Dear Don-

As I know you are aware and anxiously awaiting, we have some gift giving opportunities in the near future. Let's see. There is Easter. And then our Anniversary. And then my Birthday. Now, I know how excited you get when it comes to shopping for gifts for me, but really, no need to go all out this year like you usually do. If you just get me these small little things, I will be humbly grateful and you skip that big diamond tennis bracelet you put on hold last year. You're welcome.

I think this dress is appropriate for my ladies luncheons and my weekly trips to the salon for my deep conditioning.

You could also get me this, or this, or this.

Also I want to try this. I have no idea if it actually works. But who cares! It is only 100 bucks, so it can be a stocking stuffer or something.

Also, I want that outfit in the above picture (and get one for Robyn while you are it at). I also want that field right by our house and a white fence. Oh, and her hair. Thanks.

Well I think that about covers it.

Thanks a million,

Melissa

Chloe said the blessing on the food tonight and then said to me,

"Mom. What about the awful?"

And I said, "Uh...what do you mean?"

And she said, "Mom! WHAT. ABOUT. THE. AWFUL!!"

And I said, "You mean, do we pray for the awful people?"

And she said, "Yes! Do we pray for the awful people?"

And I said, "Yes. We pray for the awful people."

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I have been in search for Chloe's "currency" for awhile and I finally figured out what she cares about: Cailou and her toys.

So today we had the usual interaction and I told her she could not watch Cailou until her bed was made.

And that made her mad. And...well...she kicked me. So then I said, "Well, I am taking some toys away. You will have to earn those back too."

And I hauled a box of toys out to the garage.

4 year old mental breakdown.

10 minutes later I find her in the garage, cheerfully swinging Macie in her retired baby swing.

And then she says to me, "Mom. I'm just going to play with my toys in the garage. I am not going to take them in the house."

And she did. And you know what? I was totally fine with her spending some time in the garage.

But I suppose I am going to have to figure something else out next time because she is very good at finding my loopholes.

Chloe just came in and told me:
"Mom. I want to tell you something. I put toothpaste on my lips. Then I had a really great idea. I put nail polish on my lips."

Apparently she wanted something a little more permanent to give her lips the color she desired.

She said she had to wipe it off because it started to burn.

Sigh.

Yesterday I spent 3 hours supervising Chloe clean her room. That does not include the 2 days before, that I grounded her from watching "Cailloo" on Netflix until her room was clean. She finally got her hiney in gear when I got out a box and started putting toys in it to give away. It is days like this that I find myself looking up to the sky and saying, "I am soooooo sorry Mom." I have decided that 4 year olds should get jobs as interrogators. Just put them in a room with the terrorists-they could break them down faster than water boarding.

Anyway, Chloe has added her own decorations to her room to make it "prettier." The mistletoe hangs year round and she has placed beautiful wrapping paper all around her room. Oh, and also instructions for entering her room.

I also serve as Chloe's scribe. Every day she brings me paper and pen and then says, "Write down the words that I say." And then we write invitations to all her friends for Princess tea parties or lists for things that currently float her boat. I am telling you I have hundreds, HUNDREDS of such papers. I will give you an example:

"Dear Teagan. You are invited to my very special Princess Tea Party. It is going to be so fun. We are going to have apples. And macaroni and cheese. And princess cupcakes. You are invited. You are my best friend. I love you. Your friend Chloe. You are my best friend Teagan. Come to my tea party. Love your best friend, Chloe."

Basically these sentiments are repeated over and over again until the whole piece of paper is filled up with words. I am getting smarter now. I have figured out that if I write in a bigger font, there is significantly less space to have to fill up.

Her decorating is fine with me if it keeps her in her room all night.

But even if they both end up in my bed, they sure are sweet munchkins. And now the gallery of new self taken portraits.

Macie and her little boyfriend. She is getting better and better at walking. Some funny things she has done lately-

*she took my hand, opened up my palm, and stuck her bottle in it for me to hold.

*Don was eating something hot and blowing on it, he put some on a fork to give to Macie, and she then blew on it before eating it.

*She stole a sippy cup from my friend's diaper bag and was enjoying some juice, until the owner came around and snatched it out of Macie's hand, Macie just sat there stunned and then her chin started quivering. Macie does not like her food or drink being taken away. I have already mentioned that I have never seen a baby that enjoys food as much as Macie.

catch up

I am playing catch up with my pictures today. I have had a serious case of Mommy brain lately. It is starting to worry me a little. I mean, what if it is really early dementia? For example last Sunday I showed up late to church. Don was already there and he says to me, "Did you know you were leading the music today?" I said, "No I'm not!" Confident that someone else got it all wrong. And then I sat there for a couple minutes, and in the very dark, very hidden and forgotten recesses of my mind, I found a faint recollection of an email in which I agreed to lead the music on Sunday. My bad.

