Bones

Ivy has just finished a unit on bones. I should have studied it with her because now I'm forced to decipher comments and questions such as these:

Mommy, my tibia hurts!

Mommy, how exactly do my ribs protect me?

Mommy, why do I have an anvil in my ear?

Mommy, can you check my metatarsals?

Mommy, why does your clavicle stick out?

I'm constantly googling bone names just to try and understand what the heck she's talking about.

But here's my favorite....I was putting on Ivy's jeans, complaining about having to get them over her butt. Exasperated, I yelled, "WHY is your butt so big?!?"

Ivy said, "That's an easy one. It's because my pelvis is bigger than a man's."

4:15....4:15....

For three days in a row, I have spontaneously awakened at 4:15 AM.

Which is good, I guess, I feel rested. Awake. Ready to start the day....

But something in the back of my brain can't stop thinking this waking up has a bigger purpose than I am aware of....or I at least keep thinking like a movie director....

WHY am I waking up at 4:15??? WHAT is going to happen to me at 4:15 that I need to be awake for????

• Is someone in my family going to choke or have a heart attack at 4:15?? Am I awake so I can administer CPR???

• Is someone going to rob our house at 4:15??

• Will my mom need me one day soon at 4:15???

• Am I going to be abducted by aliens at 4:15, and do they keep waking me up at this time to prepare me???

• Am I going to pull a Richard Gere (from the Mothman Prophesies) and suddenly find myself driving my car in Point Pleasant, WV...at 4:15????

I mean, it could be anything!!! My biggest task here is to wait and be ready for whatever is in store for me (because I'm always on camera and my life's a movie, right?).

Or, I just accidentally woke up at this time the other day and my body is following a pattern.

The first one's cooler though.

 

Big Bugs

In bed with Story...

Story: Mommy, are big bugs real?

Me: Yes, there are big bugs in the world.

Story: No, Mommy, are BIG BUGS real??

Me: What are you calling big? Wasps are big. Some spiders are big. Moths can be big.

Story: (clearly exasperated with me and rolling her eyes back in her head) no, Mommy, listen to me!! BIG bugs, like "Don't let the big bugs bite!"

Me: Oh, you mean BED bugs?

Story: No! Big bugs!

Me: It's BED bugs.

Story: Beds have bugs???? Big bugs?

Me: No, they're small. You almost can't see them.

Story: I can't ever sleep in my bed again.

I blame....SCHOOL!

Someone yesterday mentioned my blog, and I thought, "Gee, I haven't written on it for like two months."

So then I logged in, and realized I hadn't posted since JUNE. Of 2012.

And you know what? I blame....SCHOOL. Yes, school. Both of my kids are in SCHOOL. And that means I am a constant homework enforcing, chauffeur to these two little kids who are so young, they shouldn't be involved in anything! And yet they are!!

That got me thinking....I actually blame school for many, many things now....

• Teaching my kids to read. I can no longer spell anything!! I can't spell "McDonald's" or "playground" or "toys" or "Santa" because they seem to know what the word I am spelling is!!! Now in order to talk to my husband about something I don't want them to know about, I actually have to leave the room! Or create some secret kind of language that I can't keep straight so when I'm trying to say, "Let's take them to the park," I actually say something like "Yes, you can buy a golf cart!"

• Peer pressure. My kids used to be happy with everything I gave them/let them do. now they have things to compare it to...."Mommy, Katie says her mommy is taking her to Disney World. Why don't you take us to Disney World??" Or, "Mommy! Annie only wears clothes from Justice!!! She only wears dresses and glitter boots!!! I want dresses and glitter boots!!!" I swear, I don't think my wallet can compete with this.

• Math. Suddenly they know that getting a nickel for cleaning the playroom isn't keeping up with inflation.

• The tooth fairy. You know, our tooth fairy just can't afford to give $20 for losing a tooth. They want a new tooth fairy. Maybe the one their friends have.

• Science. The girls aren't happy with my explanations of how things work anymore. They now know that dinosaurs don't live under their beds to keep them from getting out of bed. They know that God doesn't make clocks and toys function properly. And they ask all sorts of questions about how cars work (I have no idea, I put the key in and it goes), why you can't eat chips all the time (because it makes you sick! Just ignore that I do it), and where dreams come from (I swear I learned this in psychology like 20 years ago, but honestly I don't have a clue now). They now know that I am just not as smart as they once thought.

So, thank you, school. Thank you for making me look bad.

Cowgirl and the loose tooth

Ivy had this loose tooth that she had been wiggling for days, much to my dismay. See, I hate loose teeth. I can't stand to watch them being wiggled. I don't like to think about them being pulled.   I never pulled my own teeth ...and I tried to hide them from my dad so he wouldn't pull them. There's NO WAY I would ever be able to pull someones tooth.

But, I have a kid losing teeth at an alarming rate.  A friend of the family pulled her first tooth. Her teachers have pulled many more of them. Her dad pulled one. One just fell out.  I have had nothing to do with any of them.

