The Daily Fuss

Laws of Attraction: A Three Year-Old's Interpretation

Leighton: Mom, why do you need to get married when you get older?

Thank you Disney Princesses.

Jen: You don't need to get married. Ever. Some people just do it. In fact, it's fairly common.

Leighton: It's common for moms and dads to get married?

Jen: Sometimes men marry women. And sometimes men marry men. And sometimes women marry women. Usually kids come after, but not always.

Leighton: Why do sometimes two girls get married?

Jen: People can marry whoever they want. It just depends whether you are attracted to men or women. Men and women together are the most common couples these days, but there are lots of women who marry women and men who marry men.

Long, thoughtful pause from the back seat.

Leighton: I am definitely attracted to boys, but I'm not sure I would ever marry one.

Jen: Oh?

Leighton: They are silly and rambunctious and don't listen very well and are messy. I'm just attracted to boys, but I might marry a girl. Maybe boys are different when they are growed up.

Jen: Um. Sure.

I wrote this down immediately because I can hardly believe a three year old brain is able to work through this line of reasoning. Bless you Miss Leighton. You make me smile several times every single day. 

 

Sweet Life

Last month, after nearly eight years with the same company, I gave my two-weeks notice. You may have seen this coming here. 

I've spent the last three, blissful weeks checking home and garden related things off of my to-do list while enjoying my children, husband and life immensely.

This is an Instagram shot of Mairin and I watching Leighton ride a pony at the Bristol Renaissance Faire last weekend.

In the interest of full disclosure, we have Mary Poppins, our full-time nanny, so I have had the best of all worlds for three solid weeks now. I am far from where I started - a quasi-control freak who lacked the ability to rely on others in earnest.

I could get used to this - having Mary Poppins and no real employer of which to speak.

But, I won't. I start my new job on Monday.

While starting anew can be stressful, I honestly welcome change. I have limited patience for getting set up - new computer, phone, HR stuff, new employee number, 401(k) rollovers and the like, but I'm incredibly excited to begin a new journey.

I will embark on this new personal career adventure with a clean and organized home, brilliant and healthy girls, a happy husband, 28 day meal plan (which I will finally begin posting soon), booming garden, 9 minute mile, a bit of a tan, and a weekend I am about to spend with my college girlfriends and their families.

At this moment, I am completely satisfied.

I am going to sink into this small and perfect space and be as grateful as I can possibly be for as long as I possibly can.

Nothing Game

When I was pregnant with Leighton, imagining Ryan and I as new parents, my mind's eye perpetually flipped through the rosy, picturesque aspects of motherhood juxtaposed against the darker "what if" fears realistically beyond reason.

Both sides of that coin draw tears to a hormone-jacked woman about to give birth. But, until I actually had Leighton in my arms, I had no idea how special the small moments would be.

It's impossible to appreciate the day-to-day silliness children bring until it happens. The dinner-throwing, first-words, first-times, sibling-rivalry, middle-of-the-night-fussing, no-pants-partying, vomiting, teasing, slapping, laughing, questioning and just plain banality of parenting is amazing.

The small moments shore up the monumental ones and keep my relationship with my children in perspective. I make a concerted effort to NOT take my family for granted.

Stringing together the small moments offers some of our most cherished memories. Those moments are fleeting and I don't write about them as completely as I would like. Which brings me to today, and this very moment to be specific.

Leighton takes classes. She genuinely likes school - both the learning and social aspects - so we go with it. Today, she had "Crayons Cooking and Fun".

She loves this class, just as she's adored Gymnastics, Music, Ballet, Head to Toe, Swim, Yoga, Arithmetots and Phonics over the last year. She generally comes home and spills the beans on whatever happened in the 90 minute class.

However, starting this week, when asked "What did you learn at school today," Leighton would unflinchingly answer, "Nothing."

In my opinion, this apathy should not have reared its ugly head for several more years. What the heck? These classes are pricey and we want to know whether she's enjoying them, at the very least.

Is she seriously dismissing me?

Her new "nothing" response obviously bugs her daddy, because he started playing a little game with her. After three days, we refer to it as the "Nothing Game."

