EVIL GIRL

Olivia has created an alter-ego.

"Evil Girl"

She ran around all morning snicker and saying, "I"m Evil Girl!"

She dropped guacamole on the floor. I told her that wasn't nice. She replied, "No Mom, it's not nice - it's EVIL!"

... we may need to stop watching Phineas & Ferb.

And I may need to reevaluate my parenting if she's relating more to the villains in these TV shows.

Oscars in the background

Once my sister-in-law Molly told me a story that she was relaying from a teacher. It was probably four years ago. I don't remember the details of the story at all - something about a donkey with a lame foot. But the line at the end of the story has stuck with me all these years...

"He's just doing the best he can with what he's got."

Isn't that what we're all doing? I just looked around me today and saw all these families. All just trying to do the best they can. We don't all parent the same way. We don't all believe the same things. But we are all just trying to do the best we can with what we've got. 

I thought of people that I've been quick to judge. You know... random people... none of you reading of course.. ;)  ... but nonetheless, this thought always comes back to me. They are just trying to do the best they can with what they've got. I have 4 working legs so who I am to judge a fellow donkey who only has 3?  Or something like that.

And I think about it with myself. Some days my best is not my best on another day. I just have to do the best I can with what I've got that day. Some days I have a full nights sleep. Those days are better than ones when I'm struggling on just a few hours of sleep. 

I guess what I really want to say is - as Moms we are all in this together. Before we judge another mother no matter what her situation - we should remember she too is just trying to do the best she can with what she's got.

I don't know where I'm going with this. I just really love that image of a poor donkey doing the best he can with what he's got. I wish I could remember the rest of the story.

Our house at 3am

The scene: The girls' bedroom, 3:06am. Abigail crying for 20 minutes straight (highly unusual for her) in her crib, wearing a soaked diaper and she's gotten her pajama's halfway off. Cut to Olivia in her bed across the room, sitting up wide awake.


MOM :  Changes baby's diaper, not saying a word.


OLIVIA : Mom, I want you to make a pie. Acawully I want you to make me dis many pies. holds up three fingers. I want a raspberry pie. Have you ever had a raspberry pie before, Mom? Dem are so good. And I want... a .... uhhmm... Mom? What's your fabrit pie to make faw us?

MOM : mutters sleepily Pumpkin.

OLIVIA: Okay Mom! You can make me a pumpin pie! Aaand.... uhhhmmmm.... what else?... Oh Mom! A strawberry pie! That's my fabrit. Okay tomorrow when we wake up you can bake us free pies.

MOM : Puts baby back in crib. 


OLIVIA: Okay, Mom? You can make us free pies. Okay? Mom! Okay. Mom, lay wif me a tiny bit.

MOM : Goodnight, Olivia.

Mom walks out the door praying that she won't see those precious faces again until daybreak. Climbs back into her bed and realizes after 2 hours of sleep she is wide awake. Scene closes as Mom "blogs" about it.

It's hard to put up pictures...

When my child is naked every time I take a picture of her. Olivia does not keep clothes on for any length of time. It drives me nuts. She has gotten good at putting her clothes back on by herself, but it never lasts long. Seriously every picture I have of her recently she is half or completely naked.

Anyway I have been feeling extremely lazy this week. My house really went to pot when the kids were sick earlier in the week. I haven't been feeling great myself, so right now there is a pile of things to be taken down to the toy room, some things scattered about the living room that should be in that pile, and about 32,000 pounds of laundry to be washed, dried, folded and put away. So I'm going to declare tomorrow a "screen free day". No TV, or internet for me all day tomorrow.

Is it sad that this would be a great accomplishment? Hopefully I will get things straightened up around here in time for the weekend. So we can mess it up again, and I can do this over and over again and again until I die.

Too dramatic?

1...2...3....4...5...

I have been counting to myself a lot today. My patience is worn so thin.

Kids have been sick since Saturday. Today they seem to be coming out of it, but have entered this stage of grumpiness that is unparalleled.

