Berries For Grandmother

One of the side effects of watering your lawn on a regular basis, is that it actually grows. Strange, I know, yet true. As I have mentioned before, we didn't really water our lawn last year (let's be fair, or the year before) and so we didn't have to mow our lawn as often as we have had to this summer. I've lucked out so far because JT has been mowing the lawn on Saturdays while I'm at work. Unfortunately, JT hasn't been able to mow the lawn for the last couple of weeks and it was looking very, very over grown and raggedy, and because our neighbors both keep very immaculate and well cared for lawns, it really stood out like a sore thumb. Yesterday I decided to take matters in my own hands and as soon as Lilia was down for her nap, Carolyn and I went out do some yard work. This was the first time that I've taken Carolyn outside with me while I mow the lawn. Before I was very nervous that she would somehow get maimed in a freak lawn mowing accident if I let her come with me, but she promised that she would stay free and clear of the mower. True to word, Carolyn played far, far away from where I was working. I had worried that she would dart in and out and around the lawn mower like she does the vacuum when I'm vacuuming, but apparently (thankfully) she has a lot more respect for the mower. I decided I would work in the front yard first, before it got too hot (the back yard has lots of shade) but unfortunately, we had watered earlier that morning, and the grass was wet and sodden and very difficult to mow through. The lawn mower would cough pitifully and then quit. I had to restart it several times, but I was committed, so I kept going. It took a while, and my arm was aching from having to restart it so many times, but I finally finished the front yard and then it was onto the back yard. I have to confess that we very rarely play in our own yard, and if we do, we play in the front, so the back yard was a mystery for Carolyn to investigate explore. The good news is that it's big enough for Carolyn to easily avoid the lawn mower. I was getting into my zone (I tend to zone out when I vacuum and when I mow the lawn) and I was congratulating myself on providing an outdoor experience for Carolyn and getting the lawn mowed at the same time while Carolyn was occupying herself in the left corner. I was having such a great time, I even cross hatched (which I never do). When I finished, I realized that Carolyn was still playing in the left corner and I began to be concerned. What was so fascinating that it could occupy her for so long? Turns out we have some kind of "berry" bush hidden in that corner, with berries that are no doubt toxic. With that in mind, the first thing I did was examine Carolyn's face and mouth. Luckily they were both berry stain free. (Carolyn denied eating them, but just to be sure...) Her hands and clothes on the other hand....NOT stain free. By the way, would you be surprised to know that her shirt was brand new and that this was the first time that she'd worn it? If so, you really shouldn't be, because Carolyn believes in breaking in her clothes the moment she gets them and then moving onto the next new item. But more about that in just a bit.... When I asked her what she was doing, she beamed at me and said,"I'm picking berries for Grandmother! Grandmother loves berries! I'm going to take them to her house right now!" (Quick side note: Grandmother, you are very, very loved by Carolyn. Whenever she really likes something, say a blanket, toy or clothes, she's always quick to say that her Grandmother gave it to her. It could be something that she and I had bought together, but later on, she'll remember that her Grandma gave it her. She talks about going to her Grandma's house all the time and when we tell her that her Grandma lives in Virginia and that we'd need to take an airplane to go there, she'll cheerfully say that she likes to fly in airplanes.) I had a very hard time convincing her that we had to leave the berries outside and not pick them anymore, even though Grandmother loves berries. Taking pictures helped her get over that though. Ah, the magic of a camera...

Okay, so onto the new clothes...Twice a year The Children's Place does what they call a "Monster Sale" and they will deeply discount their inventory just before they have a new season's line come out. This is when I like to shop because I can get a pair of jeans that used to sell for $16.50 for $4.29 and cute shirts for under $3. A lot of Carolyn's (and therefore Lilia's) clothes have been given to us by family and friends, but I still need to supplement and these sales are great for doing that and also for planning ahead too. So anyway, the sale came and I had a coupon for an addition 15% off on top of the sale price (score!) and shipping was a flat $5 (cheaper than a trip to and from Boise, how can I lose??) so I ordered a few things and waited for them to come. And waited. Waited some more. And waited little longer. Three weeks went by and my package wasn't here and UPS hadn't left any sticky notes for me. I finally went to the website to check on it and discovered that it had been left on my side doorstep over a week ago. Over a week ago! I know! Obviously I need to be more aware of what goes on at Chez Harris. In my defense, JT hadn't noticed a box sitting by our side door for over a week either. In his defense, the air conditioner sort of hides anything placed there. Anyway, I beat a fast path to the side door and lo and behold! there it was, safely wrapped in a plastic sack to protect it from the elements (thanks, UPS). I was brimming with excitement to dig into my purchase, but that excitement quickly turned to dismay, because as I lifted the box TONS maybe even thousands, maybe even more than thousands of rollie-pollies scurried for cover. (Apparently they thought it was safe to build their not so little community under the shelter of my box since it had been there for over a week.) Now out of all the bugs out there, pill bugs probably bother me the least. When I was little I used to love playing with them and watch them roll into protective little balls. (smart bugs) But this was Fear Factor icky. I have never seen so many rollie-pollies in such a variety of sizes (there were some big ones!) and in such great number. I didn't realize they had so many legs. They way they moved, it was like they were some sort of crustacean creature of the deep, only they were on my side porch! I nimbly jumped out of their way, and barely kept my girly scream to myself...but just barely. Just typing about it is making my skin itch. It was that gross. Amazingly enough, none of the creepy crawly critters (nice alliteration, yes?) were stuck to the protective bag surrounding the box. Oh, and you know that shirt that Carolyn got the berry juice on? It didn't come out. Good thing the shirt is camouflage.