The tooth in question had been pulled on by many, including Ivy, but of course not me.  She walked through Wal-mart wiggling it. Played on the swing set wiggling it. Laid in bed wiggling it.

Then, as I am making the bed yesterday, I hear a scream, a cry, a thud, and an undecipherable exclamation....something like "Fye Foooo!!! Aye looooffff id!"

I ran out into the hallway and was immediately confronted by Ivy, blood dripping down her chin. "Fye Foof!" she exclaimed. "Fye foof es gone!!!!"  I ushered her into the bathroom, gave her a cup, and told her to start rinsing.

But not all the noise was coming from Ivy. Story stood in the door of the playroom sobbing, large tears falling from her eyes down onto her cheeks. "What's wrong??" I asked. "Ivy is fine! She just lost her tooth!"

"I know!!!!" Story wailed. "I made her tooth fall out!!!!" And with that sentence, she wailed even louder.

"What happened???" I asked, but inconsolable Story couldn't tell me.  A non-bleeding but still-hard-to-understand Ivy filled in the blanks.

Story had decided that she wanted to be a cowgirl.  And that Ivy was going to be her horse. All good horses have reins, though, and this issue was remedied by a jump rope placed in Ivy's teeth. Story mounted, grabbed hold of her reins, and pulled...and suddenly Ivy didn't have a tooth anymore.

Story was still crying, but I managed to calm her down and explain that she kind of did a good thing...of course, jump ropes in mouths were bad, and it could have been a permanent tooth, but all that aside, she didn't need to cry anymore.

Five minutes later, I found the tooth. It had been flung 15 feet into the next room. If I had been a forensic pathologist, I could have determined that something much more dangerous happened with the jump rope to fling the tooth that far, but lucky for Ivy and Story, I'm just a music teacher.

Ivy Teaches Story About Digestion

Often, Ivy feels the need to instruct Story on the ways of the world. While eating pizza in the back seat, Ivy decided to teach Story about a process called "indigeshun."

IVY: Story, did you know that this pizza will turn to poop in your body?

STORY: what??

IVY: it's called indigeshun. You chew the pizza and it is in your mouth.

STORY: I don't have poop in my mouth.

IVY: no! Listen! Then it goes in your throat.

STORY: I have poop in my throat?

IVY: No! Your throat goes to your tummy. And the food goes to your tummy. And then it goes into....mommy?

ME: yes?

IVY: what's that tube after your tummy called?

ME: the intestine?

IVY: yes, Story, the food goes to your small testine.

STORY: I have a test?

IVY: No! TESTINE! Then it goes to your big testine.

STORY: how big is my testine?

IVY: And then it goes to the toilet.

STORY: I don't put food in the toilet. That's where the poop goes.

IVY: No, Story, it's poop then!

STORY: but when is the food poop?

As much as I was enjoying this science lesson, Ivy started to tell her the whole process AGAIN and I changed the subject.

And only Ivy could continue eating her pizza at this point.

Fashionistas!

I know, I've been absent. It's been very busy...research papers due, band concerts, band trips, moving...

But moving to a new house has given my children a new freedom- going outside. It's not that they couldn't play outside before, but I always had to go with them (no fence and a million strange men driving by on golf carts)...and I'm a lazy and bad mom. I'd much rather do laundry than sit outside with my kids, a choice they could never fathom: Why do we need clean clothes??

In our new house, though, we have a totally fenced in yard with many windows overlooking it. They can go outside together without telling me. How exciting is that?? In the few months they've been doing this, I've noticed a rather alarming trend. Instead of wearing shorts and a t-shirt outside (comfortable clothes that they can get dirty), they dress up to play like they're going to the preschool prom!

What are the rules of dress for outside play according to Ivy and Story? Skirts. Always skirts. Or dresses. And it seems as though the less the articles of clothing match, the better.

If I didn't force them to wear tennis shoes or sandals, they'd be riding their bikes in cream colored patent leather heels or 3 inch wedge sandals. In this picture, Story has mixed a selection of Ivy's clothing together with her own flip flops (Mommy's suggestion). And Ivy is bedecked in her former clothes that are now Story's. I guess I should applaud them for sharing??

Bathing suits and printed tights also acceptable. Christmas dresses and snow boots equal outdoor fashion awesomeness.

Princess ball gowns over Spongebob pajamas...look for it in the fall on runways everywhere.

And the number one rule of play fashion?? ANY T-shirt Mommy forces you to wear can be instantly made acceptable by the addition of a too-short gauzy tutu.


I often beg for them to just wear some normal playclothes, and to limit their outfit changing to once a day, requests that are ignored and laughed at. Every day, especially in the summer, is a fight to express themselves through clothing!

For Mother's Day, my present from them was that they "would wear anything that Mommy wanted them to all day, without crying about it." It was a nice gesture.

If I don't post again for a couple of months, you'll know it's because I'm too busy laundering tights and bathing suits and tutus.