The Nothing Game goes like this: If we ask her how her day was or what happened at school and her answer is "nothing". We get to tease her a bit.

It's fun. Here's a typical example:

ME: "Hey Leighton. UPS delivered a package today and it was wrapped in pink sparkly paper and tied with a big, purple, satin bow. I tore it open and dug through the packing peanuts and, you know what was in it?" 

LEIGHTON: "What mom?"

ME: "Noooothing."

And Lei will laugh her ass off. Once she recovers, she will formulate a zinger of her own and keep it going. Then Ryan, then Leighton, then me, then Mairin (who just starts laughing and screeching and so on) and the game continues.

The lesson, of course, is that the answer "nothing" is annoying. The Nothing Game loosens her up, gets her talking. It's like verbal tickle torture. It's hilarious to us.

I can't take credit. Ryan started it. I just fully intend to keep it going as long a the imaginitive cackling continues and she eventually tells us what she did at school that day.

Boom Boom Part II: Lemon Drop

As I may have mentioned, Mairin is still nursing and basically using me as a pacifier at night. What sleep I do manage to get is achieved in a crooked "S" shape on my right side.  

I understand the argument that my youngest will eventually roll her eyes at me and make me drop her off a block before the theater and I will long for the days when she was a wee babe.

I realize that I said I would coast along for another two months and then phase out feedings. I said this as recently as Monday.

But, I can't take much more of this. She and I both need a good, solid night's sleep for a change. Actually, all four of us need it. Mairin's late night fussing has been waking up Leighton, who ends up in our bed, digging her toes into Ryan's spine.

We enjoy the family bed, but sometimes it's an ugly commune-type situation that results in a tough morning. We've had a string of those lately and something needs to change. Plus, my little Marinka Dinka has all but forgotten how to self-sootheas she likes to nurse to sleep. It's unequivocally my job as her parent to help her with that.

At approximately 1:00 am Tuesday morning, I broke free from my crooked "S" and found my iPad next to the bed.  I began Googling "how to wean a toddler," and "toddler resists weaning" and a few other seemingly absurd variations.

Most of what I found on the good old interweb pertained to weaning toddlers from a bottle. This, to me, seemsa much simpler proposition than weaning a toddler form the breast. I've done it with Leighton. I just didn't give her a bottle and talked her through the withdrawal. She was done in two nights at the age of sixteen months - from boobie to baba to batte just like that.

A toddler can't climb into the upper cabinet, fetch a bottle, assemble the nipple, get the milk from the fridge, heat it up, pour it into the bottle, screw on the nipple and have her batte. Toddlers are crafty, but not that capable.

They are, however, able to unbutton a blouse, shove their hands into the neckline of a shirt, stretch it out, throw a temper tantrum, bite through the blouse, pull out your earnings and repeatedly yell, "BOOM BOOM" as loudly as possible to cause a scene.

If I could put my breasts in a kitchen cabinet on some days, I would do it.  Alas, no.

So that brings me back to what the Google machine eventually did reveal. The message boards and blog comments have all the goods - the real answers from real people who aren't afraid you're going to try to sue them for giving worthy advice.  

I stumbled upon a few comments about toddler weaning using lemon juice. WHAT? I know, rubbing lemon juice on my boobs struck me as something akin a dare or a cruel trick to play on a little kid. Still, the desperate women who tried it happily reported that it worked like a charm. Their babies didn't mind much and lost interest fairly quickly.

So,I tried it. I cut a lemon in half and applied it to the targets. Before bedtime, Mairin made her plea for "Boom Boom". I let her try it and she pulled back, made a little face and said, "taste", "taste" while shaking her head. She tried it again with the same reaction. Then, she hopped off my lap and got a book to read.

A little while later, Ryan picked her up for bed. She said, "boom boom?" so I offered it up. She looked at me for a moment and, apparently remembering her previous attempt, changed her mind. She said "no" kissed me good night and went off to bed.

And then, I cried.

Boom Boom

In light of the whole "Are You Mom Enough" extreme parenting brew ha ha, it's as good a time as any to mention my fear that Mairin will soon need a step ladder for boobie dish. 

She will be sixteen months old on June 3rd and still asks for "boom boom" throughout the day.

