Two hours before dinner last night, I told the small ones that they would need to clean up the bucket of Duplos and the bucket of Thomas Trains that they had dumped out on the living room floor before dinner. One hour before dinner, I reminded them. Dinner came, plates were made up, the rest of us sat down…and two little boys had the nerve to look shocked and distraught that their plates were not among those on the table.

“I will be glad to get your plates as soon as you finish cleaning up your mess in the living room,” I told them….and told them…and told them many times over the next few hours.

My words were always met with a loud/angry/whiney “Noooo” or “Don’t want to”.

No problem :)

Unfortunately, they thought it was better to go to bed hungry than clean up their mess. Fine by me, the choice was in their hands: Do 3 minutes of clean up and eat or go to sleep hungry. They made their choice and stood strong by each other.

What they did not anticipate is that my stubbornness would carry through to breakfast.

Once again they were met with the dreaded words “I will be glad to get your breakfast as soon as you clean up your mess in the living room.”

They lasted about 2 hours with the occasional sad little whine of “Hungry…” here and there. Finally they made a different choice and the living room floor is once again free of Duplo booby traps.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, they are asking for their third! helping of cereal.

When I saw Liam get up and high tail it after him, I no doubt expected a squabble to ensue over said binoculars.

When Liam caught up to Gavin, he put his hands on his shoulders, whipped around in front of him (hands now on the front of his shoulders) leaned forward and planted a big loud wet one (accompanied by a “MWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA” sound) right on his face.

I about died. It was the cutest thing. I was grinning, laughing and getting misty-eyed all in the same moment.

The best part was the look on Gavin’s face after this transpired. He turned around with the cutest smile on his face that totally said, “Aww, my brother loves me!”

I will try to remember this moment the next time I see Gavin dragging Liam down by the hair because he wants to sit where Liam is sitting….

“I love you, my sweety-pie Mommy
Sweety Pie, Sweety Pie
Sweeeeeeeeeeeee-teeeeeeeee Piiiiiiiiiie”

A month or 2 ago, I got up and began my usual routine of getting one boy, changing him, dressing him, transferring him to the living room. Wash, rinse repeat with boy #2. As I’m doing this, Lidia comes in and says something about breakfast. In my morning stupor, I didn’t hear her completely. As I bring boy #2 to the living room, Lidia excitedly greets me with, “I’m making my breakfast, mom!”
er what?
I approach the kitchen and find she has taken frozen waffles from the freezer, gotten her stool, put the waffle into the toaster oven AND turned the toaster oven ON. Luckily it had only just been turned on and I was not detained long in dealing with the boys. I didn’t even know she knew how to turn the thing on! Guess she was watching.

She also mastered the little push down cabinet safety locks long ago. Apparently she watched me do that one too many times.

Not only that, we have installed on our kitchen drawers the magnet locks…the ones where you have to hold the magnet key up to the right spot on the cabinet/drawer and pull out at the same time to open the drawer. Relatives and friends visiting our house have a hard time opening these drawers with said magnet keys. The princess got a hold of one of the keys recently and put it on the EXACT magnet spot–as though she had been doing it her whole life–and opened the drawer like a pro. She didn’t even have to “feel around” for the lock! Unbelievable. Even I have to feel around for the lock at times, and I open the thing all day long.

She has learned which nuks belong to which boy. They are the same nuks except Gavin uses the blue ones–and Liam uses every other color. We never told her this.

I was having a Mommy moment, loading the boys into the van yesterday. Lidia suddenly says, “Mom, that’s Liam’s seat, not Gavin’s.” She caught me ready to put the boy into the wrong seat. The boys have identical car seats, but Liam always sits on the right side of the van, Gavin on the left. She had observed this and filed it away with all of that other information I didn’t know she had.

Where, oh where, is that tiny little thing we brought home from Russia?

Now I’m waxing nostalgic again. It is so cliche….but my baby is just growing up too fast.

I’ve always said how the Princess reminds me of a teen in a three-year-old’s body, so really it should not come as a surprise. From the beginning this girl has had attitude about her. She is certainly spunky. It’s one of those things I love about her.

