I was wondering this morning how to write this latest post and it occurred to me that I usually write about the bad events more than the good. I guess I am inspired by events that cause me anxiety or emotion and most of those, but not all, are unpleasant. I can see why bad new sells stories. They are the ones that elicit a reaction from the reader or viewer. Fortunately, I can look back shortly after the event and laugh, most of the time.
At the risk of being monotonous, here are the latest "interesting" events.
I awoke this morning to Reagan, the two year old, shrieking at the top of the stairs. Not the most pleasant way to wake in the morning. As I reached her, she bent her knees, thrust her hips out, and with her chin on her chest pointed to her panties. Holding her right arm straight out, with her index finger pointing down, she was waving her arm up and down, like a rapper belting out his latest hit and singing it with feeling. She must have been feeling oppressed by the man. At any rate she was making it clear what the problem was. She had dirty panties and was not happy about it. It is amazing how much we can communicate with just body language.
Last night, after brushing teeth, Reagan started upstairs without waiting for me to changer her into her nighttime pull-ups. I took two steps around the corner and looked at Kari.
"Do you think Reagan is ready to go to bed without pull-ups?" I asked her. She shrugged.
"Probably, they are always dry in the morning. Try it." she said.
I was starting to have second thoughts as I was climbing the stairs, realizing that I am usually the one that gets up with them in the morning. I quelled my own doubts, "She is ready." I thought to myself.
I was mentally kicking myself as I was carrying Reagan down stairs, held out at arms length. "What was I thinking?" Then "I knew there would be set backs, but she had doing so well." Then "Wow, this is really a mess." Then "Uh oh, it is dripping!" I stood Rea on the floor in the bathroom, "How am I going to do this without making a huge mess?"
I am trying to recall what I fed her last night, so I never feed it to her again. I will refrain from describing it further, other than to say it was not solid at all. I slid off the soiled garment and put it in the shower. "I will deal with that later." I used about half a roll of toilet paper and then realized that was not getting the job done, but now she was clean enough to move to the changing table. After she was clean we went to the laundry room to fetch some new panties. The two "potty trained" girls have been going through an alarming number of panties in a day and the only place to get clean ones at the moment it from the dryer. I then went back up stairs, fearing what I might find in her bed, leaving Reagan in the kitchen.
Reagan insists on sleeping with at least three blankets, not including the sheet. Also, she must have, an entire entourage of dolls, plush toys, and stuffed animals to get to sleep. Apparently the accident happened and then she moved about the entire bed, sitting on each blanket and about half of the plush toys individually. Sigh. I guess it could have been worse. I didn't find any on the carpet. I emptied a laundry basket, full of clean cloths waiting to be put away, on to the floor and refilled the basket with the dirty sheets, blankets and plush toys.
I made my way back down stairs, still a little bleary eyed and not in the best of humor. As I rounded the corner I saw the cat perched on one of the bar stools in front of my laptop. He was chewing on the cables to my ear phones. If this had been the first time he had done that I would have just shewed him away, but I am on the fifth pair of ear phones. I know, I know, I should have learned to not leave them out where he could get them, but he shouldn't eat my stuff either. At this point I may have lost it a bit, well... I did lose it. I saw red. I shoved the chair with the laundry basket to scare him away, while at the same time stubbing my toe. The chair went crashing down, the cat bolted with me in hot pursuit. Reagan screamed bloody murder, terrified, as I rushed after the cat flinging stuffed animals, which was a convenient ammunition since it is readily available at every step throughout our home and would probably not do permanent damage to the cat. However, I was not overly concerned with his welfare at that moment. Kari will have to feed him today, he is on my black list for the rest of the day. (I found some more cat vomit too, later in the morning.) The cat sough refuge under the bed where Kari was still attempting to sleep, so I left him alone. I returned to console my daughter, a little embarrassed at my outburst.
