No one wants to be laughed at when they're naked

This blog is suffering from not-so-benign neglect. And just when there are so many things to talk about. It's always the way, isn't it? Lots been going on, much of it blog-worthy. Before the goings-on are filed away in my grey matter, never to be retrieved again, I'm going to try to get a few posts up this week. Saying it here may actually make it happen. Here's hoping, anyway.

I have funny kids... very funny kids... but the funniest (although the jury is still out on Henry) is Hope. She makes us belly-laugh frequently, never due to effort on her part, and then she gets extremely agitated (read: stinking mad) if she thinks we're laughing because of something she said or did. Which we almost always are.

Evidence: this week she said something funny (again) while she was changing into her jammies and yelled at us: I don't like it when people laugh at me when I'm naked!

Which did not make us laugh less.

In the past couple of weeks she has reached a new pinnacle of funniness. I've managed to remember three good Hope-isms, using top-secret, tired mummy-brain techniques, so that I could get them down and then free up that brain space for things such as remembering library book day and where I left my hemorrhoid medication. This is important stuff people. So very important.

Laugh #1: Hope tends to take Henry's toys right out of his hands. Yanks them actually. I caught her in the act a couple of weeks ago and explained how even though he's a baby, you can't just grab things away from him even if you want them. You have to treat him like you treat other kids, blah, blah, blah. I walked out of the room and back in to see her with Henry's toy again. I asked her how she got it.

Hope: "I asked Henry for it and he said yes."
Me: "But Henry can't talk."
Hope: "Yes, he can."
Me: "Uh no, he can't."
Hope: "Yes, he can, Mummy."
Me: "But how do you know what he's saying?"
Hope: "I understand baby talk."

A minute later, Hope turns to Henry and says: "Henry, can I use that when you're finished?" (She leans in to his face and listens near his mouth as though he were a stuffed animal in one of her pretend games.) "You're done? Oh good. Thanks!" Yanks toy out of his hand.

Laugh # 2:
Hope: I got my chest skin stuck in this zipper today at school. [It was a decorative zipper on the front of a dress.]
Me: Why were you unzipping that zipper?
Hope: My hand was tired so I was giving it some exercise to give it more energy.

Laugh #3:
(at the dinner table)
Hope: Mummy, you forgot to give me the broccoli I asked for!
Me: Oh, sorry. I didn't hear you ask for it.
Hope: That's because I asked you in my head.

And just so Emily isn't totally left out...
I was changing Henry's diaper last week when Emily walked into the room and said:
Is there poop in that diaper?
Me: No.
Emily: Good! Because the last time I saw Henry's poop, it was terrifying!

Hope will have your back when you need a laugh

Today was a sad Sunday. We lost a member of our church last night, Leonard, after an accident two weeks ago. Leonard was a big yet gentle presence and friends with everyone. It's a sad day. He was a fixture for Children's Hour, a program I'm heavily involved in and so his death not only touches all the adults in the church, but the kids too, making it even more heartbreaking.

This is what was on my mind for most of the day. The rain and cold matched my mood, although I did really enjoy the day, snuggling, talking and playing games with the kids. That always makes for a good day but I needed a bit of cheering up nonetheless.

Enter Hope.

For those of you who are feeling the same right now, this is for you. Warning: there will be descriptions of girl parts. If you're not comfortable with that... well, you probably wouldn't be visiting this blog anyway, now would you?

Back to Hope.

We had started our nightly routine which we've dubbed "naked time." Naked Time is mainly for Henry who I strip and lay on a blanket on the floor where he squeals and rolls around and poops on the cream-coloured carpet when my back is turned. Hope has joined in the fun recently, minus the pooping, stripping naked and running around before her bath or until someone tells her to "put your jammies on for Pete's sake!"

Actually, it is sanctioned. By me, anyway.

So tonight. I'm sitting beside Henry ensuring, hopefully, that the poop hits the blanket this time, and Hope walks in, stops beside me and starts squeezing herself. Down there. Her labia. Squeezing.

Me: Hope, do you have to pee?
Hope: No.
Me: What are you doing then?
Hope: I'm doing the Squeeze Dance.
Me: What's the Squeeze Dance?
Hope: I squeeze like this... [squeezes herself twice]... then I jump like this..... [leaps like a ballet dancer] and then slap my knees.

