I'm Back!

Alright, after some encouragement from friends who are sick of hearing from me on facebook (too bad!) I'm going to reopen this blog, though most of it will be repeats from my facebook.
Today's blog has been brought to you by the letter F!
For those who don't know me in real life, I have a mom who is, let's say, eccentric. I love her and she's otherwise great! But she has this bad habit of having a failing memory, a severe potty mouth (I had to get it from somewhere!), and a large and in charge temper that does not fear going to jail. She is staying with me for a little while and helping me out through a deployment. So now that you have a little back story, here's the ancedote;
I'm in the van and stopped at the gas station while mom runs in for beer. My little angels are plugged sweetly into James And The Giant Peach behind me and I'm enjoying the quiet and fiddling with the radio when I hear "It's their peach you fucking girls!" out of the Lillybeast. I think my mom is a bad influence on her, like she needs that!
She sees that I have heard her and immediately says "Oh, oops!" too late, I'm already getting out to get up close and personal with her. I give her a pop in the mouth and remind her that words like that out of her are unacceptable and she's going to have to learn that just because it's okay for adults doesn't mean it's okay for kids. 
This is the second time in a week I've had to do this.
The first time I was on my way to pick up my mom. On this road trip I'm enjoying my xm radio and have it set to comedy. The f word comes out and instead of changing it I leave it thinking "you know what? they are too sheltered and they have to learn that just because they've heard it doesn't mean they can say it" Nicole says "oooh, they just said a bad word" Lilly says "yeah! He said fuck!" goddammit. 

Disturbing Lilly

Today is Lilly's first day of summer vacation! Yay, she made it to the end of pre-k without getting kicked out, sent home, or referred to a child psychologist! It's a big accomplishment and I'm proud of her and I have hope that maybe all her Lillyness is in my head. 
Then she, in an entirely joking and funny way, came up to me and said "Mommy! If I run away you have to freaking kill yourself! Hahahaha!"
What in the what what?!? 
"Hey, Lilly. We don't ever joke about killing yourself. It isn't funny and that makes me sad"
"Well Nicole said that if I ever ran away she'd freaking kill herself and if she ever runs away I'll freaking kill myself! Hahaha!"
"Lilly, we don't joke about that, it isn't funny"
After that she wandered off to get dressed and when she came back and I was sure I could hold her attention I said it again: "Lilly, look at me. We don't ever joke about killing ourselves. It isn't funny and it makes me very very sad"
"Okay, mommy"
But who knows what she heard. Who knows?

Great Moments In Parenting...

Leaving out all my great mom moments of the past few weeks, let's concentrate on last night instead. As usual I'm busy trying to clean the place and as usual my sweet little demon spawns are busy undoing it all. First I get the boy off of his sister's bunk bed and kick the children out of their bedroom then go to the kitchen where I need to sweep and I find toys, yet again, strewn about my kitchen floor. "Girls! Pick this up! I'm trying to sweep. Where's your brother? Is your brother in your room again?!?" Lilly: "Yeah, he's on my bed" "What?!? Did you not just see me get him off of there and kick you out so he didn't get in?!? Why!?!" muttering expletives to myself as I go their room and hope, yet again, that he is still on the bed and not, you know, fallen to the floor, I grab him (safe as usual), shut the door, and go back to the kitchen where, you guessed it, the girls are dumping their toys again. I might have lost my shit. Might. So they hurry up and clean it and I, more calmly this time, explain again why toys need to stay to the flippen play room. Lilly then looks at me and says "Is that why we have a playroom? To keep our mess in?" Yes! For the love of god, yes! Have I not been explaining this very thing for the last two years we've lived here? But that is not what I say. Instead I say "Yes, Lilly. That is exactly what the playroom is for. Now give me a high five and take it that a way."


