Leave it to a four-year-old to bring the celebration to screeching halt

This is my totally awesome sister-in-law Amy and her boyfriend Eric:

Aren't they completely adorable? Amy is the nicest person you will ever meet and keeps me sane by taking the girls for outings and overnights and just generally rocking in countless ways. If anyone deserves her it's Eric, a kind, patient soul who already handles my in-laws better than I often do. Amy got a diamond ring from Eric last weekend. She called Saturday evening to tell us the news and when I screamed in excitement the girls were understandably curious.

"Aunt Amy is getting married!" I explained, still on the phone with Amy.
"Will she be a bride?" Anna asked.
"Yes!"
"Will she wear a veil?" Rachel asked.
"Maybe, if she wants to."
"What will she name the baby?" asked Anna.
"WHOA!" came the reply from the phone.

I'm pretty sure Ariel never said that

Rachel is extremely committed to her play. This means that when she is in character we must call her by her fictional name and she often creates different voices to go along with her scenes. One of her favorite places to play is the bathtub and lately every single bath brings the announcement that "I am Ariel, Mommy." All I can do is play along as she explains that it's bedtime and lays down in the water, feet crossed to form her tail.

Her Ariel voice is high-pitched and very breathy. "Look at my tail Mommy," she breathes. "Isn't it beautiful?" I assure her (again) that it is indeed a beautiful green tail. "See my bra Mommy? It's purple. It's a shell bra, isn't it pretty?" Well she is certainly into the details lately. Yes, it's a pretty purple shell bra. "See my boobies Mommy? Don't my boobies look beautiful in the purple bra?"

The look on my face makes Anna laugh and I hide behind a towel before proclaiming bath time over.

Coming clean

Years ago when I was in middle school my family drove from our home in Ohio to my grandparent's house in New York in a rented van. It was a disastrous 12+ hour drive filled with pretty much every automotive disaster you could dream up. At one point going full speed on the Pennsylvania Turnpike the window next to my brother's seat came loose and with reflexes I still today do not understand, he caught it and ended up hanging out the window of the crappy van clinging to the pane.

The story of course became family legend and was repeated by us all, each recounting it from our individual perspectives. He was just sitting there! And the window just came loose! And he grabbed it right out of midair! We would praise my brother's quick movements in one breath and curse the van in the next. Flash forward fifteen or so years and my brother is sitting through another retelling of the story. Out of nowhere he mentions that right before it came loose he had been messing with the little pop-up release thing that opened the window. We all turned and stared at him. "I thought you knew that," he says innocently.

*********

This evening Dan and Anna sat on the couch chatting while Rachel bounced around the room apparently annoying her big sister. Whatever those actions were they led to a conversation about being naughty and telling the truth. Dan asked Anna if she'd ever lied and she very candidly told him yes. When prodded for details she admitted that one time she told me she'd finished her sandwich when in fact she'd thrown it behind the red chair. Dan and I looked at each other and then back at Anna. "Is it still there?" he asked her. She nodded and watched me as I crossed the room and pulled the chair away from the wall. There on the floor was half a slice of muenster cheese and a sandwich bun.

What camera settings work best for fossilized food?

This is so totally THEM

Out of nowhere Anna asks me if she's old enough to start cutting things with knives. I think about if for a second, consider a scenario where she uses a butter knife to cut a soft piece of food and decide that she is probably ready to try that. I announce my decision to a stunned Anna and secretly enjoy her surprise. Of course being four-and-a-half she had to ask me over and over again, really? Really she could try to cut food with a knife, really? Could she? Because she's old enough? She's four-and-a-half so she can try to cut food with a knife? Really?

Rachel watches this scene passively, thumb in mouth, blankey clutched in her right hand, big brown eyes taking it all in. Meanwhile, Anna continues her questioning. This knife situation, is it going to take place in the next few minutes or shall we wait for an actual scheduled meal? What about that ice cream you mentioned, does that require a knife? I finally get her to understand that we should just wait for the next time the need for a knife arises and she agrees to stop forcing the situation.

Rachel pops her thumb out of her mouth and stretches casually over the pillows on the couch. "Mommy? Am I old enough to use a knife?" I smile sympathetically and break the news that she is not. Next to her Anna gloats. "Wah! When I am four-and-a-half can I try to use a knife?" "Yes," I tell her. She pauses, then smiles brightly and claps her hands. "YEAY!"

Sometimes you just have to find the joy in the small things

Today was a rare day with nothing on our schedules. Swimming lessons are over for the week, a tentative play date did not happen and we had a nice relaxing day together. The girls were in a good mood and we all laughed a lot. So to spread the joy, here are a few examples of how my children made me smile today.

Thanks to Daddy the girls experienced their very first Pop Tart. There was chocolate involved. I'm not sure they will ever be the same.

They made me lift them up on my feet so they could pretend they were swimming through the air.

They told each other they looked "stylish," which is apparently Anna's new favorite word (I blame Fancy Nancy).

When our awesome next door neighbor stopped by with a plate of chocolate chip cookies Anna grabbed two. Before I could reprimand her, she headed straight for her sister and gave her one.

Anna fell asleep and didn't even wake up when I vacuumed right by her head.

During said nap Rachel kept wandering over to her big sister and kissing her cheek.

They played catch with each other with a big pink ball.

Rachel fell asleep on the couch in her undies.


I hope everyone has a great weekend.

Is that a threat?

I was assembling the ingredients to make dinner when my sister called and as I foolishly tried to begin an adult conversation Rachel expressed her desire to assist in the preparations. Specifically, she began shouting, "I want to help!" I assured her that she'd get a chance to help if she'd just let me get everything ready first. That did not seem to calm her, as evidenced by the fact that she continued to repeat, "I want to help, Mommy! I want to heeellllllp!" I tried to ignore her as I raided my spice cabinet but she only increased in volume. "I want to HELP!"

Finally she changed course. "Mommy. There are going to be tears in a minute!"

Bye bye ballet

As I've written about previously we are in the thick of summer activity season and along the way we are all learning some important lessons. Lessons about preschooler confidence and ego, about letting go as a mother even when you don't realize you were holding on, about knowing when enough is enough.

This last one came crashing down on us last Wednesday in a frustrating scene of music and tears at ballet class. I will be the first to admit - not proudly - that I was the most frustrated of the bunch. But Anna got upset within the first 10 seconds of class, which set Rachel off and once they cried loudly enough to have to leave the room they flatly refused to go back in. When it became apparent that I wanted this class for them more than they wanted it for themselves Dan and I made the decision to just leave. I was embarrassed to have gotten so crazy about it and I realized that my emotions were likely to taint their view of the whole experience. I felt horribly guilty for the rest of the day.

The next day when things had calmed down I talked to the girls. Rachel wanted to continue with ballet but only if Anna would be in the class. But when I told Anna that we could just not do ballet at all, she got such a relieved smile on her face that her view was perfectly clear. It was nice to come to a decision together like that and Anna was visibly happy that she had a say in the matter. We celebrated by using my mother's new Y membership and going swimming.