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"I'm sorry, Ma'am, but this is the fifth time we've been called here this month on charges of battery. I'm afraid we're going to have to take you in this time."

There's a Lot of Pressure Involved in Making a Diamond

Some days are diamonds, some days are coal. Smashed up, tiny bits of coal scattered throughout the house, ground in carpets, streaking walls, and smudged on faces, peppering hair. Okay, most days are coal, but some days I am able to pull off the SuperMom act and turn them into into diamond days. Those are the days when Jeff is able to come home at ten at night to a house that shows no evidence of the day’s events.

He doesn’t see the purple Scooby-Doo toothpaste smeared all over the bathroom counter and caulked into the door moulding. The soggy Froot Loops cemented on the sides of the breakfast table. Rectangular paint outlines on the table. The remains of a piece of paper cut down with safety scissors into its original 50 million molecules. The 100+ ballpoint X’s Hannah has drawn on her legs, belly, and lower back (???) in an effort to emulate her beautiful Fairytopia dolls.

He doesn’t know about The Great Toy Migration. When toys migrate, they do it en masse. Then they spread out, staking their claims to the farthest reaches of the house. Some venture outside to the Frontier. The smaller ones often don’t survive. They either become lost in the Jungle or are trampled out on the Great Plains.

Thanks to the foam padding covering their new T-ball bat, he won’t see the evidence on Hannah’s forehead of a bat being intentionally thrown at her head. Of course, Chris explained to me that he warned her it was heading her way as it was mid-air. I was not aware that there is an “it’s okay if I tell her it’s about to bean her” disclaimer. The more I think about it, the more I think he may just be trying to collect on the tooth she owes him.

On the diamond days, you’d never know that the boys can’t hit the inside of the toilet bowl with 100% accuracy. That Hannah’s hair has ever seen a single tangle. That somebody snuck ketchup into the playroom.

On the diamond days, not only have I showered, but my legs are not “spiky,” and I may even have on make-up. Instead of hidden by a bandana, my hair has been blown dry into a semblance of a style. These are the days I feel like an IncredibLee.

But there are some days I look around, and feel IncreduLous. Some days, rhinestones will do just fine.

Finger Painting

Children love to color. They love to paint. They love to create. I had long since learned my lesson to buy washable paints and washable markers.

Hannah, at times, is a girly girl. And girly girls love to have painted fingernails. Girls like Mao like to paint their own fingernails. Brothers see this and want to paint, too.

So I bought some clear fingernail polish that they could all paint their nails with. (OH God, flashback to when I was pregnant with the twins and asked Jeff to paint my toenails because I could no longer reach -- the tears, the misery... and I was pretty upset, too!)

So we thought nothing of it when the children had their washable markers and wanted to "paint" our finger- and toenails with them. They're washable, right? It'll come off in the shower!

WRONG. They'll wash out of clothes, no problem. I got lucky, because I had had a clear gloss manicure earlier in the day, and the "washable" marker wiped right off of my nails. Jeff, however, had to go to work, managing his 70+ employees sporting hot pink fingernails.

It fits right in with his fondness for the Lifetime Network. Heh.

The Story of Mao

If you have read a few of my stories here, you have noticed that I often refer to my daughter as “Mao.” She was dubbed “Mao Tse Hannah” a couple of years ago, when she was around one and a half. She had become quite a talker. Her two older brothers adored her, and she knew it. She took that unfaltering devotion to her and seized its power. Hannah, on a whim, would get right up in the boys’ faces, jabbing her finger toward them, shouting out decrees in her toddlerese with such ardent resolve that she looked and sounded like some kind of angry Chinese dictator.

Now, you would think that after more than a year’s practice at speech she would lose that title. But she has retained the name Mao not because she sounds like him anymore, but because she is able to strike fear into our hearts that we will fall into disfavor with her. At any given moment, over the smallest of things.

If she does something as ordinary as asking for a cup of “milky” (oh, sure, she lulls you into a false sense of security by calling it by a cutesy name), Jeff and I nervously look at each other, determining who will bring it to her. Sometimes she makes it easy on us by addressing us directly with her request. But this – we’re flying blind. I take the milk to her, and it is as I feared. “NOOOOO!!!! I want Daddy to bring it!!!!” She will not accept that milk from me under any circumstances. I take the cup back to Daddy.

Or I bring her the milk, but I don’t deliver it in the proper fashion. I hand it to her, she wants it on the table. I put it on the table, she wants it on the floor. I put it on the floor, she wants Daddy to bring it. Dance, Monkey, dance!

The dreaded potty experience. “I’M FINISHED!” Who goes? Who does she want? Oh, God, the suspense! Toilet paper or baby wipe? Do I see her or not see her? Do I stay to help with redressing, or does she want “a privacy?” Stay by the door but not see her? Go away? JUST TELL ME!!!

Most fathers worry about when the day comes their daughter will date. Jeff doesn’t worry. He reassured me, “If somebody picked her up, I guarantee you he’d have her back in fifteen minutes with his deepest sympathies.”

Please don’t misunderstand – we try to do all the right things, ignoring tantrums, not rewarding bad behavior, praising good behavior… but we are, after all, restaurant people with a restaurant mentality. She simply wants things the way she wants them. And she tips very well.

Bee All That You Can Bee

Spring has sproinged. The weather is beautiful, the back yard is now cleared of leaves so that we can see the dirt growing, the flowers are blooming, and the bees are buzzing.

The bees. The bees out here are HUGE. Like hummingbirds. Okay, hummingbirds aren’t huge, but you see a bumblebee the size of a hummingbird, you say, “Holy Moly Guacamole! That’s one HUGE bumblebee!”

