“MOM!  I think the cat barfed on my floor.  Or maybe it’s meat.  I don’t know!”  - Celia (it was a leaf from a strawberry….which is good because our cats almost never barf, and the unexplained appearance of meat in her room would have freaked us all out)

“Do you want bows in your hair?  This is a hair fixin’ party.  I’m going to give you hair like a princess.  I’m going to fix everyone’s hair like something they like.  I’m going to fix Jordan’s hair like Link (from Zelda).  I’m going to fix Daddy’s hair like Epcot because he likes Epcot.  So I’m going to make his hair round and puffy like Epcot.” - Celia

“Why is there a BUTT on the wall?!?!?!” Two seperate occassions, once Celia, once a friend’s daughters, asking about some of the artwork at so.zo.  Said painting has hung on the wall pretty much since so.zo opened three years ago, I know that at Celia has seen it at least a hundred times and never questioned it.  But twice in two days the very (demure, modern art, almost cartoonesque) butt in the painting has insulted little girls!  I explained that it was so show everyone that was the BATHROOM….which is where butts go, after all!

(written to the tune Rehab.  if it keeps snowing, then I might have to cut a video version of it next week to preserve my own sanity. i think i need to go out and buy more eyeliner first…..)

They try to make me go to school today but I say ‘No, no no’.
Forecast looks black, my mom’s gonna crack ’cause of snow, snow snow
I can’t say I mind, snow days are just fine
They try to make me go to school today but I won’t go, go go.

I’d rather stay at home and play
Ain’t been to school, in so many days
But there’s nothin’, nothin’ you can teach me
That I can’t learn playin’ wii all day……

I’m missin’ a lot of class
Teachers thinking, state tests we won’t pass

They try to make me go to school today but I say ‘No, no no’.
Forecast looks black, my mom’s gonna crack ’cause of snow, snow snow
I can’t say I mind, snow days are just fine
They try to make me go to school but I won’t go, go go.

Weatherman say more snow is comin’ here
I think, I saw Dad wipe a tear
Mom is gonna, gonna lose her mind
If I get snow on the floor one more time

I think snow days are the best
Build an igloo, throw some snowballs, sled ride for the rest…..

They try to make me go to school today but I say ‘No, no no’.
Forecast looks black, my mom’s gonna crack because of snow, snow snow

I don’t ever wanna go again
Though I’d like…oooh, to see my friends
And I’m not gonna lose my summer
Just to make up these days of fun

It’s not for all time
It’s just ’till this snow has dried

They try to make me go to school today but I say ‘No, no no’.
Forecast looks black, my mom’s gonna crack ’cause of snow, snow snow
I can’t say I mind, snow days are just fine
They try to make me go to school but I won’t go, go go.

Celia is paying the price today for being a ‘princess’.

In my mind, ‘princess’ is not a good thing for a little girl to be.  Pampered and spoiled, with no responsibility.  That’s not the kind of little girl I’d like to raise.

Our current battle is over the mess in the family room.  I cleaned it after we got home from our little new years vacation.  I deep cleaned and organized it in my first of the year big declutter.  I cleaned it AGAIN after it was immediately trashed.

I’m not doing it again.  She’s 5.  She’s well able to follow directions and clean that room up.  She knows she’s not to just randomly trash areas of the house as she pleases.  We’re not even talking about playing with toys then leaving them our.  We’re talking dumping things our of areas, cutting up piles of paper into itty bitty bits and scattering them.  Just complete senseless mayhem.

Threatening to take the toys away does not bother her.  She doesn’t care.  She knows that she’s got two loving grandmas that will always buy her toys…plus, if all her toys are gone, then she’ll just play with everyone else’s cool stuff. My craft stuff, kitchen stuff, food, jordan’s stuff, the dog’s toys, whatever.

So I’m making her clean it today.  I know that she can do it.  In less than 20 minutes, if she’d just get to it and get it done.

