Look at this girl. She is 20 months old. Almost two and thinks she's almost 12...
Twenty. That seems like so many months, and some days I can hardly remember life before her. But then I think about how much simpler things were with zero or one kid, and it all comes rushing back.

Our days are such blurs sometimes I feel like I can't slow down enough to grab a hold of anything but fleeting moments. And I'm certainly not writing enough of it down...

Here are my most recent favorite fleeting moments.

• The big "light up your face" smile I get when I walk in the door from my once-weekly work-in-the-office day
• The sheer delight on her face when you say "I'm gonna get you" and start the chase
• The look where she's mad at me but her brother makes her laugh, and then she remembers she's mad--sort of "mad, trying not to laugh" and very funny
• The way she rests her head on my shoulder before going to bed, then lifts it up to kiss my cheek
• The way she hugs her brother
• The way she runs over to comfort and hug her brother if he hurts himself (unless she has inflicted the hurt)
• The 20 minutes she spent doing "Hair Salon" with her baby doll in the highchair with a plastic knife from her tea set
• Her very particular seating arrangement for tea parties, as well as the menu (usually her pretend cheese and bacon, with an occasional broccoli or peas or taco thrown in)

New words: Jeans, beans, peas, blueberry (blue blue), cheese, and Boo!
New teeth - finally! She's getting all 4 molars and finally the 4th tooth on the bottom front, so she won't look like she was in a hockey fight anymore.

I really owe her more than this... my goal is to write her a better letter before she's 2!

We had a snow day last Monday, about 4 inches, enough for a snowman! Bitty Girl spent most of her time eating the raisins and carrots that were supposed to decorate the snowman. The Boy was very serious about his decorating, and very irritated about his sister poking holes in its side to hide her raisins. Although he did bury a carrot "lung" and "heart" inside the snowman.


Thank goodness for a teacher Daddy, who is also home on snow days. I decided the only time I'll really enjoy snow days is when the kids are old enough to get themselves dressed and play outside in the snow by themselves. I'm just not a snow bunny.

What you never get at the office

Today I had one of those "working at home" moments--the kind you miss if you work outside the house.

After she had what I call a "nope," meaning NO NAP, and also meaning "Mommy didn't get any work done because you weren't sleeping," Bitty Girl and I played outside for about four minutes (it was freezing) and then went inside for her bath. As we're coming out of the hair salon/Mom's bathroom, all dried and brushed, the phone rings.

It's work.

Bitty Girl was in a good mood, so I said yes, I could talk on a speakerphone call with two work colleagues about some technical issue with the Annual Report. I put her down in the living room with her kitchen and tea party while I talked in the kitchen.

All goes well for a few minutes, then she patters into the kitchen with one of her dishes, wanting "ra-ra," or goldfish crackers, in one of her bowls. Still talking, I open the pantry and get her the crackers. In true Bitty Girl sneaky fashion, she slips past me, grabs a different bag of crackers--by the BOTTOM--and dumps the entire bag onto the kitchen floor. Oops. I keep talking as we start the cleanup, but as I bend down, I notice the telltale odor coming from her diaper. The kind that begs to be changed. immediately. I think this is where I started sweating.

It ended fine, we finished the call, she helped me sweep up the cracker pieces (after we put most of them back in the bag, of course, fuzz and all, but don't tell her brother), we changed the offending diaper and went back to our tea party.

I just laugh thinking of how easy this conversation would have been if I had been sitting in my office the whole time. Easy, more freshly-scented, with less sweeping and sweating involved. But not nearly as interesting to read. Definitely part of the crazy I signed up for when I decided to "work from home."

One of my favorite mama writers, Catherine Newman, wrote a (an?) hysterical blog post about that, here. In my dreams, I could rewrite today's episode and make it that funny.

Destroying the Evidence

As I stuff the candy remains into the garbage, I realize that I'm still holding the smoking gun--the boxes. A flash of genius occurs to me when I realize I can rip open the boxes and turn them inside out before putting them into the recycling.

Before you start worrying about my chocolate habit, let me explain. In true form, I overbought the candy to make gingerbread houses this year. The dumb grocery store had some 10 for $10 sale on big boxes of Whoppers and Mike & Ikes and Reese's Pieces, so of course I gave in.

And after one messy session of house building, when we were up to our ears in powdered sugar frosting, and both kids (Bitty Girl must be included in everything now, especially if there are treats involved) had eaten their weight in Whoppers, we ended the project with two small gingerbread houses.

