Smiling Mom

OK, first of all this whole inci­dent star­ted with a voice boo­ming from our back room, “No way!! BC You CANNOT wear that!!”

I say, “Hub, I usually let BC dress himself.”

“Uh, Nette? He ‘s wea­ring tights.”

At that exact moment I was taking a sip of my tea.

My tea ended up all over my end table. Hub and I laughed until I almost peed. Then I asked BC to pose for a picture.

This is what I saw:

Just as I snor­ted, it’s the Ger­man in me-my mom says, eClaire pushed BC out of the way to say, “Ohh look at me, I’m sooooo cute.“

BC then eeked his way back into the pic­ture to show me his HUGE musc­les. And his tights. For the record, those “tights” are just long socks pulled up above his knees. His favo­rite way to wear them is with a pair of shorts and his Light­ning McQueen Water Shoes… Zexy, I know!

Then eClaire is all, “Oh but I’m not just cute. I’m funny too! Look! Look! I’m FUNNY, Damn IT.” Well, she might not have said Damn It today.

And then she was all, “BC touched me!! He loo­ked at me side­ways, and I don’t like him.”  I rolled my eyes.

And she was like, “DON’T LOOK AT ME BC!! You rui­ned my life!! Why did you have to be such a pain in the butt brother!!???” Ahem.… excuse me. I may be chan­ne­ling my own sibling angst here… I digress. Hi Uncle J… love you!

And then BC’s all, “OH NO SHE DIN’T“

And then eClaire deci­ded she had enough, “MOMMY!!!! Waaaaa! Why are you laughing?? It’s NOT FUNNY!“

Aaaand Scene.
On a more posi­tive note, when BC was asked to get a sweatshirt because it was still a bit chilly outside, he ran into his clo­set to get his favo­rite sweater.

Ya.

Bwhaahaahaa!! A future in fashion? I think not. Hey, at least he pulled his socks down, at Dad’s request!

Here’s a few high­lights of the week:

Hubby Santa had the genius idea to buy win­dow mar­kers and give it to the kids in their win­dow stoc­kings. In San Diego. At my parents house. With no less than 50 win­dows and French doors. I’m not exag­ge­ra­ting on that num­ber either!

Smi­ling Mom Mrs. Clause knew her dad well enough and, let’s be honest, her kids well enough, to know that mar­kers on a win­dow and chil­dren at my parents house made for bad juju. (You are WELCOME Dad!) She made an exe­cu­tive deci­sion not to put the those mar­kers into their stockings.

Hubby found them yesterday.

Ahem.

Then eClaire found out that not only did the pink mar­ker make for great abs­tract art, but it also made for a great lips­tick color.

Ya. So.… That was fun!

My kids are such bud­ding artists!

Oh! Oh!

And then today! My daugh­ter thought she’d “help” (quote fin­gers implied) me make cup­ca­kes for her upco­ming birth­day party! It was so much fun!! Having her help, I mean!! Look at what she did!!

Fun huh??!!

Yes. That is a bite mark. But wait there is more!

FIVE Cup­ca­kes!! Thank good­ness for fros­ting. No one will ever know the dif­fe­rence. hehehe

Fros­ting sol­ves all problems.

Well..

Except for this one.

You see, I have this inc­re­dibly cruel sense of humor. I love to take pic­tu­res at totally inap­pro­priate times.

Like just after eClaire gets off of time-out for EATING MY CUPCAKES!! Do you see the cho­co­late up on her forehead?

So funny!!

…I mean, so sad

But really, you couldn’t get a more pathe­tic pic­ture if you tried!

And to ans­wer the ques­tion that’s on all your minds, Yes. I’m already saving for her loo­ming the­rapy sessions.

This mor­ning has been the best mor­ning OF MY LIFE!!*

After almost two weeks of sleep depri­va­tion, cranky days, aggres­sive kids, exhaus­ted parents, and chil­dren who fight about anything and everything, my kids did an ama­zing thing.

They slept in.  (collec­tive sigh of relief please!)

Until 8:25!  My usual mor­ning awa­ke­ning hap­pens first at 4:00, and with fina­lity at 6:30.

Today, they slept until 8:25!!

BC woke up this mor­ning with a glint in his eye, skip in his step and a song on his lips.  I think I even heard birds chir­ping outside!

OH and both my kids ate break­fast without any reminders.

Today’s going to be a great day!

*this may be a slight exag­ge­ra­tion. maybe, but not really, I think.

So Wed­nes­day night I actually utte­red the words:

We’re home free in 15 minu­tes!  Kids are going to bed and we get to relax.

Mis­take Mis­take Mis­take!! (Never, ever say such a thing and expect the next 15 minu­tes to go smoothly!)

Hubby looks at eClaire and says:

Come on honey, I’ll read you One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish before bed.

eClaire was thri­lled.  She jum­ped up and went tea­ring around the cor­ner toward her room.  Just as she nea­red her door, she tripped.

I saw it hap­pen.  BAMM! eClaire flew head first straight into the door jam.

Hard.

Really Hard.

She stood up, held her breath and amped up for the scream of all screams.

By the time she began to run toward me, she was in full scream.  It was pac­ked with agony, pain, fear.

And so was I.

In a mat­ter of 5–15 seconds I watched a knot on her head deve­lop that was at least 3 inches high and 1 1/2 inch wide, and bright blue.

I began to panic.

eClaire was hurt.  Really hurt.

After about 3 minu­tes we rea­li­zed we nee­ded to take a visit to our local ER.

The long of the short of it is that eClaire is OK.  She’s fine. There is no skull frac­ture or concussion.

What did hap­pen though is she hit a blood ves­sel and it burst, cau­sing the ins­tant swelling.

Yes­ter­day after­noon I got home from work and she still loo­ked terri­ble, but her mood was quite improved.

Thank good­ness!

How does a mom do it?  How do you stand tall, keep your calm, and walk through these terri­ble moments with your child?  How?

Are moms allo­wed to retire when their kids are still young?  I’m loo­king to put in my papers next week!