Wednesday, February 10, 2010

The More The Merrier

One of the things I’m learning about parenthood is that it’s a continual lesson in humility.  As a parent, you think you’re smarter, wiser, more sophisticated than your kids.  And they constantly prove you wrong about that.

Remember how clever we were about Vitamin Kitty?  We did the whole “Bath Time” fast-swap thing for Kaelin’s benefit, because of course she would be devastated if anything ever happened to VK, or - worse - she ever found out that her current VK wasn’t the ORIGINAL Vitamin Kitty.

A few weeks ago, VK got left in the Target shopping cart.  Kaelin was heartbroken at the thought, but after a bit of stealthy searching, TA-DA!  Mama and Daddo managed to find him!  We were unconcerned about pulling another VK out of “the box” because we were pretty certain we would not be seeing the return of the lost stuffed animal.

Or so we thought.

A few days later, Kaelin came down to breakfast with an announcement:  “Look, Mama, there are TWO VITAMIN KITTIES!  How did I get TWO VITAMIN KITTIES?”

Sure enough, there she was, holding two of them.  I stood there, my brain racing, trying to come up with some way to explain this obvious faux pas without crushing her delicate sense of VK Reality.

“Maybe one of them is Vitamin Kitty’s brother that came to visit,” I managed to say before too much time had elapsed.

“No, they’re both Vitamin Kitty.  I found this other one in my stool.  I forgot I put him there the other day.  But why do I have TWO Vitamin Kitties?”

I had nothing.  Nada.  No more clever explanations to shield her from the truth.  How on earth was I going to explain this to her?

“I don’t know, Kaelin.  That’s a mystery.”

“Maybe you thought I lost him, so you got me another one.”

Dude.  Did I just get schooled by my 4-year-old? 

YES.  YES I DID.

“You know, I think you’re right.”

I watched her for a few seconds, trying to gauge her reaction to this unpleasant truth.  To see if it was going to affect her bond with her Special Friend.  I gave up when she stood in the middle of the kitchen, held out both stuffed kitties, and exclaimed, “I have TWO Vitamin Kitties.  THIS IS SO EXCELLENT!”

Friday, June 12, 2009

Parenting

Thanks, Amy T.

Thursday, June 11, 2009

Home Again, Home Again, Jiggity Jog

So, I know I didn’t mention it here (because I’m just sneaky and paranoid like that) but many of you are aware that we just returned from a trip to Singapore.  We were able to visit our longtime friends, Rich and Tricia and their family, and had a wonderful time touring the city.

Details and pictures from the trip are coming soon, but for now we are readjusting to the time zone and preparing for company and Koren’s 1st birthday celebration.  The latter tasks are going much better than the first. 

Our systems are apparently still on Singapore time, as we find ourselves waking up at 2am every morning, unable to go back to sleep for the rest of the night.  The kids, whether for better or worse, are not having any time zone difficulties and remain more or less on their normal schedule...which means that by 3 or 4pm every day, Jens and I are WIPED. OUT.

There’s something nice about having the solitary quiet time in the middle of the night for reading etc, but it’s totally not worth it the next day.  Today especially was a challenge, and by 4pm I was seriously considering shipping the kids to Dubai.  At some point today, they both lost the ability to go for more than FIVE MINUTES without incurring a head injury. 

While I was comforting Koren, Kaelin would run into a door knob.  While I was seeing to Kaelin, Koren would end up flat on his back on the tile floor, bawling.  This went on for half an hour until I put them both in the bath tub for their own safety.  It didn’t work, because they got into a tug-of-war over a toy that ended up smacking Kaelin in the face when Koren let go and fell backward.  More hysterical crying ensued. 

So I pulled Koren out of the tub and he immediately took off running across the tile floor while I was trying to wrap a towel around him.  You can guess the outcome of that scenario.  And that’s about the time I committed myself to a mental institution.

On the bright side, thanks to my new mid-night hours, I’m getting caught up on my feed reader.  I’m now down to less than 80 entries to read (from several hundred).  Perhaps I’ll get some pictures and updates posted tonight, er, tomorrow morning.

Saturday, May 30, 2009

Lights!  Buttons!  Beeping Noises!

Need an idea for occupying a couple of grumpy kids for a very long time?  Apparently, it does NOT get better than this…

You’re welcome.