Because what she REALLY wants to do is go outside and build an igloo.  Jordan is going to be going out and building an igloo, and she REALLY wants to go.  And the big bad mommy is not letting her go until the family room and her bedroom have everything picked up.

YOU DON’T LOVE ME ANYMORE!

Yes.  Yes I do.  I love you so much that I want for you to be a responsible person and clean up your toys.  Get to it.

I’M GONNA MISS THE IGLOO.  I’M GONNA MIIIIIIIIISSSSS ITTTTTTTT!

Yes.  Yes, you are going to miss the igloo if you don’t clean.  I suggest you stop fussing and clean.

I WANT MY DAAAAAAADDDDDDDDYYYYYYYY!

That’s a bummer.  He’s at work.

At this point I tell her I’m turning my ears off, and shut my bedroom door.  She’s just doing it for attention, any kind of attention at all will do.  So I’m turning it off.

MY ARMS ARE TOO TIRED!

MAAAAAAAMEEEEEEEEE!  I MISS YOU TOO MUCH TO FINISH IT!!!

BUT MY SCARF GOES DOWNSTAIRS.  IT GOES DOWNSTAIRS!!!

I’M HOT.  I’M TOO HOT TO CLEAN!!

I HAVE TO PEE.  I. HAVE. TO. PEEEEEEEE!   (repeat this one every 15 minutes)

THIS IS HARD.  IT’S TOO HAAAAAAAAAARD.

If that’s not enough manipulation for you, try this one.  She comes to me, calm (because she knows I won’t even talk to her when she’s throwing a fit like that) and says “I think it’s done now.”  She knows I’m going to check it.  So I go up to check….and she hasn’t done much.  She doesn’t care though..the whole point of that exercise was just to get me up there, then CLING to me like she was drowning in a raging river, CLUTCHING me screaming “HELP ME MOMMY, HELP ME, PLEEEEEEEASE HELP ME.  YOU PICK IT UP, PLEEEEEEASE MOMMY!  YOU DO IT.”

I come back downstairs to hide while she rants and screams.  She gets quiet, cleans a little, comes back down to say it’s done.

I tell her that last time she was lying when she said that.  That if she lied to me again to make me come up there, that I would cancel the igloo building for today.

She screams and runs back upstairs to clean some more.

Stops to rant and howl from the top of the stairs.

Repeat THAT madness three or four times, and you’ll get to where we are now.

Me, in the bedroom, devouring comfort foods, hanging on to sanity by my broken fingernails.  Her, still upstairs screaming.

She’s been given half an hour to either get it done so she can go outside, or I’m calling it a day and we’re taking a nap.  Either way, I’m going to get what I want in half an hour.

Silence.

Best of intentions…funny how they can go wrong.

Jordan finally came down with the dreaded stomach bug that we all had gotten.  Like Celia, he was a real trooper through the whole thing.

When he finally got to feeling better the other evening, I sent him to shower and freshened up his room.  New sheets, a quick wipe down to kill any lingering germs, all that.

I wanted to get it done in a hurry, because you know after you’ve been SO sick, then you finally get in the shower…it feels great.  But you want to get right back in bed and go to sleep afterwards.  So i wanted to have everything done and ready for him by the time he got out of the shower.

After I got him all settled back in bed, I carried the laundry down and put it in the wash.  Our new machines are really amazing, and super quiet.  But all during the wash cycle I kept hearing something thumping around.  After about 20 minutes of thumping it occured to me that I did find the tv remote in Jordan’s bed…and his book….and took those things out….but I did NOT see or remove his DSi.

His brand new for Christmas DSi.  That was a gift from the grandparents.

I ran down there and looked in the window on the front of the washer, and sure enough, there was the DS.  Thumping and splashing around with the laundry.

The other thing about our new super fancy washing machine is that since it’s a front loader…once you start the cycle, the door locks.  You’re not getting anything in.  Or out.

