The Terrible Twos

When was the last time you had a conversation with a two year old?

Has it been awhile?

Do you need help remembering some of the reasons it’s called “The Terrible Twos?”

Let me help.

First off they lure you in with their cuteness and funny comments:

Clara kisses me on the cheek before bed.

Me: “You’re so sweet.”

Clara: “Yeah, Grandpa Moose love me.”

Once they’ve got you fully buttered up with their supreme cuteness, epic cleverness and general winning personality you may make the mistake of trying to talk to them on your own terms.

Me: “Clara!”

…

Me: “Clara do you want breakfast?”

…

Me: ” Clara!”

…

Me: “Clara are you hungry?”

…

This is the equivalent of a conversation with a brick wall.  But beware, the wall has ears and just as you throw up your hands to walk away that’s when they will pipe up with The Demand.

Clara: “ME WANT OOTMEAL!”

Me: “Please?”

Clara: “ME WANT OOTMEAL!……….Pease.”

Now, it would seem that an actual conversation may have been started… don’t be fooled.

Me: “Ok, I’ll make you oatmeal.”

Clara: “ME WANT CLARA OOTMEAL!”

Me: “Yup, Clara oatmeal,  I’m making it.”

Clara: “MOM, ME WANT OOTMEAL!”

Me: “Yes, I know, I’m making it, why don’t you go get a bowl.”

Clara: “NOOOO, ME WANT OOTMEAL!”

Me: “Don’t scream. I’m making your food right NOW!”

Clara: ” ME NEED OOTMEAL!”

… “Conversation” continues along this vein until oatmeal is procured.”

Clara: “Tanks, Mom.”

At this point you can either fall again for the cuteness factor brought on by the relief of the return of normal speaking tone and a modicum of politeness or try to gain relief by banging your head on an actual brick wall.

Neither will help you.

Welcome to the Terrible Twos.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Down

In the course of the week this photography challenge has given me a new philosophy.

Don’t look down!

Down is mud. Down is dirt on the floor. Down is whining kids on your leg. Down is Trip about to jump up with muddy paws. Down is Storm getting ready to make sawdust of a stick on your foot. Down is the stuff that I never put away, the toys the kids haven’t put away, the food the falls on the floor. Down is bad.

From now on I’m looking up. I’m looking over, I’m looking sideways, I’m looking out, I’m looking anywhere but straight down!

That’s where I find my husband, happy kids, running dogs, where I can almost see the yard for the mud, and where the dirt and mess on floor can be overlooked for a bit as I go about enjoying my day.

I’ll be working on keeping my chin up, literally, except for a few moments like this, when it pays to look down.

 

A Miracle of Motherhood

It’s said that motherhood is full of life changing miracles.

And it is, I know because as a kid I often woke up on the floor.

I fell out of bed in my sleep.

I also woke up upside down, sideways, tangled in blankets, without blankets, or huddling under a pillow because the blankets had disappeared from the bed or not followed me onto the floor. On camping trips my family would put me on the end of the tent next to my Dad to me to keep me in my corner.

I still woke up along everyone’s feet.

In fact it wasn’t until I got married that I finally ended up facing the right way every morning. Of course John and I plus a cat, and often a dog leaves very little room to wiggle much less thrash. (Did I mention we have a full sized bed, that Piper used to share with us? I was stuck!) While I have not woken up on the floor for many years neither have I manged to outgrow my tendency to thrash and move around all night stealing blankets in the process.

Enter motherhood.

Now I can lay down in bed next to an infant, do a lot of rustling to arrange us both just right, fall asleep and wake up hours (sometimes even four!) later in exactly the same position.

Exactly the same position.

I don’t even steal her blanket.

It’s a miracle of motherhood if I’ve ever heard one.

The Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson

Ugh!

Very, very rarely have I given up on a book and failed to finish it but I gave up on this one.

It got to be so that every time a different book came my way I’d throw this one in the corner and read the new one. I even hit a point in the book where it said that I’d be throwing the book in the corner, but I kept doing it anyway. Finally it came due at the library and I gave up and sent it back.

It was recommend to me, and I liked other books this person recommended and I’ve ever read other books by this author I have enjoyed but I just couldn’t do this one.

Has anyone read this book?

Is it worth going back to and finishing (I was about 3/4 of the way through)?

Would I recommend it? Not so much!

Weekly Photo Challenge: Regret

I have been thinking for awhile it would be fun to try one of the many, many, online weekly photo challenges. Just a way to have a little fun with my camera and improve my picture taking skills a bit.  This week I noticed that WordPress hosts a photo challenge so I thought I’d join in. Then I saw the theme of the week was “regret” and I thought I’d start on a week with something a bit easier. Regret, fortunately, isn’t something I have a lot of. Mud, frustration and insanity I’ve got in scads but I’m pretty good at having no regrets. But a challenge is a challenge so I’d been thinking about it this week.