Well anyway, today is the worst holiday of the year: St. Patrick's Day. Hoorah hoorah. I don't drink. I hate forest green unless it is actually in the forest. And only if I was starving on a desert island would I be excited about finding a stash of corned beef and cabbage. I do not want to eat salty, bright pink meat. My friend Bonnie did have me over for brunch today though, and that was fun.

so here are some random pictures.

Chloe likes to think she is a magician. She performs her magic tricks by telling us to close our eyes and then she disappears. It is very difficult to find her.
She also likes to make Chelsey disappear.
Chelsey does not find it all that amusing. She told Chloe something to the effect of "This is the dumbest magic trick in the history of the entire universe." and Chloe cheerfully responded with, "No it's not. This will work Chelsey." And then she puts a white blanket over her head because Chelsey is too tall to fit the length of her body underneath our coffee table.
Poor Macie is also a reluctant model for Chloe practicing her picture taking skills.

Also, Chelsey.
Sit Boo Boo, Sit. Good Dog. So Macie is so close to walking. She can walk, I think she just chooses not to. she takes a couple steps and then she gently eases herself back down on her knees. Don says she approaches walking like I approach skiing. He is referring to the one time we went skiing where whenever I found myself getting too fast, I would just purposefully make myself fall down. I figured either way I was going to fall, and I preferred to be going at a slower speed when it happened. Apparently Macie got the overly cautious gene. Chloe did not get this gene. Lucky girl. Macie gets more fun every day with all the new skills she is learning. I love this stage. She can feed herself pretty well with her spoon (she is very motivated when it comes to figuring how to get food into her mouth). Today she blew on her food like it was too hot. Once again, very motivated when it comes to figuring out how to get (non hot) food into her mouth. The other day she took my hand, put my palm facing up, and than put her bottle in my hand for me to hold. Kids are smart, aren't they? Macie is not in a hurry to grow up (she still wants to nurse) and I am really okay with that. I am enjoying every second of her babyhood.
This was when Chloe was pretending to be Sleeping Beauty.
I love finding these little things-I found these babies all snuggled and then covered with blankets and pillows.

So last night I sang this song at a Church thing, just for the ladies at my church.

My friend Robyn and I wrote this song.

We had a lot of fun doing it.

By the way, I DO really love my husband and my children.

But sometimes....well just listen.

Sometimes I like to pretend that I can get anything I want. So I google around on the computer pretending like I can choose any kitchen table that best fits my fancy. Currently I am dissatisfied with the amount of space my table takes up in my kitchen. However I like that it can seat 6. I was thinking that perhaps a round table would work better in the space. Like I said, I like to pretend that I have this option. So in my googling, I found this little gem.

I do really appreciate an elegant touch and I don't think it is too over the top at all to have swans as a base and something that resembles an ice sculpture used for weddings circa 1987. Unfortunately the table is 17,000 dollars which is not possible, even in my pretend world of getting everything I want. Daydreams need to be somewhat realistic, in my humble opinion.
But maybe some of my more well to do friends might consider this a quaint option for future dinner parties and political open houses.

I just wasted 2 + hours of my life on a BBC miniseries. I am glad I watched the first 2 installments and then skipped to the 6th to see the ending because I don't think I would have wanted to watch the other 3 when the ending of the miniseries was super lame and open ended.
I thought it would be interesting because it dealt with the English channel islands during WWII and I just read the book "The Guernsey Potato Peel Pie Society" (I can never remember the exact title, but close enough). Alas, it was not as awesome as that book was. And by the way, I really hope that that book gets made into a movie.

Anyway, I just wanted to record the scene today at my house. I would have rather got it on film but as always, my camera was dead. (oh, which reminds me, I received some rather disturbing news today that another one of my family's cats was killed by a pack of loose dogs. That makes 2 in a year. Both are rather disturbing so I will spare you any of the details. But really, something has got to be done about those dogs.)

And on that...
Well Chloe decided to give Chelsey a makeover which consisted of fairy wings, a crown, a pink necklace and a pink wand. And then she decided that she wanted to be to be the fairy, and I am pretty sure Chelsey had no problem with relinquishing the crown.

Then she made me be the audience. And gave Chelsey a plastic fork and a plastic spoon. Then I was instructed to introduce them:
"Ladies and Gentleman...Presenting the Beautiful Fairy Chloe and the Big Princess Chelsey."