She only nurses at bedtime (usually) but she's been teething (four at a time) and I feel bad for her and so ... I cave.

Leighton weaned herself fully by ten months. It was easy - for both of us. Mairin is a different story entirely, and I'm not sure what to do about it. She's so happy to nurse and so miserable when denied.

I always said that when she got teeth, I'd be done. She has ten, but she's figured out what "gentle" means. She's old enough to understand that this situation is not ideal, but plays dumb when I tell her she's a big girl and should eat her dinner because she can't have boobie dish forever.

She makes a pitiful face and tugs at my neckline and replies, "Boom boom". 

What's a mom to do?

To answer my own question, I am content to coast along without a hard and fast plan for another two months and then commit to phasing out the feedings.

Until July 21st, I suspect that boom boom will continue as usual.

Mom Enough

I must admit that my first reaction to the cover of this magazine was, "I don't get it. What's the problem?" My nanny then pointed out to me that the child is "quite old," to which I slowly replied, "Huh. I guess he's probably four-ish."

This cover and the title of the related story "Are You Mom Enough" is causing more of a stir than Alicia Silverstone's premastication video blog.

The article is about attachment parenting and Dr. Sears - the man who defined it. Key components of attachment parenting include (among other things) co-sleeping, breastfeeding, letting your child dictate its schedule and the like.

You can take the TIME quiz on parenting styles here for free if you are wondering where you fall on the attachment parenting spectrum.

Questions swirling about the blogosphere fall largely into the category of, "What is TIME trying to do?" and "Has TIME gone too far?"

Shock and awe aside, the article and its provocative title/photo combo illuminates a heightened sense of parenting in our culture these days. And it makes sense, as a wave of "natural parenting" has washed over us in the last decade.

Breastfeeding is back in vogue - to the point that we have a secondary market for human milk. Organic food has become more widely available and less expensive. The BPA scare boosted the sale of glass baby bottles and spurred the elmination of its use. Baby wearing  is all the rage. Throngs of children are not properly vaccinated, either timely or at all, due to fear and mystery surrounding autism.

The list goes on.

In the wake of the women's liberation movement, the main devisive issue for moms was whether or not to work outside the home. The debate pitted the working mom against the stay-at-home mom and many an Oprah-esque argument ensued.

It was so much simpler then, when one side felt it damaging to leave children without mom for more than a few hours and the other felt that children need to see their moms do more than just take care of them.

I really do believe that we Americans are culturally enlightened enough to get past our own jealousies and insecurities to see the positives and drawbacks inherent in either situation. We now have the SAHM (Stay At Home Mom); the WoMo (Working Mom); the WAHM (Work At Home Mom) and seemingly no apology from any party as to the label.

With progress comes new challenges. And, as we open up the idea of "natural" motherhood we rely on "mother's intuition" in ways that, frankly, piss off our pediatricians. Maybe we shouldn't believe everything we're told. Maybe we shouldn't trust the system as much as we do.

With rapid exchange of information in these times, we've seen that the system doesn't always work. Is controlled breathing all I need to get me through childbirth? Can I have a glass of wine? What's in that formula? What's in that vaccine? If the risk of SIDS is really higher when baby sleeps alone? What hormones were fed to that cow? Does the sugar in juice really cause obesity and eat your brain?

The motherhood playing field has shifted dramatically and it's more devisive than ever. It's become the game of mothers judging each other for doing specific things that will ostensibly harm their children in some way. For me, this article is less about Dr. Sears, and more about jumpstarting that dormant conversation.

You know ... the one I'm having right now.

Moms, in honor of our upcoming day of motherly celebration, let's all relax. Being a mom is a tough job and we shouldn't judge each other for the choices we make.

I take the un-apologetic approach to parenting. We do what works for us and the kids always come first. Here's our parenting style in a nutshell:

The girls have a routine. They behave better when they know what's coming next. Our nanny is better at keeping the routine than Ryan and I.

Mairin comes in our bed between midnight and two am. She still nurses at night at 15 months. We eat as well as we can. We try different foods. If we don't like it, we need to try it again later. We drink juice on occasion. We have dessert.

We have rules and strive to be orderly, but our house gets messy. A lot. In the name of projects and art and more projects, we get messy.

