Gender Bias

I was cooking grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch. I gave Naomi her sandwich and she looked at me and asked, "What is Dad going to eat?" Confused, I told her that Dad could have a sandwich too. "But he's a boy." Naomi responded. So...I still wasn't following. Naomi clarified, "So these are girl cheese sandwiches. Does Dad get a boy cheese sandwich?"

The Cheesiest

Yaya was standing on the toilet looking into the mirror behind it. When I walked into the bathroom to find her, she looked at me and said, "This is my best smile!" and flashed me a big 'ol cheesy grin.

May the luck be with you...

Leah, like her father, LOVES Star Wars. She is still not so familiar with the storyline that she still gets nervous when she watches it. Last night Luke was fighting with "Dark Vader" and Leah's little face was looking pretty concerned. So I asked her how she was doing and without taking her eyes off the movie said, "I'm crossing my fingers for Luke Skywalker to win."

My Favorite Pastime

I am always amazed and sometimes humored at how freely people speak their minds. I am referring specifically to comments made towards pregnant women and new babies, since this is still fresh in my mind and life.

At the beginning of a pregnancy I hear alot of, "When are you due?" "Is it a boy or a girl?" "Is this your first?" (I always lie and say yes when it's a stranger because do they really care and I know when I announce it's actually my fourth there is the inevitable "Wait, how old are you?") Then as the pregnancy progresses, the comments change to, "Can't be too much longer now!" (Still have eight weeks thank you.) "Another girl huh...are you going to try for a boy?" "Your fourth! Are you Catholic or Mormon?" (Jokes on you... I'm Mormon) "Don't you know how to use birth control?" And my personal favorite, "WOW! You look like you're going to POP!" (What a self esteem boost! Thanks!)

But despite it all, my sweet baby is born and then the comments start on her. Now these comments are hillarious to me because I have made it my new favorite pastime to imagine that the comments are directed toward an adult, rather than a speechless, drooling infant. Let's be honest, people say things about babies that they would never say to another adult. For example..."Look at the rolls on those thighs!" "She has such fat cheeks!" "What happened to her hair?" "Wow! You're a chunky one!" But my very favorite comment that I have never heard before, and i would be very surprised to ever hear again came from a sweet old woman who was also waiting to pick up a prescription at the drug store..."Does she have a paper route yet?" What?

Sooooo strong

I came home from grocery shopping and Naomi was very eager to help me put them away. I had to take a break and feed the baby first so I told her she needed to wait. She continued to tell me she could do it herself and I continued to tell her how heavy the bags were and to please wait. In a desperate attempt to get me to understand just how strong she was, she came up with this..."Mom, I am so strong I can lift the table up with one hand. Well, not the big table, just the little one. But I bet I could lift up a car. Well, maybe not when I'm four, but probably when I am six!"

Quote of the day...by Naomi

I want to eat some mustachios....spistacios...those nuts Yaya is eating.

The Culprits

Disclaimer: I tell this story knowing that in ten years when Leah reads it she will respond with, "Mom! Why would you tell that to other people? That is so embarrassing. You're ruining my life! Agh!" I fully accept responsibilty for publishing this humiliating event. Please forgive me.


Leah loves school. So much, in fact, that she doesn't want to miss a minute of it, even to use the bathroom. She can make it through the whole day, but getting home is quite the event. We just live across the field from the school so it's not a long walk in distance. Now, depending on just how badly she needs to use the facilities covering this distance can take up to half an hour depending on how many times she needs to "sit and wait a minute" or walk with her legs crossed. Anyway, the point of this story is not to embarrass Leah, just set up the scene for the trophy event of the day. Today was a day that Leah made it all the way home and quickly. It seems if she does this successfully, then she forgets to use the bathroom right when she gets home. Well, about an hour after her arrival Naomi runs up to me and yells, "Leah just wet her pants!" Fine, she gets to clean it up is my automated response. So she does and announces she is taking a shower. Two minutes later..."Mom! Yaya just wet her pants!" I walk into the bathroom and Yaya is standing on the stool, directly in front of the potty, with a puddle around her feet. "Why?" was all I could manage calmly. "I just wanted to take a shower with Leah. Can I? (Big sweet grin, batting eyes)" Whatever.

Adapting

There are two circumstances completely out of my control that I have decided to learn to love.

