After dinner, where she had two helpings of chicken, rice pilaf and green beans all washed down with a glass of milk, Morgan has a Popsicle. The blue Popsicle makes her look like she’s been eating Smurfs by the bucketful. She asks for more milk. She sees Craig eating some cashews and asks for some cashews. She runs off to get her coloring books, and then quickly changes trajectory towards Coever laying on the floor. We think she’s going to jump on her sister or whack her with the rattle that Coever has in her spitty little hands, but before we can open our mouths to shout a warning, she’s off again. Morgan draws up short before whirling around and running to Craig for more cashews. This happens like three more times before he puts a stop to it. It’s his snack after all.

I say to Morgan, “Are you serious with this? Where are you putting all this food?”

Morgan looks at me. “In my mouth,” she deadpans.

*****

One, Two, Buckle My Shoe
by Morgan

One, two
Buckle my shoe

Three, four
Shut the door, but I would like to keep it open

Five, six
Lay it down

Seven, eight
Lay it straight

Nine, ten
I’mma do it again

I put the girls down for a nap and manage to squeeze one out for myself. I’m dreaming, I know, because the things I’m seeing don’t quite make sense. Disjointed images and disjointed sounds. High pitches squeals and suddenly my eyes flap open. The images dissipate, but the squealing continues. I rush to Mo’s room, throw open the door and there is my first born child. Buck naked save a do-rag to preserve the carefully parted dozen of pigtails I labored over this morning.

I ask her, “What’s wrong?”

“I was calling you,” she says.

“Yes, are you alright?”

“Yes.”

“Why are you naked?” I ask, praying there aren’t any surprises to found in the crib as I pick up the diaper.

“Because I was sleeping.” Her eyes say, Duh, Mommy.

****

We’re sitting on the sofa having some hugs and loves (a.k.a cuddles). Mo is all up in my face and her breath is kicking. So of course, I tell her so.

“My breath isn’t kicking,” she says, pronouncing each word so well, I’m wondering when she has had time for elocution lessons.

“Your breath is humming,” I say.

“Hmmmmmmm,” she says.

Indeed, indeed.

So we’re having dinner at my parents house last night, and everyone is feeling full and fine. Mo has been running amok all afternoon, fueled by peanuts courtesy of Pop-Pop, bedecked in jazz recital costumes from Yia–Yia, and just the general giddiness that comes from being two and a half.

We’re potty training again, coming to the end of week two, and she’s doing really well. Craig and I are on her like white on rice with the constant, “How are your pants?”, “Is pee pee coming?”, “Is poo poo coming?”, “Why don’t we go sit on the potty?” and so forth. Ever so polite, she always tells us, “No thank you, no thank you,” but we insist and head off to the potty to shower her with praise, stickers, the occasion piece of donut/several M&Ms/a Popsicle — generally whatever it takes to show her how pleased we are that any drips and drops of peeps made it into the pot.

After dinner, she’s jet propelled having eaten chicken wings, spaghetti, crusty bread she has all but bathed into the olive oil and spice blend my dad has set on the table. She’s burping up the sparkling lemon water and laughing at herself before excusing herself to chase after the dog with an extra tutu for Sage to wear.

After a while, she skids to a stop at my elbow, asking me for another dose of Little Einsteins, a video that she has already committed to memory and probably could recite verbatim if we left the picture on and the sound off.

Craig simply says, “In about 5 minutes, we’re going to go potty, okay?”

“No thank you”.

“Yes, Morgan, we’re going to try. But you have about 5 minutes,” and Craig holds up 5 fingers.

“Let’s watch a one video,” says Morgan, holding up one finger of her own.

I see where this is going, so I jump in. “How about you go pee pee in about 5 minutes, and then you can watch the video?”

I want to say that there’s a pause while she considers this option. I want to say that you can see the gears grinding and the smoke puffing out of her ears. I want to say that her little rosebud mouth is even pursed. But no. She looks at me and she says, “Let’s go pee pee now.”

Smart girl, that Morgan.

p.s. We did go pee-pee and she did it in the potty. Her reward? A short viewing of Tom & Jerry before we left for home.

HOLY KA-BEE-BEES!! Guess what?! You are never going to believe this!

You’re shocked, right? I know it, I know it. Pick your jaw up off the floor! I can’t even believe it! No where to be! No where to go! When does that EVER happen in this household? I can’t believe it! I sound like that guy selling concessions in Coming to America! — “I canNOT believe IT!”