I collected the laundry and continued to the washer. There is always a pile of cloths awaiting its turn in the washing cycle. I paid the pile no attention and just stepped on it to get next to the washer. That is when I notice that I was stepping on something wet. I looked down. "GREAT!" Reagan, being a good girl, had taken her panties out of the shower and take them to the laundry room, just like we taught her. What a good girl. Sigh... Sigh... I gave up any thought of trying to clean those panties and just threw them in the trash. I hobbled into the kitchen, walking on the edge of my foot. I hefted my leg up, trying to get my foot into the sink without touching anything. "Oof, I need to start stretching."
I cleaned the dirty laundry from the floor as best I could and started on the dirty laundry from upstairs. It is going to take a couple of loads to get it all done. So with the first one in the machine and no hope of going back to bed, I started some coffee brewing and felt the need to update my Facebook status to reflect my mood.
The rest of the morning has been spent breaking up fights over shoes, binkies, Goldfish, sippy cups, stuffed animals, and Leggos. Reagan has a hissy fit anytime one of the twins touches one of "her" stuffed animals. I have been working on conflict resolution with her. "Find another teddy bear, now give it to Jordan. Now take yours back. Say thank you. You see? You don't need to scream."
On the brighter side, I have been meaning to jot down some moments that I would like to remember:
We took all the kids out the other day, which is an event worthy of note in itself. We went out to spend our gift cards from Christmas, maybe pick up a game or two for the Wii. The part I wanted to remember was in Walmart. We had decided to pick up some groceries while we were out and Walmart was convenient. The big girls were on their best behavior, not sure why, but they were being very good. Reagan was very entertaining to watch. She had to touch everything in the store. She wouldn't pick anything up, just squat down and touch it with one index finger and while nobody else would understand her, I could tell that she was counting thins. "Un, Ow, Ree, Orr, Ive, Icks..." At the check out she was trying to convince me that she needed candy. Normally that would entail a screaming fit, but that night she was very pleasant about it, again no idea why. Come to think of it I should have rewarded that behavior, but I didn't. She would move along the candy rack, placing her right index finger on a candy and turn to look at me with a big smile. Kari had put Reagan's hair in pig tails, which makes her huge blue eyes really stand out. She would look at me, I would shake my head, trying not to smile. She would shuffle over a step, place her finger on the next box, look at me and smile. Shake of the head. Shuffle, touch, turn, smile. It was really comical. She may be too cute for her own good.
It is the small moments like that that really touch me. The innocent look, the spontaneous act of kindness to a sibling, the extra tight, full body, hug. You just can't get those feeling anywhere else.
The twins are starting to entertain each other more and it is really fun to watch. They will occasionally wrestle on the couch. They will tackle each other, fall down in a heap and just giggle. While it is sometimes difficult to enjoy, due to the adrenaline coursing through my veins as they nearly topple off the couch, it is still fun to watch. They, Madison and Jordan, have also started the smile when they get reprimanded. That can't be good, but it sure is funny. "No! I told you not to touch the Christmas tree." The reaction: They jump a little from being startled, when they thought they were unobserved. Then they clasp their hand together on their bellies, bend their knees, tilt their heads back, and gaze up at you with a big grin. "Oops, you got me! I won't do it again, really. Go back in the kitchen." I can almost hear them saying it. It should be interesting to hear what they have to say when they can talk.
This morning, in an effort to avert another full blown tantrum, I gave the twins some Snak-Traps. Little cups with a rubber lid that allows the treats to be removed yet prevents them from being dumped straight onto the floor. I filled them with Goldfish, which despite the design, immediately ended up on the kitchen floor, which in turn caused the tantrum that I was trying desperately to avoid. So I got down and was teaching Jordan to pick up the Goldfish instead of putting them on the floor, when in came Madison with her own cup of Goldfish. Jordan was starting to get into the swing of putting the Goldfish "in" and was starting to have fun. Madison saw the fun and decided to transfer Goldfish, by the handful, from her snak-trap to Jordan's. Then Madison though it would be fun to transfer her Goldfish, by the handful, from her snak-trap to the floor, obviously so we could all have more fun picking them up. This set Jordan off again and she stomped around the kitchen in a rage, crushing the majority of the Goldfish into powder that would be even more fun to pick up. The brief moment where they where smiling and working toward the common goal of putting Goldfish "in" is a memory worth the mess for me.
I will now go finish the laundry. Good day.