Rough days for Anna

Anna's had a rough time the last four days... due in large part to my poor mothering.

Friday at recess, she fell from the play structure at school and hit her chest on a bar on the way down.  She didn't tell anyone, but she was in so much obvious pain that her teacher noticed and sent her to the health office.

I somehow missed the school's first call entirely.  When the second call came through, I was at yoga, where I always have my silenced phone right at the side of my mat in case school tries to reach me.  I have slipped into the bathroom to take calls from unknown numbers "just in case" many times this school year.  But after an online inquiry on the value of Dave's Passat a couple weeks ago, I have been inundated with calls from dealerships.  So Friday, I stupidly ignored the incoming call. 

School called Dave and Dave called me.  I ignored the first call from him, because he has an established history of calling me during yoga for especially non-pressing issues. When his second call came, I listened to the message and rushed out.  Dave had Anna at the office, where I found her sitting in his office crying.  She'd sat at school in pain for an hour, and then in his office waiting for me for another 15 minutes.  I held her and listened to her grunt with each painful breath.  When Dave (now 45 minutes behind schedule with his patients) was able to come back in by us, he decided she needed xrays to rule out a small hole in her lungs and broken ribs.

She could barely walk, but it hurt worse if I carried her.  Thankfully, the xrays were clear.  She'd just badly bruised her ribs, but the pain was so bad, she wouldn't even eat ice cream when I stopped and got her some, in an attempt to sooth her ribs... and my conscience.

She's feeling much better now and we're on spring break in Florida.  So I decided it would be a good day to crush her skull.

Walking on a pier last night, we saw pelicans just hanging out on the posts.  They were huge and majestic looking.

I took this picture of one next to the kids.

Notice the safe distance away everyone is standing?

Later, we saw another and Anna wanted to get her picture with it.

I wasn't happy with this picture.  I said, "Step back a little."

Then...

Oh.  My. Gosh!!!

I couldn't breathe.  I grabbed Anna and checked her head and shoulder for missing parts, even though she insisted it hasn't gotten her.

(I didn't even realize I'd gotten a picture of it.)

Dave decided a while later to emphasize the strength of pelican's beaks, and how Anna could be in the ER, and I began to cry.

When we got back to the cottage, I lay on the bed feeling like a terrible mother.  Anna came up and said, "It's okay mommy; it wasn't your fault. I stepped back too far."

"I told you to step back."

"You told me to take one step back I stepped back a lot."

"Well, okay," I said, smiling through the tears, "We'll say it was 50/50, half your fault, half mine."

"Well...no," Anna replied. "It was maybe a quarter my fault."

I love this kid!  And I'm so glad her scalp is intact.

Luke's pizza

Last week, my carb addict was telling me about pizza, "I like olives and cheese, but what I like most is the back of it."

"Oh, the crust."

"Yeah," he confirmed, "the crust, and the back of it."

Aunt Anna

Last week at breakfast the kids were talking about when they had kids of their own.  At the mention of Kate's kids, Anna thought of something.  She asked Kate, "Am I going to be called 'Aunt Anna'? I think that sounds weird. I think 'Mrs. Melbye' sounds better."

Overhearing the conversation, I asked, "You're going to make your neices and nephews call you 'Mrs. Melbye'?"

She giggled and confirmed it.

Twins?

We finally decided to try a new sitter.  Until about three years ago, we'd never left our kids with anyone but family or two of my close friends.  Then we got our beloved babysitter Bridget.  She was a graduate student with a bunch of siblings, and I occasionally wondered if she was actually more qualified than I was to care for my kids.  But, Bridget has had a full time job as a speech therapist for a couple years already, and I hate to take up her rare free time asking her to watch the kids.  So, when I met and really liked a friend's babysitter a couple times, and saw that she was being trusted to even drive the kids places, I decided to get her information.

Nina watched the kids for the first time on Friday.

Apparently, a while into the evening she asked the kids how old they were.  When Kate explained that Luke and Ally were twins, she thought Kate was fooling her.  She told Kate she didn't believe her, and when Anna verified it, Nina evidently turned to Ally and said, "Ally, you wouldn't lie to me.  Are you and Luke twins?"  When Ally said they were, Nina shook her head, and smiling at them asked, "Why are you lying to me?"

Finally Kate thought to get an old calendar and showed Nina the twins' birthdate, where it says, "Luke and Ally's birthday."

I asked Kate what Nina said then.  She said, "Well, why would I believe you?  I mean, it's crazy!"

This story really makes Dave and me laugh!

Tapping our tree

We tapped our maple tree (as well as our ash tree) for the first time four years ago.  

We got tons of sap, but boiling it down soaked our kitchen.  

You have to boil away 97% of the water.  

So I told the kids it would be an "every other year" thing.  

Well, it's an "on" year.  So, we tapped our tree on Wednesday.

