Why I'm not in charge

Last year I thought I had been knocked off the proverbial mountain with news of an unplanned pregnancy.

Look what I would have missed out on!

Andrea quote of the day, part 2

Andrea: "The "19s" were in the old days."

Me: "Huh?"

Andrea: "Like, 1968 and 1962 and ... well, that's all I can remember."

Andrea quote of the day

"I'm talking about what place it's at -- not where it is."

Girl Power

I was watching the girls playing with their made-up castles and overheard Andrea talking about her "Queendom."

I asked her about it and she said it was because, "there's no king; it's my castle and I'm the Queen."

Should I be nervous

that my 5-yr old is chanting,

"Destroy everything!"

over and over?

Loot

-- from my scavenging under the couch:

kitchen bowl

toy ice cream cone

Valentine's card from me to Mark, circa 2006

C-cell battery

Barbie platter of shrimp

deck of Rummy cards

cork to a piggy bank

baby squeeze toy belonging to friends whose baby is no longer a baby

several VHS tapes

Hyrum's church pants

Hyrum's pajama pants

Lacie's pajama pants

"Your Amazing Body" book

pony-tail holder

doll shoe

There was nothing living or used-to-be living under there.

Hmmm.

Must be an off day.

A long, quick update

Earth Day:

Downtown Dallas. Put on by one of Mark's clients, so naturally we had to make an appearance.

Hyrum, super cute as always.

The girls found some relief from the heat, frolicking in a cool puddle fountain thing.

A rare photo of me, since I'm not particularly happy with how I right now...

Hyrum got to see a dog,

Mark got to meet Larry Hagman (J.R. Ewing from the show "Dallas").

Random:

Andrea likes being a big sister; Jacob doesn't always appreciate it so much.

Museum of Science & History:

Hyrum liked the lights.

The girls liked riding a tricycle w/ square wheels.

Everyone liked playing on the ginormous wooly mammoth who, by the way, was not so wooly.

The feature exhibit was about DINOSAURS!

Big, scary, animatronic dinosaurs that scared the snot out of poor Hyrum.

This was as close as Mark could get before Hyrum burst into tears.

Aww, a little monster putting her hand in a big monster's handprint.

More random:

Mark works hard. Hyrum is his little buddy.

I dressed Lacie up like a princess for church today. Side-note: she always refers to herself as a princess. We like to reinforce it.

Jacob is an ANGEL BABY! Oh. my. goodness.

So cute. So fun. So want to eat him up.

Mark turned 41. His cake was a little unconventional.

End of the year:

Andrea got an award. No surprise, she's a smarty-pants.

She also loves her teacher...

and is at least 4 inches taller than all the kids in her class.

We sure love her!

Lacie got a graduation ceremony.

She looked thrilled...

Not as thrilled as Hyrum.

We love our Clifton Caterpillar!

to my older sisters:

I apologize.

I am sorry.

For all those times that I sneaked in and took clothes out of your closet;

for all the times I pilfered your jewelry after you left for school;

for sneakily going through all your cool knick-knacks and momentos;

for rifling through your stuff when you were gone;

for swiping cool possessions I hoped you'd never miss;

for copying your sayings and gestures;

for butting in on you and your friends;

for wanting in on everything you did;

I'm sorry.

I watch Lacie do all this (and more) to Andrea and I think back about all the "little sister" stuff that I did over the years. Wow, it was a lot. And it had to have been more than obnoxious. I know it drives Andrea crazy. Shoot, it drives ME crazy just trying to police all the stolen goods. But I notice something when I see this -- something I didn't quite explain very well to you when we were kids. All those times, all those things, everything I did was because I was trying to be like you. You were my big sisters. You were cool. And though I'm sure it probably drove you as mad as it is now driving Andrea, I'd like to say the same thing to you that I now tell her -- it's only because she is (I was) trying to be like you.

Take it as a compliment.

And hopefully that will mean more to you than it does to Andrea.

ism

Lacie: "Mom, you look beautiful!"

Me: "Thanks, Lacie."

Lacie: "What happened?"

Question:

is it unreasonable to put my 5-yr old in time-out for the next 3 days?

Evil has a new name...

Lacie told me today that I was evil. When I asked how, she replied that it was in my voice when I told her she had to do the dishes.

Not! my! fault!

Okay, help. What do I do with a child who is OBSESSED with laying blame for any- and every- thing that happens?!

For example:

This morning, said child went to play barbies in the tall dollhouse. Said child did not notice the barbie yacht parked on top of the dollhouse. Granted, it's not the most conventional parking place. I'll give her that. But it is large. Very noticeable. Yet somehow she didn't notice, opened the dollhouse, and said yacht fell on said child's head. Ouch.

Naturally there was weeping and wailing that ensued, but oddly enough, it was accompanied by very bitter, very loud declarations of fault. At younger sister. For parking the yacht on the house.

Hmmm.

Mark and I spent almost all of our patience quota for the day trying to explain how sister's actions were not related to the fall-on-the-head incident, therefore absolving her of any guilt.

The child would not yield.

My head almost exploded.

Seriously, what do I do with that?