Battle Royale

How is it that in a battle of wills with my 36 year old, educated, slightly imposing husband, I am resolute, I am a rock- an immovable mountain of stubborness. But in a battle of wills with my 5 year old daughter, I am but a tiny little crumbly molehill of resolve? Emerson, at a whopping 38 pounds, has mastered the art of wearing me out and wearing me down to the point that I have nothing left but to give in to her ridiculous and unfounded logic. Maybe it is the product of being raised by two lawyers or maybe she has some freakish DNA mutation that allows her to gain mind control over those she wishes to dominate, I don't know, but I don't have this problem with anyone else.

Heretofore, Carson had "the face". I called it his "anything face" because when he arranged his precious features just so, I would do anything for him that he asked. "So, you want to go to Starbucks right now for a $4.00 cup of hot chocolate even though we have some right here in our very own cabinets?" Insert "the face". "Ohhhh, alright, let's go, you adorable child!!!" However, after years of succumbing to "the face", I have somehow become immune to its once unstoppable powers. I think it may have something to do with the fact that Carson over played his hand a bit and started using his X-power for evil instead of good. Over time, hot chocolate became trips to GameStop which became endless needling for expensive games and just like that, the bubble burst and I came to my senses. However, worry not, all is not lost for young master Carson as Grandma is still under his spell and regularly spends her weekends carting him around town happliy granting his champagne wishes and caviar dreams.

Okay, so back to Emerson and her Jedi mind control. Today it was the clothes. She has particular ideas of what she wants to wear and usually it involves wearing all of favorite things at once. A Hello Kitty sweat pants, an American girl shirt (hot pink belt on top of the shirt) and silver dress shoes is her idea of fasssshhhhionnn (insert disdain and eye rolling for the full effect). Throw in a random purse full of chapsticks and playing cards and you have got yourself a mall worthy outfit.

She picked out a navy blue too small skort and a navy blue uniform shirt and purple paisley hightops. Forget the shoes, I was not about to go to war over those (that is a losing battle any day of the week) but I did object to the blue on blue number she was planning on wearing to school today. I pointed out how the colors weren't even the same shade of blue and she burst into tears. (The tears, oh the tears she can shed) "But they matchhhhh". True enough, so whatever, wear the ding dang blue shirt then. I give up.

Which is precisely my problem, I always give up. As we all do it seems. No matter what everyone eats for breakfast, Emerson only eats Toaster Strudel. Every. Single. Day. And if that wasn't enough, she insists on have a "letta" inscribed on her strudel each day, to which she only knows. So we slavishly ask every morning, what letter do you want today- usually it is M (for mama) and E (for Emerson). Which ironically spells out ME. As in the whole world revolves around me, me, me.

And if was just her breakfast or her outfits, I may actually stand a chance. But it is everything, all day long. Her baths, her hair, her clothes, her food, her milk, her drawings and the list goes on and on. So much drama with this girl. And the tears, you would not believe how many tears are shed if so much as one crumpled up drawing makes its way to the trashcan. I'm such a sucker for the tears.

No tears: "Mama can I sleep in your bed tonight?"
Me: "No way, you have a great big beautiful bed and you are a big girl, so nite-nite, love you."

Tears rolling down that sweet cherub face: "Mama, I think there are weetches in my room and Bubba won't let me sleep in his bed and I'm sooooo scareddddd (sobbing now)."
Me: "Okay, but you better pretend you're asleep when Daddy gets here or he's gonna make you go back to your room. Nite-nite, love you."

My mother says I am paying for my own dramatic youth. To which I have no reasonable reply because I do remember being a giant headache for my parents until about age 16. But, with that in mind, how am I to ever make it nine more years held hostage to Emme's wild ideas and dramatic mood swings? I have heard that it only gets worse. Yikes. The thought makes me want to cry a little. Unfortunately, at 36, crying doesn't do you much good anymore.

Christmas Magic

Every year, I set out with my sister, Sandy and my sister-in-law, Jessica to achieve the Holy Grail of our Christmas time existence, a family portrait of all of our children. They are seven in number, our little angels, ranging in ages from 15 months to 12 years. Individually, they are, how shall we sayyyyy, "challenging" to their respective moms. However, when combined, they become a supernatural force that could only be characterized as "impossible" - as in impossible to corral, impossible to cajole, and impossible to not kill.

Like army generals, we met up early this year to plan out the mission down to the tiniest detail. Naps for the little ones- check. Non-messy food with which to bribe the little ones- check. Empty promises of "prizes" for the best behaved big kid- check. Everything should have fallen into place as planned. We left nothing to chance. Oh, but once again, we underestimated the power of seven.

It seems in our zealousness to arrive early at the picture site, we overshot the time of sunset and had to improvise with alternate sites while waiting for the sun to set. Well, we might as well have said, "Scatter to the winds, young ones, and never look baaaack" because that is precisely what they did. The big ones took off to climb a retaining wall adjacent to where we were and the little ones started climbing a big dirty hill next to the wall. We would catch a couple of them at a time and take a few pictures and before they could so much as say cheese, the others would be off on some other dirt covered endeavor.

When the sun finally started to cooperate, we began to arrange all the kids on the wall where we planned for the blessed event to take place. The best way to describe the process of coordinating seven kids is to conjure the image of one person desperately trying to spin seven plates at once and never quite getting them all going. Sandy took something like 150 pictures trying to get one shot that would work. Unfortunately, the longer it took, the worse our chances got of getting anything that would work.

The picture above is the final result. All seven lined up atop the wall, the delights of their mother's hearts, Emerson hamming it up, Campbell too sick to bear one more minute, Lauren angelic as always, and all the boys, behaving for once and at once. Not the perfect picture that we had in mind, but pretty darn close.

