1 Mother 2 Another

I went in for my nightly snuggle with
Maddie last night, and hand to Jesus these are the first three
questions out of her mouth, verbatim:

I took it upon myself to clean out the
family car yesterday. Friends who have ridden in that car recently
are even now standing up and applauding at the news; to say that it
was trashed inside would be a gross (literally) understatement. In
all honesty, I can’t recall really digging in and cleaning
out the interior since before I was pregnant. With my first child.


And as I dug through the detritus on the floor of our car, it
occurred to me that this litter was a sort of time capsule of our
lives, a fascinating cross-section that reveals way more than it
probably should about who we are and how we’ve been living
these past four years. In no particular order, here are some of the
many random items I discovered living on the floor of our car:

Maddie has a huge love of books;
she’s got quite a collection, with two shelves of picture
books in the family library, as well as two large shelves in her
own room. In addition, she’s got a couple volumes each
stashed in the living room, game room, and even Mommy and
Daddy’s room – just in case the urge strikes. When you
add her love of books to her deep passion for performing,
you’ve got an imagination that’s almost over the top.


This imagination expresses itself in many ways, of course, but one
of my all-time favorites is the way she sees her entire life as a
story to be told. And not only does she picture herself as the
leading role in the story – the heroine – but
she’s also cast herself as the narrator.

Ok, so that’s a new category that I
totally made up. And this will reveal me as uber-granola mom, but
so be it.


I probably make more items around our house than most people; I
make our own yogurt (we’ll talk about that another Monday
– it’s embarrassingly easy, and so much cheaper, that I
have to with the rate we go through yogurt!), my mom makes our
bread, we eat homemade breakfast bars, granola, and so on.
It’s partly the Martha Stewart in me, partly the cheapskate
in me, and partly the environmentally-friendly tree hugger in me.
But this is something anyone can make, regardless of your level of
cooking skills (even you, A. – you know who you are!) because
this requires no cooking, no measuring.


Moms and dads, it’s time to put down the store-bought glass
and surface cleaner.

I organized a neighborhood shop and swap
recently as part of my living a life of impact thing, and I have to
tell you, it was amazingly fun and astoundingly successful.


I emailed all the mommies in the various mom’s groups in my
neighborhood – and my community has several; our close-knit
groups are one of the things I love about my area. I told all the
moms I was organizing a morning to trade baby clothing and toys,
picked a date, and we were off!


The rules were simple: bring even one thing to give away, and you
could take home as much as you needed. Clothes had to be in good
condition, and toys needed all their parts. And everything was to
be free- no cash could change hands. Otherwise, there were no
rules. I heard lots of moms say it sounded like a good idea, but I
really had no idea if we’d have two people show up or
twenty.

I’ve successfully kept the Disney
princesses out of my house for over three years, but alas,
they’ve found their way in.


Yes, I know, they aren’t the end of the world. Setting aside
the whole issue of what sort of role model Snow White or Sleeping
Beauty is for our children, it’s not like they’re
peddling crack cocaine in the Disney Store.


Except that in a way, they are.

Day two of the strep throat in our
household yesterday, and the girls had a lovely cold on top of it
to make things really interesting. Cora vacillated between moments
of euphoria and dancing around, and crumpling into a sobbing mess
on the floor. That’s how I knew when the Motrin or Tylenol
was starting to wear off.


Now here’s the bad thing – Tuesday is ballet day in our
household. Right after lunch, we race to the ballet studio and
Maddie takes her class. This is just as big of a deal for Cora, if
you’ll remember; she brings her own ballet shoes and sets
herself up in “her” studio, alternating between dancing
by herself and watching Maddie’s class for inspiration.
Ballet class and open gym are the highlights of Cora’s week,
and when I told her yesterday morning that she wouldn’t be
going she absolutely freaked out. I’m talking a
Chernobyl-sized meltdown, lasting for many many minutes.

Maddie spiked a high fever late Thursday
night. A trip to the doctor the next morning ruled out strep throat
or the flu, and left us with one of those ambiguous viruses. A
couple rough nights and lots of Elmo videos followed.


Forty-eight hours later, Maddie felt much better, and we kept a
close eye on Cora, who seemed to have skipped the newest bug for
once. Then Sunday night Cora started running a fever, and we spent
the entire night sleepless: she’d wake every twenty minutes
crying, finally falling in an exhausted slumber around 4 a.m. I
steeled myself for the forty-eight hour thing and promised
I’d sleep when they get to high school.


But wait – there’s more.

For some reason, Maddie’s really
looking forward to Valentine’s day this year. I’m not
quite sure why; I’ve always looked on it as one of those
phony, Hallmark-induced holidays and Brian and I sort of avoid the
whole thing (I know, men everywhere love me right now). So
we’ve never really played it up, but regardless of the
reason, Maddie’s had a great time getting ready for the big
heart day.