And then Chelsey was instructed to bang the plastic cutlery together while standing on my coffee table and count. Sometimes it was to count down from 3...sometimes 6...sometimes 10.
Which was my favorite part of the whole show.
"6,5,4,3,2,1. hmpf. That's it. This is most boring game ever invented in the history of the entire universe."

And then it was Chloe's turn to perform on my fireplace platform in which she rotated from the original song "fa, la la la la" to a familiar classic, "Twinkle Twinkle."
Sometimes I feel like my life would make an excellent episode for "Malcolm in the Middle."

And the Craptacular Award goes to....

This week has been putrid. Macie has been sick for almost a full week and I am just 2 days behind her. Looking at your kids when they are sick is like looking into the future. You just know that in 2 days time that will be you. It also makes me feel really bad about the past. I have had a sore throat for 3 days straight which I bet means Macie had a sore throat for 3 days straight only she doesn't have the ability to complain about it, one of the only benefits of being sick. No wonder she turned down Don's Italian Ice. That never happens with this kid. She has a nose of a bloodhound when it comes to food. Anyone opens something up and the fragrant aroma of an unknown food particle makes it way over to her, she books it to the kitchen and looks up with her puppy dog eyes at you, "Please sir, I want some more...."

This morning we seemed to have turned a corner. Hallelujah! Finally the swelling and redness in her face have gone down and she didn't wake up with bugger encrusted eye lids.

Anyway, in honor of this craptacular week, I have created a list of things that I think are craptacular. Please feel free to add on to my list- What do you think is craptacular?

1. Sick babies.

2. Taking care of a sick baby when you feel like a sick baby and your husband wishes you would start acting like a sick adult instead of a sick baby.

3. Wal-Mart.

A. The cashiers at Wal-Mart. Why is it that they seem to have only one speed and no matter how long the lines get, they still act like they are a grocer at a small county store (without the friendly small talk and pleasant demeanor of course) where they can count the number of customers they had that day by the number of times they heard the bell above the door ring.

Also, why is it that at the peak of business, they have like 2 registers open, and 4 cashiers have to clock out at the same time. And then you look in the aisles and see employees stocking the shelves. Is there not a way that those employees could be trained to use a register?

Wal-Mart is seriously the DMV of grocery stores. They are the only store that can get away with such craptacular customer service because their prices are so cheap.

B. The bagging system. I have wanted to ask the cashier if I could bag myself to speed things up, but that is just awkward because they still have to put the item on the top of the circular bagging system. And that just seems stupid. If they are going to have to put it on top of the circular bagging system, I guess they might as well just go ahead and put it in the bag.

4. The Academy Awards. Especially when it takes the place of my favorite show. Have you ever noticed how many of these Award shows they have where they get together and give themselves pats on the back, as if they are doing some great work for humanity. Portraying a great historical or fictional hero does not actually make them a hero. And if they were a real hero, probably the last thing they would want to do would be to come and get an award and have everyone tell them just how totally awesome they are. Pardon me if I don't think acting is on par with more important qualities like being loyal to your spouse and children. Anyway, I think I am going to host a Mommy Academy Awards. And we can nominate each other and give each other awards to make ourselves feel good about ourselves.

Well I think I am going to have to go take a nap now. I suddenly got super tired. Must be because of all the fabulous night's sleep I have gotten this past week (see # 1 and #2)

P.S. Thank goodness for Chelsey and her occupying Chloe the past couple days. Last night I heard them talking about making some fruit salad (Thank you "Wiggles") and Chelsey said, "Ya, but we are going to need your Mom to help us on account of neither of us should be in the kitchen alone."

Yesterday I told them all about the yummy food I got at the grocery store.

Chloe: "Did you get bananas?"

Me: Yes.

Chloe: Yay!!!!!!!!

Chelsey: Did you get pepporoni?"

Me: Uh no, sorry.

Chelsey: Ohhhhhhhhh, maaaaaaan....

Chloe: Did you get apples?

Me: Yes.

Chloe: Yay! Chelsey, Mom got us apples!!!

Chelsey: Did you get cheese?

Me: Yes.

Chelsey: Yessssssssssss! (said EXACTLY like Napolean Dynamite and with her arm making ch-ching sign)

They are so funny.

They are on my spectacular list. Along with all the pictures Chloe draws for me of rainbows and hearts.

Oh my gosh. I just heard Chloe ask Chelsey, "Are you ready for a makeover."

And Chelsey said, "Ya. But just a tiny one."