Halloween

The planets sure did align for Halloween this year- the weather was perfect, it fell on a Saturday this year and best of all, we got an extra hours rest when it was all over!!

Unfortunately, sweet Emme was not too quick on the uptake about the whole trick-or-treating business and before we ever got started she fell into a big heap on the ground and burst into tears. She is naturally a fairly tearful child, so I let her cry into her her plastic pumpkin for a couple of minutes before I attempted to ask what could be possibly be bugging her one minute into the evening. She hyperventilated out some cryptic nonsense, so I had to ask my dad for the translation. "She said that she looked everywhere and couldn't find any candy at all." I let that sink in and then figured out that she thought it was supposed to be like Easter and she had been scoping out the lawn for candy. I explained the concept of Halloween, she dried up and off we went for the up close demonstration.

Emme loved trick-or-treating but got to about her 4th or 5th house and announced she was done and wanted to go home. That sounded great to me and we headed home, leaving Carson and his buddy Karson to continue on with our group. Emme and I spent the rest of the night handing out candy, eating candy and otherwise having a delicious good time.

The Carsons came back awhile later with all the cousins and spent the rest of the evening in high stakes negotiations for the best candy portfolio. Carson made out like a bandit, but only because he totally hustled his poor 5 year old cousin Austin out of all of his good stuff.

The rest of the night was spent with good friends, family and football. Like I said, the planets surely aligned for Halloween 2009. It was perfect.

Out of the mouth of babes

Last night, Carson and I were going through our I-Tunes catalog, trying to put together a kid friendly, yet still rockin', playlist for the car. I would play a song, we'd listen a while and then decide whether it was car-worthy. We were bee-bopping this way for a while when I came across "At Last" by Etta James. I hit play and explained to Carson that this was the song from Mommy and Daddy's wedding and that it still makes me swoon. Swooning still, I insisted that he dance with me. And being a right good sport, Carson jumped up and slow danced with his mom in the middle of our study.

So, there I was, alone in my thoughts, reminiscing about my beautiful wedding when Carson asked, "Is this how you danced with Daddy?"

"Yes", I replied, "it was one of the best days of my life."

"Oh, I wish I could have been there."

"Well, I explained, you were still up in heaven waiting to be born."

"Oh, I see."

At this point, I find myself thinking that this may be one of the sweetest exchanges of my adult life and I am trying to concentrate on remembering it in vivid detail. Still dancing, with his precious head leaning against my stomach, he mused out loud, "And after the dancing, did Daddy reach up under your dress and take off your underwear?"

WWWWWWHHHHHAAATTTTTTTT!!!!!!!! I found my mind reeling in shock and I ended up having an entire conversation with myself in a desperate attempt to make the preceding comment make sense.

Time stood still and the following conversation took place in my head:

Stacy: Holy Guacamole!!! Did he just say what I think he said?

Self: I think in the movies, this is where the lead character tells the quirky best friend something outrageous and the quirky best friend spews wine all over the place. Or maybe something less visual; maybe something more audible like a record needle being dragged across a record or the sound of a stack of plates breaking in the background.

Stacy: Who Cares!! Did you just hear what I heard? My sweet innocent child, knows stuff. Baaddd stuff. And I am going to have to discuss with my child what the heck he knows about going up dresses and grabbing underwear. I am so totally unprepared for this conversation. Everyone always tells me that I tell him too much as it is. I am soooo not ready for this.

Self: In the movies, after the spewing or the plates breaking, they usually break away to another scene for dramatic effect. I am afraid you don't exactly have the same luxury here. So you are going to have to gather your senses and face this thing head on.

Stacy: You're right. Here goes. I will be calm. Cool. Collected.

Back from the mental break and into reality:

Deep breath.

"I'm sorry Carson, you were saying?"

"Well, I saw on T.V. how the man grabs this lacy thing from under the girl's dress and shoots it into the people watching."

OOOOOOOOOOOhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Big smile. Blood rushing back to my head. I am now breathing again and my heart rate has reached normal limits. He was talking about the garter, silly girl. He knows nothing about the birds and the bees and all is still right with the world.

"Oh yes, they do that at all weddings. Although, now that I come to think about it, I have absolutely no idea why."

I returned to my dancing reverie.

From my tummy came his little voice again.

"Mom, will you dance with me at my wedding?"

"Of course, my darling."

"That is if your not dead yet".

Cue the plates breaking again.

Beauties and the Beast

Here is a little known fact about me. Way back when I was pregnant with baby #2, I went to the doctor to find out the sex of the baby. I was pretty convinced I was having a boy because (1) I really, really wanted a Boy, (2) I just knew Carson was destined to have a brother and (3) I didn't have any experience with a girl and the idea of raising one overwhelmed me. So, imagine my surprise when I was informed that my baby was in fact, a girl. After making the doctor double check and being assured that I was definitely having a girl, I looked over at my sister and promptly burst into tears.

All I could think of was that girls grow up and spend their teen years hating their mothers and the rest of their lives thinking their mothers are crazy. I didn't want to be crazy. And I certainly did not think I had the emotional fortitude to endure years of fighting some smart mouthed eye-rolling nightmare. And being an ex-teen nightmare myself, I felt like I was probably due some serious payback.

Well, what can I say, I must have hit crazy early, because having a girl has been an absolute delight. No matter how much your husband loves you, there is no way he is going to enjoy a day at the mall followed by a mani and a pedi. But make this same offer to a three year old girl and you've got a friend for life.