We don't tolerate meaness. We allow for self-expression and understand that we need to choose our battles and try not to make a big deal out of too many things.

We have Disney movies and princess stuff and sports stuff and instruments and try to maintain a balance. We don't say things are "boy things" or "girl things". We have dance parties and movie nights.

We always say "I love you" and never NEVER EVER take each other for granted.

So take that Dr. Sears, Time magazine and defiant breastfeeding cover mom. You can't define my parenting style in such strict terms. Even if you are just trying to sell some magazines.

To Dye For

Leighton did a fantastic job coloring easter eggs this weekend. We readied our home in anticipation of the Bunny's arrival.

With regard to egg decorating, Lei chose several kits ranging from princess, to spinner, to monster. We settled on a combination of five.

I was so excited to dye eggs you would think that such an activity was mess-free and accomplished successfully in less than twenty minutes.

Nope.

I love a messy, tiedeous challenge.

Luckily, so does my eldest daughter.

    

After several hours of discussion and back and forth with Leighton telling me that she "loves painting eggs" and me responding that we're using "dye not paint" and Leighton patiently listening and diligently working, she looks up at me wearily and asks a very simple, yet overlooked question.

"Mom, um, why are we killing 'em?"

Duh, Mom. Dye versus die? Hard to believe that this never occurred to me.

I don't mean to get all "kids say the darndest things - last page of Parents Magazine" on you. But, I realize ... we have made it to the next stage of understanding discourse and the parlance of our times ... words with more than one meaning.

Happy Easter, Happy Passover and Happy Next Stages to all!

A Three Year-Old's Interpretation

Leighton: Why does she say "damn"?

Mom: It's not very nice, but those are her lyrics.

Leighton: "Damn" is a bad word.

Mom: Yes.

Leighton: Sometimes big people say "damn"?

Mom: Yes.

Leighton: Sometimes singers say "damn"?

Mom: Yes. Now stop saying it.

Leighton: Why does she say "damn"?

Mom: I don't know why she chose that word. I guess it goes with the song.

Leighton: She's just mad because strangers are in her bed.

 

Katy Perry: Last Friday Night

There's a stranger in my bed

There's a pounding in my head

Glitter all over the room

Pink flamingos in the pool

I smell like a minibar

DJ's passed out in the yard

Barbies on the barbeque

Is this a hickey or a bruise

Pictures of last night

Ended up online

I'm screwed Oh well

It's a blacked-out blur

But I'm pretty sure it ruled

Damn

Last Friday Night ...

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Wutz Up? B/F/F

God bless my mother's tendency to hoarde things. The other day she brought over an incredibly insightful bag of junior high nostalgia: pictures, artwork and hold on to your catholic school-issued plaid ... my NOTES!

The notes I took in World History?

Um. No.

She saved my entire collection of passed notes labeled 7th Grade and 8th Grade respectively.

I clearly felt that these exchanges were of uber import. Needless to say, I sat rather quietly with a glass of wine whilst inspecting these carefully-organized adolescent scrawlings.

It only took an hour to make some solid observations about these communications drafted by thirteen and fourteen year-olds.

For your reading pleasure, I have included a few candid photos. These were taken with my very basic kid-cam that I received for Christmas in seventh grade. Please note the bangs, the cousins and awkwardness of it all.

Dear tweens and freshly-dubbed teens, I have some advice to give so that the thirty-five year-old version of yourself may be somewhat impressed with you twenty years from now:

1) Stop telling everyone how bored you are all the time. Examples: "This class is so boring. I am sooooooooo BORED it's not even funny." 

We get it, you feel the need to explain that you would not have been compelled to write a note absent extreme boredom. That simple fact is implied in note-writing itself. Skip mentioning this fact. And, remember, you must have interests to be interesting.

2) Stop apologizing for brevity. Examples: "Sorry this is so short" or S/S/S and "I would have written more but ..." Keep these things to yourself.

I can assure you that the person receiving the note will not feel slighted by your pithy commentary until you point out how much time you spent writing to someone else.

3) Get to the fucking point, kids. Per the foregoing, I must say my collection of notes contained lengthy expositions and equally verbose closings.