What to do? What to do? Maybe we’ll paint our toenails, do arts and craps, who knows?! If I squint really hard, I think that there may be a viewing of “The Tale of the Bunny Picnic.” Classic, classic family entertainment. Maybe we’ll get wild and crazy and eat dinner for breakfast and breakfast for dinner. In the spirit of lazy day, I just may order in all of our meals! Maybe I’ll zip on over to Yia-Yia and Pop-Pop’s and mooch dinner off of them!

I’m just in such shock and awe that we have nothing planned. What to do? What to do? How about doing nothing. I’m going to finish this post and pack up the laptop. I’m going to turn off my cell phone after I place two calls that I’ve been putting off (hello, Well Baby check). I’m going to be IN THE MOMENT with Mo and Co and not worry that we’re going to be late for XYZ because we don’t have to be anywhere. I’m not going to worry about the laundry that has yet to be washed or folded, the dishes that need to be put away, or the dinner that has to be made — Craig’s out of town anyway. I’m feeling so reckless and lazy, I’m not even going to pick the toys up off the floor! WHOA!

I need a day like this, not just because we have been planned, scheduled, having to be somewhere five minutes ago since both of Mo and Co took their first breaths with their fully formed lungs, but because I’ve forgotten what it means to just be. I have been so wrapped up in making sure the girls are well rounded and entertained, making sure every minute of the day is accounted for from the time they wake-up until their little heads hit the beds, I’ve missed the important things. I’ve got to stop what I’m doing and just be there when Mo asks for hugs and loves instead of doing two things at once. I’m going to carry Co around and when she gets too heavy, I’ll switch arms and keep going. I’ve realized that if I don’t stop to breathe, to laze about and be with my girls, when I finally am ready, when I’ve dotted the last “i” and crossed the last “t”, they’ll be too big to pick up with any ease or too independent to want to spend some lazy time with Mom.

I’ve wasted far too much time doing something today. Time to do nothing.

Add the following:

1 — 7 month old, possibly teething, up at 3am, wailing like a banshe

1 — 2 1/2 year old, attempting potty training from wake-up to night time, sitting on the pot every half an hour and STILL wetting her pants in between

1 — 32 year old hubby with Montezuma’s Revenge all night from eating grocery store sushi (or may in this case it would be Tokugawa’s Revenge)

1 — 29 year old wife keeping everyone else clean, dry, fed and watered, who wants nothing more than a glass of Riesling and a big plate of French Fries with a side of buffalo sauce but will probably blow all of her WW points by doing so.

Combine with a generous helping of lack of sleep, malaise, impatience, and frustration. Let set over the course of the last day of the week-end and serve.

This may be a little TMI, but I feel that I owe it to women (and a few metro-sexuals out there) to add to the list of Do’s and Don’ts regarding personal hygenie, care and the assorted “yard maintenance” that comes along with it. If you can’t figure out what I’m talking about when I say “yard maintenance”, get yourself a best friend, pronto. Bottomline is, when it comes to getting appointments at the spa, never, never, never, EVER take the last appointment of the day.

Well, I finally finagled a babysitter and an appointment at the local spa for a brow wax and some other touch-ups. Problem was, it was the last appointment of the day because that’s when the sitter was free. Seriously, now that Yia-Yia and Pop-Pop are retired, it’s not like they have stuff to do. Why she couldn’t come before 6:30 is beyond me. I digress. The sitter arrives, I kiss the girls and am out the door, off to the spa.

After I sign up and march on up to the waiting room, I make myself cozy with some filtered lemon water from their refreshment bar. I spy various Tazo tea bags and other goodies, like some Apple Cinnamon NutriGrain bars and figure, “Hey, they’re keeping me waiting,” and filch a few (two).

My aesthetician comes in, greets me and beckons me to follow her into her room where she promptly demands that I drop trou and wrangle myself into some disposable underpants that she has left on the waxing table. She steps out of the room and I proceed to peel the plastic wrap off of these so called underpants. Can we say that calling it two tissues laced over a rubber band would be a more accurate description? Oh, and ol’ girl said that I should lie down, face up, facing the door. God forbid someone burst into the room — Hello!

