Lessons in Motherhood

Hailey has a loose tooth. Well, let me be a little more accurate…Hailey has a tooth that will move ever so slightly if I take my finger and whack at it a little bit. Regardless, she believes that she has a loose tooth. In fact, she told Grandma, “I’ve just waited my whole life for a loose tooth.”

She runs around telling everyone about her tooth, but what do people do when a little blond girl says that she has a loose tooth? They ask her which tooth and can they see it? This presents a slight problem because she doesn’t actually know which tooth is loose without me testing them all and declaring which one is loose. I can’t even tell you off hand which one it is.

So, this has provided us with constant entertainment over the last few days. I guess that at some point it will be loose, and then fall out. I’ll probably have some type of emotional breakdown when that happens. I suppose that I’ll just enjoy the entertainment in the meantime.

Can I put my Mommy bragging hat on for one second? Ok. Don’t mind if I do. Hailey and Sophia have awesome vocabularies. It’s true. Hailey comes out with some SAT words every once and a while; when she uses them right, I can almost see the scholarship money coming right off of her college savings bottom line.

Now, here’s the big but…that’s but, not butt. Don’t get confused. But…Hailey has no sense of time. She uses lengths of time and words associated with time in completely inappropriate ways constantly. It’s hysterical. She often says things like…

Everyday on Tuesdays at school we go to gym somedays.

I am so tired because I was outside for 20 hours today.

Sometimes everyday my friends don’t wear their coats outside.

Huh? It can be hard sometimes to even understand what she’s trying to say because she gets the words all garbled up. She can’t tell time yet either, but she can read (kinda). She’s actually getting pretty good with the reading. The writing is ok, but the spelling is atrocious. Eh. It’s only kindergarten.

What is with all of these babies? Everyone that I know is either pregnant or just had a baby. There are three (yes, three) people pregnant in my company, and we only have about 40 employees. Plus, my step sister just had a beautiful baby girl in France. A friend of mine had a baby last month, and my roommate from college is due in a few days. Babies, babies, babies.

So now you are wondering if I’m getting the baby fever? Is my biological clock tick, tick, ticking? Am I getting the baby itch? NOPE!

Ok, maybe a super tiny bit. Wait. Did I just write that? Crap. Don’t read that part. Because now you all are going to be asking me when we are going for number 3, and the honest answer is that we’re not. I think there’s just always a piece of me that wonders what another baby would be like. I mean look at the first two!!! Could they be any more different? Would the third one have red hair? Be a boy? Be like Fifi or like Hailey? Who knows. We’ll likely never know, and I’m really ok with that.

I don’t know if you know this, but having a baby is a huge pain in the ass. Yeah, it’s true. I would have to carry that thing around in my belly for 9 whole months plus probably a few extra weeks because my kids have tardiness issues. Then, you have to go through that messy process of having the kid, and let’s not go into much detail on that nastiness. Oh, then there’s the sleepless nights and the constant feedings which comes complete with a whole lot of pain and suffering for Mommy. Tack onto all of that another 18 years of worry, whining and wickedness. It’s a wonder any of us do this at all. There. Talked myself right out of that tiny inkling. I feel better now.

I wouldn’t trade this time with the girls when they are little for anything. They are so adorable, snuggly, and funny at their respective ages. Are you waiting for the “but”? Here it comes…

BUT, I’m also enjoying sitting and reading a book, which is something that I very rarely get to do when Sophia’s around. It’s not that she tells me that I can’t read books (although I’m sure that she would if she had thought of it). It’s just that she still needs a lot of attention, which means that it’s hard to get anything done around the house when she’s around. Which means that all of those house chores have to wait until she goes to bed. Which means that I’m so burned out by the time I’m done with all of the house chores that I just collapse onto the couch completely spent from my day.

Well, maybe it’s not all her fault. Maybe it’s just that I work a full time job which I’ve been on vacation from for 4 days. So, I have a burst of energy on my one day back.

Anyway, I’d like to say that I am actually enjoying the Steve Jobs biography much more than I thought I would. I’m not into biographies much, nor am I particularly into Steve Jobs. We all know that I’ve even cursed him a few times on this blog (which in retrospect seems in poor taste). Regardless, the book is really interesting. He was a strange and complex character with a really amazing story. So, I’m on page 267 or 567 pages. I wonder if I can finish before Sophia gets back since I’m blaming her for my general lack of reading time.

She seems to be having an amazing time at the beach being completely spoiled by Grandma and Papa Harry. I can’t even imagine how demanding she’s going to be when she gets back. Grandma likes to brag that she hasn’t even been in time out once. Uh huh. I want to say, “then you’re doing it wrong.” Clearly there will be much work to be done when she gets back so I suppose I better go and finish that book soon.

My little munchkin is off on a great adventure this week. Grandma and Papa Harry have taken my little Sophia to Florida with them for the whole week. They left last Friday and won’t return until this Friday, and I have to say that it’s very strange without Sophia here. I come home from the grocery store, and there’s no one with a big, happy smile welcoming me. Also, it’s quiet…really, really quiet.

So, I’ll try to get back into the groove of writing more often. There’s lots to do today, but then I think we’ll be back into the normal routine of life. Then, Sophia will come home and the whole thing will be thrown off

We had a wonderful Christmas this year. Although I have to admit that Christmas is so different than it was when I was a little girl. I remember spending Christmas Eve with my Dad’s family and Christmas Day with my Mom’s family. You don’t realize when you’re young how awesome it is to be with family. Then, you grow up and have a family of your own. Now, I have a little snuggly family of 4 (well 6 if you count the cat and dog). I love my little family and our new Christmas traditions.