I sat there and watched that super expensive and much treasured piece of technology swish around with the sheets and towels for 10 minutes before I could rescue it.

Once I managed to get it out….I spent half an hour using paper towels to wick water out of every crack and hole I could find in the thing.  Then (after much internet research) we placed it in a bag of rice in the hopes that would draw remaining moisture out of the system.

The only rice I had in the house (it was grocery shopping week) was from our well loved rice bags.  The ones that we heat over and over in the microwave.  The rice in them now resembled quinoa…but we figured it was really dry, which fit the bill.

After 4 days in the rice bag…there was still water behind one of the screens.  We decided it was pretty much a goner and it should be replaced.  Luckily, the grandparents stepped in and took him to Walmart to pick out a new one.

Now the DS is a science experiment.  I mean, it can’t get any MORE broken…so Chris is going to see if he can take it apart and fix it.  Step one is going to be immersing the thing in alcohol.  (Rubbing alcohol, not the drinking kind).  Then drying it again and seeing if that does anything.

If it’s possible for a little girl to be absolutely darling while sick…Celia was it.

We’ve been passing a tummy bug around the house.  Those always make me angry in the first place.  No matter how much you bleach your entire life down, now much you confine the sicko, how much you insist on everyone washing their hands……it still makes it way around.

Chris was down with it last weekend, and we had to cancel his birthday party.  I *thought* I had it….but I’d been thinking all week that I had something different…much more mild.

Then last night, Celia surprised us all (herself most of all) by getting sick.  She was such a trooper about it.  No tears or fits of fighting against it….and she carried the special ’snowflake bowl’ with her everywhere.  I mean, she would not lay that thing down.  She was very stressed out about the possibility of ‘getting anything’ even though we told her over and over that it happens….and that everything around here washes.  Needless to say, she didn’t have another miss for the rest of the night.  Even after she was well on the mend, she carried that bowl with her, just in case.

This is what happens to little girls that get up at 5am.

They pass out on the couch while everyone else is watching Wall-E.

For the past few years, I’ve been the head hair cutter and dog groomer around here.

For the most part, that doesn’t require much.  Chris asks for a trim every other month.  The kids whine and try to run when I decide they are looking TOO terribly shaggy and need a cut.  The dog endures my monthly sessions of moving all the fur from him to all over the back porch.

And every once in awhile, I sequester myself in the bathroom with some scissors and refuse to come out until I change my hair into something I like better than what it was before.

This time it’s a little different.  I got highlights this summer, for the first time ever.  Now I’m tired of them.  And feeling like I need some darker hair.

So I picked up some hair color at the store and forced Chris to help.

He doesn’t like doing new, unfamiliar things.  Especially permanent things.  On my head.  So this stresses him out.

He has to obsessively read the directions, fuss about exactly how to do it just right, and provide a running commentary the entire time about how he’s not sure he’s doing it right.

Sure, I could do it myself.  Millions of women do.  But my arms get tired being up there so long, and it’s just plain more fun this way.

About halfway through, while leaning over my head he says to me “Man, I’m breathing this stuff in and it’s making me high.  Plus I’ve had like…TWO beers.  Whoa.”

We’re total lightweights around here.

Anyway, I start laughing….and he says “stop moving around like that!  I don’t want to get any of this on your foreskin.”

I don’t even HAVE one of those.

Once babies start moving…you just can’t get them to sit still.

It starts to be a challenge to get photos of the cousins together now.

I have to carefully pose my kids….remind them to stay ready….we practiced with the dog some to get the shot framed right…

Then we try to plop the baby in the photo and catch it before he runs off!

Whoops, not quite!

Almost!

Run away baby!!

We did get a few cute ones. Not always what I had in mind, but cute none the less.

Then this set that I took while we were outside (of course! should have planned more shots that day…but we were just killing time trying to make it to nap and i figured he’d be fussy) that are shockingly good.