Olivia wanted hot chocolate this morning. She let me know by yelling in her whiniest voice "I want hot chocolate" and then she expects me to make it. Does anyone else have trouble doing things when their kids "ask" like this. I told her she had to ask nicely. So she added a please. So I get up and make some hot chocolate. Bring it to her, and she cries like I gave her mud to drink. What's wrong with it? "IT'S NOT HOT ENOUGH!!!" Times like this is where I breathe and count to keep from strangling her. It makes my blood boil. You are 2. You don't order me around!!

And then my sweet Abigail is just miserable. She cried and screamed and cried and whined and screamed. And then something must have happened because of all of a sudden she started to sound like a monkey in the zoo. Like some kind of howler monkey. This nonstop screeching noise in a pitch I have never heard a human reach. Again... breathe... count...breathe. Eventually we found her pacifier and put her in her crib and she fell asleep.

It's only 8:30 AM and I'm ready for bedtime.

Writers block

I have like 10 unpublished posts in my dashboard. I have plenty to say, but then I think about you - anyone who may be reading this blog - and I worry about what I've said. It may be something as simple as what my kids did today and I worry I might offend someone.

No one has ever told me they were offended by blog. I have never gotten a negative comment, or email. And I still worry about what people think about my blog. There is something wrong with me.

Mainly I worry about how I will sound when I talk about how wonderful my life is. Because really, it is wonderful. I feel so spoiled. I don't know what I ever did to deserve such a wonderful life.

But kind of I do.

I have always, always wanted to do what is right. I have always tried to please people - and none more than my Father in heaven. I keep the commandments. I live His teachings. I am not perfect by any means. I fight laziness more than anyone I know. I lose my patience. I hurt people's feelings I'm sure. But I try, and try and try to do all I can to do things that are pleasing unto God. And I honestly feel that is why I am so blessed.

I hesitate in publishing this because I'm afraid it's saying that people who have bad stuff happen to them aren't good people. And that's not true. At all. But I know the reason I am happy is because I keep the commandments of the Lord.

Just thought I'd share that. Maybe I can get over this writers block now. Expect something good this week.   :)

I love to try to capture my children at a certain age so I can look back in a few years and remember what these days were like.

Olivia will be three in less than a month. She has been waking up in the middle of the night and completely changing her pajama's. She doesn't wake anyone else up when she does it - but each morning she's in a completely different outfit than the one she was in when I put her to bed. Or she's completely naked under her blankets.
She's also started shortening words. Like creating her own slang. It cracks me up. Instead of saying sorry, a lot of times she will just say, "Sor". And potty has become "potta" or just "pot". I have no clue where she gets this stuff. She's also a little ham. Yesterday we were playing dress up. She was a "beautiful princess". We had made some popcorn she was eating, and she looked at me and said, "Mmmm, the bad witch made this popcorn me." And I said, "Oh no a bad witch??" And she said, "Yeah, and it's not poi -- uuuughh" And fell over pretending to be dead. At which point Abigail dropped her book she was reading, stood up, made a similar dying sound, and fell beside her sister. What a production.

Abigail still doesn't talk much. She gets her point across very well. With grunts and pointing, and some inventive use of sign language. I was reading my blog from when Olivia was this age and she had 30 words she used that were recognizable, and was adding words every day. I had pretty much stopped counting because I couldn't keep up with how fast her vocabulary was growing. And I won't lie. My heart was puffed up with pride in Olivia's extensive vocab. I now realize Olivia spoke because she wanted to. It had nothing (or at least little) to do with me and everything to do with her. I try to do the same things with Abigail and she just doesn't see a need to use words. Sometimes I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that Olivia never slept as a baby. Her naps were only 45 minutes at 15 months. Abigail naps for about 3 hours a day. She is mostly happy. She still uses her binkie. She loooves to read books. And rip books. And take anything she can away from her sister.

I love watching them play together. Sometimes I can't believe we made sisters. It's just a crazy feeling, realizing we are a family. We are creating this little family and it's so fun. And exhausting. But mostly fun.