Yesterday, as we were headed home from Story Time at the local giant bookstore chain, I buckled my little diva into her car seat, as usual. Occasionally, when she starts to become tired, her body suddenly becomes hyper sensitive to EVERYTHING. Seams in clothing, something is touching her arm, her sock is twisted, there’s a tag in her shirt, the babies are too loud… I would have pegged her for some sort of sensory disorder, if I did not know that this beast rears its head only during times of sleepiness or over-stimulation. In this case, the chest buckle on her seat was “too tight.” Now keep in mind, the straps on this seat have not been adjusted since summer began and she no longer wore a coat in the seat. In fact, it was exactly the same tautness when she arrived to Story Time in said seat not 45 minutes earlier. Despite my checking and confirming that indeed, it was not too tight, the meltdown quickly ensued.

“Nooooooooooooooo it’s too tight it’s too tight bwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.”

I gently explained that I could not make it looser, as that was unsafe. Of course, what does the 3 year old care of being safe?

Tantrum continues. I decide it’s not worth arguing over, she’s just tired, so we’ll head home and get some lunch and a nap. I drove on, pointedly ignoring her screams.
“I want my daddy, I miss my daddy.” This is what she resorts to when the Meanest Mom in the World arrives and begins parenting.
In the middle of her tantruming, she sees something interesting–some road work being done.
In a half way normal voice, she pulls out of the tantrum to say, “Mommy, why did they break the road?”
I mentioned that it had holes in it and needed to be fixed.
Suddenly, she remembered how pissed she was.
The demon voice takes over and my little princess screams,

“I HATE YOU!”

ouch.

Like I said, a little sooner than I’d anticipated, though I knew it would happen sooner or later.
Luckily, I also know that she did not really mean it. It stung a bit at first, but my mommy sense took over. She’s just mad. I know I must have said that a million times about my parents, growing up. After a moment, I almost laughed to myself. My little girl is caught in a world where she is old enough to know she wants to run her own life…but too young to make good decisions. That is a tough place to be–especially when you have to be in that place for so many years! I don’t have the heart to tell her just how long it is until she turns 18.

My response to her outburst?
I feigned hurt. I explained how she hurt my feelings and that wasn’t very nice to say. I didn’t want to talk to her anymore because I was sad. I wished she would apologize and make me feel better.

She ignored me and cried for a while. She then made a stab at changing the subject, suggesting we have peanut butter and honey sandwiches for lunch. I reaffirmed to her that I was very sad and didn’t want to talk to her until I felt better.
She cried some more.
Then, finally, she decided to say, “I’m sorry Momma”
“Why are you sorry?” I asked, wondering if she truly knew why I was sad.
“I said I hate you,” she replied.
“Oh, thank you for apologizing, I feel much better now. Do you really hate me?” I asked.
“No, I don’t.”
“That’s good, because I love you.”
“I love you, too.”

*phew*
Crisis averted.

After a lunch of peanut butter sandwiches and a good nap (for all 4 of us!), life was once again happy in the Princess’s castle.

The princess enjoys the market and was especially thrilled that her Papa and Yaya were along this time. As we stopped at a booth, I stood aside with the boys and the double stroller such that people could get by us easily. Lids was up on her Papa’s shoulders, getting the best view. As I turned back, however, I noticed that her jacket had ridden up and her pants had ridden down, leaving one heck of a plumber’s crack. Funny, yes, but maybe not something I want this giant crowd of people to see. Just as I was about to say something, I look over and notice this college age girl pointing and laughing. Yes, I agree, it’s funny and kind of cute, but what she did next did not sit well with me.

She held up her digital camera and snapped a picture of my daughter’s @ss crack.

Okay, now am I over reacting here, or does this just seem completely inappropriate? I immediately became angry and flustered, I called the girl over and asked (even though I saw it happen) if she had taken a picture of that little girl up on the man’s shoulders. She replied yes, and I then asked her if she could please delete it, as that was my daughter. She gave me a funny look and said, “yes” she would and then kept on walking.

Now it is seriously bothering me that I did not make her show me that she deleted it. I am haunted by this idea that my daughter’s butt crack is going to show up on the internet, put out there by someone other than myself–some snarky little college student that is getting a laugh at that crazy chick who told her to delete a photograph, but didn’t check that she had. Not only that, I am still seething that she thought it would be okay to photograph a child without the parents’ permission. Moreover, a child’s rear (which last I checked ranked high on the private areas list).

Once the lady walked away, I was quick to call the Princess down from her high tower, pull down her jacket and pull up her pants, but the damage had been done and that moment has been lodged in my brain ever since.

Suffice it to say, if someone else ever snaps my kids without my permission, I will be certain that I witness the deletion.
Maybe I should buy the Princess some overalls, too…