So what to do with the extra candy? It wasn't chocolatey enough for me to eat all of it, and most of it in the open boxes would just get stale. That's how I got to the garbage stuffing. But I realized that if The Boy (or maybe Bitty Girl, for that matter--since Christmas, her treat radar has gotten razor sharp) saw the empty boxes in the recycling, a New Year's Fit of Candy Withdrawal would ensue. And that's how I got to the inside out boxes.

Guess I could have just taken them outside to the big recycling bin. But that wouldn't have made much of a blog post. The point is that while I had hopes that the kids would get their father's sweet tooth, which consists of much willpower, no strong love of chocolate, and a liking for Skittles and licorice and jellybeans (I know, he's not normal), they are both complete chocolate fiends and would eat treats all day if you let them. Bitty Girl was ruined early--how can you watch two people drinking hot chocolate or eating cookies in front of you and NOT want some?

Luckily we have good teeth and an obsessive tooth brushing routine.

Only six weeks until Valentine's Day.....

Blog and you shall receive..

or feel a little better.

Sometimes I question whether I should really be so honest about the kids' misbehavior or my own mis-parenting. Do people read these entries and think, "She is a) doing everything wrong, b) exaggerating how bad her kids act, or c) completely nuts?" (Did that multiple choice remind you of college exams?)

But often just the writing is cathartic, and the forced reflection helps me put it into perspective, even if no one else ever reads it.

After the "Christmas Eve Tantrum of Ungratefulness" post, however, I am convinced. Moms should write these things down and share them. Because it makes other people feel better. You know what they say, misery loves company. But everyone needs a little "there, there" from time to time.

I have had two friends respond to my post with stories of their own five-year old House of Horrors. One child found an "extra" present that had been hidden because of duplication and present excess, and threw a long tantrum about how he didn't like any of his other presents as much as he would like that car. He is invited to the soup kitchen with The Boy next year.

And another's daughter (yes, girls do it too...) had a meltdown when a family box of presents didn't contain anything for her (her big box was coming separately). She also sorted all the presents to make sure she had the most, and after a marathon Christmas day of stockings and present openings, declared Christmas "boring."

Whew. I responded to both with empathetic belly laughter! Honestly, my first thought was, "Thank goodness it's not just MY ungrateful kid." But I appreciated them sharing with me, and was glad that my blog post made them laugh and feel a little less alone in the crazy holiday parenting roller coaster.

So bring it on, and I'm sure my lovely children will provide enough blog fodder for many holidays to come..

Paybacks

My mom claims amnesia about many of my childhood misbehaviors, and now I can see why. These are the kind of things you would rather forget, filling your memory banks instead with visions of warm family dinners, laughing children happily playing in the glow of the Christmas tree, and GRATITUDE.

I realize it's not in the nature of a Five to be gracious and appreciative of how much he has, and I realize he just had his birthday AND it's almost Christmas, but after he has spent four days being treated to the following activities:
1. Trip to downtown Seattle for a ride on the holiday carousel, lunch at McDonald's (added bonus of a Bionicle toy in the Happy Meal), and a tour of the gingerbread houses
2. Fun evening with Nanny and Papa, including ice cream bars and staying up late
3. Trip to Bellevue to see Snowflake Lane (another McDonald's dinner and Bionicle toy), where people dressed as tin soldiers drum along the street and it "snows" outside
4. Trip to the Seattle Aquarium and Pike Place Market, complete with s'mores brownie and Pike Place doughnuts
...... you might think that a simple box of Christmas presents on the porch wouldn't send him into a tizzy of unhappiness.

Short version: (Bad decision of Mommy #1) Opened box from Auntie Em, which contained (gasp!) TWO presents for Bitty Girl and (horror of all horrors!) ONE present for him. We discussed the fact that when we visit said Auntie in 3 weeks, we were going to do birthday/Christmas presents then. These were just sent so we didn't have to haul them home, since Audrey isn't coming. (Bad Mommy decision #2) And his present is a lovely wooden fire truck, but since it's not a hunk of lead-painted plastic crap with weapons attached, evidently it's not enough to be exciting. Then a box of presents from my dad--books, which he liked, hand-knit sweater (see above about plastic, lead paint, and weapons). Hence the Christmas Eve Tantrum of Ungratefulness.

