Naughty or nice

Unfortunately for Eliza's chance with Santa, this naughty face has been all too common lately. It showed up several months ago. Since then it has become rather common, as has the accompanying behavior.

This has been a hard year for Eliza. I have wondered what to chalk it up to. Middle child syndrome? Terrible Twos/Threes? Or is it just that she got ousted from "baby" position and retaliated in negative ways to get the attention back? She was fully potty trained a year ago, so she doesn't get attention for that. It's Sage who started school this year, and Lily who is first to get immediate needs met. And then there's Eliza--the one that's always stepping on Lily's hands and feet and pushing Sage's buttons. It's been a struggle for me to know how to deal with my first ever Middle Child.

Yesterday my sister-in-law stopped by and she was telling me about her Christmas presents for the kids. She told me that her nine year-old son's Christmas wish was to go on an overnight horseback riding trip with only his dad. So that's exactly what they planned for son and dad to do on Christmas night. How awesome is that? (If only Sage would wish for an overnight stay at Embassy Suites with her mom for her Christmas wish!)

In all seriousness, I think my sister-in-law really stumbled onto something genius--giving kids exactly what they want. Not the "Barbie Diamond Castle Princess Dress Up Lounge" wants but the perfect-activity-to-do-with-just-my-mom[or dad] want. Perhaps it's not a stretch to even call these needs.

Doesn't every kid crave undivided attention from a parent? And not just the time associated with timeouts. [Eliza gets plenty of that kind.] In a moment of honesty this year, I realized that every single time my dad calls on the phone I find myself racking my brain for clever things to say to make him laugh. Even though I'm an adult with kids of my own, deep down I still desperately want to make him proud of the "witty and clever daughter" he raised. I don't really want to go on an overnight horseback riding trip with him, but I know that I still crave his attention and approval.

So last night, Mark and I put out of our minds all of the wrapped presents we have for our kids in order to think about what they really might want/need. And we decided to give each kid the gift of choosing a date with Mom and Dad (separately).

My guess is that Eliza will want to be read to, maybe at the library. And my guess is that Sage will want to go to Lagoon (and we'll say no), and then she'll pick to go to the swimming pool--not the kid part, but the laps pool. And I don't think either of them will mind stopping for a frostee at Wendy's on the way home. And if she could talk, I'm almost positive Lily would ask to be able to climb up and down our stairs (with no baby gate) for an hour. Pure bliss.

And who knows? Maybe we'll see less of the naughty and more of the nice after our parent/kid dates. Or maybe we'll just end up with three requests to go a McDonalds playplace, which is not my idea of pure bliss. If that's the case, I'm asking Santa to send Mark and me to Embassy Suites.

Merry Christmas!

I need intervention

There should be a law that requires that anyone who purchases a candy thermometer must also purchase a bathroom scale. For accountability.

Dear Santa

Dear Santa,

This year could you please bring my neighbors lots of tasty treats? It’s not their fault that I made such delicious caramels that Mark and I had to eat most of them ourselves even though we knew the only ingredients are sugar and butter and variations of sugar and butter (or is butter a variation of cream?). Adding those pecans to part of the caramels made us feel a lot healthier about eating the horrific number we did. But I have to admit our twin tummy aches didn’t allow for much self-deception about how many butter/sugar blobs is too many for one night. (I’m certain the answer is less than 15, although further testing will have to be done to verify how much less.)

And while I’ve got your ear, Santa, I just wanted to give you a heads up about the number of stockings hanging around our house. There are 15. And lest you think it is a plot by my three greedy kids to rake in more loot, I assure you that they merely represent hours of happy work by two artistic children. And lest you think this a plot by two greedy parents to rake in more caramels…well, I’ll have to think about that one. Anyway, please don’t fill the stockings with anything other than old frozen Halloween candy. That’s what I would do if I were you, knowing that my kids would lick a rock if it were covered in sugar. Even freezer burnt sugar.

Sincerely,

Me

Lily goes to the dentist

This week I went to the dentist. It was hard to not think of my last appointment. Lily was one month old, and I must have been severely sleep deprived when I made the decision to take her with me to my appointment. What was I thinking—that I would nurse her while the hygienist flossed away?

As fate would have it, that’s almost exactly what did happen. And I was not sleep deprived enough to fail to recognize the awkwardness of that situation.

Lily made it through the hygienist part and decided to be inconsolable right after the hygienist left to go get the dentist. I picked her up and began to nurse her. And who knew, but that mauve-colored dental bibs double for nursing aprons!? A minute or so later the dentist came bustling in. He was busy assessing my cavity-ridden x-rays and I don’t think he noticed the bundle under my bib.

He took a minute to discuss my options (which were get the cavity filled or get the cavity filled). Then, just as I was contemplating bringing Lily out of hiding the dentist stepped on his pedal and my chair began to recline till I was staring up at the ceiling with wide eyes. I think Lily has a bright future as an astronaut because she totally multi-tasked during that roller-coaster-like ride and she nursed away without a hiccup.

Now that I was fully reclined I felt much less inclined to unlatch Lily, since I no longer had gravity on my side in the modesty battle. And the dentist’s mouth was moving again. It was hard to pay attention to what he was saying, since my mind was racing with the possible explanations I could offer if (or when) my mid-section began to cry or hiccup or even squirm.

Thankfully Lily was just happy to fill the canteen quietly while the dentist worked. I was almost giddy with relief when the dentist declared me finished (for now) and the chair began to move again.

They are right when they say to not bring your kids in for dental checkups until they’re two. Or at least until they’re done nursing, I’d say.

Awkward

Sage decided that for her daily homework she would draw her own handwriting paper and practice some letters. She made the cutest paper, complete with solid blue lines and dotted red lines. She randomly chose the unfortunate letter combination of U, K and F to repeat over and over again. (Should I slip it out of her homework folder before she delivers it to her teacher?)

It reminded me of the time when she produced this awkward painting, where she selected watercolors as her medium, and then finished up with acrylic paints, which really gave the knight and his trusty steed a noble look. Don't you think?