From a sheer productivity standpoint, you could have written ten times as many notes and learned algebra in the same time it took you to write one senseless message.

Example: "I'd write more, but I have to go. My mom wants me to finish my book report two days early and I want to watch the new episode of 21 Jump Street. Richard Grieco is on tonight."

Arguably, this is an important bit of information. They gave the guy his own show for Pete's sake.

4) End your quest to find clever new ways to misspell words. Trust me, "Wutz up?" "welps or whelps" "geeez" "cuz" and "luv" look a little bit stupid two decades later written on paper. We will discuss texting in a moment.

5) Keep the Top 5 lists coming. These are incredibly entertaining. When you save these notes, please categorize them by grade and author and include a yearbook. It really helps jog the memory years later in relating names to faces frozen in time. Future you will not care about bordem, new-fangled spellings or the reason the note is so short. Top 5 lists are exciting!

6) Please include a legend for your closing acronyms. b/f/f and w/b are easy ones. Then there are a number of others: G/F/A.   F.I.T.E.    F/F     U/B/G/F/A

A few other observations:

Girls are very good at expressing every single feeling they have, when they feel it.

Boys are ... not so much.

Sixth grade girls are meanest. Seventh is brutal. Eighth grade seems to soften them a bit.

Sixth, seventh and eighth grade boys wish the girls would stop fighting and let them touch their boobs. Or see their boobs. Or just have boobs, actually.

Do kids even write notes anymore? Or do they just text in class? In which case, this is more of a data storage issue than a folder of handwritten missives.

Either way, I will keep my collection, at least until Leighton and Mairin are old enough to  write their own. Junior high seems rougher now in hindsight. I just want to be grounded, prepared and sympathetic for when that day comes. 

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Date With Leighton

Leighton needed some mommy time. Okay, fine. Maybe it's the other way around, but no matter. Lei happily accepted my offer to take her to her very first movie in the "thee-ay-ter".

The Muppets.

It's playing at Northbrook, so we decided that Ryan and Mairin would mill around the mall while we went to the movies. We would regroup afterwords for dinner at California Pizza Kitchen.

Sidebar: I love CPK. The food is consistent. Prices are reasonable. There are plenty of healthy options for kids and grownups and they serve alcohol. Perfect. Did I mention that they serve alcohol?

Leighton carefully readied herself for our date in a way that let me know she understood just how important the outing was for me. I haven't spent a large chunk of time with just Lei for a while now and was looking forward to some bonding.

My peanut picked out some textured tights, pink corduroy skirt and a white top with tulle at the collar - a good look for a two-and-a-half year-old to be sure.

We sang and danced to Let's Go To the Movies from Annie while we dressed.

Lei then took it several steps further and accessorized herself with sparkly shoes, a hair bow clip, a necklace and one of my purses from I couldn't even tell you when.

I think "embellishment" is one of her favorite words. In fact, I'm certain of this.

As we walked through the mall, Lei turned heads with her confident little gait. "What a girly girl." "She's so cute." "Look at those shoes."

She was oblivious to the attention, which pleased me immensely. She was only going about her business, after all.

We left Mairin and daddy at the entrance to the theater, picked up our tickets and headed straight for the snack counters. Out of all the candy, crap and junk food she could have chosen, Leighton settled on fruit snacks.

God bless her.

So I talked her into ordering a white cherry ICEE to wash them down. She later admitted that it was a smart decision.

She was mildly irritated by the previews, but loved the Toy Story short film and Muppets feature. She bounced around during the musical numbers and clapped at the end.

We saw a two-hour kids version of The Nutcracker last month and she got antsy half-way through. But for these Muppets, she made a little camp in her seat, ate her snacks and gingerly sipped her ICEE - taking it in and out of the cupholder a thousand intriguing times.

For the undisputed littlest ticketholder in the thee-ay-ter, she behaved perfectly.

We had a lovely dinner, fish tacos for mom, bbq chicken salad for dad, banana and avocado for Mairin and grilled chicken and broccoli for Leighton. She cleaned her plate and we made our way home.