So when I saw that a theater production of Beauty and the Beast was coming to our town, I jumped at the chance to experience it with Emme. To be fair to Carson, I totally invited him, but he was less than enthusiastic about the prospect of watching a play, about a fairy tale, with his sister and his mom. So, I let him off the hook and invited my niece Campbell.

I dressed the girls up in princess dresses and we had a marvelous time. The look on their faces when that curtain went up and Belle came out singing was positively priceless. Emme has seen Beauty and the Beast on video about a million times so she was literally on the edge of her seat with anticipation. Campbell (a bit of a tomboy) was less familiar with the storyline, but she seemed to be really enjoying it too. That is until the Beast showed up and he just about scared the ball gown off of her. From that moment on, she refused to take her face out of my lap and after crying non-stop for about twenty minutes, she fell asleep in my arms. Not long after, Emme started fading too. So, even though the play was only half over, we left at intermission. I really hope to see it in full one day, because it was really entertaining.

So, as I left with one little princess in my arms and the other slowly puttering behind me, I found myself thanking God for knowing that a little girl was just what our family needed. Emerson Claire is such a blessing. I say that now, but you may want to check back with me in about ten years. Things may have taken a turn for the worse.

Remodeling madness

Every summer, Dobie and I embark on a journey towards home improvement with hopes that this year, unlike every year before, will somehow be different. I think we have developed some form of home improvement amnesia which erases all memories of past projects gone wrong. We seem to block out all memories of the gigantoid mess that accompanies these little DIY’s or the unforeseen glitches that always come up. This year is no different.

After the dust settled (literally) from last year’s popcorn ceiling replacement-slash-debacle in the living room (see above), we began to dream-build again and decided that we would go it once more in our bedroom. However, knowing full well that replacing the ceiling means that you MUST replace the flooring, we also decided that we would get new carpet. And that of course led to new light fixtures which eventually led to us to needing new paint on the walls and baseboards. It was sort of like the home improvement version of If You Give a Pig a Pancake.

So, we took a week off of work and got all the work done so that the carpet people could come on the following Monday and put in new carpet. And by people, I mean the Home Depot carpet installation “team” that we hired to handle this leg of the project. Well, some "people" showed up but they looked nothing like the clean cut uniformed crew I saw on t.v. who arrived in a big professional looking truck with an actual back on it. What I got was two dudes in a red pick up with my carpet sticking out the back. I tried not to judge and decided to wait and be happily surprised with the completed product. Well, I am still waiting, because some other nincompoops from the aformentioned "team" measured wrong and came up 6inches short of carpet.

To be fair, I did get carpet in my bedroom, so that room actually looks great. We even sprung for a new flat screen television for the wall so I don’t have to squint to watch my old ugly 19 inch white hand me down t.v. from Dobie’s grandma. But once you leave the peaceful tranquility of my bedroom you are hit with the jarring spectacle that is my living room. Here, you have to step over the entire contents of our study which includes multiple guitars, two recliners, music stands, bookshelves, a console table and piles of clothes from the closet. Scattered around other parts of the house are electronic components and doors off of their hinges. For someone like me who needs complete order and symmetry, it is a bit unnerving. I am getting progressively more snappish as the days go by.

With this latest project, I think Dobie and I have decided that we definitely need a break for awhile. The next project is the kitchen countertops and fortunately I work with a guy whose family owns a granite store. So, surely nothing can go wrong, right??? See, it is happening again, the home improvement amnesia is doing it’s job……..

School Supply Mama Drama

Is it just me or are school supply lists getting just a wee bit complicated? I have been on a two week long scavenger hunt all over Wichita Falls (and the Internet) for no less that four ga-jillion items which I believe can only be loosely tied to the actual education of my children. I remember the good old days when you just showed up with a Big Chief tablet, a couple of pencils and a box of Kleenex.

Fast forward 25 or so years (gulp) and now one cannot be properly educated unless there are wet wipes and Germ-X at every desk. For reasons I cannot possibly tie to any educational purposes, I have to buy small paper plates, large Ziplock bags and Sharpie markers. The list goes on and on.

I have searched for washable classic color markers until my feet hurt and I am still looking for the Holy Grail of school supplies: the 8-count Crayola washable crayons. I was forced to go off-list on the crayons and I ended up buying a 16 count, triangle shaped set of Crayola crayons. Emme will probably pitch a fit when she sees that they are not like all the other 3-Ker's. She is a stickler for details that one.

In my defense, I don't think anyone can really fully comply with that list. Seriously, why must Carson have a 1 1/2 inch Durazip binder? If I actually could locate this overly specific piece of school accoutrement, I think I would still hesitate to buy it. Exactly why must his papers be zipped up in order to be brought home? Did he gain some kind of extra security clearance now that he is in third grade that requires that all papers should be under lock and key before placement in his backpack? It is getting ridiculous.

I am beginning to think that maybe the list is a test. What if there is some kind of sliding scale of compliance that tells the teachers just what kind of parent they are dealing with? Like at the crazy type-A end of the scale are the loonies who manage to get every single thing on the list and then go one step further and monogram it all. And at the lazy slacker end of the scale are the parents who go all rogue and buy Rose Art instead of Crayola and figure that nobody needs 3 boxes of Kleenex on the first day of school, so they just send one. And in the middle of the scale are the poor schmos who do the best they can with the supply list and hope that their kid doesn't notice that they have triangle crayons and not round ones? And depending on how you do with the list, that is how the teachers know how to deal with you.

I don't know, maybe I am just over thinking this whole school supply thing. But just in case you find small and/or large binder rings, let me know. I sure don't want to be nailed as a slacker.

