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In our house we have an epidemic. As much as I love each and every one of my kids, they spill. Like, a lot. So much so that we have a title that we pass around almost nightly. The title? The Spiller.
It goes like this. Izzy knocks over her milk and it spills everywhere and someone announces, “Izzy is THE SPILLER tonight!!!” She smiles. Ah shucks. I get to be THE SPILLER ? Cool.
We spill so much around here that also have an expression that immediately follows any spill. The glass goes over, water goes everywhere and I shout, “Mobilize the Spill-Unit!!!” Upon this command, Jade runs for paper towels, Izzy grabs plates and other gear out of harms way, Lily grabs napkins and goes low — mopping up the drips that are already hitting the floor, and Ty… well, we are working on him. Usually he helps Jade. I coordinate. In this fashion we get spills cleaned up and everything back in order in less than 90 seconds and dinner continues. We are a well-oiled machine.
Except for the time that Lily overwhelmed the Spill-Unit with FOUR back to back spills. No sooner had everything been put right when.. bloooppp… over went another glass. She spilled Jade’s milk, Ty’s milk and her own milk…twice. It was epic. We still talk about it when the conversation lags. Hey, remember that ONE TIME when Lily was like the Spiller-Extraordinaire? Oh yeah, we all say, that was epic! Then we sort of chuckle. But the chuckling doesn’t last because another spill is iminent and we have to be ready, on our guard for possible spill-unit mobilization.
Usually the SPILLER is Izzy. That girl could enter the Olympics if they had a SPILLER event and bring home the gold.
Last night Ty was the spiller.
The night before it was me. Like I said. It is an epidemic.
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Click here to see Emme and me during a Me Ra Koh photo shoot (last November) for her upcoming book!!!
Normally, I love the Pumpkin Patch. But this year the phrase “pumpkin patch” should have been accompanied by a warning sticker…or at least background music that went “dum dum dummmm!” In years past, our beloved trip to the patch was at this lovely little working farm. We were the only school there, there was a worm barrel, a few animals to look at, and small little pumpkins to pick. It was, well like I said above… lovely. So, when our beloved farm closed its door to school pumpkin patch visits, our school was forced switched to another venue. A venue known as THE FARM — que music… “dum dum dummmmm…”.
With my previous paradigm in place of the lovely local patch, I decided that taking Emme (age 19 months) on Ty’s kindergarten field trip to THE FARM… dum dum dummm… was going to be just fine. It became immediately apparent after our 30 minute drive on fog infested country roads that this was not a farm. This was an amusement park. Designed by Stephen King. Luring peace and pumpkin loving parents to their doom.
The rundown looks like this. First of all, we were there with about 20 other preschools and kindergartens — so about two billion children under the age of 5. Making it a chaotic melee of children moving from station to station on THE FARM…dum dum dumm… while being shouted at by the “farmers” to keep moving, folks. The hayride scared Emme. While all the kindergarten girls picked out cute little purse pumkins, Ty picked out what felt like the world’s largest pumpkin. So I had to enlist our neighbor to carry it because with 28 pound Emme on one hip, the 30+ pound pumpkin was too freakin heavy and it didn’t fit in the grocery bag the school provided. Some may say, why did you let Ty get such a big pumpkin. I DON’T KNOW is the answer. It make sense in the intial nano-second and then I was committed. The picture doesn’t do it justice.
After the hayride and pumpkin search, there was a hay maze which ended in a slide from the top of the barn. The attendant asked for two parents to “man the slide.” After the first kids went down the slide, it became obvious that “manning the slide” was code for “try not to let any kids kill themselves while shooting off the end of the world’s fastest slide into a pile of hay.” These kids were like wellie-clad bullets coming off that thing. Ty stood at the top of the slide for quite some time before risking his life to exit the hay maze.
I can now feel my sanity exiting THE FARM.. dum dum dummmm… along with my sense of humor and the spring in my step.
We then went to the animal area. Emme loved the giant pig. Ty loved to climb on the tractor –which resulted in a perilous fall where it appeared that he cracked his head on the cement. After barking clone-trooper-esque orders at our neighbor to GRAB EMME, I ran to Ty’s rescue — all the while going over the signs of concussions in my head and calculating how far we were from the nearest ER. As it turns out he miracously didn’t hit his head, only his elbow … and his bum. But his bum was okay, he said, because he was “wearing really tough pants.”
We finally get to the picnic area where Ty is enjoying a POPSICLE of all things. I din’t even care that now we were injecting the kids with sugar, I was just relieved we had made it to a chair. It is at this point that my friend Kristi considers texting our friend Kim (who will be attending the afternoon session at THE FARM..dum dum dummm…) that THE FARM is almost as bad as Chuck E. Cheese. Now, I have a deal with my husband about Chuck E. Cheese. I will carry the children in my uterus for 9 months, undergo surgery to bring them into the world, and then nourish them off of my breast. But HE HAS TO GO TO CHUCK E CHEESE. And from now on he is on THE FARM.. dum dum dummm.. duty as well.
It is at this moment that some yells, “Hey come watch the PIG SHOW!”
Enough said.
Emme is now officially 19 months old.
But she still doesn’t really talk. Her words still only amount to “uh oh” “night night” ”mommy” “daddy” and her newest word “HELLO”. Why, “hello” you might ask? Because she is obsessed with talking on the phone. Honestly, I don’t talk on the phone THAT much. I am more of a text-er, email-er kinda gal. But, nevertheless, she loves the phone.
Whereas Ty loved to turn everyday objects into a gun (click here to read that list), Emme prefers transforming whatever she can get her hands on into… a phone. Then, she holds said object to her and walks around all.day.long. saying …… “Hello!”
Here is the list of every day objects Emme has used as a telephone:
- Baby Monitor
- Remonte Control
- A grape
- A shoe
- A sock
- Sunglasses
- Fork
- Her sippy cup
- A pad of paper
- Car keys
- Rolled up pair of socks
- Star Wars figure
- Calculator
- Flashlight
- Mint tin
- Credit Card
- Legos
- A book
- Granola Bars
- A plastic plate
Oh, and of course, the ACTUAL PHONE.
On Saturday I came home from a scorching hot (74 degrees) soccer game to discover that Ty(5) and Lily(10) had embarked on a new money-making adventure.
They had set up a water stand.
And they were selling water.
From the tap.
Ty says, This is how we are going to get rich!!! Now, mommy and daddy, you need to buy some water and drink it.
Dave has never been able to pass up a stand where kids are selling things and so he diligently paid a quarter (even though the price tag said 1 cent) for a kid-sized cup of tap water. It had one ice cube floating in it. All eyes then turned to me. I said, hey honey how about buying me some water, it can be like a date.
Dave frowned and dug through the junk drawer and produced another quarter for my glass of water. I guess he had other things in mind for our date.
This money-making venture produced squeals of delight from Ty as he has huge dreams of purchasing the LEGO Death Star, which costs a mere 400 dollars. He then required that I buy another cup of water but this time I had to select the heart glass because, he said, mommy you love me so much.
Yes, I do. I am buying water twice to add to your Death Star fund. Water, by the way, that was mine to begin with. Or at least mine by marriage.
But I kept these thoughts to myself and enjoyed the joy of the little ones as they tallied up the 56 cents they “earned” and clinked it into their money banks. And the water tasted really really good.
Cheers!
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