Second Wind

My kids hate sleeping! What is that about? Come 4 or 5 p.m., they are so cranky and icky and I know it's because they're tired. You think "Oh great. We'll eat dinner, they'll have a nice relaxing bath and then go to sleep." Ha ha ha. Joke's on me EVERY NIGHT! The clock's hands make it around to 7 p.m. and these little girls are wide awake. They are ready for anything. Well, anything except bed. Let's watch TV. Let's make brownies. Let's color. Let's play Barbies. Let's play a board game. Let's read 57 books. Let's play on the computer. Let's cut up every piece of paper in the house and leave the scraps everywhere. Let's do a makeover. Let's run up and down the stairs. Let's watch a movie. The list is endless. What I want to know is, where do they get the energy? I've heard of getting a second wind, but how much can these little bodies actually re-energize? Why, oh why, can't I do that. This is the time of night when I am just done. I've cooked and cleaned and bent over to pick up anything and everything so many times that I'm light-headed. I've done the laundry and folded it and put it away. I've done everything that I can do today and I am tired. I just want them to want to snuggle up next to me and quietly sit there while I read them a book or brush their hair or tell them a story. Shoot, if I had that chance, I would grab it. I wish someone wanted to snuggle up and brush my hair and tell me a story. Any volunteers? And then, when you're done with me, you can put my kids to bed!

I am not my mother

I will never be my mom. Maybe it's because she's from a different generation or because she was raised in a very strict household or something else, but she does these things that I will never do. Now, I'm sure you're waiting for me to point out some character flaw, but I won't. What I'm talking about is more aesthetic. Here's an example... after Thanksgiving dinner, my mom took all the napkins and immediately washed them. When she returned them, they were ironed and folded in the neatest stack. Did I say they were ironed? I don't even own an iron! When I do iron, it looks like I used the pointy end. I could run that thing back and forth for an hour and there would still be a wrinkle. She actually enjoys ironing! She says it's relaxing! I can't believe I actually came from this woman's womb! I remember my mother-in-law telling me a story about when she first got married. Her mother-in-law told her "I iron all of Miguel's clothes, so now that is your job. I iron everything - even his underwear and socks." Of course, my MIL never did it, but I'm sure she expected something similar of me when I married her only son. Not gonna happen. I've always been astounded by my mother's ability to make things look nice. She has a way of folding a fitted sheet so that it looks exactly like the flat sheet. It used to drive me nuts as a kid because I'd always pull the wrong one out of the linen closet. I've tried to fold them, but it doesn't work. I even watched a Martha Stewart instructional clip on how to fold them but I still can't do it. Luckily, I stop short of rolling the sheet into a ball and throwing it in the closet. It's little things, silly things really, that I will always remember about my mother - the way she threads a needle or that she'll only use a razor blade to sharpen a pencil. I wonder if my kids notice things like that about me. I just hope they don't notice the wrinkled napkins!

Fast Forward

I am always amazed by the amount of things my kids know. Sometimes, it bothers me because I want them to retain their innocence. Other times, it just astounds me that they are so intelligent. But, one of the things that I think is so great about kids is how they will use words or phrases and have absolutely no idea what they mean. Or when they sing songs and make up words or say something that makes no sense, but sounds right. Today, we were watching a video and the letters "FF" came up on the screen. Caty yelled out FF! Look at that! Now, we say FF all the time when we want to skip through commercials on a show on the DVR, but I don't think we've ever said 'fast forward.' So, I asked her why she thought FF was so cool and she said "because that's our word! someone else knows our word." I explained to her what FF and fast forward were and she seemed a bit disappointed when she said "Oh, I thought we made it up." It was so cute but I felt awful bursting her little bubble. Next time, I won't tell her!