I also had a nice long talk with Nicole about her attitude and dance. For the last week it's been parent watch week at the studio and I've watched Nicole flub up things I know darn well she knows how to do and knows how to do well. But because other kids were struggling she seemed to think that was the in thing to do and being all giggly and saying silly things in an obvious attempt for attention. God that was frustrating. I spent nearly the whole damned time giving her dirty looks and motioning for her to pay attention. Yeah, I know, kids will be kids. What bothered me was her dumbing it down to fit in. Also it made me worried that I wasn't paying enough attention to her at home. Maybe I'm not. I didn't see other kids acting quite so silly for attention. Her teacher is a saint, I tell you what.
So we had the talk. The don't try so hard to fit in and never dumb yourself down talk. This has been a long time coming. I've been watching her pretend to struggle with math and I'm sure it's because at school her friends don't like math. Once I get her past the complaining, she does her math perfectly, but the whole time she bitches about how hard it is and how she doesn't know how to do it. When her friends come over I hear them talk about how hard school is and how much they hate cleaning and, suddenly, Nicole doesn't know how to clean or do math. Methinks they're connected. I think she gets it. I hope she does. Now I just have to see what sank in and what went over her sweet little head.

Merry Christmas!

I am so busted.
We did most of our Christmas early before the husband left, but I wanted the girls to have a Christmas, too, so I wrapped some presents that they got in Iowa when we were visiting and I wrapped a big cardboard color it in house I've had stashed in my closet. I kind of forgot that they already saw them, but even so, they only saw them once before they had to be packed up. On some I wrote "From Santa". Well, Nicole opens up her first "from Santa" present and says "I already got this from Grandma Anna" and the next one "Aunt Micky gave this to me already" and the one from my closet "Didn't you have this in your closet?" then she said one way she can find out if Santa is real is to go to my closet and if the house is still there, Santa is real. Poor kid, she really wants to believe in Santa.
Lilly absolutely loved her presents and so did the boy! Neither of them remembered anything from before, so yay for that. And they got their stockings and thank goodness Nicole never saw what was going into those before because I told her that most of the stockings stuff was from Santa and that Santa left candy canes on their pillows. They camped out in the living room last night. It was pretty cute. I think Nicole's plan was to bust "Santa", but she sleeps like a rock.

Nicoleisms: Santa

Nicole has been trying to decide if Santa is real or not. She really wants to believe. She likes magic and unicorns and princesses, but as she gets older she's having a harder time buying it. My husband tried really hard before he left to get her back to believing again. He told the girls that I called Santa and that Santa brought presents early and we wrapped them together and everything. Nicole's little eyes just lit up.
Then tonight she says:
"Mommy, when daddy gets back I have a question I want to ask him"
"Oh, and what's that? Maybe I can ask him in an email?"
" I want to say this 'Daddy? Do you promise Santa is real?'"
"Oh, I see. And why don't you just ask me?"
"Well, you weren't there when Santa dropped off the presents. Daddy was"
"Okay, that makes sense. Well, what do you think?"
"I think it's something I'll find out when I'm a grown up"
"And what do you think you'll find out"
"That Santa is fake." She says resignedly.
"Aww, Nicole. You're adorable and I love you. You are the sweetest thing"
I love my little princess.

Christmas?!?

Ah, shit. I just realized tomorrow is Christmas Eve. If I just, you know, forget about it do you think the kids would notice? It's not like they know how to read a calendar. The only way they'd really know is if the TV rats me out and if they watch netflix only, problem solved!
We did Christmas presents a little early before the husband left so they could do presents with daddy. He told them that I called Santa and Santa brought them early! So do I still owe them a Christmas. Slacker mom says NO! Screw this whole season and just claw your way to the end of it. Good mom says that's horrible, go do some crafts and make hot chocolate and be holly jolly whatever. It's the holly jolly I'm having problems with. I'm a terrible actress and I think it might make it worse if I pretend to be holly jolly than if I just be. Ah, crap. I have to be good mom, don't I? Dammit.

Lillyisms

Today's situation was as follows. Lilly took her leapster game out and I confiscated it and told her I wasn't giving it back. I hate when she takes the games out and loses them. Her response? She grabbed her leapster and stared at me defiantly and said "Fine! I'm not giving my leapster to you!" Really? You think that's what's going on here? Are you hoping to confuse me into giving it back? Kid, you are not in control here. You are cuckoo for crazy puffs. Also, it's kind of hard to stay mad at you when you're staring at me like that


Also today. I was in my closet and she follows me in and finds a bag of stashed presents I have. I make her drop it and tell her to get out of my closet. She then tried to get in anyway and I block her with my leg and then she cries that I hurt her and I tell her she needs to stay out, I said no. No, you can't touch it, no, you can't even see it. And what does she have to say? "But I want to see it" Oh, well then, since you want to...I still said no! Now go away.
Lilly is a 4 year old with a real problem of understanding that she isn't in control here.