night we had an "away" Family Home Evening. We all went to the city pool for some swim time. Mid-way through swim time, Emma looks at me and says, "Mom, it tickles!"

I looked around for pestering sisters, or anything that could cause an outburst like that. Was there some random kid getting fresh with my daughter? But no, and I was at a loss. "What tickles, sweetie?"

"When I 'toot,' it tickles my back!" Emma giggled.

Honey, girls should never, ever 'fess up to something like that.