A couple weeks ago we spent the morning doing a craft project-
making valentine cards for family and friends. Maddie did several
family ones, and only completed two friend-destined cards before
burning out. Nonetheless, she couldn’t wait until
Valentine’s day and had to walk to her friends’ houses
and hand-deliver the cards THAT VERY DAY. So after lunch we all
went for a stroll, Maddie and Cora both laden with bags carrying
their two cards, each replete with pom-poms and glitter glue and,
in Cora’s case, a three-dimensional sculpture of
stickers.

What’s that you say? Don’t
recognize the song? Imagine it to the tune of the opening bars of
the Sesame Street theme song, and you probably will.


For those of you who don’t get the Buckwheat reference in the
title (cultural cretins that you are!), Eddie Murphy did a famous
skit on Saturday Night Live in the early days where he pretended to
be Buckwheat from Li’l Rascals, all grown up and recording an
album of cover tunes. Eddie Murphy sang indecipherable song after
indecipherable song, and it was quite funny trying to figure out
what the actual song was.

A late night huddled in our storm closet
during yet another tornado warning (why do funnel clouds only
appear after we've put the girls down for bed?) has given me
cranky girls and no time to blog. Sorry. You'll have to wait until
tomorrow for a scintillating story about Cora's singing . . .

Remember the beginning of the year, when I
challenged you all to do one new thing a month that impacts people
outside your household? If not, click href="http://www.1mother2another.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=938&Itemid=46"
target="_blank">here to read the original post and get
caught up.


But if you do remember, and accepted my challenge, how’s it
going now that the righteous fervor of New Year’s resolutions
has worn off and we’re in the bleary month of February with
nary a vacation in sight for several months yet?


I’ll tell you, I’ve got huge, grand plans in the works
– always – but don’t seem to find time to get
everything orchestrated. I plot big, fun parties and elaborate play
dates in my head, yet can’t get that load of laundry folded.
So in the interest of keeping myself on track, I’m checking
in on this Life of Impact thing and hoping it’ll help you
stay motivated.

As a child and teenager, I never got used
to mornings. I truly believed that one of my parents’ best
attributes was their ability to not take my morning crabbiness
personally, and I’d even brag about how my mom and dad
understood I simply wasn’t a morning person and let me get
away with borderline rudeness on an almost daily basis. As I got
older, I often joked that the reason I went into a career in the
theatre was because it guaranteed me the right to sleep in, and
family and friends knew not to even attempt to call me before 10
a.m. Preferably 11.


As for my husband, while we were dating I’d often call his
house during school break around 11 a.m., only to be told he was
still asleep. So it’s safe to say he’s never been a
morning person, either. And when Maddie came along, she agreeably
exhibited the family tendency to love sleep, and would snooze a
good 12-13 hours a night, sleeping until 9 or 10 a.m. until she was
nearly three years old.


Which makes Cora’s attitude towards the early hours all the
more incomprehensible.

Ok, I’m going to make it official
here.


Maddie is potty trained.


Wait – did I just see a pig fly by?

Maddie’s been begging me to set up
playdates with a couple girls in her ballet class, so I’ve
spent the past few lessons coordinating calendars with parents of
her friends of choice. One friend has a stay-at-home dad, and as we
finally got the date and time hammered out, I gave him directions
to our house. “What time do you want here there?” he
asked, and I told him. “And what time do you want me to pick
her up?” he continued.


Um, what?


I was completely taken aback, but stuttered out an end time, to
which he nodded and made a note. Then I went back to my ballet
class observation seat and tried to figure this out.

We had friends over for a play date
yesterday morning, and gravitated towards the game room and all our
ballet costumes – much like we do without a friend over.
We’ve got stacks of ballet skirts and leotards and tutus, and
Maddie and Cora will dress up at least once a day to do ballet,
putting on their ballet shoes, grabbing a wand, and often bedecking
themselves in jewels before turning on the Mozart and
choreographing their masterpieces.


This activity is all the more exciting for Maddie because of her
recent milestone- dressing herself. She’s been
“assisting” for quite some time now, but the past
couple weeks have seen a complete takeover of dressing time. Maddie
has a “get dressed” magnet on her responsibility chart,
and she refuses to place it on her daily square until she’s
gotten herself into her pjs for the night, completely solo. Of
course, the dressing and undressing thing has been practiced much
recently as she’s made the transition to using the potty
full-time, and I think the chance to be a big girl and handle her
clothes by herself was at least part of the reason for her
new-found potty interest.


Unfortunately, with Maddie’s newly discovered skill –
getting dressed – comes another, less-wanted (by the adults)
skill:


Getting undressed.

Maddie has been pooping in the potty for
five (five!) days now. Dare I hope?


After last week’s promise to Maxum – “Maxum,
I’m working on pooping and peeing in the potty all the time
so I can go to school with you, I promise!”- Maddie really
got down to business. That very afternoon she asked to use the
potty instead of her pull-ups to poop, and grinned triumphantly at
her easy success.