Lessons in Motherhood

When I picked up Hailey from school for the first time, I noticed a very interesting phenomena. There are pictures all over the door and the room of kids engaged in multiple activities. I noticed that the pictures are disproportionately of Hailey. Now, maybe I’m just biased, and this inequity is a figment of my imagination, but I don’t think so. I suppose that as a researcher I could count the number of pictures and then figure out the percent that are of Hailey versus the other kids in the class, but do we really need to go there? Take my word for it. There are a lot of pictures of her. Now, it might be that it’s because she’s just so darn cute, but I have a different theory. It’s because she’s the only one in the class who is consistently doing what she is told. Yup. That’s my theory. She’s actually doing the activities the right way, and thus they put up her picture as a model student. See, I’m not biased.

It’s back to school day here in Atlanta. Here’s Hailey getting ready to go to pre-K and the Romulan to her new classroom.

When I asked Hailey about her first day of school she said, “It was awesome.” What a pre-k thing to say.

This is a long blog to get to a simple point – As of today, the new tally in number of ER visits due to injury or accident:

Sophia 1 – Hailey 0

Now, before you panic and skip to the end of the blog to see if she’s alive, I will tell you that Sophia is ok – temporarily disfigured, but completely ok.

So, this whole thing started on Thursday, when Sophia showed me that she knew how to go down the stairs.  I didn’t teach her to go down stairs.  I had tried to teach her to go down backwards because that is the safest way, but of course, she wanted nothing to do with that because her sister goes down forwards, I go down forwards, so why on Earth would she go down backwards.  Totally not cool, Mom.  So, she took it upon herself to learn how to do the butt slide then step technique.  Here she is showing off her skills.  (You’ll notice that she only has one shoe on. There’s a perfectly good explanation for that – it’s just how she rolls.)

So, just after this video was taken, she had successfully made it down the entire flight of stairs.  The whole flight – no injuries.  Not even five minutes later, she was running around the dining room (on a totally flat surface with both shoes on) when she tripped and slid face first into the corner of the dining room table leg.  She ended up with a huge bruise in a straight line on her forehead.  I decided to take her to the coffee shop to get some ice cream, you know, for the pain.

While we were there she fell off the kids chair (while I was sitting right next to her) and whacked the back of her head on the concrete floor. OMG.  What is wrong with this kid???  Luckily, the kids chair was very low to the ground, and she was just fine.   Still, that was two potentially traumatic head injuries in one night – a record even for Fifi.

Cut to Sunday morning.  The whole family went to the Grant Park playground to have some outdoor time while it was still only hot and sticky as opposed to later when it’s oppressive and unbreathable.  We got there at about 9:15 and left at about 10:14 with a screaming child.

So, here’s how the whole thing went down.  Sophia played for about 10 minutes on the little kid play structure, but that was so not cool when her sister was on the big girl play structure.  Thus, she had to go on the big girl play structure which is about 8 feet tall.  

Now, I followed her like a hawk around that thing all morning long.  She was very careful, and I positioned myself at every point where she might tumble down.  She was having a grand time climbing up and going down one of the big slides.  She did that three or four times.  Then, apparently wanted to try something else.  She went towards the slide, and then decided to make a right and go down a few steps.  Unfortunately, she missed a step, tumbled down onto another landing, down on a final step, and then to the ground.  I didn’t see the beginning of the fall because I was already headed under the structure to get a better angle on her.  Luke saw her though, and knew that she had bounced, hitting her neck and side.  It was SCARY!  Like, I was shaking when I picked her up scary.  

Even though she seemed fine, we decided to take her to the ER just to be sure.  The doctors checked her out, and she was indeed fine.  However, there is one very unfortunate side effect…she looks like a Romulan.

Being an only child, I know relatively little about sibling dynamics. I was not at all prepared for the amount of quarreling that goes on between sisters. Or maybe I just thought that it wouldn’t happen until Sophia could talk. She’s certainly at a disadvantage since she can’t verbally argue with her sister, but what she lacks in vocabulary, she makes up for in VOLUME. There’s certainly never a question about what she wants.

So, I’ve taught Hailey the barter method of arbitrating disputes. That basically equates to distract and steal. Give Sophia something of equal or greater value, and she will put down what she has to take the other item. It works really well except when Hailey gets lazy and tries to trade her something like a block for a remote control. Yeah, that’s not going to work. Not now and not when you’re 16 and your sister wants to watch Project Runway while you want to watch So You Think You Can Dance.

Anyhow, the barter method is about the only thing that I’ve come up with and it’s probably only going to take us so far. If anyone has any other suggestions to help ease these battles let me know. I’m feeling bad for the neighbors who live on our street and probably hear a good dose of Sophia-style arguing (i.e. screaming at the top of her lungs) on a daily basis.

Even though this isn’t the most flattering picture of my backside since my ass looks like it’s roughly the size of China, it makes an important point which is – SOPHIA IS A BARNACLE!

Yes. You heard me right…BARNACLE. I can’t shake her. She learned the word “up” and now she exercises her right to constantly ask demand to be picked up.  It’s an ongoing struggle because I really want to hold her every minute of every day, but in reality I have dinner to cook, a house to clean, a job to go to, oh and that other kid to please.  I just can’t carry around a barnacle all day (even if she is the cutest darn barnacle that you’ve ever seen).

For Hailey’s fourth birthday, Grandpa Pete wrote her a special song. She can pretty much sing it by heart now. She would have listened to it 30 times in a row tonight if I hadn’t insisted on mixing it in with some of my favorites…can you say “All the Single Ladies?”

I think it’s better than half of the songs on the kids’ channel, but I am a bit biased.

Don’t tell Hailey I played it for you or we’ll have to listen to it another 30 times in a row! Actually, I’d listen to it 100 times in a row if it meant that Hailey would inherit that same musical talent. Clearly, it skips a generation.

Ok. Without further ado…

Hailey’s Song

Grandma put this skirt on Sophia today. I argued adamantly that this was Hailey’s skirt. Hailey has been wearing it all summer long. I probably have pictures of her in this skirt. Turns out, it’s a 12M size. Oops.

PS: This is precisely why little children should not wear white shirts!

Let me catch you up on what you missed…

I had a lovely 3 days by myself during which time I purchased all of the stuff for the party, searched for Anubis, cleaned the house, went out with a college friend, and enjoyed a work Happy Hour. All in all it was a relaxing few days, but I missed my family terribly.

Ok. On to the good stuff…we celebrated Hailey’s 4th birthday!!!! Yeah for Hailey. After 364 days of asking whether or not we are going to Leapin’ Lizards for her birthday, it was finally the day! She was so excited. Mommy, Grandma and GG woke up early and worked on her homemade castle cake. I know, you’re saying, “didn’t you learn your lesson last year?” Yes, yes I did. Luke was not “in charge” of the cake. Nope. I baked four cakes. Luke cut them all to size, GG frosted them, and Grandma did all of the piping. It was a team effort.

Hailey and all of the kids had an awesome time at Leapin’ Lizard.

Even Sophia had a good time on the toddler jumper.

Someone was a bit tired after the party.

But not too tired to open presents.

I am taking a brief vacation from the blog while the girls are staying with Grandma in Virginia. I thought that I would get lots of writing done while I was by myself in the house, but turns out that I’m having more fun having fun. Never fear…Hailey’s birthday is Friday. She will be home, and there will be pictures. We’ll be back in the swing of things next week. Try not to miss me too much.

I caught a cat last night. Just not my cat. At least I know I can catch stuff. I feel like I’m living in the wild west or something.