Evie and Emme

Yesterday was Evie’s birthday. Oh yeah, I forgot, you don’t know about Evie. Evie is Emerson’s best-friend and she is, to the rest of us, quite invisible. I say "best-friend", because she is just one of several of Emerson’s imaginary friends, the most prominent being Evie, Kyle (her brother) and Ennis, Emerson’s on-again and off-again boyfriend.

Yesterday, on the way to daycare, Emerson announced, “Guess what, today is Evie’s birthday!!” She then went on to detail all the wonderful plans she had for her party, the decorations we would be needing, and of course, the delicious cake I was going to make for her. Well, an imaginary girl doesn’t turn 3 everyday, so we did in fact have a birthday party for her last night. I didn’t have any decorations, but I did make her a cake with sprinkles and all of the imaginaries were there. We sang happy birthday and then ate my delicious cake.

I often wonder how far I should let this imaginary thing go because it tends to infringe on our daily lives. If Evie is at our house at dinnertime, then Emerson insists that we all sit at the dining room table because the bar only seats four and there's simply no place for Evie to sit. So upon announcement that Evie is staying for dinner, up we go over to the next room so that Evie will have a proper seat to sit in. If Emerson and Carson get juice, then I have to pour a small glass for Evie because juice is her favorite. If Evie is in the car, then Emme will roll down her window because Evie likes a little breeze. The list goes on and on.

Sometimes, Evie comes over with her brother, Kyle and on occasion, her parents come too. When the parents come over it is usually because they have befallen some catastrophic tragedy at home. The last time Emerson explained that there was a terr-wible fire at their house and it all got burnt up and they had to stay with us until their house was ready.

Fire is a bit of a theme with her. A few weeks ago, Ennis stopped coming around and when someone asked her about it (oh yes, the extended family is in on this as well) she didn’t bat an eyelash when she woefully explained that Ennis’s house blew up in a giant es-plosion. It was quite a tale. I would almost feel sorry for poor ole Ennis if he wasn’t such a thorn in Dobie side.

See, Ennis is a boy, and Dobie doesn’t approve of her having a boyfriend, imaginary or not. And he particularly doesn’t like Ennis because his name rhymes with, well, you know, and those things should not be associated with Daddy's little girl. However, what really gets him going is the fact that she is adamant that when she grows up she is going to “slobba kiss Ennis at the moo-vies”. Where in the world she figured out that people “slobber kiss” at the movies, I will never know. I definitely need to tighten up the security on her Cartoon Network viewership.

In any event, we haven’t heard from Ennis in a while. I think they may have broken up. I heard her talking to him on her sparkly blue princess phone and she said, “Sar-wee Ennis, I can’t mar-wee you. My daddy says I’m just a little child.” So, from this I gather that he may be out of the picture for a while.

So, we’re basically down to Evie and Kyle. Kyle doesn’t hang around much at night because he can’t sleep in her bed or take a bath with her because, according to Emme, Kyle is boy and he can’t see her privates. Well, I guess Dobie can let out a big ole’ sigh of relief on that one. That's one less boy he has to deal with. That is until she dreams up another one.........

She's alive, aliiiive!!!

Well, I’m back. I know, I know, it’s been months since you’ve heard from me, but I have a great excuse. See, Dobie works as a referee on the side and from the months of August (the beginning of football season) until March (the end of basketball season), I am practically a single parent. Football season is not so bad, but basketball season wears us both clean out. And to make matters worse, Dobie did such a great job during football season, the “association” asked him to ref’ several semi-pro games which required his presence on the football field through May.

So, I have been super busy raising two children, trying to keep up with my exercise class 3 times a week, making a miserable effort at trying to keep my house clean (maid got pregnant), and intermittently losing my mind. Did I mention that Dobie and I both got promotions? Yeah, well what they don’t tell you is Chiefs of Court do a lot more work than mere little indians and that there are not enough pharmaceuticals in the world to keep the stress levels down to a manageable level. It took a while to find a decent pace, but I think we both got it under control now.

So, the good news is that Dobie is done for the year and back in my life. With us being a right respectable two parent household again, things are running much smoother now. Ahhhhhh, so much better.

So, I will try to make a pass at this little blog again. Here is what’s been happening:

1. January- I turned 35. Boo. Took it a little harder than I though I would.
2. February- Dobie turned 35. It didn’t phase him one bit. I think this is the month I joined a book club. I also think that this is also the month where I didn’t have time to read the book, but I still showed up for the free wine. I just nodded alot and tried to look like I knew what they were talking about.
3. March- Dobie got a little operation which seals the deal on us staying a two child household. It went off without a hitch, I highly recommend. If I get the go ahead, I may tell the story of how it all went down. It was, in a word, hilarious. And the best part is that Dobie doesn't rememebr a thing.
4. April- I don’t know, it was Easter, nothing else much happened. Oh, I started Spring Boot Camp. But, since I am impervious to losing weight, I think I finished at about where I started.
5. May- School ended, yeahh!! Carson broke his arm again, booo!!! (Who knew Red Rover could be so violent). I volunteered (I think someone put a roofie in my drink) to be President of the Parent Teacher Fellowship at school. I am soooo not a leader. I do much better as a mindless follower.
6. June- I emerged out of my fugue state to re-join the human race and begin blogging again.

Clue 2008

"IT WAS THE TODDLER WITH THE FEBREEZE IN THE LIVING ROOM"

This is the gaping hole where our television used to sit peacefully minding its own business.

How you wonder, did such a big gigantoid void come to be in an otherwise nondescript, law abiding, surburban household?

Well, that's where our story begins.......................