Fast forward to the waxing process. I’m trying to be social, cause that’s what I do when I’m nervous and some hot wax is headed toward my skin, and I say to the waxer, “I appreciate you squeezing me into your schedule” to which she replies, as she lathers hot wax onto my bikini line,”Oh, well, you’re my last appointment of the day. After this I can go home.” And then she puts all of her 105 pounds behind it and rips off the wax. I mean RIPPED. Every follicle of hair from my head on down was like “WTF?!”

Now, I’ve been waxed before and I know you don’t want the wax to make a home with your skin, but there is some finesse involved in the whole process. I felt like Steve Carrell and damn near yelled out “KELLY CLARKSON!” All I could think was, never again, never again will I get the last appointment of the day. This chick was on a mission to get home and get her dinner started before Grey’s Anatomy came or something. Wax, rip, wax, rip. Wax, rip, wax, rip. She even had the nerve to look put out when I asked her what I could use in case of in-grown hairs or assorted irritations. She gave me this stuff called, and I kid you not, “Get the Bump Outta Here” — which is basically what she was telling me to do, too (I will be incorporating that phraseology into my vocab as soon as I can; it’s too good to pass up).

All I know is the next time the yard needs some work, we’re going early in the day, first thing or first thing after lunch, when the waxer is focused on the task at hand, not whether McDreamy or McSteamy is going to be a McNudie.

In the ever growing struggle for title of “She Who is Running Things”, it is not Morgan who has dealt me my last blow, it is in fact sweet, little Coever. If this heifer doesn’t start sleeping through the night, we’re about to rumble like the Sharks and the Jets up in this piece.
Morgan was 8 months before she went from 7 to 7 and what a long 8 months it was. She practically guaranteed that she was going to be an only child. Still, she found her groove and we’ve been good ever since. Coever, so I’ve been told, is her mother’s child — a social butterfly in the wee hours. According to urban legend, I would insist (at 10 months, I’m not sure how), that my own mother stay in my room while I fell asleep. If I saw her nodding off, I would grab hold of the slats in the crib, shake them like they owed me money, while grunting at higher and higher pitches until she woke up. Then, I’d smile at her. Ain’t I sweet?
Coever girl gives me that same gummy smile at 2:30am, 3:45am, and 4:41am until she slips off to sleep on my chest. Maybe I am perpetuating a cycle by picking her up and bringing her into the bed with me after the fourth or fifth middle of the night interruption, but hey, I’ve got to get some zzzz’s, too. Chasing Morgan around all day requires energy stores that I just can’t tap into if I don’t get some uninterupted REM sleep. And just like her sister, Coever is steadily making sure she is and will remain the baby of the family.
Of course, if that’s the case, maybe I should savor this time, tuck her in a little closer to my chest and fall asleep with her sweet baby smell in my nose.

So I have to beep my own here for a second. Over the holiday season, I over-indulged Morgan and bought some chicken nuggets that were shaped like snowflakes and snowmen. Big hit on the toddler set. Big hit. Well, when the holidays were over, the holiday shaped chicken nuggets flew back to the North Pole or wherever it is processed, breaded chicken-esque pieces retire. I’m thinking we can just pick up some whole, white meat organic chicken nuggets and keep on moving. And how wrong I was. Morgan has a memory like she’s got a little stenographer up in her head recalling pertinent testimony at a moments notice.

Yesterday and today, when I asked her what she wanted for lunch, she immediately said, “Chicken nuggets.” No surprise there. Then she said, “Snowman chicken nuggets, Mommy! Snowman chicken nuggets!” Oy! This is March. Where am I going to find snowflake and snowman chicken nuggets? I knew if I said I didn’t have any, well, the gates of toddler tantrum-dom would crack open, unleashing a fury of unprecedented proportions. Forget a woman scorned, more like a toddler without chicken nuggets. I think, once upon a time, I would have done an Internet search to see if I could find them or called a few grocery stores to see if, by some grace of goodness, they had it. Nowadays, with two kiddos under the roof, I’m quick to appease if I don’t lose any Mommy points along the way.

So, what to do? What to do? I’m no Rachael Ray, Nigella Lawson or Giadia De Lots of Cleavage. What to do? We’ve got round chicken nuggets, I’ve got ketchup, I’ve got some peas and shredded carrots. Put it all together and whaddya get?

Snowman Chicken Nuggets!!

I am the MAN!

P.S Morgan loved it and she ate the whole thing with a side of veggies.