Favorite Quotes This week:
 Background: I was looking at recipe ideas online and asking Chelsey and Chloe which ones looked good.
Chelsey: "Looking at pictures of food is nice, but I'd rather be eating it."

Background: Today I was driving home from church and totally out of the blue chloe says;
"Mom. I need to ask you a question.  How does a person in a wheelchair get in their bed at night time?"

Background: After 2 days of trying to get Chloe to clean up her room....I went into her room and starting picking up her toys and told her all the toys I picked up, would be going in storage and she would have to earn them back.  She still spent most of the evening laying around the house and sighing and complaining about how tired she was and how she couldn't possible pick anything up, being as exhausted as she was.  Well after *I* basically cleaned up her room she asked me when we were going to the splash pad.  I told her it was too late, and besides how could we go to the splash pad when she was just sooooooo tired....  And then she said,

"I wasn't really tired. I just didn't want to clean my room."

She sure tricked me.


Favorite moments this week:
Macie figured out how to do a somersault. 
And she shared her sucker with her friend at church.

chloe
(Chloe just typed her name above)
CHLOE
(she just made me fix her name, because she wanted all the letters to be big)
and she just asked me why we need fingernails.

Anyway, I digress.
So this past week Chloe started swim lessons.  Last year there was a little girl in her class that had the same swimsuit, so of course they bonded over that.  Chloe asked me if that little girl was going to be there this summer.  I said I didn't know.
Well what do you know, the little girl was there and in her class.
And I was shocked when the little girl came up to Chloe and said, "Hi Chloe."
I could not believe she remembered Chloe's name from a year ago.  Now that is a smart kid.

Dumb decisions of the week:
I realized that bringing cheese ravioli for the kid's snack to church is a really, really bad idea. Although Don told me it was an improvement over the time that I brought a large bag of Doritos.  Do you know how loud a bag of Doritos is? It's loud.

Parenting.

I have been thinking.  About parenting mostly.  I had a conversation a while back with a friend, about how different Moms have different pet peeves and how that is usually what we focus our parenting on.  I thought about it, and I wasn't sure what my pet peeve was.  (It is hard to pick, I do have so many). And then it got me thinking, what is my parenting goal?  As in, what is my ultimate goal for how my children turn out? What is my priority?  I think as with everything, you have to have a goal if you want to be successful.  Otherwise it is just work without any purpose.

Well I figured it out, thanks to a very mouthy week on Chloe's part.  I shed one tear yesterday thinking about how my 5 year old was acting like a 16 year old Queen Bee.  So that's my pet peeve: A Bad attitude, and an unbridled tongue.

So that is my goal: to raise polite and respectful children. 

And to do this, I know I need to be calm and consistent.  Which is a challenge for me.

But I have to.  

Yesterday Chloe told me that my meatballs looked like poop.  And then she stuck out her tongue about a billion times and refused to eat them.  

It was a really great day.

Observations.

When I am alone during the day, doing my usual duties, I sometimes have thoughts.  And these are just some of them.  I thought that I'd write them down. 

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For the most part, I dread going to Wal Mart.  But at least I never have to worry about being underdressed. 
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Why do commercials always say that if you use their detergent, drier sheets, fabric softener, etc. , that your clothes will come out feeling like they were air dried on a beautiful, windy spring day?  Have you ever let your clothes air dry out in the sun? They come back feeling like cardboard. And smelling like 4 day old unwashed hair.
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Don told me that he heard the way to lose weight, is to write down your goal weight on a piece of paper, and then put it in your pocket.  But the problem is I wear skirts with no pockets.  So do you think I should just pin it somewhere?
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I finally saw "The Notebook" today.  That's because it was on the ABC Family channel.  And just like every other movie based on a Nicholas Sparks book, they die at the end. I hate Nicholas Sparks. Although it wasn't cancer, so that was different than usual.
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The ABC Family channel, is anything but a family channel.  Unless you want your 13 year old being taught that it is perfectly acceptable to have no standards or morals, and to act like they are 25.
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I don't understand swimming suits.  Men are the one's with the nice thighs, yet they get to wear long shorts.  Well now that I think about it, I think that men should go ahead and keep wearing the long shorts.