The boys began the day frightened of the bees. Running away from them. Holing themselves up in their teeny-tiny “fortress” in the back yard, pressing a pretend button to repel the bees. Slowly, gradually, they grew braver. Calling out the bees, then retreating to their fortress.

Now? Now my children are Bee Hunters. Digging through their toy boxes to build up an arsenal, they fill their Scooby-Doo lunch boxes with such necessary ammunition as empty plastic Easter eggs, jacks, the Little Mermaid’s tail, Lego’s, a ball point pen, Cinderella’s wedding dress, a plastic frog and snake, Malibu Barbie’s bikini top, and an inch-and-a-half tall plastic horse show trophy.

“We’re going to catch him in this,” Chris says, holding up the plastic Easter egg, “and put this in there,” he added, pointing out the oversized yellow jack.

“Yeah!” I responded enthusiastically. “Then you can shake it up!” Okay, I shouldn’t have said that.

“We don’t want to kill the bee. We only want to hurt him. Then we will keep him in this cage to be our pet,” said John. This is actually progress. More on that some other time.

I raised an eyebrow. This is my favorite facial expression, second only to eye rolling. “Let me get this straight. You want to catch a bee, hurt him so that he is angry with you, and then keep him as a pet? You want a bee with a personal vendetta against you as a pet?”

“Well, we’re never going to let him out.” Reason #48 why we are never getting another kitten.

This little adventure kept them entertained until nightfall, and now they return to me smudge-faced, dirty-kneed and tired, but thankfully, free of stings.

I wonder if this is how Steve Irwin started out?

He's Got the "Beat"

Recently, I have been doing more sewing than.... well, than I have ever done in my life. Chris' pajama pants, John's Spider-Man pants, the occasional (okay, ONE) button on Jeff's work shirt. As Jeff and I were discussing grocery lists, John came and sat on the floor between us, snuggling his "beat" against his cheek. His beat is his security blanket, a gift upon his birth from his Great Aunt and Uncle. The twins each received one with their name and year of birth embroidered on them. Chris got a teddy bear beat, John got a rocking horse beat.

They loved their beats so much, they dragged them with them everywhere they went. It wasn't long before they began to show signs of all this love, and needed mending. In time, I had sewn so many tears on their blankets, I started calling them the "FrankenBeats." This past year, my needle could not keep up with the tough love administered by the boys.



Back to John. Having grown accustomed to seeing Mom with needle and thread, he offered up his beat for repairs.

I grimaced at the Herculean chore proposed. "Oh, Honey, that has so many tears, I could never fix it."
Helpfully, John suggested, "You can work on it every day until midnight until it's done."
"Do you know how many years it would take me to fix that beat?"
"How many?" he asked.
"Ooohhh..... at least five. Probably more. A lot more," I said, hoping to dissuade him.
John thought for a moment. "How many years do you have left to live?" Always thinking ahead, that one.
"About sixty."
"So you can fix it!"
"In sixty years?"
Pensive look. "Uh huh."
"Well, John, in sixty years, you'll be sixty-five years old. Do you think you'll still want your beat?"

"Well, then can you finish fixing my Spider-Man pants?"

I don't have the heart to tell him he has already outgrown those pants.

Our First Loose Tooth!

It was very exciting! Chris came to me with a confused look on his face, mouth open, decapitated chocolate Easter Bunny in hand. Chris had the very first loose tooth in our house! And it wasn't caused by rough-housing! My little boy is really growing up. He wiggled it for me, and I gushed how proud and excited I was. His twin brother, John, was not as excited. In fact, he was quite put out that he didn't get the first loose tooth. After all, he is bigger, and older by that whopping seven minutes. Daddy smoothed things over by letting John in on a secret -- John didn't get a loose tooth yet because his teeth are stronger.

There were long, involved discussions about the Tooth Fairy, and how obviously she is in cahoots with the Easter Bunny. She was running low on teeth, and told the Bunny to deliver a special chocolate bunny to Chris so she could rebuild her reserves. What happened to the teeth she had, I don't know. Maybe she lost them in a game of Texas Hold 'Em.



Well, now we were faced with a small dilemma: Chris' loose tooth was sore, and it hurt to eat. "Soup with nothing in it" (chicken broth) worked for lunch, but didn't hold its appeal. Snuggling a sad Chris, I suggested that milkshakes were the way to go. This was a winner, but now they all wanted milkshakes. Lacking enough ice cream, I gave the go-ahead to just get them from McDonald's. At this, John perked up his ears and asked for ten hamburgers (?!) and Hannah chimed in "Popeyes!" which is Mao for french fries. Sigh. Whatever, it's a special occasion. Go ahead.

Turns out that this poor little boy, who couldn't even manage to eat linguini, was able to fortify himself with french fries quite contentedly.



Fast forward to this morning. Chris was disappointed to wake up with his loose tooth still in place, but half a minute of wiggling it with his tongue produced satisfactory results. It's out! (Sorry the picture is so blurry.) An hour or so later, Chris called to me from his bedroom. I walked in to find him laying on his bed.

"Mommy, will you pretend to be the Tooth Fairy?" He wanted to practice going to bed with the tooth under his pillow. I obliged, because I needed the practice, too. I think I did well, because as I was sneaking out of his room, he said "Now you have to put the quarter under my pillow." Smooooth!


Room for Improvement

I was told recently that I should increase the size of my font to make it easier to read. Is this better? Weigh in, if you have a minute. Big font, or medium font?

Thanks!