May 11, 2008

Frustrations and All

Last week, I left the girls alone in the living room for exactly two minutes so I could transfer clothes to the dryer. In that small period of time, they managed to spill my entire glass of iced tea all over my white carpet. I had to climb into the crawl space to retrieve the carpet cleaner, not an easy feat when you have one knee that can’t be crawled on.

While I was frantically putting together my little green carpet cleaning machine so that I could get the tea up before it left a permanent stain, I jammed the tip of my finger on the machine and thought I would lose my entire finger nail because of it. While I was cleaning the carpet, the girls fled to their rooms to escape the dreaded loud carpet cleaner and a very unhappy Mommy. When I went upstairs to talk to them about not running around the living room like it’s a track meet, I discovered that they had broken the mobile that was still hanging from Lil C’s bed, the mobile that I happen to have an unhealthy emotional attachment to. I quietly walked to my bathroom and locked myself in there. I needed a minute. I needed a minute badly.

A couple days ago, my Mom and I took Lil C shopping. While in the store, she ripped about 15 pairs of shoes off the racks in an attempt to distract us from the fact that she was pulling the tags off a pair of sunglasses and fleeing the store with them. She may be two, but the girl knows what she wants and is apparently prepared to shoplift in order to get it. As we held up various pieces of clothing she repeated over and over again, "I don’t YIKE that dress." It was a frustrating shopping trip. Enough said.

Today, the girls gave me my Mother’s Day presents, complete with a coupon book for chores around the house (the best gift ever as far as I’m concerned) and cards that they made themselves. Lil C drew a picture inside the card for me. When I asked her what it was a picture of, she said "That’s a bandaid for your knee Mommy."

I love these shoplifting, mess-making girls more than anything in the world.

Happy Mother’s Day.