And that is when my mood was lifted as I snorted and chortled and guffawed my way into a sunnier place. That kid is awesome.

Mummy brain: not just for mummies anymore

Some of you may not know that John is currently on parental leave. This means, for those non-Canadians out there, that he is receiving employment insurance from the government plus "top-up" from his employer so that he is receiving 95% of his salary (not all employers do this... but the large ones - and nice ones - often do) for something like 30 weeks of leave. He's at home with us until April. Pretty sweet. And some of you Americans actually complain about a socialist state? Puh-lease. It's pretty great from where I'm sitting.

Anyhoo... so John is fully participating in getting the girls off to school, lunches made, cleaning done, all those lovely domestic chores that occupy a mummy's brain for a good part of the day. He's still squeezing in a bit of writing and is on campus a couple of times a week but he is most definitely on parental leave.

And this was very obvious yesterday on our way home from an afternoon at the apple farm when I realized that so-called "mummy brain" had somehow spread to John.

The sun was shining, we were cruising along a country road about halfway home when:

John: CRAP! Where are my sunglasses? (thinking he left them way back in Mountain at the farm)
Me: (looking at him curiously) Um.... on your face?
John: (dumb silence)
Me: (hysterical laughter)

Our 40-year-old 5-year-old

Tonight at supper Hope complained about her booster seat. She wants to be able to sit cross-legged at the supper table (?!) and her current seat doesn't allow her to do that. We were going back and forth about it with her explaining that she has to sit there/you shouldn't sit cross-legged at the table/blah blah blah when Emily (who is almost 5 and a half) offered to trade booster seats with her.

"I'll trade with you Hope," she said. "I'm getting tired of this booster seat anyway."

And then, and I'm not exaggerating one little bit, she looked at John and I and WINKED.

She WINKED!

Not only can she now wink, she can wink appropriately like she's pulling one over on someone.

I'll fully admit it.... she scares me.

Up to her elbow

Hope is in a bad habit of waking up every night in the middle of the night and getting me out of bed. Often it is because she's had a bad dream or just a dream she wants to tell me about. She always needs to pee after I get up there. We tried every trick we can think of to get her to go to the bathroom by herself but none of them has worked so far.

To make it more annoying, John and I sleep on the main floor; the girls' rooms are upstairs.

Last night she woke up and called me up because her arm was hurting she said. I think she'd been sleeping on it for a long time and didn't have any feeling left in it. I took her to the bathroom, put her back to bed and went downstairs and climbed back into my own lovely warm bed.

Five minutes later, just as I was falling back to sleep she called me again.

Me (from bottom of stairs): What's the matter, Hope?
Hope: I just can't stop picking my nose, Mummy!

And this is what I am dragged out of bed for at 3:00 am. Parenthood is so glamorous.

Brown what?

Tonight we were all lying (laying? I never can get this one straight) on our bed having a pre-dinner family wrestling match snuggle. Emily climbed on. She was wearing a favourite brown shirt of hers.

John: Hey Brownie!
Emily: Hey Browneye!

And yes, courtesy of John, she is well-aware of what it means.

Eating dirt

For the past two months, Hope has had this unfortunate habit of landing face first in playground dirt/sand/gravel with her mouth wide open. Usually during some odd dismount of equipment.

The first time, she came over and said "Somethin's crunchy!". I tried to wipe it out but it was essentially a poor finger sweep. I thought it was just a one-off. Apparently it was the start of a "thing."

Since then, every single time we're at a playground, Hope spends a good part of it with a mouth full of gravel. She now prefaces this by making a beeline in my direction, saying nothing, but with her tongue sticking out as far as it can go. (Photo evidence below.) Really, words aren't necessary for her to tell me what's wrong anymore. I know what the problem is every time. Since it happens EVERY VISIT to ANY playground ANYWHERE.

A friend here in Waterloo, Julie, finds it unbelievably funny and weird. Both are true. I usually find it hard to clean her tongue since I'm laughing so hard.

I now have a system in place to deal with the gravel-tongue. I carry a good size water bottle and pour as much water on her face as she'll tolerate. Still a bit crunchy in there but good enough to head back to the playground and fill her mouth with sand again.