We stopped at Walgreens on the way home to get more kid toothpaste (mint is too "spicy") and Lei said she couldn't wait to brush her teeth. She went straight upstairs and did just that when we arrived home. And put on her PJs and went to sleep.

Thank you my sweet little Leighton for the absolute best date EVER.

Please Mommy Dad

I have yet to explain to Leighton that Feliz Navidad is a song about Christmas, sung in Spanish.

This occurred to me while I listened to her singing her spin on the happy tune.

Please mommy dad

Please mommy dad

Please mommy dad because you know I know a fuzzy dot

She's so cute, I can hardly stand it. Someday, the little lisp and Jersey accent will disappear and I will miss it terribly.

The Littlest Bride

Regarding gender roles, the whole little-girl-dresses-up-as-a-bride thing just hits you right over the head doesn't it?

We really aren't the kind of parents who encourage extreme girliness. We certainly don't discourage it either. Still, we expose the girls to a wide range of experiences and some things seem to stick more than others.

I've mentioned the unstoppable force of Disney, and it's obvious that we haven't tried too hard to hide it from the girls. They can figure out on her own exactly which princesses are most lame and why.  Lei appreciates Buzz and Woody, but identifies the most with Jessie. She really doesn't care much for animals and prefers pink over ever other color. That's just how she is.

Lei likes garlic chicken and chili and tilapia and pomegranate and broccoli. She tries a variety of foods and some just keep reappearing on her requested menu.

I'll admit this bride stunt tripped me up a bit. I was putting up a few final holiday decorations and I overheard Leighton rummaging through items in the family room. She thoughfully chose a swaddle blanket and said to herself, "This will be my veil." Then, she picked a faux flower bouquets out of a vase on the side table and said, "My lovely bride bouquet." 

She asked me to secure the blanket dress and blanket veil, so I cinched her get-up with a few binder clips and she was "bride walking" down an imaginary aisle before I could fire up my camera flash.

 
 
 
 
We weren't sure whether to laugh or cry. We didn't know what to say. So, we simply said, "Congratulations!"

The little bride reports that next time she gets married, she will hold her flowers down a bit so we can see her face. Good to know.

Excuse Me?

A toddler can turn a ten-minute car ride into an hour.

A toddler who needs to stop to pee in crowded downtown Chicago on a friday night on the way to your brother-in-law's rehearsal dinner can turn that ride into a circus sideshow.

Ryan, his mom, Leighton, Mairin and I packed into the minivan for the brief trip from Navy Pier to Maggiano's. As soon as the last seat-belt clicked, Lei informed us that she had to pee. I said, "We will be there in five minutes. You can pee at the restaurant.

Traffic was horrendous and we made a wrong turn. A series of wrong turns and one-way streets led us a bit north. The whole time, Leighton was calmly repeating that she needed a rest stop.

Mairin started crying.

Lei's volume increased. "I have to go potty. I have to go potty." In a sing-songy cadence.

The radio was on. (Don't ask me why).

My mother-in-law dug frantically for an address.

My husband began sweating.

I focused on breathing in my nose and out of my mouth. I was feeling car sick.

Finally, it became obvious that Lei felt she needed more attention. "I HAVE TO PEE DAMMIT. DAMMIT I HAVE TO PEE. DAMMIT. DAMMIT. DAMMIT."

Whoa.

We stopped at a restaurant and Grandma whisked Lei out of her seat. We were parked around the corner from the entrance (another one-way situation) so we couldn't readily see that this particular restaurant was closed.

Grandma came back twelve minutes later, sweating, carrying Lei in heels, back aching because the toddler insisted on being carried the five block trek to find a suitable potty and Grandma obliged.

Ryan's brother was married in July (feel free to go back and reread that knowing it was 85 degrees outside). Until yesterday, I had forgotten about that car ride and how we spent the remainder of it trying not to laugh at Leighton's proper use of such a naughty word.

Yesterday afternoon, Lei was goofing around on a chair and knocked over my external hard drive. As it crashed to the floor I yelled "Dammit Leighton". She happily skipped around the house yelling "Dammit Leighton" for the next five minutes.

I no longer have to guess as to where she learned that word.

Big Girl Shoes

She begged me to let her try on my shoes.