Act One Scene One: The Kosub family bathroom. It’s 7:45 a.m. and the family is busy in the morning hustle and bustle. Enter, the culprit, Emerson Claire Kosub, and her insatiable hunger for destruction.

Emme: Mommy, my hair loots ca-zy. Fiz it.
Mommy: You won’t let me put it in a pony tail, so that’s the best I can do.
Emme: Fiiiinnnne. Mommy, I wanna pud on your mate-up.
Mommy: No, baby, mommy is in a big hurry and I have to get ready or I am going to be late. Go get your shoes on.
Emme: (Throwing herself onto the floor for a big, fake, fit.) I don’t wanna go to Ganny’s, I wanna stay here and watch Bootie Beast!!!!
Mommy: Here, look, take this bottle of Febreeze and go spray mommy’s bed and make it smell good.
Emme: Yeahhh!!

Emerson runs off, happily spraying the Target brand knock-off Febreeze. The air is filled with a child's laughter and the pleasant smells of a spring garden.

Act One, Scene Two: The Kosub family garage. It is 5:30 p.m. and Mommy and Emme have just returned from Hastings with the latest potty present, Barbie and the Diamond Castle. Their celebratory mood quickly fades when they see a menacing looking Dobie standing in the garage, hands on hips.

Mommy: What’s wrong?
Dobie: You need to come in the house.
Mommy: Seriously, I’m worried, just tell me what happened? Were we robbed?
Dobie: Emme did something.
Mommy: Oh.
Emme: (From the back seat) Sow-ree mommy, it was an assident.
Mommy: What did you do?
Emme: I dunno, but I dint do it purpus-ly.

Act One, Scene Three: The Kosub family living room. Dobie is kneeling is front of his television, like a soldier holding his fallen comrade, softly stroking it with a damp cloth. The bottle of Fakee-breeze is sitting in front of the television, and Emerson is no where in sight.

Mommy: What happened?
Dobie: Evidently, Emerson got ahold of a bottle of this (holding up the stupid, stupid, bottle of fake Febreeze) and sprayed it all over the TV.
Mommy: (Realizing where Emme got the spray, Mommy swallows hard as the truth washes over her) Can you just wipe it off?
Dobie: She sprayed so much, it got under the plastic screen; I don’t think it can be wiped off.

Mommy: Umm, what’s all that black stuff?
Dobie: It’s where the fiber screen used to be. The spray is mostly alcohol and when combined with the heat of the TV, it disintegrated the fiber screen.

At this, Mommy decides to come clean. Mommy tries to explain how it is she who gave
the spray to Emerson in an attempt to occupy her earlier that morning. She is ridden with guilt and blames herself for the damage to Dobie’s most prized possession. Luckily for her, Dobie gallantly refuses to make her feel like the irresponsible wretch that she most certainly is.

Final Scene: Both Kosub parents are now kneeling in front of the TV, still reeling from
the realization that Emerson’s path of destruction truly knows no bounds.

Dobie: Don’t beat yourself up babe, these things happen.
Mommy: Actually, not to be totally argumentative, but I have never heard of anyone else’s three year old incinerating their high definition television with Febreeze.
Dobie: What, I meant to say sweetheart, and what is much more accurate, is these things happen to us.
Mommy: True enough, my friend, true enough. (long pause) So, are those screens expensive?
Dobie: Well, the repairman says that he can replace it for about $350.
Mommy: $350 Dollars!!!! EMMMERRRSONNNN!!!
Emme: (From somewhere in the back room.) It wuz an assident!!!! I saaiid I wuz sow-ree!!!!! Gah –leeee!!

End scene………………………….

The Princess v. The Potty

Here is a small sampling of Emme's three year old pictures. There are a grand total of 81. I am amazed at how wonderful they turned out considering that Emme was not exactly a willing participant. Lucky for me, my sister is a fantastic photographer and has enough patience and love for my child to endure the grueling experience of trying to take her picture. I swear, if it wasn't for Sandy taking my kids' pictures, there would be no pictures of them at all.

I need to get Carson's pictures made too, but he is more reluctant than Emerson. He does not want to wear anything that I would consider "picture worthy" and really, really does not want to take time out of his busy Nintendo playing schedule to accommodate the wishes of his mother. I told him that someday he is going to complain that we only have pictures of Emme. And when that day comes, I will gladly remind him that it is his own fault. The only evidence I have that he existed last year was the pictures that Sandy took as well as a perfect digital rendering of what Carson looks like when constipated that Lifetouch had the nerve to charge $26.00 for.

But I digress, back to Emme. She is three now and no closer to being potty trained than the last time I posted (which was a million years ago, I know, but I've been really busy). On Sunday, she wore panties all day with only one accident. Just when I started thinking that maybe we were making progress, she came strolling out of my bedroom wearing a Pull-Up. Somewhat befuddled, I asked her why was she not wearing panties. She explained, oh, so matter of factly, that she needed to poop, so she changed. Uh, are you seeing the problem here? My 3 year old daughter has the presence of mind to take off her pretty panties so as not to mess them up, go get a Pull-Up, pull them up, promptly poop, and come on out so that I can change her. But, this same child, cannot expend one ounce of effort to simply go sit on the potty. I am bewildered on what to do next. I think that I may have missed the window of potty training opportunity and now it has just become a battle of wills. A battle which I am woefully losing.

In other Emme news, she is growing like a weed and is in the 75% in height and 10% in weight. She still loves the Disney Princesses and all things girly. She loves to dress up and have tea parties with anyone who will oblige. Her favorite movie is still Spiderman and her favorite cartoon is Spongebob. She likes dancing and music and the color pink. She paints her fingernails about 10 times a week and loves to capture people and stick them in her "booty shop" chair. She has made one friend, "La", and has even enjoyed one real play date.