Happy Helper

As you can see, the pictures really tell the story, no narration needed. But I'll tell you anyway. I had just made lunch for us and I went into the living room to answer the phone. When I came back...Carolyn said, with great pride and high volume, "Mom, I'm HELPING!! I'm helping Leelah! I'm feeding her and SHE LIKES IT!!!" as she was happily shoveling heaping spoonfuls of cereal toward Lilia, who gobbled as much as she could with cheerful greed. Lilia did indeed seem to be having a great time and 'liking it'. It's amazing to me how far 1/4 cup of baby cereal can go. Lilia's shirt was coated with a covering of food so thick that it fell off and into her lap in globs. Carolyn had thoughtfully left the bowl of cereal in Lilia's reach so even as Carolyn was feeding her, Lilia was raking the cereal with her fists and bringing it to her mouth, and of course smearing it all over her tray and chair as well as rubbing it into her hair and tired eyes. Naturally I ran to get...the camera. (You didn't really think I would try to immediately tackle this mess did you? No, no this was going to take some serious psyching myself up before I would do that.) I would have made a video recording of it, but my camera didn't have enough juice. By the way, do you see how proud Carolyn is? I have a hard time convincing Carolyn that I can feed Lilia without help now. "I can help you," she'll desperately plead with me, as though she knows that I desperately, desperately need her help. Anyway, after taking pictures until the camera's battery gave out, I knew it was time to face the music. Yes, I had to get Lilia out of that chair and into the tub. The question was, could I do it without becoming as messy as she was. The answer was, no. But I needed have worried because between the Master Splasher (Lilia) and my good helper, Carolyn, (who poured water down my hands and arms, saturating my clothes in the process) all traces of baby cereal were washed away and I changed my shirt anyway.

Carolyn really is my devoted helper. Whenever I'm doing dishes, she's there to help. When I get the mop out (especially when I get the mop out) Carolyn is there to lend a hand. When Lilia wakes up from her nap, Carolyn is there to try to help Lilia out of the crib. Actually, I think that Carolyn might often times help Lilia wake up from her naps as well. She loves to help me give Lilia a bath. If there is something that needs to be taken away from Lilia, Carolyn is only to happy to be the one to do it. For me, the trick is to let her help me in a way that doesn't make more work for me, but is still fun for Carolyn. (I hear tale that children don't always want to help as they get older, so you have to train them when they're young...or so I hear) I have to confess that I'm just not good at it yet. Especially with dishes. I've tried to give her the task of wiping down the table as I wash dishes, but she isn't having any of it. I must make it look really fun, dipping my hands in the deceptively clean, frothy looking bubbles (I think dishwater is absolutely disgusting) and scouring and scrubbing dishes. She'll wipe the table down for all of 5 seconds and then she's scooting her chair next to me and demanding equal rights. I've pretty much resigned myself to just letting her do her thing and "help" me all the while reminding myself that children are washable and so are clothes, and counters, and floors, and chairs and it really doesn't matter if she gets saturated with the nasty dish water. I actually will roll my shoulders, reminding myself that it's like 'water off a duck's back' to me and that I need to be easy going and loosen up a bit. Yesterday, as were working together at the sink, Carolyn smiled at me and cheered, "We're having so much fun, Mama. It's a good time! I love you so much." And I didn't even care about the water sloshing it's way along the counter and floors because we were having a good time. And I had already unplugged all appliances on the counter. Safety first.