While I left the house to brave the grocery store crowds, he recovered while making pizza dough with Daddy. (Addendum to list of Fun activities above: #5 - Special homemade pizza dinner, with toppings he chose, for Christmas Eve) We ended up having a nice dinner and everyone got to bed, complete with the Night Before Christmas reading, letter and cookies for Santa, but it just set the wrong tone.

Maybe we did too much in the days leading up to it? We spaced things out, made sure everyone got good sleep and plenty of time at home. I just think we can't underestimate the power of presents and Christmas, especially in The Boy who is too young to really understand the whole "spirit of the Season" thing. But we talked about it in small doses--baby steps.

I'm sure I was the same greedy, ego-centric five year old. My mom just doesn't remember... Lucky her.

Next year, it's the soup kitchen for him. Or something that will help us all realize just how lucky we are.

The December 12 Curse

December 12 just doesn’t seem to be a great day in our family.
Flash back to 2002 – my water broke and I went to the hospital, delivered The Boy 2 days later 6 weeks before his due date.
2003 - Getting ready for Pat's neck surgery
2004 - Can't remember, but there must have been something
2005 - Had my amnio with Bitty Girl the next day, worried about a bad ultrasound
2006 - Complete blur, I'm sure someone had a tantrum
2007 – The Boy, almost 5 years old, is up all night throwing up, after Bitty Girl had her own barf-o-rama the two days prior.

The Boy is five. So many changes in the last year, evidenced by the comparison of his birthday and Christmas lists.
2006 list, which fits on the front of one page
Dinosaurs, bike with training wheels, scooter, skeleton model with body parts, watch, Spiderman costume, Red Power Ranger costume, Playmobil traveling farm, Darth Tater Mr. Potato Head

2007 list: (three pages long): condensed version includes:
Star Wars: various battle packs, action figures, light sabers, books, and videos
Rollerblades
Scooter
Power Rangers
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: various costumes and action figures
Transformers
Bionicles: Red, Green, and black
Books: Dinosaurs, Superman
Knight and dragon figures
Robot hands from the museum store

So there you have it. At Nearly-Four, he was just beginning the transformation (to use one of his favorite action figure lines) into a full-fledged, marketed-by-Target-and-Toys-R-Us preschool boy! Now at Five, he’s deep, deep into it. And my attempts to thwart it are getting weaker by the minute. I just don’t have the energy, nor do I want to make something so forbidden that it becomes his one-track obsession.

But every time I hear angry words or see some violent act, I can’t help but wonder….am I encouraging it? I’ve read the studies, but I’ve also seen how boys play guns with sticks, straws, and their fingers, in the absence of any violent toys or television.

On one hand, I am SO proud of the boy he’s becoming. He is smart and funny, helpful, loving toward his sister (most of the time), curious and interested in the world around him, dramatic, assertive, strong-willed, tall and thin—all muscle and bone, talks non-stop, and you can see the new ideas and bits of knowledge exploding in his brain.
On the other hand, he’s bossy, quick to get upset, very impulsive, whiny—especially to Mama, loud, constantly badgering us with questions or requests for toys or treats, complaining that someone else has a better house or toys or life or parents, slow to warm up in a new situation, and not easily adaptable.

I’ve said it before—I am alternately delighted with him and completely annoyed with him. I either have this overwhelming rush of love for this amazing creature I helped create, or I want to run screaming from the house to get away from the World’s Most Obnoxious Boy.
I guess that’s the charm of being Five…

I can't help myself

I just feel like I have to write a blog post, even though I'm free of the daily requirement of NaBloPoMo.

Two big things today:

1. It snowed about 4 inches. Not expected to last, just exciting enough for one romp in the snow and a few pictures.

Audrey was introduced to the concept of snow as a snack..

AND.......

2. I crunched the Volvo. I rear-ended a Sears delivery van going through a big intersection. My light turned yellow as I was crossing the intersection, so I kept going, and all the cars in front of the van stopped. I couldn't see them because of the van, so poof! Luckily, I wasn't hurt. The van wasn't hurt - tiny scratch. But my poor bumper.. oh my. The worst part is that we have no collision coverage on this car, because it's so old. So it may be totaled, depending on the cost to fix it. I'm in big trouble, because Pat loves this car almost as much as he loves me. Maybe more now.

So while I thought I was only getting a new furnace for my birthday, I may be getting a furnace AND a new (read that cheapest decent used car we can find) car. I must have been really good this year!