Potty training aside, I think we may keep her.

Once upon a potty

Emerson has decided she's ready to start potty training. Of course everyone else in the world knew she was ready months ago. Perhaps it was the fact that she would regularly go get her own pull-up, take off the dirty one, wet wipe herself, put on a clean pull-up and take the wet one to the trash. Or perhaps it was the fact that about two seconds after she "dirtied" her pull-up she would have a nervous break down if I did not immediately drop everything, run at break neck speed to get her diaper and do a dive roll back to her in order to get her all cleaned up. My family kept telling me that she was ready and I in turn, kept telling her, but true to form, she wanted to do it her way.

So, here we are. Emme has made up her mind that she has to get potty trained so that she can go to school like Carson. She is a great big social butterfly and loves the busy, hub-bub of the school every morning. When we had to leave Carson at school on Monday with all those cupcakes, she begged me to leave her there too. I had to explain to her that you have to poop in the potty before they will let you go to school. Sobbing in her car seat she explained to me that she "od-a-ready diddddd poop in her potty." Which is true, but she only did it once, by accident, about two weeks ago. I re-explained that you have to do it everyday and you have to wear panties before they will let you come in. "I got panties momma, I wear my panties, I pom-ise", she said. I had to break the news that you have to not pee-pee in the panties while you wear them. "Oh", she said and that was that.

So, on went the panties and deep breath, she's doing pretty good. Oh, there's been plenty of accidents and Dobie and I have taken to traveling with an extra set of clothes, but I think we are making progress. I have taken to offering "potty presents" if she goes for long spells without having an accident. And today, I offered up an eye shadow kit if she pooped in the potty. I meant it to be an incentive when she needed to go later. But she wanted it so badly that she kept trying to make herself poop so that she could get the prize. I swear I thought she was going to give herself a hemorrhoid from pushing so hard all day. At one point, she came running to Dobie and I and announced that she had pooped- so hooray, clap, clap, give me the eye shadow. When I asked if I could see it, she said that she had already flushed it. It was a total lie of course, and she stomped off, eye shadow-less. She did eventually produce the world's tiniest poop-ette and received her prize as promised.

As this is my second time around the potty block, I am pretty relaxed about the whole thing. She's not even three yet; she still has plenty of time. If all else fails I have a pretty good Plan B. See, I have this theory that if you go buy the biggest box of pull-ups that you can get your hands on, your child will magically be potty trained in less than 72 hours. It's one of those Murphy's Law things.

And if I must confess my most deepest, darkest secret, then the truth is, I'm not in any hurry for this to all to end. I know that being potty trained heralds the end of babyhood and that all too soon I will miss the familiar swish-swish sound that only a diapered bottom can make. She is the last baby I will ever have and soon she won't be a baby at all. Of course, potty training aside, she is already well on her way to growing up. Whether I like it or not.

Carson K.- Second Grader

And so begins another school year with fresh new hair cuts and squeaky clean shoes. Carson has begun the second grade (oh, where has the time gone) and seems to be enjoying it thus far. He is placed at a table with the class genius (please let her work habits rub off on him) and his best friend, Samuel. Not a bad start I’d say.

I can also happily report that he actually likes school this year. And if I have to pinpoint what changed from all the years past, I believe that the credit should go to Sylvan. I don't know what they did over the summer, but it has made a tremendous difference. He has lost that choppy cadence in his reading which seemed to stunt his ability to comprehend what the heck he was supposed to be reading in the first place. It has really changed everything. Listening to him get through a 12 page reading assignment literally brought tears to my eyes. I knew that we were no longer going to have to fight that demon that had Carson convinced that he was just not smart enough to do the work.

Also making the transition to school a bit easier was the fact that Carson turned 7 on Monday. I brought cupcakes for the class and regaled them with tales of Carson’s crazy antics as a baby. I have told these same stories to the same kids for years now, but I guess some stories never get old. They never get tired of hearing how when he was two, he found the scrap of umbilical cord I had saved in his baby book and immediately popped it in his mouth to eat it. I suppose that umbilical cord humor is just gross enough to hold their interest over time. Another favorite tale that they always beg to hear about is when he went up in the play tubes at McDonald’s completely dressed and came down stark raving naked eating somebody else’s chicken nugget. That is always sure to gets them going. And I can always finish big with the time that we were getting ready to go out and I looked up to see Carson riding the garage door all the way up to the top. He was, and still is actually, such a hoot to be around.

When I asked him if he felt any different now that he was seven, he said, "I think I 've changed alot. I used to like grilled cheese and hate reading and now I love reading and hate grilled cheese." Well, there's that.

Carson's 7th

What started off as a really stressful day turned out beautifully. Friday morning I woke up to dark cloudy skies and a forecast of thunderstorms in the afternoon. I worried all morning that Carson's birthday party was going to be ruined on account of the weather. But, just like that, the skies parted and the sun came out. At 1700 hours (it was an Army party after all) the guests arrived and the party began. The kids swam and played and and enjoyed a great game of "capture the flag" with water balloons. This was definately a highlight for all involved. Here are the boys learning the rules.



After several rounds of this game, we had to get a quick birthday song in before the sun went down. Everyone liked Carson's army cake. It was chocolate with chocolate icing, my favorite. I figured that if I was the one choosing the cake then I got to choose what I liked.