Oh dear, where to begin? Today has been that kind of a day where I feel like I'm constantly busy, but by the end of the day, I'm not really sure what I've done all day. (Okay, that's pretty much everyday, but anyway.....) It started when Carolyn came into our bedroom this morning wearing a scowl. I tried cajoling her into smiling by doing the whole, "I can see your smile,"thing, but Carolyn remained firm. She gave the barest of shake of her head, no I really couldn't see her smile, because it wasn't there to see. I pressed on anyway and eventually she lightened up. I spent all morning refereeing between Carolyn and Lilia, especially when it came to the children's piano. I believe I have mentioned before how they both love to play with that toy, especially if the other one is playing with it first. However, all in all, things were going fairly smoothly and I decided that I could run to the bathroom, all by myself. (Quick side note, off the subject a bit--before I had the girls I would take at least an hour to get ready and now I can take a shower, get dressed, do my hair and my makeup in 20 minutes. Of course I looked a lot nicer when I used the whole hour.......) I knew that if I left Lilia on the floor she'd probably find something to choke on or she'd try to chew on the power strip by the TV (she likes to keep my on my toes by doing both constantly, all day long) and it might be a tad inconvenient to save her from disaster, and so I was proactive and put her in her swing, turned on our current favorite kid show "Peep and the Big Wide World" and told Carolyn and Lilia to be nice to each other, and then hurried to the bathroom (naturally the door was left open). Just as I was entering the bathroom, I heard Lilia scream and raced back out to the living room. I found Lilia howling with pain and Carolyn huddled on the floor, hiding her face. (Another quick side note--when Carolyn does something bad and trying to be sneaky about it, she'll hide. When she was smaller, I'd walk by a room and see Carolyn hiding under a blanket, and it would be a very big clue to me that something bad was going down. Now that she's older and wiser, she has abandoned the blanket as being too obvious and will either try to find a good hiding spot, like behind furniture or she'll try to blend in with her environment and perhaps hide in the curtains. The picture of her hiding in the curtain was taken when she was trying to avoid bedtime.) That side note wasn't very quick, but anyway, I knew that something very awful had just happened. At first Carolyn said that Lilia was crying "for no reason" but it eventually came out that Carolyn had bitten her foot. Biting is wrong, and not tolerated in our house (maybe it is in yours?), but in Carolyn's defense, I think she was play "chomping" with Lilia (we used to do this with Carolyn, only it truly was play chomping, and we've stopped the practice of this game a long time ago because Carolyn doesn't seem to know how to pretend to bite someone) and she obviously used too much pressure because I could see little, but deep, teeth marks on Lilia's tiny foot. I had Carolyn sit on the Naughty Chair while I consoled Lilia and checked out the damage. Then I had Carolyn go to her room while I got my zen back and continued to console Lilia. You'll be happy to know that the skin wasn't broken and there is no bruising and that Carolyn felt true remorse, so much so that the first thing she told JT when he walked through the door tonight was how she got in trouble for biting and how it wasn't nice to bite people. After we had all calmed down from the dental drama, we had lunch and headed out to the used book store. The used book store is another favorite haunt of ours because we have a lot of credit there (I would tell you how much we have, but that would be oh so tacky) and so it's like buying books for free (they also take back anything you buy there so it's sort of like a library--until you run out of credit) and they have a nicely stocked kid's section, complete with toys (Carolyn's favorite is the Barbie and the doll stroller) and to top it all off, they have a couple of cats who live there as well. If Carolyn isn't playing with the toys, she's hunting the cats and running them to ground. Okay, actually she's just trying to find them and perhaps pet them, but it sort of looks like the former.....Also, the people who run the book store love Carolyn and Lilia and they lavish them with compliments and attention. All in all, it's a pretty good time there, and today was no exception. It was even better than usual because Carolyn pal'd around with another little girl and I was able to peruse the store at my leisure. After the book store we headed to the Dollar Tree, which is only the BEST DOLLAR STORE EVER! and if you have one close to you, I highly recommend you go there. The Dollar Tree is a little bit more dangerous than the book store because they don't take trade, but hey, everything in there is a dollar so you know what you're getting into. Except you don't really, because they always have something really cool and different from what they had the last time you were there. This time they had relaxing cds (I could use those for my massage) writing pads (the really cool kind with 3 lines that I could use to teach Carolyn writing) slender sippy cups (Lilia could hold these easier than the "fancy" ones they sell in other stores) and so much more. Carolyn's favorite thing to look at was the wall of fake flowers. She thought they were so pretty. Lilia was happy as long as we were moving most of the time (she graciously allowed us to stop and look from time to time). We spent almost an hour walking around and looking at the varied merchandise (you have to take your fun where you can find it) before we decided to make our purchase (only 2 things, thank you very much) and go home. We were on a shopping high as we left the store, until I lifted Lilia from the cart and saw that her diaper and exploded. And it was a poopie diaper. Of course this cut our errands short, as you can imagine. We hurried home and I immediately gave Lilia (and her car seat cover) a bath and then took her picture because she was that cute, and so happy from her bath. And that wasn't even the end of our day! I haven't gotten to the part where Carolyn smeared chocolate pudding all over the kitchen chair and then stamped pudding, using her face, all up our hallway walls on her way to the bathroom to wash it off (live and learn, Tiffaney, and next time wash her in the kitchen) or the double diaper changing marathon, but it's getting very late and this post is already very long, so........