Lessons in Motherhood

One night a week or so ago, I sent this email to some colleagues from work.

11/2/2011
On a completely random note about the evening, I’m teaching myself a valuable life skill – hula hooping. Hailey is talking in a British accent and Sophia is learning to whistle by screaming in a high pitched voice.

It was a completely accurate reflection of what was happening in our backyard at the time.  It was one of those Mommy moments where you look around and think, “Wow, this is so not normal.  What on Earth is happening here?”

And yet, I loved that we were all learning different things (however strange they were) all at the same time.

I returned last night after having been away for 3 days. This morning Hailey said to me,

Hailey: “Mommy, I missed you so much. I love you. Sophia missed you too. It’s harder for her when you are away.”

Me: “Why is it harder for Sophia?”

Hailey: “Because she loves you more than me.”

File that under “Sorry I Asked.”

Sorry, friends. I’ve been a little bit of a slacker lately. I blame the fact that I’ve been at a work conference. Ugh. It’s exhausting. Three days at a conference and I’m exhausted. In fact, this whole experience is like running a damn marathon for someone who can barely walk to the corner.

Anyway, will it tide you over if I give you an adorable Hailey story?

Hailey: Mommy, I’m good at math.

Me: Of course you are. Mommy is good at math. Daddy’s good at moth. So, of course, you are good at math.

Hailey: No, that’s not why I’m good at math.

Me: Ok. Why are you good at math?

Hailey: Because I’m Italian.

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Bonus Story:

From the bathtub…

Hailey: Stop doing that (in whinest voice you can imagine)

Sophia: I not doing it

Hailey: Yes you are.

Sophia: I not doing anything.

Hailey: Yes you are. I can see you. I have eyes in the back of my head!

It’s finally happened. I committed the mortal mother sin of the century – I double booked play dates. I know. It’s crazy. And what is worse than double booking play dates? Having my husband (of all people in the world) be the one to point it out. Ugh.

I’m so disappointed with my organized self. Apparently, there was a major system fail here. I blame Outlook because when I tried to book the second play date, it didn’t even tell me that I was booking over another appointment.

In case you were wondering, yes, I do book play dates and family functions in my work Outlook. I do. It’s the only thing that keeps me sane, and I’m booking about 3 weeks out for play dates now. The earliest time I could rebook the one that was double booking was Nov. 19th. So, when you don’t hear from me for the next 4 weeks, it’s because I’m attending play dates and double-checking my booking system so that we have no more failures in the future!

Oh Halloween! So much fun for the kiddos. Grandma made Hailey’s costume this year, which was very special for Hailey. Of course, Sophia’s costume was a hand-me-down, but we couldn’t let her know that. So, before we pulled Hailey’s costume out from Grandma’s suitcase, I snuck Sophia’s costume in there too. That way everyone got something new and special.

What? Do you think that she’s going to read this later and feel less loved. Please. That child is snuggled and kissed so much (not to mention her barnacleness). She’ll survive.

Anyway, tonight was the big night. We have some better pictures, but you’ll have to survive with these for now because I’m tired.

Oh, and in case you were running out to buy Finding Nemo to see if the fish wears a crown; he doesn’t. Sophia just couldn’t be without one after Hailey put hers on. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t stay up so half the time she was walking around with a tiara-shaped visor. It’s no wonder that her white tights have some soiled knees from all the times she fell. That’s ok. It was the first and probably the last time that she’ll wear tights.

There’s nothing that I like on my birthday more than being woken up at 5am. That’s just my favorite thing. Who wouldn’t want to be woken up by slamming doors at 5am on any morning? The fact that it was my birthday was just a bonus really.

Yes. It was the littlest monster who got up at 5am to go to the bathroom. Unfortunately, she cannot go to the bathroom with out taking all of her stuffed animals off of her bed and moving them to the floor outside of the door. Why? I don’t have any idea. But this is a very long process that involves a lot of climbing into the bed, jumping off the bed, slamming doors, dropping toilet seats down, etc. My bedroom just happens to be right below all of this commotion.

So, you can see why I had to kick Luke out of bed at 5am to go put her back down. That seemed like a good plan at the time until I still heard a lot of noise at 5:40. That’s when I turned off my alarm and headed upstairs to take care of the situation. Oh yeah. I was not having any of that. I promptly, VERY PROMPTLY, put each of the girls in their own bed. Yes. They were both awake and playing on top of a sleeping Luke. I’m not going to have that. So, we all slept in until 7:40 when my phone started ringing (Thanks for the wake up call, Grandpa). I’m proud to say that Hailey’s first tardy ever came on my birthday. What a momentous occasion.

I was in meetings most of this morning, and when I got to my desk, I had the funniest voicemail from my husband. “Hi, honey. Ummm…It was picture day today at Sophia’s school. Did you tell me that and I forgot or did you just forget about that? I mean she doesn’t look bad. She’ll be cute, but not really dressed up.”

Oops. So, when she’s got yogurty hair, a dirty face, and jeans and a t-shirt on in your Christmas photo, you’ll know why. Big Mommy Fail.

For our 74 box tops, Hailey was able to get what she has appropriately named Sticky Frog. She said she bought almost everything in the store. Sticky Frog was all she bought.

Picture is NOT to scale (see quarter for a point of reference). Now I get the Box Top scam. When I’m enjoying my sixteenth can of Beef and Barley soup, I’ll be thinking of Sticky Frog. Live and learn.

As if I didn’t feel guilty enough about not living in Buffalo, then they have to go and be voted as the best city for working Moms. Go ahead Buffalonians, pile on the guilt.

Have we already established that I am a little crazy? And can we all agree that I clearly get that little bit of crazy from my Mother? No?!!? We haven’t confirmed all that yet. Well, let’s just get that detail worked out now, shall we?

I think I mentioned last week that it was box top drive time at Hailey’s school. In all of the literature that they send home, I learned that there’s something called a box top store. I don’t really know what this box top store is, but I’m imagining that they get a certain amount of money based on the number of box tops they bring in. Then, they can buy little crap that they’ll leave all over my house so that I’m constantly stepping on tiny toys. That may be a totally incorrect assumption because those damn box tops are only worth like 10 cents to the school. So, how on earth are the kids getting to buy stuff? I don’t know. I can’t quite figure out the economies of this box top system.

But someone has figured it out, and do you know who that is? It’s the brilliant marketers who came up wtih this scam. Oh yeah, this is quite the scam. I’m so crazy that I know it’s a scam, but I still printed out the list of products that have box tops. Then, I checked the newspaper ads to find out what was on sale. My personal rule was that I would not purchase anything that I would not normally use just to get box tops. Seemed like a logical rule.

Then, I sent my mother off to the store with my grocery list. Here’s where the whole thing goes totally awry because Mom realizes that some products have double or triple box tops. Can you believe the bargain?? I can just picture her like a crazy person searching through the cans of soup to find the ones that have double box tops. I swear that they only put those things on the nasty flavors. I’m sure I’ll be eating beef and barley soup for the rest of my life now.

But, seriously, after we added the ones that we bought to those that other people gave me we were up to 76 box tops. That’s like seven whole dollars for the school. And just think, it only cost me like $200 to donate that $7. What a deal!