Then today I finished the last of my fancy Valentines Day chocolate and I was very much regretting my inability to ration my chocolate and make it last.  Apparently I’m not without regrets after all but at least I had a subject!

At nap time today I took my brief alone time to set up my tiny photo shoot and in the five minutes I had before kids woke up crying, demanding sustenance and asking five million questions about my tulip and empty wrapper, I managed to play with settings on my camera I don’t normally use and remind myself of a few basic things.

Like backgrounds.

They should always be checked for unseemly dark blobs!

Monster Boots

You know how they say that when you’re getting little kids ready to go outside you spend longer dressing and undressing them than they stay outside?

In this case the infamous “they” are right.

So when I dressed Clara to go out and sled with Ivy and Grandma Mary and then realized that we managed to leave home with no footwear for her whatsoever, I sort of panicked.

Think Jessie, Think!

Lots of socks? No-Clara had no socks, Ivy didn’t have extra.

(Is now the time to mention I’m not great at packing for three girls plus me?)

Ivy’s shoes? Not along.

(Is now the time to mention that last time I forgot even more stuff?)

Random shoes from truck? Surprisingly there was no extra kid shoes in the truck.

(Is now the time to mention that at least we had diapers, my clothes and my wallet along?)

I checked Mom and Dad’s mudroom and found Mom’s old boots.

Perfect.

She could even walk:

Sort of…

(Is now the time to mention I got three kids and one dog to Pewaukee and back with out forgetting any of them? That’s something right?!?)

Home Again, Home Again

When Jane was born Tyler took Trip to stay with him until we had a handle on life with three kids.

So while John and I missed sleep, changed diapers and broke up fights we didn’t also have to clean up dog barf, walk dogs and attempt to teach Trip manners. The theory was that Trip would stay with Tyler and get to do lots of hunting until John and I figured out how to survive life with three girls. I’m not sure we’ve got the three kid thing down yet but I missed my puppy enough that I convinced John we’d be fine if he came back home. After almost two months of living with this as our only dog…

…I was really excited to see Tyler pull in the driveway over the weekend!

By the time Tyler was ready to go home we had noticed that Trip was a bit more mellow,  happily sleeping under the desk while he was in the house and it looked like things would be just fine.

Which was good because I had zero intention of letting Tyler take him back home again.

So, Tyler said goodbye to Trip (and us), and things went great, for about 4 hours.

Then Trip got stuck under the brooder house and John had to use a car jack to lift the house and get him out.

Good thing it’s a four hour drive to Tyler’s or John may have taken him back that night!

Winnie-the-Pooh

I learned something recently.

Disney messed it up.

Shocking isn’t it?

Before you start stoning me for slander let me be clear that I do like Disney’s Winnie-the-Pooh.  It is just that Eeyore is always so obnoxiously slow talking and all “woe is me” that I dodn’t even care what he is saying and Tigger… well Tigger is just a little odd.  Everyone else in the Hundred Acre wood is fairly grounded and then you have Tigger running around like an extra dumb, over excitable, dog chasing a tennis ball. I’ve never understood it.  Even when reading the original stories Disney s versions had taken up residence in my head and I never really shook them.

Then one day before a long car trip with the girls, we got The Hundred Acre wood on CD . And before I could tear my hair out because piglet was snorting between words Tigger showed up, and it all became clear.

Tigger is not an overactive, excited, lovable, dog.

Tigger is the disreputable drunk of the family come home. He even shows up in the middle of the night, attacks a table cloth and demands food. How could I never have noticed before?

Then for Ivy’s birthday she got both Winnie-The-Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner on CD, thankfully it was a different snort-less production that we had never heard before.

We did a lot of driving last week and listened to all four and a half hours of it and I learned something else.

I love Eeyore.

I thought I hated him, but that was back when I thought he was slow and gloomy. Change that slow and gloomy donkey into a pompous, know it all and Eeyore becomes an ass. Personally I thought the change was all for the better.

While I can understand Disney’s reluctance to have an ass and a friendly drunk roaming though the stories when you put them back it sure increases the amount of pleasure an adult gets out of listening.  Ivy doesn’t get the humor that comes with Eeyore, but I do!

Here is a link for the new CD’s with the wonderful reading of Eeyore.  Unfortunately I can’t figure out/find the reading with the great Tigger, but if I do I’ll be sure to post an update.

How about you, do you have a favorite kid and adult friendly music/audio book to share?

My personal favorite lines from The Hundred Acre Wood:

“We’ll see,” said Kanga.

“You’re always seeing, and nothing ever happens,” said Roo sadly.