a hodge podge

As I pulled cat urine carpet and pad from our living room and hall today I was thinking of new and exciting ways I could blog about cat pee. Looking back, I wish the largest contributing factor of drama to my day was stinky carpet.

One of our window frames is broken - it won’t stay up. It’s been like that since we moved in - there was a piece of wood used to hold the window open. We didn’t think much of it because 1) we hadn’t opened our windows much before the last week or two and 2) it was behind our couch and pretty inaccessible. That is until, today when we were pulling up the carpet.

Emma was looking out the window and we told her several times not to touch the window. I finished telling her for literally the fifth time in twenty minutes, turned around…and heard screaming. She knocked the wood out and got her hands crushed by the very heavy window. I am thanking God that some of the wood got stuck in the window so the whole weight of it wasn’t on her baby fingers. I thought her fingers would be broken because it is so heavy and she immediately had huge blisters and some bleeding. We took her to the E.R. It was our first trip there for one of our children.

The hospital was more tramautic for her than the window incident. It was new and scary, she was in pain and to top it off she hadn’t napped yet today. The poor baby. Through the x-rays and blood pressure tests she kept crying to go to the “Mickey Mousey store” (The Disney Store) as we had told her earlier in the day we would do soon.

We were told a good report: no broken bones! and headed off to the Mickey Mousey store where you better believe she picked out some fine princess goods. She ended up with a silver princess cardigan, a silver princess skirt and an Emma- sized Fuggarugga doll.

As it stands, my baby girls are sound asleep and my living room smells better.

Emma was playing with play dough and her nose was running. I was feeding Anna so I asked Emma to get down, get a tissue from the bathroom and wipe her nose.

She promptly got down and returned with a wiped nose, tissue in hand and proudly proclaiming, “I did it!”.

I knelt down to her eye level so she could get my important message, “Thank you for obeying. It makes Momma very happy when you obey” (positive reinforcement).

“I love you, Momma” she replied.

Without thinking, I said, “I know you do. When you obey me, it shows me that you love me”.

Ah-ha! My own words sounded so familiar and I understood a little more.

i’ve posted entries similar to this before, but this is amazing.

within the last five minutes both girls have gone done for their nap. both girls were so easy to put to sleep - it’s never been that easy before. this is anna’s first nap of the day so now i will have a good long nap time to myself. i’m so excited. what do i do? (not chores!!)

…and, no, i’m not talking about jonathon edwards…i’m talking about emma. she is my undo-er these past few days.

if i clean up - she makes a mess
if i get anna asleep - she wakes her up (thus the title)
if i get emma dressed - she takes her clothes off

she (mostly) not behaving badly, she’s just being two.

“so, emma, what do you want to do? do you want to play for a couple more minutes or do you want to go to bed?”

her eyes light up “park….boat”

“you want to go to the park and go on a boat?”

“yeh”

{laugh} “yeah, sorry that wasn’t an option”

“boat”…

(we ended up playing — a fair compromise between boat and night night)

anna bear is 5 months today AND we just caught her first laugh on tape. i love it.

both girls are crying - screaming even. both are “just done” and ready to go to sleep…at the same time. i swaddle anna, hold her in my left arm and give her her paci. emma climbs on the couch so i can pick her up more easily and she rests in my right arm. i bounch. and bounch (for about a minute because this is difficult). anna loses her paci and i attempt to get it back in with my mouth. i ask emma to help but she can’t because i’m bouncing and she is exhausted. i sit down and pat emma’s back. both girls fall asleep and both girls get transferred to their beds without waking up.

i’ve perfected the art of (not) folding laundry. in over twenty minutes i’ve folded 5 1/2 towels (and one tshirt and one pair of underwear). here’s how you can be a laundry non-expert by following these easy steps i use when folding laundry (not making this up):
- transport laundry to couch
- fold one towel
- anna wakes up from nap, run upstairs to get her, set up bouncy seat
- fold second towel
- babies fuss. turn music on in hopes of calming children.
- pick up third towel, turn off music because it makes them more upset.
- pick up third towel. try to find baby carrier and realize that anna hates baby carrier today, return anna to seat.
- fold underwear.
- calm emma from meltdown because we can’t watch “nemo” until after nap. locate fish toy in hopes of a compromise and a few minutes of entertainment/distraction.
- fold towels three and four. smell plastic burning. run upstairs and realize sippy cup lid has fallen into bottom of dishwasher and melted. retrieve and dispose of lid.
- fold towel five and t-shirt.
- pick up sixth towel…realize girls need some good momma attention.
- sit on floor. play noahs ark with emma. nurse anna. ask if emma wants to sit next to me. she does not. she is satisfied to know that i am not folding laundry.

and…that’s how it’s done. now i am going to try to put the girls down for nap, try to fold 5 1/2 more towels for an even 11 and call it a day.

*exhale with slight smile and roll of eyes*

“hello?” [it was my little brother calling]

“hey, how does the verse to the veggie tales Daniel song go?”

“which one?”

[his friend with the memory block grabs phone] “oh no, what we gonna do the king likes Daniel (I start singing along) more than me and you…then what?

“we could put him in the dungeon …. and throw him out of Babylon”

“Babylon! yes, thanks”

[brother again] “thanks, Dee, I knew you would know”

i’m the one to call in a veggie emergency…..grrrreat.