Should you be worried when....

someone drives by your rental house, leans out their van window when they see you sitting on the porch, and shouts: YOU STOLE MY HOUSE! and drives off?

I'm not sure how she handles the pressure of being 4

Emily is really coming along with her reading. It is truly amazing and inspiring to watch the work and systems of Mrs. B, her teacher, translate into Emily actually being able to sound out words. Each week she brings home a different book that she is supposed to try and read with a parent. Today she read the whole thing to me with no help. She had to sound out a couple of words. The rest she knew by sight.

Me: Emmy, you're doing so well with your reading. I think you'll be reading really, really well by the end of summer holidays!

Emily: And I'll be so stressed out!

Time to get some Scope

This morning Emily climbed into bed with me. We were snuggling as usual.

Me: Emmy, you're such a great kid. I'm so glad you're my kid. I love you.

E: Yeah but I never want to smell that stinky breath again.

Moment, gone.

My morning laugh

Last night I had a bath and left my discarded clothes from the day in a pile in the bathroom (it was late). This morning Emily found them.

E (letting my bra hang from the end of her finger with her other hand on her hip): And whose might this be?! Shouldn't this be on your boobies by now?

That is a word-for-word transcript. That's exactly what she said. "Whose might this be?" How old is she?

My word, where does she get this stuff?

The new Dr. Chapstick

Emily and Hope are suffering from very chapped lips this winter. The result is that I have a large supply of lip balms stashed in various places in the house, the diaper bag and my coat. Emily has a big preference for the orange-flavoured Kids Kiss My Face Organic Lip Balm in my coat.

She retrieved it herself this morning out of the pocket of my ski jacket. About 30 minutes later it was time to leave for church, I had my coat on and she needed a re-application. We couldn't find it in my pocket where it should have been.

Me: Emily, where is the orange lip balm? Did you put it back in my coat liked I asked you to?
E: Um.
Me: I asked you to put it back, remember?
E: (thinking for a while and then.... ) Put your hand in your pocket. Do you feel something round?
Me: No.....Did you put it back in here?
E: (said as though her eyebrows were fully raised and very matter-of-factly and with great enthusiasm) No!

It loses something in the transcription I think but John and I were almost peeing our pants.

Almost as funny as.....

Geology would be a lot more interesting if Emily taught it

A couple of weeks ago, we were driving home from somewhere when the following conversation took place:

Emily: Mummy, what's IN the world?
Me: What do you mean?
Emily: We're on the world, but what's inside it?
Me: Well, there is dirt, and then under the dirt is lots and lots of rock and then in the middle it is really hot and filled with liquid rock called lava.
Emily: And that's where the robots live.

Bravo

I was carrying Hope down the stairs from our top floor, as she always asks me to do and I always agree to for some reason. She started picking her nose. Gross. I told her to stop, that picking your nose is icky. She smiled. She looked at her finger. She wiped her finger on my shoulder. She started laughing.

So did I. How could you not?

She'll do just fine.

The Cleanse: Day 9

Well, yesterday I fell off the wagon, just a little bit. I ate 1/4 of a chelsea bun and had bread for supper instead of rice or lentils because that's all there was at that moment. I don't feel worse for it, just a little disappointed in myself. Today I'm back to being more disciplined. It will be easier without company in the house.

The rain, rain and more rain continues to hamper my efforts to get more exercise. I just don't want to walk or bike in a lot of rain. And a lot of rain is what we're getting. Every. Single. Day.

Tomorrow is Day 11. Do you remember what Day 11 means? Fish! Chicken! I've never been so excited over fish and chicken before. Woooooohoooooooo! I will be cracking open my new Jamie Oliver book from the library to get some of his awesome looking fish recipes.

Oh, that reminds me of something very funny Emily said yesterday. She's confiscated the Jamie Oliver book to her bed and she and John look at pictures of the food every night when John puts her to bed. She loves, loves, loves it. I made soup for supper last night. Emily said: "Mummy, can I have mine in a mug, please?" "Sure," I said. I paused thinking where this came from and then she said: "Like Jamie Oliver." So funny. I brought her the mug. She looked at it and said "I need a spoon. Jamie uses a spoon."

Too much. I swear she's going to be on the Food Network someday.

