Spit and Vinegar

Is the expression really piss and vinegar? Well whatever it is, my daughter is full of it sometimes.

Emily, my second child, is full of sass. She puts up with nothing, as her older brother tries to muscle her around. One of her favorite expressions is "Go Away (sometimes followed by mama, much to my delight)." She alternates this fun phrase with "Leave me ALONE." Often she says one of these while swinging her arm to knock over whoever is invading her space. And she growls it with this mean, raspy voice that you wouldn't imagine could come out of such a cute little thing. My little spitfire is not playing and will not be pushed around.

So here is an example of how her little feisty personality came out today...

One of my friends in my mom's group commented that Emily had such cute little sandals on.

And not knowing how to take the compliment my sweet 23 month old, yells (in her gruff, mean voice, of course), "NO!! EMILY'S SHOES!"

"Don't worry, Emily. I won't take your shoes." said the friend.

I am sure that Emily was saying "Go away" in her head, but I coerced her to sweetly say "Thank You" instead.

I have been trying to teach her that it is not ok to say "Go away" all of the time. And sometimes during these lessons, she whispers it to me.

What a stinker!

Future Ambitions

This week, Lucas shared some of his aspirations with me.

"When I grow up, I want to be an acrobat, a ballerina and a dentist."

Lately we play acrobats on a daily basis, rolling around on the floor, trying to stand on our heads, balancing him up in the air on my feet, etc. Ballerina??? We do have a ballerina puzzle. And dentist?? He does like to brush his teeth (and wants to do it all by himself, though I rarely let him and I always follow up with the paste myself, just to be sure).

Today he added a new one to the list after we toured a local fire station with my mom's group. As a side note: It was an amazing field trip as one of the mom's in the group got her husband, fireman Dennis, to give us the grand tour. We saw their bedroom, kitchen, big screen TV, got to ride in the truck and spray the hose, hold their various tools, the kids even got "Fire Chief" helmets. My kids, especially Lucas, were in heaven. Even Emily got a turn with the hose. So fun...

I was talking about our memorable day at dinner and Lucas then added that he wanted to be a fireman someday. Actually earlier in the day he had said that when he was bigger he was going to go into the fire station and say "Can I drive the firetruck? Yes or No?" He makes me smile.

Another thing that made me chuckle was when we asked Emily at the table what she wanted to be when she grows up and she said emphatically, "Spiderman" with a straight, serious face.

Trials (and Joys) of Motherhood

We've had a busy morning. I had to take Lucas into the Pediatrician because he had blood in his stool yesterday (the third time that I have noticed it this summer). He checked him out and decided to have a stomach X-ray done. I had to wait for hours in the office with two wiggly kids and then had to get my 3-year-old to lie still by himself on a table to get a tummy X-ray. This is very scary stuff, but Lucas surprised me by being super brave. He is really growing up!

After all of that, it turns out that my boy is constipated. The doc could see the evidence in the X-ray. Just as I suspected all along, my kid is full of #$%*;-).

After a lovely anniversary picnic with Daddy, we had to stop by the store and pick up all kinds of food assistance (prunes, apricots, pineapple). Later I have to go back and pick up a couple of prescriptions for him, too.

I also need to get one for Emily, whose diaper rash yesterday was so bad her diaper had blood in it. I had her wear underwear for most of the day and even let her walk around with a bare bottom for awhile. It was like we were potty training. And it was a long day full of accidents and messes. She even pooped on the carpeting when she was bare. It wasn't solid either which made it especially fun to clean up.

When I got home today, I called my friend, Becky, who is sitting for us tonight so that we can go out and celebrate 8 years of marriage. She had just come home from the Emergency Room with her daughter who is Emily's age to remove a Lego that she had shoved up her nose. Sheesh. "We just got back from stomach X-rays."

It is never easy to be a mom (what an idiot I was, when I thought that it would be!!). But when they hug and cuddle you and tell you that they love you, it makes it all the day's challenges and troubles melt away. And when I see their angelic, content faces sleeping serenely, there is nothing in the world that I would rather be than their mama. Nothing harder, but nothing better!

Reading Maniac

I have had an insatiable appetite for books lately. In the past month or so, I have read the following:

• A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
• Into the Wild
• Tuesdays with Morrie
• World Without End
• Authentic Parenting in a Postmodern Culture (this has been read on and off for a few months)
• The Bible (though not the whole thing in a month;-)

They were all most excellent, though World Without End by Ken Follett was the hardest to put down. And by far the longest. It was over 1000 pages and I finished it in a week and a day. That meant that I spent almost all of my free time with my nose in it's pages, stayed up entirely too late every night and fought harder than usual to stay awake every day. It was an exciting epic tale of corruption in the church, gay nuns and monks, cathedrals, knights, outlaws, the plague, love and loss in 14th century England. It was also the sequal to Pillars of the Earth which I read a few years ago when Lucas was a baby. WOW!

It is time for me to take a reading sabbatical for at least a few days anyway. I need to clean the house, talk to my husband and feed the kids again. Seriously, I sat down the other day with them and read while they played in the sandbox and later watched Bambi.

Any good book suggestions once my reading fast is through??

Vacation Highlights