Friday, February 26, 2010

Glittercrotchie

Morgan just alerted me to the fact that her little sister seemed to have a problem! and noted that perhaps I should take a look at my youngest daughter. I turned around to find Avery, fresh from her bath, still stark nakey, standing sort of like a person who has just gotten off of a horse and who's legs haven't realized that they can go back to normal. All bow-legged and stuff. And she was slightly bent over trying to investigate something going on in her private region.

The whole family let out a collective EWWWW! Gross! and then told me to take care of it.

Turns out that little Miss-Fresh-From-the-Tub-and-Still-Wet had snagged a can of red glitter and rubbed it allllll over her body. All over. So gross.

Baby wipes only made matters worse so I've now got her back in the tub hoping that the glitter will dislodge itself and that she didn't enjoy the sensation of her naked body covered in glitter, because, c'mon, that would not bode well for her future now would it?

Sunday, February 21, 2010

Dude, We're Getting So Old

That's all I can think of when I look at the pictures from our 10 year anniversary trip. I don't FEEL that old, so why do I look like I'm almost FORTY??? I would have liked to have spent our 10 year anniversary getting botox, but since it is OUR anniversary and not MY anniversary, we decided to do something that we'd both love and remember forever. So we did.

Have I mentioned that our marriage lasting this long is something of a miracle to us? It's true. Here are just a few of the many reasons:

1) Statistics alone are against us. Coming into this, each having our own child, each not out of the previous relationship all that long, the odds weren't good.

2) The Family And Friends Betting Pool on how long we would last, whether we'd even make it to the wedding date, and if so, how long after, was not a good sign.

3) The reason for #2 being formed, which was my tendancy to get engaged and then call it off.

4) His sleeziness.

5) My judginess.

6) The many near divorces that we went through in the first year. Or two. Maybe three.

That's enough about the reasons we shouldn't have made it, but you can see that we take a bit of pride and amusement in the fact that we HAVE made it this far and we just keep getting happier.

It makes me wonder, does starting off un-happy make your happy potential actually higher? Did we do the right thing by setting our expectations so low? By getting married because neither of us could afford our rent alone, were we on the right track?

I don't think it's a recipe for happiness. I think we just make each other laugh and find each other very attractive, but I don't think it hurt that we have a mutual determination to show everyone how wrong they were about us not lasting. We like to win. We're winners. And our prize is being happier than either one of us could ever imagine. Chris said it best last night, "Amy, you're like the most amazing package of smokin hot AND a best friend who gets all of my jokes and movie lines." The fact that we both feel that way about each other makes it a pretty great life.

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

For the Love of a Good Fight

I'm not sure exactly what makes me like watching Vee pick a fight. I kind of wonder if it's my awareness that this is the twilight years of my toddler parenthood. Next month GrantC will be 5 and in the fall Vee and I will be all alone together. Just me for her to argue with and growl at. I feel that sadness, that empty-nestishness, that moms feel when they're babies are growing up too fast.

Baby Plankton is the best. I realize in some small part of my shrinking brain that I shouldn't find pleasure in her naughtiness. I know that it's only going to ruin her and teach her that naughtiness is funny, but she's just so blasted cute to me. I almost wish I could love her just a little bit less. Or love her enough to be harder on her and punish her more often.


I think my weakness for her is heightened by these last 2 being so close together. Having the first three spread out so far gave me plenty of time to appreciate the stages that each one was going through. Now, it feels like an avalanche, like it's all cascading so fast that I can't even catch my breath. That, and the fact that if I didn't find pleasure in VeeVee's nasty side, then it would be kinda hard to like her at all.

That's not true. She has a delightful side too, but that need to make Grant scream is just so dominant.

It's the look on her face when she's deliberately irritating him that I can't resist. I KNOW, it's got to be the 2nd child in me. I know exactly how she's feeling. I know that utter pleasure that comes from having full control over your older siblings emotions, that "Tell me it makes you angry"ness that us younger sisters like to wield over those bossy older's heads. We get it from years of having to wait, having to be told what to do, having them rub their olderness in our faces.

That, and she's the baaaaaby and is going to be spoiled rotten and I may just pay for it years down the road. I love that little Plankton baby.

Thank you for the therapy session tonight. I'm sure Becky is so happy to hear that I only refused to turn off the bedroom light or hold my farts in because of my own inner frustration. That, and a really bad stubborn evil streak.

General Conference Weekend

Originally written 10/5/09

Our traditional buffet for General Conference weekend:

It helps to keep the kids quiet, focused, and excited. This year, Grant cried "I WANT GENERAL CONFERENCE" because I was taking too long cooking. It was a beautiful moment for me. Even more beautiful was having all 3 littles sit through both of Sunday's 2 hour sessions without complaint or problem. They were great. I hope this tradition continues to make Conference weekend fun.

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

A Letter to My Sweet Sweet Niece

Dear Curly-Girlie,

Next time that your mommy threatens you that you Better not poop your pants at Aunt Amy's house or we're GOING STRAIGHT HOME, please PLEASE do not listen to her. You just go ahead and crap those suckers. Fill 'em good. You know why? Because then your mommy is the only one who has to clean up your poop.

You know what, if you need to, you just go ahead and poop outside. That always worked for me as a kid, and I do know that you're comfortable with that method, so, please, feel free.
Seriously, though, little lighter on the toilet paper kiddo. I do love exploring my masculine side and snaking the toilet repeatedly didn't work, so I got to yank the toilet out and go in through the bottom. Amazingly it really was just crazy amount of toilet paper, not a toy or a toothbrush or anything exciting. I was kind of disappointed about that. I was hoping for something fun.
And, Princess Girl, I do know that my toilet clogs easily and you were a good girl to make it to the toilet, I'm just having fun for the blog! Now to go have a nice bleach bath and try to get the poop off me. I'm so glad we have that sanitize cycle on the washer because nothing that you had put in there had gone down. At all. So, I'm pretty sure the sanitize cycle was necessary.






Monday, February 1, 2010

MoMo makes another entry in the Berg Dictionary

Mo gets tummy aches quite often. I'm trying to pay attention to what she eats in an attempt to make a connection to some food group, but so far it's still a mystery.

Tonight it was aching badly enough that she was hunched over, wandering around in pain, moaning and generally being miserable, so I offered her some stomach medicine. She accepted the offer and I sent Chris to give her some Pepto.

Turns out she's not a fan of the Pepto. She's never had it and she's pretty sure we were trying to kill her. We weren't. She cried and cried on my lap and I really did worry that she would puke. Kinda like 7-Up makes me throw up instead of the opposite. She didn't puke, but she did coin my new favorite phrase: MOM, that was SO gross! That was so gross that it even made we wish that I didn't even HAVE any Taste Buddies.

Taste Buddies... Taste Buddies... I love it so much that I haven't stopped saying it. I have a feeling that this will go down in Berg-o-pedia history right next to Put Another Dime in the Juice Box, Baby and Cheesy Warm-Warms and Crown instead of Crayon.

It also reminds me of Grant sobbing because he didn't want to be "drownded" when we told him he was grounded. And of Grant refusing to use the word "people", insisting instead on calling them "humans". Have I mentioned that one? It's really freaky when little dude is all LOOK, Mom, there's a human in my fire truck. It's just plain weird.