The first thing is the darkness that settles in at 5:30 every evening. My internal programming tells me that darkness = night and therefore I can no longer go anywhere or do anything. If that were indeed true I would be missing out on several usable hours each day. However, this has been working to my advantage in some ways, as my children also have the same internal programming. When the sun sets, they declare, "It's midnight!" and run off to brush their teeth for bed. On Sunday, neither Lars nor I looked at the clock. We just did our Sunday evening routine and put the girls to bed. Then we went into the kitchen to finish cleaning up from dinner and realized we had just put our offspring to bed at 6:30! Oops...oh well!

The second thing is the rain. Now rain, in and of itself, I have no problem with. In fact, I really do enjoy it...the sound, the smell, the site of it. But there is no denying that I am far from being a true Oregonian. I don't get seasonal depression when it is sunny. I don't grumble when I am driving and the sun gets in my eyes. I don't start cursing when I have to turn on the hose to water the lawn. But the thing that makes me look most like "a tourist" (sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me) are my lovely polka dot rain boots. I can't help it...I just love them; and I love that the rain gives me an opportunity to wear them EVERY day.

No, the effects of rain that I need to learn to love, or at least tolerate, are the daily tasks that I don't even blink at when it is sunny, or cloudy, day or night. For example...getting kids into the car. In the rain, this task takes on another level of difficulty. It is not just the usual struggle to get four kids buckled into their respective cars seats ("I want to sit in Leah's car seat." "Do I have to wear a seatbelt every time?") but now their car seats get wet when they stand on them and the backs of all my seats will have size 6, 10 and 11 muddy footprints on them until June.

Another challenge is loading groceries from my shopping cart into the car in the pouring rain. I know paper bags are more eco-friendly and since I live in Oregon I am now required to be "green", but really...soaking wet paper bags don't really help the environment when they are wilted on the bottom of my shopping cart and all the lables from my canned goods have slipped off ensuring yet another night of "Guess what's for dinner". Sorry my dear Oregonian friends, but I still use plastic (and I don't recycle Peanut Butter jars either).

Thank goodness for digital...

The girls love to take pictures. I usually let them when they ask. Yesterday Naomi ran off with the camera, then I saw Emilia with it a while later. When I finally got it back I found quite the random assortment of masterpieces. Naomi had taken pictures of the movie they were watching (this is a sample photo of her collection). Emilia, however, had taken thirteen pictures of her pink pants.

Above Average

Little Miss Heidi weighed in at 13 pounds 5 oz during her two month check up. She grins at anyone who smiles at her, showing off her spectacular double chin. She is starting to "coo" and make all those sweet baby sounds. Her charm is helpful in overlooking the constant stream of drool and spit bubbles. But I guess that's just what babies do...

Random

*Lars came down the hallway singing a song. Leah didn't recognize it so she said to me, "I wonder where Dad got that song. Probably from Reading Rainbow."*

*I was making dinner which among other things consisted of noodles and green beans. Leah walked into the kitchen, took a dramatic sniff and said, "Noodles and beans together make the smell of Great Grandma's house."*

Who's in charge here?

*As we were sitting in church on Sunday, Emilia was playing with a little boy about a year younger than her. She paused, looked up at Lars and said, "I want you (pointd at Lars) to have one of them (and pointed at the little boy)."*

*Emilia found a piece of candy and asked me if she could have it. I told her no. So she walked down the hall, handed it to Lars and said, "Will you open this 'cause my mom said no."*

*Emilia has been dealing with her baby sister pretty well. She will just walk around speaking positive affirmations to herself. You can hear her walking down around the house saying, "I'm so nice. I'm such a good sister." So one day she came up to me as I was holding the baby and said, "You're being nice to the baby Mom and you're just a fine fine fine girl."*

Learning the Language

In conversation with Naomi, I told her we would do an activity later and in the mean time, she needed to eat her lunch. She just looked at me and asked, "Why is it the mean time? When is it the nice time?"

Naomi asked me what a "human" was. I explained to her that humans are people; all kinds of people old and young. A look of understanding came over her and she said, "So grandmas and babies are humans, but not teenagers!" You are absolutely right.

Take Two

This is officially my second attempt to keep in contact with the world via a blog. I think my first attempt lasted approximately two to four months...so here we go again!