No sooner had the kids eaten their weight in hotdogs and cake, then they were back in the pool for more swimming. As Emme is just one of the boys, she stayed in the pool until it was too dark for me to count heads anymore. I ordered everyone out and they spent the next couple of hours playing in the yard with flashlights. Although I had set up a big tent for the overnight campout, the kids ended up sleeping (and I use this term loosely) in my mom's TV room. I checked in on them a couple of times, broke up a fight or two and evidently kicked my nephew Jake out of the room at some point. I am a little sketchy on the details of why he got the boot as I become somewhat incoherent when I am deprived of sleep. I do remember begging for the boys to go to sleep about 1:30 a.m. and explaining to them that I had actually become dizzy with exhaustion. At some point, they must have given out because the next thing I know it was morning.

And by morning, I mean the crack of dawn morning. Someone should really study the metabolism of little boys because they evidently do not require any discernable amounts of restorative sleep to get going at full blast again. Dobie brought in doughnuts and juice and the boys (and girl cousins) dined outside.



And then it was back in the pool until the parents came in about 11:00 a.m. All in all it was a great party and Carson reached his goal of $100 birthday dollars. I don't exactly know why this was his goal, but he has equated $100 with true kid wealth. I am glad that he had a good birthday and I am super duper glad that it is over.

One is the loneliest number

Hi, my name is Stacy and it’s been 6 days since I’ve last seen my children. They left for San Antonio to visit their grandparents last Friday and I am officially miserable without them. As Dobie was the one to cook up the idea of an extended visit, I naturally blame him. Of course, he is completely bewildered why he is at fault and I believe that I am coming dangerously close to being labeled a nut. If he asks me if I’m about to start my “woman time”, I may go completely bonkers and start throwing stuff.

I find that I am not one of those people who enjoy being by myself. Sure, I like a little “me time”, but seven consecutive days is too much. By day three, I had re-read two Harry Potter books, cleaned my entire house and taken a couple of naps. Wish list complete. I was then faced with four more days of “now what?”

To make matters worse, I spoke to the kids last night and they were both weepy and crying to come home. At some point, Emme got so hysterical that someone just took the phone away and hung up. So for the rest of the night, I was all weepy and depressed. Dobie, of course, has no idea what to do with me. To be perfectly honest, I don’t know what to do with me. I seem to be operating in a sort of fog, just wishing time would go by faster.

Luckily, there is an end in sight. Tomorrow, my babies will be home and we will celebrate Carson’s 7th birthday with an “Army campout” in my mom’s backyard. And since I have had nothing but time on my hands to plan this shin-dig, I may have, okay, scratch that, I probably have gone overboard a teensy weensy bit. I have found that excessive amounts of free time combined with the crushing pain of missing your children results in the ever so slight-est over indulgence of one’s impulses. So, Carson will get a party to remember and I will get my sweet angels back again. Everyone’s a winner, I’d say.

Musings

My husband and my sweet babies are in San Antonio and I am left alone with my dog and my thoughts. Here is what I know.

I love Cezar Milan, aka, The Dog Whisperer. I faithfully tune in every week to watch him overhaul another psycho dog and show the dumbo owner how its all their fault their dog is totally screwed up. He just strolls in with his spanish accent and super creased pants and tsk-tsks the dog a couple of times and like 25 minutes later, the unruly beast is doing laps on the treadmill. Amazing.

I am always on the lookout for tips on how to fix my own hound-from-hell, Duncan. Books about Beagles- read em'. Obedience classes- took em'. Progress? Almost none. In fact, I believe he ate one of the books about Beagles and I had to throw it away. He is kill-ing me with the never ending list of valuables he has chewed up. Eyeglasses, gone. Three pairs of Emerson's sandals, shredded. My one good black bra, ribbons. The underside of my bed resembles a large fuzzy nest, filled with disentrailed Webkins, sippy cup lids and all the missing pieces from Emerson's tea sets. I estimate that he is blowing through about $50.00 bucks of my stuff a month and that is a conservative estimate. His only saving grace right now is that he has not chewed one thing of Dobie's. (Which I find ironic considering that Dobie leaves his stuff absolutely everywhere.) I have this idea that if I just watch enough Dog Whisperer episodes, I will magically absorb the necessary knowledge to tsk-tsk my stupid dog in to perfect subservience.

It's kind of the same philosophy that drives me to buy fitness magazines. LOSE 10 POUNDS in 10 DAYS! WALK YOUR WAY TO A SIZE 6! I see the titles and I gravitate towards the promise of a new me. However, what I consistently find is that you must actually do the "secret weight loss plan" if you want to lose the weight. Evidently, you cannot glean any aerobic benefits at all by reading alone. And, surprise, surprise, all of these super secret weight loss plans involve ridiculous amounts of exercise and absolutely no pancakes. Was that really a secret? Did people just find out that eating less and exercising more helps you lose weight? But I digress.........back to Cezar.

What it all comes down to is this, Cezar Milan is a genius and my only hope of rehabilitating my deranged dog is to watch more of his show. They had one good beagle episode, but once again, all the dog's problems were solved by a nice long walk. So the moral of the story is this: no matter what your problems are,whether it be a house devouring dog or a great big bubble butt, all you got to do is go on a really long walk.

Fun in the Sun -or else

It has come to my attention that there is less than one month left before school starts. When this discovery dawned on me this week, all I could think was, how could this have happened? How did two months of summer time fun slip past me without me noticing? I was supposed to have accrued all kinds of wonderful dreamy childhood memories for my kids by now. What are they supposed to tell my future grandchildren? Well kids, in the summer of 2008, we took two whole walks with the dog and got rained out at the zoo. Super.