Before we got started, Anna ran upstairs and changed into her Nature Explorers Badge shirt, so she felt more qualified.

Such fashionable tapping gear.

Natural consequence

I think my kids have lived with my Love and Logic approach to discipline so long, I think they may have figured out how to use it to their advantage.

The kids had blueberries for an after school snack.  Anna asked for more, but I told her, "No, because we're going to eat dinner pretty soon.  We're having waffles, and you can have blueberries with your waffles.

"Okay, so can I have more blueberries now and then not get to have any with my waffles?" And then she added, really enticingly,  "It would be a lesson for me..."

Boogers

Luke and Ally were waiting for the bus.  I was washing their faces and wiping their nose as I do every day before they leave (when I actually remember).  I had to wipe Ally's nose a lot, since it was pretty messy.  As I wiped, Ally asked me, "What are booger for?"

I stopped wiping a moment and looked at her.

"What do they do?" she added, trying to clarify the question.

I thought for a moment, not really sure.  I was about to explain that I thought the nose was filtering out impurities from the air and that maybe this resulted in boogers.

But before I had a chance to start, she came up with a better theory, "Do they block snot!?!"

I'm going to miss

I'm going to miss when Ally stops calling her knees "kneels," and Luke begins to call his "sweaty pants" sweatpants, just like I miss when Anna called long underwear "hot underwear."

Science and theology according to four-year-olds

I overheard Luke and Ally discussing a bit of science and theology.  

"The world is a big circle.  And the sun is in the middle of the Earth," explained Ally to Luke.

"And we're kind of upside down," added Luke.

"But we don't fall off, because God is there," continued Ally.

"And the North Star is right by the sun," explained Luke, "because north goes the sun way."

"The North Star is where Jesus is," clarified Ally.

"Yeah," agreed Luke, reiterating his original point, "because the North Star is right by the sun."

Then Ally began spinning around in circles, and said, "I'm making this whole world spin right now."

"No, Ally," Luke disagreed.  

Then he decided to get me involved, "The world just spins by itself, right, Mom?"

Artist at work

The kids had an unexpected day off yesterday, due to a water main break.

We used the free day to go to the art museum.  I'd brought along a folders for each kid with paper and markers so they could draw pictures of their favorite pieces.  (And when we arrived they actually had some art packs you could borrow, as well.)  

Luke's rendition of this statue made me laugh out loud.  I love that the first things he drew were in this order: body, breasts, and then head. 

Teacher love

Our beloved K4 teacher was out of school because she fell on the ice and needed stitches above her eye.

This morning I told the twins I thought we should get Mrs. Koscielniak something special to cheer her up.  I asked what they thought we should get her.

Ally thought for a while and then said, "Some of Baba's stuffing."  This shows how much they love her.  Some of the Baba's stuffing!  This is the same stuffing that Ally inventories before going to bed, because she can't sleep if any is missing.  The same stuffing I had to retrieve following a playdate with someone I didn't know that well, texting to ask if she could search her house for a small piece of rolled up stuffing that may have been lost in her house.  I, who suffered eight months of pregnancy to give Ally life, have only once been offered a loan of Baba's stuffing when I was suffering from a particularly bad migraine.

Then Luke had an idea.  "A popsicle."

I expressed concern that a popsicle might melt on the way to school, so Ally thought maybe a yogurt stick, "because Daddy had to put something cold on him's eye when he fell on the ice."

Then Ally added some ideas. "A muffin," and then, with a stroke of genius revised her idea, "...or a machine that makes muffins!"

"I'm not sure you can buy machines that make muffins," I told her, "I think they only have those in factories."

"Okay," she conceded, "then just a muffin."

Then Luke suddenly said, "We could put the popsicle in a bag with ice."

I began to envision a gift basket.  It would have a piece of stuffing, a muffin, and a ziplock bag filled with ice and a lone popsicle.

"Or we could get her ice cream," Luke said, thinking aloud, "but that's not healthy.  Maybe cold [frozen] blueberries."

"We could get her a dress!" Ally exclaimed, like she'd thought of the definitive idea.  "We could give her the dress you wore when you got married!"

"My wedding dress?"  I asked for clarification, "You want to give Mrs. Koscielniak my wedding dress?"

"Yeah," she confirmed, "'cause it so beautiful."

"Well..." I said, trying to steer the brainstorming a little, before they tried to give her Dave along with my wedding dress, "I wonder if maybe we could give her flowers..."

Luke covered his face, about to cry, "You don't like any of my ideas!"

These two

I was always fascinated with twins as a kid.  I spent a lot of time wishing I had a twin.  I made my three-years-younger sister dress in matching clothes as me, and, since she was always tall for her age, we could often get people to ask if we were twins.  (I'd sometimes also make her speak to me only in fake sign language and help me around as I wore a cast I'd made out of cardboard... but all of that is besides the point.)