I said, "no". And she asked, "why?" And I told her, "I don't want you to ruin them before I even get to wear them."

And she asked, "why?"

I didn't have the time to explain that I felt I deserved to wear them for the first time - damage free.

And, I didn't have the heart to tell her that with those sparkly Badgley Mischkas comes much more responsibility than she could possibly understand.

I would have to tell her that those shoes come with a job ... nay ... a career attached to them.

I would say that I must drive to and from meetings in the city, in my minivan on conference calls while pumping and doing my makeup so I can wear those shoes.

I would explain how desperately I try to wrap up my work work day by 5:30 so I can send the nanny home and be truly present while getting the little ones fed and bathed, so daddy can get some quality time in before putting Lei to bed.

Those shoes come with a tremendous amount of concern over bumps, bruises, choking, cavities, sunburns and bug bites and excessive fear of the day my kids will be old enough to drive a car.

Those shoes come with mortgages and retirement accounts and a roof that needs fixing and a garage that needs rebuilding and condo tenants in need of a brand new dishwasher because they somehow managed to break the one we have.

Those shoes ignore my husband sometimes and that isn't fair. 

I suppose I could have couched my denial of her request in terms that she'd somewhat understand - such as, "Those shoes are worth a thousand poopy diaper changes and hundreds of 2 a.m. feedings." But it wouldn't have mattered. She really really wanted to try them on.

Admittedly, tied to those shoes is a strong desire to be more fashionable than I actually am at this phase of my mommy life. The shoes do help that cause. I swear.

I still need to lose the baby weight I packed on with Mairin and those five inch heels make me look two pounds thinner than my four inch heels. Somehow, five minus four equals two in this instance.

I need those shoes.

And they need me.

And I promise you, those are the ridiculous things that went through my mind when she begged and pleaded and whined until I let her try them on.

She struggled a few smiling, shuffling steps on her tippy toes in those shoes and then gingerly stepped out.

She assured me, "These are too hard mama. These are your shoes."

I smiled and nodded and said "no shit" to myself. Someday I will explain the whole thing to her.

Someday.

What's In a Name?

The funny thing about nicknames, is that we really don't choose them - they choose us ... or our pets or our babies as the case may be.

Luella has had roughly fifty nicknames over the years. The names that we do use in any given week range from, "Lupsie Dupsie", "Lue Duperson" and "Lulie Kaboops" (when beckoning her to come hither), "Luesmella" (when she needs a bath or toots) "Luella Dickerson" (when she's dicking around with a toy or food or something annoying in bed) and "Luella Parsons MacDougal McGee Freeman" (when she's peed somewhere she shouldn't have or is otherwise in big big trouble).

Each of these names evolved over time and just sort of hung with our little Luebird. A myriad of words rhyme with "Lue" so, I won't lie, it's been a fun little game.

With Leighton, it took the better part of a year for any nickname of any kind to stick.  And, "Lei" is really the only one that works for her. I think it came more out of writing about her than anything. "Lei" or "Lei Lei" is the extent of my subconscious level of creativity regarding Leighton. She had a line of clothing from 3-6 months that had a hula theme to it and whenever she donned an ensemble from that collection she became "Lei Lei the Hawaiian Bebe". Yay mom for being so incredibly clever.

After choosing a proper name for Miss Mairin Isabel, I had a wild idea that I liked the way "Maisy" sounded for a nickname. My friend has a Mazie - Mary Elizabeth. Our kids are far apart in age, live in different cities and (as of this moment) have never met - so I felt that misappropriating the nickname would't be that big of a deal if it worked.

No need to worry. So far, it's not looking good for "Maisy".

What is working undeniably well is "Marinka Dinka". Skidamarink-a-dink-a-dink. Skidamarinka-doo. I love you.

We also frequently refer to Mairin as "Marinks Dinks" or "Marinkie Dinkie" or "Dinka" or any loving combination or abbreviation therein. This week, for me, she's simply "Dinkie".

My wee bit of babe is so easygoing, I don't believe she minds.

In the image above, Dinkie is sporting a single velcro roller in her wisp. She was helping big sis ready herself for her debut as flower girl at Uncle Jon and Auntie Susan's wedding this past weekend.