I kind of have a lack of pictures for this post, but I promise to add them. So, go with the flow…Ok?

So, Christmas Eve is going to be our give unto others day. This Christmas Eve Hailey and I worked on tying little notes of good tiddings onto candy canes for the children at the Children’s Hospital. We dropped them off together at the Hospital, and the guy at the front desk was so sweet. It was very heart wrenching because there was a Dad with his suitcase moving into the hospital right before we walked up. That really put the holiday in perspective for me.

That was Christmas Eve before dinner. Christmas Eve right before bed we decided to give Sophia some new pajamas and Hailey her pillow pet. Sophia was super cranky that night, and was very mean about taking the pajamas that her sister. So, we ended up giving Hailey her pillow pet, but putting Fifi to bed without a gift…bah humbug!!!!

Ok. More on Christmas Day tomorrow.

It’s a wonderful time of year. Christmas tree is up; Christmas cookies are baked and distributed; Christmas cards are mailed; Christmas gifts are purchased (except for the ones that Luke will undoubtedly run out and buy me on Christmas Eve). I’d say we’re in good shape. All except for one more thing on the to do list – get rid of Sophia’s binkies.

We’ve been threatening to take her binkies for a long long time. We’ve been working up to the day that the Binky Fairy will come to take them away to give them to the babies who need them (as if Sophia has any sense of charity in her body at this age). Sometime’s she’s ok with this idea, but most times she’s not. Tonight the conversation went like this:

Luke: Sophia, it’s almost Christmas, and I think that the Binky Fairy is going to come to take your binkies away.
Sophia: To give them to the babies?
Luke: Yes.
Sophia: No. I don’t want to.
Hailey: If you give them to the babies, then you’ll be like a community helper.
Luke: Something like that.
Sophia: I not a community helper.

So, she has no binky tonight, but we’re letting her sister sleep in her room with her. I’m sitting on the couch about 10 feet from the door to their room, and I can hear them whisper in a screaming voice (if you can imagine what that sounds like). I’m hoping that maybe she will just forget about the binky because they are too busy keeping each other awake. Wait. Somehow I don’t think this is working out in my favor either.

This is what I heard from the backseat on the way home from school on Friday:

“Mommy did you know that boys protect girls.”

Say what???? Where did she learn such a ridiculous thing…ummm… Disney?

Me: “Let’s just back that train up a minute. Why would you say such a thing?”

Hailey: “Well boys know how to fight and girls don’t so boys protect girls.”

Mommy feels a flash of her worst feminist nightmare erupting in her brain.

Me: “Not all boys know how to fight, Hailey. And not all girls don’t know how to fight. There are lots of girls that fight better than boys.”

Hailey: “Well, I need to learn to fight.”

Crap. This is not going in the right direction.

Me: “Hailey, it’s really not good to fight, but I’ll admit that sometimes you have to fight. But girls can fight just like boys.”

Hailey: “Ok. So, girls can protect boys, and boys can protect girls.”

Oh, thank God. Now we are getting somewhere!

On Tuesday of this week, Luke had a bad day….a really bad day. I don’t have permission to post the story here, but let’s just say that in involved multiple MARTA mishaps, an unplanned trip to Walmart, a crazy cab driver, and the police. So, piece that story together!

Anyway, one of the things that he said when he got home was “this day can’t get any worse.” I didn’t think anything of it at the time because it’s a standard colloquialism. However, the next few days, Hailey started using that phrase in both real and make believe situations. It was kind of cute.

Then, I had the gas thing happen on Wednesday, and I thought to myself “this week can’t get any worse.” The gas was restored on Thursday after they had to send two separate guys to the house.

I thought I was in the clear Thursday night when I slept in our warm house, except that at 2am Sophia came downstairs with a tummy ache. She was writhing in pain. I thought she was going to throw up so I laid her down in the bathroom. She was all curled up on some towels with a giant blanket on her. I made myself a bed on the other side of the toilet so that I could rub her back. That’s where we stayed for about and hour and half. Her head on one side of the toilet and my head on the other side of the toilet. It was really quite sweet, although totally uncomfortable!

Anyway, I don’t think that she was sick. I think that she was constipated. We hadn’t eaten as well as we normally due because of all of the craziness in the days before. Of course, she hated the prune juice I tried to give her. Now, it’s 9:30pm, and I’m totally ready for bed. I just can’t help thinking “this week can’t get any worse.”

If you read the last post about my gas being cut off, you are probably wondering if I’m wrapped in a blanket, sitting in front of an electric heater. Well, the answer is NO.

At about 4:30am on the night when we had no gas, I woke up with a single idea in my brain. How many payments did I make to the wrong account number. Turns out, that I paid that supposedly overdue bill 3 times. Not only was I not delinquent, but I actually should have had a ridiculously large credit on my account. Basically, the gas company just kept taking my money on a closed account, but on the open account thought I was delinquent. Then, without warning (and I checked to be sure that there were no phone calls), they turned off my guess. WTF?

Anyway, I never went back to sleep that night because I was planning, plotting, practicing all of the arguments and horrible things I could say when 8:00am rolled around and the gas company offices opened. Turned out that I didn’t really need any of those arguments. When the woman on the phone found my old account, I had a $300 credit. She knew that they were in BIG BIG trouble. So, she immediately grabbed her supervisor who called me back with this plan:

1) Reconnect gas today
2) Write me a check for all over payments
3) Pay my bill for this month
4) Cut my cost per therm in half for 12 months

It was a good plan. Yes, I was still pissed. Royally, royally pissed, but people make mistakes. They made it right with me. It doesn’t help all of the other people who have their gas shut off and don’t have the resources to solve the problem. I’ll be making a donation this holiday season in their honor.