Dear Don, Please come home soon. Now. I have now started referring to our children, as "your" children in my head. When you come back from your two day camping trip, I hope your are not offended, but I am planning on taking a drive out to the desert where I will scream very loudly, and then I will return home. I might also just sit in the hot car for an hour to enjoy the silence and personal space. I also will want to buy myself a pair of shoes, but I will refrain. Maybe just some earrings. And a red velvet cupcake from Target. These are my plans. Melissa

Warning:  I will now be bragging about my child.  You have been warned.
Okay, so I know that all Mom's think their kids are geniuses.  And clearly I am not, because I don't even know the correct way to spell "geniuses" and whether there needs to be an apostrophe somewhere.  Let me fill you in on a little secret.  I think I missed the week in school when apostrophes were explained, because I am still totally confused with all of it.  Either that, or I am just not that smart. 
Anyway, I am pretty sure Chloe is going to be smarter than me, because I don't remember ever having the types of inquisitive questions, or observations that she makes. 
As we were doing our story time tonight, she read me the entire "Pinkalicious" book from memory.
And then she started asking me a bunch of random questions and wanted me to "tell her more."
These were her questions:

How does a boat float?

What is inside paper?

How does glass stick together? (then she clarified, she meant how does glass take on different shapes)

How do the people at the library make the books?

I will not tell you the answers that I gave, because to tell you the truth, I am not sure I got all my facts straight.  I think I will show her some you tube videos tomorrow on the subjects.

Anyway, unbridled child boasting is now complete.

A Luau and Pajamas

(and an old one of Miss Macie)


So last night Chloe got it into her head that she wanted to wear her "black polka dot pajamas.  The ones that are black with long leeves  (no, that is not a typo) and white polka dots.  The ones that I wore when I was 3 years old."

I had no idea what she was talking about.  I asked her if she was sure she hadn't just dreamed them up.  She was sure.  And since I was very curious, I took her out to the clothes storage unit (also known as the laundry room) and we went through all the old clothes.  And what she found, is pictured above.  First of all, the shirt is brown with pink spots.  The pants are brown with white spots.  Second of all, these were never worn as pajamas.  Third of all, they were never worn together.  Fourth of all, they are a size 2T.  She is a 5T+.  But, she managed to squeeze into them and she was very excited to have "new" pajamas.  Also, she pulled out another 2T shirt with a hole, and has decided to integrate that into her wardrobe as well. 
I am so glad I bought her a new wardrobe that actually fits last month. I give up.  Have  I mentioned that she also will not let me style her hair?  She likes the part "Straight. In the middle." She puts the part in the middle.  Then flattens it down with water.  And then she puts a bow in the very, very front so she can see it.  And I think I have already written this down, because it seems vaguely familiar.  Mom brain. Strikes again.

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This weekend I took Chelsey to a Luau for a girl that was graduating High School.  My Dad went out of town, so he asked me to take her.  I agreed, even though I knew it would be slightly awkward since I didn't know the girl graduating.  It seems a little tacky to go to a party and eat someone's food when they don't even know who you are.  And we took a picture with her, because her parents told her she had to get a picture with all the arriving guests.  So for years to come she can look at that picture and still wonder who in the world we were. 
On the way home Chelsey was a little disgruntled (not unusual)
Chelsey: "Man.  I wish I could have taken dance lessons.  But it is too late.  I will never be a great dancer.  My disabilities are ruining my life."
Me:  Chelsey, it's never too late. You can take dance lessons.  Would you like me to sign you up for some?
Chloe:  Ya Chelsey.  It's not too late!
Chelsey: No....no, no, no....I don't want to talk about it.
Pause.....
Chelsey: I was just thinking about how much I miss Mom.
Pause....(I was confused where this train of thought came from.  She never talks about our Mom in a sentimental way.  I think it is part of her mental disability.  There is an emotional disconnect there, which has been a blessing really.  So whens she says something like this, I take note.)
Me: Are you thinking about Mom because you wish she were here to watch you dance?
Chelsey: No.....no, no, no.  I was just thinking about how she would have loved to come to this Luau.
Me: Oh.  (silent tear!)
Chelsey: I'm always going to miss Mom a little.  It is going to be a long time until we see Mom again.
Chloe:  Your Mom is my Mom's mom! She's in heaven! She went to heaven, then I came to earth!
Chelsey: Ya. ya, ya.  Your Grandma was a really good singer.
Chloe: She was??!!
Chelsey: Ya.  Only, she just sang in a choir.  She didn't sing Rock and Roll like me.
Chloe: Oh.

The whole interchange was sad and hilarious at the same time. 

One more thing....
Chloe always says the funniest things when she wakes up in the morning.  She is exceptionally cheerful and usually coming off of a great dream.
This morning she comes in and says, "Hi Mom!  Aunt Lizzy spent the night here last night, right?
(she didn't, by the way).  I had a dream that she did!!"

The other day she told me that she had a great dream that she was a fairy and that she could fly.  And it has been a few times that she has asked me to help her find something that she really doesn't own, and then she will say, "Oh, I guess I must have just dreamed it."