Anyway, when I found out I was having twins, I was incredibly excited.  Then I was more than a little disappointed to find out they weren't the same gender.  

But, now I couldn't imagine anything better.  These two are the best of friends.  The best playmate either could ask for, and the way they care for each other warms my heart every day.

If Ally is upset about having to leave for school, Luke will say, "But Ally, you don't want to miss dancing, do you?  You love that."  When Luke hurts himself, suddenly Ally is there with a band-aid.  If Ally, finishes her snack and is disappointed it's gone, Luke will pass her a piece of his.  And, when one was sick, and having to sleep by the bathroom, the other couldn't imagine going to bed without their twin next to them.  

It makes me wish, once again, I had a twin.  

...I'll have to see if Dave will dress up with me in a matching outfit like I used to make Diana.

What Opa did

Luke thinks everything my dad does is the coolest thing ever.   Luke especially loves when my dad plays with coins with him.  Luke loves to ask "heads or tails?" but he is still trying to learn how to toss the coin in the air, catch it, and show it on the back of his hand to see if the person's guess was right.  Luke also loves when my dad spins a coin on its end.

This morning, Luke was playing with his coins.  When it came time to put them back in his bank, he tried to sweep them off the edge of the table into the hole in the bottom of his bank.  He got about 25% of them in the bank.  The rest fell on the floor.  

But, suddenly Luke exclaimed, too excited to get the sentence quite right, "Oh!  I did what Opa can did!  Look mom!"

Luke was looking at the ground and jumping up and down with excitement!  One of the coins that had fallen was spinning on it's end.

Overtired demon

It was well past bedtime and Luke decided he wanted to make a parachute out of a plastic bag.  He got out a bag and asked me for some string.  I pulled up my very last shred of "good, patient mommy" and said, "That sounds like a fun idea.  But, it's bedtime right now.  Why don't you put the bag on the project table so we remember your fun idea, and we can make a parachute right after the girls go to school in the morning."

"No!" he screamed, way overtired, "I want to make it now."

"No, Buddy, it's bed time now.  Go upstairs," I said, and walked away from him to show him that was the end of the conversation.

I swear he became possessed by an overtired demon.  He ran after me and screamed, "You don't know!  You're not the director.  Only God is.  And Jesus!"

Treat

I often worry that I'm making my kids weird.

I was a weird kid, and I got brutally teased all through middle and high school because of it.  I'm still weird now, but being weird as an adult is okay.  As an adolescent, it can be tough.

So, when Dave jokes that I'm making our kids weird (by denying them food dyes or with the weird foods I give them to avoid cane sugar or by discussing social issues with them that are above a bit above their pay grade), I take it a little to heart.

I mean, if my kids end up a little weird, which they probably will, I want it to be because that's who they are, not because that's who I made them.

I've been trying really hard to come up with a sort of balance between how I want to raise them and the world we live in, so that they can be at least somewhat well adjusted.

Yesterday the twins were so well behaved as they waited through my doctor's appointment and a blood draw.  A couple people even commented how well behaved they were.  I figured they deserved a little fun, maybe a treat, so I said, "I think this would be a great time for a treat!"

"What are we going to have?" asked Luke.

"I don't know," I replied, "what do you think?"

"Hmmm," thought Ally, until with a smile she asked, "An orange!?"

"Maybe an orange," I said smiling, "but maybe better!"

"Oh!  Yogurt?" guessed Luke, excitedly, "Or going through the car wash?"

I realized these guesses might be considered a little on the "weird" side, so I decided to shake things up a little.

I drove to McDonalds.

When Luke saw the building, he just said, "Yummmmmm."

Ally commented, "McDonald's is the best place ever... and Disney World."

I ordered a shamrock shake and an extra cup, and they were commenting on how the red thing on top was making the frosting red.  I gave them each half.

After a moment of drinking in silence, Luke asked, "Mom, do you have one of these?"

"A shake?  No, not right now."

"Because," he continued between sips, "I want to tell you what they taste like today.  They taste really yummy.  And the frosting, you know what it has inside of it?  It has green. And it tastes like the shake."

I just blew their minds.

Daddy's music

Dave is definitely the cooler parent, especially when it comes to what we listen to on the radio.  I'm an NPR girl; Dave likes a big variety of music.  When the kids are in the car, I'll let them listen to their CD's, but all their exposure to new music comes from Dave.

Luke loves music.  He'll remember a song he heard with Dave a month ago, and when it'll come on he'll say, "Oh, I know this song!" and he'll remind Dave where they heard it.

Yesterday, I was driving the twins to a birthday party.  Dave had used the van earlier, so his station was on when I turned on the car, but I hadn't really noticed.  After about five minutes, a Beastie Boys song came on, and Luke exclaimed, "Oh, I love this song!"  Then he asked, "Mom, is this daddy's music?"

I was thinking Of course it's Daddy's music.  You know I'm lame.