The first story for her wedding

Last night was the second of three birthday parties we have been to or will be to this week. Last night it was Emily's best friend Nevan's 4th birthday party. We love Nevan's parties because it is just as much for the adults as it is for the kids. It is always intimate - just three kids and their three siblings, parents and last night Nevan's grandparents were there, too. It was a lot of fun for everyone.

The adults were enjoying the dinner table to themselves, having wine, laughing, engrossed in their conversation while the kids, who had finished eating, were in the basement playing superheroes etcetera when I heard John beside me gasp "What the?" Silence hit the table. I looked beside me to see Emily, pants and underwear in a heap beside her on the floor, bent over, ass pointed at me, hands grabbing each cheek spreading them wide saying: "Mummy, can you check my bum? I went poop."

It was one of those moments where you think "this can't be real. This is a Dave Barry moment. It doesn't really happen, right?". And yet, there we were.

I scooped Emily up and took her down to the bathroom where I did the requested check. (As a quick explanation, she is just learning to wipe her own bum after the twosies and needs a little check to make sure everything is as it should be.) She kept asking me what was so funny. I couldn't stop laughing. I told her that the grown-ups just told a joke that I hadn't heard before and it was really funny. That satisfied her. I wasn't going to use that perfect, universe-stopping moment, that moment I will remember the rest of my life, that will most definitely be talked about at her wedding and told to her own children, to give her a lesson on appropriate behaviour in front of other people. It was too good to ruin it with that sort of thing. She bought the joke answer.

I'm guessing everyone else will remember it, too. I'm pretty sure they all thought it was one of the highlights of the evening.

Until I fell asleep last night I kept spontaneously laughing. The only thing that would have made it better would be if I could tell my mum about it. She would have loved that one.

Call Stockholm

Emily was sitting at the table yesterday eating something or other that is keeping our grocery bill exorbitantly high these days (not that I'm complaining really; Hope is eating after all. Like, really eating. Food. And not just chocolate food.) like apples or crackers in large doses. It's not the what that is so expensive it is the how much. These kids are eating like grown men. Okay, not quite grown men. Maybe very short men.

Anywho.

Emily: Mummy, guess what!?
Me: What, Emmy?
Emily: I finally learned to chew! And I finally learned to swallow! Right now! Isn't that great?
Me: Silence. Confused silence.

And it only took her 3 1/2 years. She's on the fast track to somewhere.

Forgive and forget

I've mentioned before Emily's complete and total obsession, nay, addiction, with Veggie Tales. It is kid entertainment but as they themselves say, it is also "Sunday morning values. Saturday morning fun." Most episodes are based on an Old Testament story. Each episode ends with "what we learned today." Through Veggie Tales Emily has grasped some moral concepts that can be challenging at three years old. The idea of forgiveness, for example, has taken hold lately. Or so I thought.

We were baking cookies on Saturday. I turned my back for a second. In that second, Emily poked a hole in the bottom of the little bag of cocoa.

Me: Emily, did you just poke that hole in there?
E: Yes.
Me: What do you say?
E: Sorry, Mummy.
Me: I'm not very happy, Emily.
E: I forgive you.
Me: Uh, I'm supposed to forgive you.
E: You forgive me.

Right. Maybe she gets it after all.

Take me away

I searched and searched YouTube for the Calgon Take Me Away commercial as a video explanation of my day. It is naught to be found. But, this is just as good, not to describe my day but to bring me a few laughs and remind me of a time when my only cares in the world were if there was an ample supply of Nerds at the corner store, how long the smell would last in my Strawberry Shortcake's hair and if I had enough beads to finish my friendship pins.



Ed. to add: John won't stop talking about how I should qualify this video and tell everyone how offensive I find it. I pointed out that people who read this blog should know me well enough by now to know that I obviously don't condone racial stereotypes. But he wouldn't relent so here I am adding the caveat. He's good like that.

It's possible that I'm a bit of dirty bird

Yesterday I finally pulled out the vacuum to do a post-Christmas suck of the living room rug and furniture. I'd put it off long enough and it was getting nasty.

I was just plugging in the vacuum when Emily noticed what I was doing.

Emily: Are you vacuuming, Mummy?
Me: Yup.
Emily: (short pause)

Emily: Is Omi coming?