You know that game on the Price is Right where the contestant gets 5 or 6 placards with prices on them and has like two minutes to match the prices with the right prizes? And the contestant always gets 2 or 3 right off the bat and then frantically tries to unscramble the other 3 prices before the time runs out? Well, that's me right now. I just looked up and saw I've got almost no time left to unscramble my schedule and enjoy the summer with my kids before its over.

So, yesterday I took a half-day off of work to take the kids to the waterpark and make some ding-darn memories of a lifetime. Well, you would have thought I asked my children (and nephew Jake) to join me at an all day insurance seminar. They immediately met my unbridled enthusiasm with moaning and groaning about it being tooooo hottttt and the water tooooo colddd and suggested that I check back with them another time. Emerson had an excuse, she had missed her nap, but the boys, well they were excuseless.

I quickly honed in to the fact that this entire conversation was taking place while they were glued to their Nintendo DS's. And having lived with these evil little devices for some time now, I have learned that when the boys are on the verge of breaking through to some new level or acquiring some sort of new evolved creature, the world as we know it stops. However, knowing this fact and caring about it are two different things. So, I ordered them to put the DS's away and pack it up because we were going have some serious, memory making fun whether they liked it or not. Of course, once we got there, they had a great time and I left satisfied that I could claim at least one really great day out with the kids this summer.

Undies Anyone?

My friend Anne requested contributions of embarrassing kid stories. As far as pure embarrasing goes, here's a nice Carson story:

Carson goes to a private Christian school. His 3-K teacher, Mrs. Lavell is pretty, sweet and conservative. The epitome of what every pre-school school teacher should be. One day, I was talking to her before class and Carson was still hanging onto me, trying to get my attention. I continued on in my conversation with Mrs. Lavell, not at all distracted by the fact that Carson had taken to running his hand up and down my leg. At one point, his hand goes from my ankle all the way up my skirted leg and then he stops. And right there in the middle of my conversation, he declares at the top of his lungs, "Momma, you aren't wearing any underwear!"

I tried to smile my most genteel , demure smile and replied, "Carson, honey, I am wearing underwear and you need to use your inside voice."

"No, Momma, I felt your bootie!" (Helllloo, did I not say inside voice.)

At this point, Mrs. Lavell is more than just a little bit interested to see how this plays out and other parents have begun to turn around to see what kind of tramp drops her pre-schooler off without donning undies.

I am now wishing that I knew some kind of magic sleeper ninja-hold that I could use on Carson to get him to stop talking. Short of that, I try to convince his teacher.

"Mrs. Lavell, I can assure you that I am wearing underwear. They are not a conventional type (ewww, I know, TMI, but what was I supposed to say?), but I would never leave the house without underwear. Promise." Big smile, and pray that she doesn't think I am a degenerate.

Mrs. Lavell seemed satisfied with that and quickly shooed Carson into class. With that I hustled my way on out of there and vowed to never wear a skirt again.

Emme Claire Domestic Terrorist

For those who do not have the privilege of knowing Emerson Claire Kosub, you are missing out. This kid is priceless. My friends at work routinely ask me to tell them the latest "Emme story". Here are the latest two:

1. A couple of weeks ago, I put my kids to bed and then went on to bed myself. Two and half hours later, I woke up to a bright light shining in my eyes. When my eyes finally adjusted, I saw Emme standing by my bedside wearing full Cinderella regalia, right down to the high heel shoes. She apparently had found a flashlight and decided to blind me/scare me half to death with it. When I asked her what in the world she was doing, she whispered, "I loot-en for cues." Translation, she was looking for clues. At midnight. In heels. Go figure.

2. Last weekend, I was painting the living room and mostly ignoring Emme. There being no furniture in the main rooms or accessible toys (remodeling the house), she was understandably bored. I was up on a ladder when I heard her saying, "It's okay, just lie down and be still, that's a good boy, just lie still and be good..." Out of an abundance of curiosity and caution, I got down to check it out. There she was, petting a sleepy Duncan, sweet talking him into a totally relaxed state of mind and ever-so-slowly easing his soft floppy ear into the stapler.

I cried out, "Emerson Claire what are you doing!?"

"Oh, I jus po-tin a ho in Duncan's ear."

"Well, that's going to hurt him, so stop it."

"Mommm, it jus one ittle ho."

That's right, according to her you can staple an innocent dog's ears so long as you keep it down to "one little hole".

Priceless.

1st Date

It's 6:40 in the afternoon and both of my kids are blessedly asleep. Sure, I'll pay for it later when they are still going strong at 11:00 p.m., but I have just enough time for a quick adorable Carson-story.

Carson had his first date, sorta. On Wednesday, Brookie-Cookie (the love of his life) needed a ride to tennis class. Enter Carson all googley-eyed and nervous. We turn on her street and he turns to me and I-kid-you-not, says,"I wonder just how beautiful Brooke is going to look when she walks through that door?" Couldn't you just die? Well, she looked just as cute as a button and smelled great too. According to her father, Brooke was in a similar tizzy and had doused her self in about a half gallon of strawberries and cream perfume. She had also wrote "Hello Carson" on her Magna-Doodle and put it next to the front door for him to see. They took a quick peek at her room (it was evidently a giant pink paradise) and off we went.

Carson practically killed himself trying to beat her to the car so that he could open her door for her. His over eagerness was such that I felt it necessary to caution him to wait until the car stopped moving before he went to open her door for her again once we got there. All went smoothly during the lesson and 45 minutes later their first big date was over.

Carson later said, "Mom, what do you wish for me?" And I answered my stock answer, "I just wish your wishes come true." He smiled and said, "Oh good, then you wish that I become an Army man and marry Brooke too." How cute is that???