lessons

let me begin by listing some things my girls have learned about me today:

• i can take the utter destruction of their rooms & toys for about 1 month & then...
• ...that's it. not a single day longer.
• when i ask them to please pick up their rooms before playing in the playroom, that's exactly what i want them to do. 
• under no circumstances should they strip their beds & then make themselves two new beds in the playroom without first asking if this idea is kosher.
• this idea of re-creating their beds in the playroom was not kosher, especially since they left behind a heap of clothes--a mixture of both girls' dressers & off-season clothes.
• when i am crying instead of shouting...somehow that's actually worse for them in the end.
• being sent to your room FOREVER does not mean 5 minutes or 10 minutes or even 30 minutes. it means GO TO YOUR ROOM FOREVER. YOUHEARDMECORRECTLY, girls.
• when your mom forgets to feed you lunch, don't tell anyone about it. or else. just thank the nannied-baby-boy's mom for the abstract reminder to feed the children...
• the mean, drill instructor mom-prototype will not relent on anything, including bathroom breaks. next time, pee in the given potty placed on your bedroom floor like i suggested to your through the door. 
• their mommy can switch between caring, loving bandaid-giving mommy to drill instructor prototype in seconds. probably milli-seconds if we're being exact.
• that mommy will clean when she is super stressed & mad.

hell, i could go on & on about the past few days. i really don't think amelia has any toys left in her possession, they've all been taken down to the basement. if i remind her to clean up after herself, she turns her nose up in the air & pouts out a rude: no. i don't want to clean up.

seriously, child? so after talking with my sister & mom & previously wes on these issues (when our normal children become demon possessed & act like savages) & it was agreed upon that sending them to their bedroom (with a locked door if necessary) is not abusive & may help remedy some bad attitudes. it totally works on adeline. amelia is just another angry bird altogether.

& this next news should not come sound so shocking after reading that this attitude of amelia's has been going on all fucking summer: we are highly thinking about enrolling amelia in preschool (the same one that addy attends, just a different time of day so they won't be in the same class). we just have to figure out the finances of this...i'm thinking i could just take a weekend job at target or wherever to pay the pre-k tuition. egads.

***

in other news...from lake woebegone (i super love the garrison keillor show)...

amelia is not all snubbery. just the other day we were snuggling & giggling & she was picking out her first ballet tutu (holy freakin shit, so adorable. i must post pictures once i take them...). she really cracks me up, actually. she has a quirky, witty sense of humor. take for instance this:

her & i were driving through uptown westerville where there is an amish furniture store (well, there are two stores, but the same company. who knows why two stores just a block apart...) so we were driving along very slowly--as all traffic does in westerville, so sllloooowly you think you may have time to shave your legs if only you'd remembered to buy that electric razor--& amelia saw two women sitting in adirondack chairs, ones that look nearly exact to the ones we have. & of course, amelia's window is down because she likes it that way sometimes, even on super hot days. anyway, amelia says in a loud, menacing little girl pretending to be a mean kid voice "GET OUT OF MY CHAIR YOU LADIES! GET OUT OF MOMMY'S CHAIR" & then laughs like a cartoon villain.

yep, i put her window up after that & i don't think the women heard her, but still, a bit funny, eh? 

there are a few other stories i'm totally forgetting right now. of course.

***

& so you may be thinking, i'd like to read about a parenting fail story, please. here it is: wes & i somehow managed to think about signing addy up for soccer every single day but totally didn't. we both woke up the day after the deadline knowing we just broke addy's soccer loving heart. that would be parenting fail #1.

wes emailed & called the soccer association. we waited & were told we wouldn't know for a few weeks if she could get one of the two open spots left. so we dropped off the $70 check with our fingers crossed. then we realized that the opening day for signing up for classes at the 'ville rec center started last friday (ahem, for residents. we are so rude, us westervillians). & these classes go like hot cakes, so we had to act fast & decided to sign her up for ballet, her 2nd choice activity.

i never never never have wanted to be the parent with their kid enrolled in 3 or 4 or 5 different things at once. & to me, school is the first thing, so they only get one other choice. i was totally adamant that they should both be in swim lessons & we found one that started in mid november through  mid december. perfecto!

soon after the rec center registration opened (at noon, exactly) i typed in the classes we wanted to enroll them in & while doing so found a few others i thought addy should take, like soccer through the rec center! it was inside & stated to be not an organized game but instead working on technique & skill level.

so i signed her up for that one.

then my friend down the street said one of her daughters was taking a certain swim class, one that starts in a few weeks; maybe amelia could take the same one? from me: sure, why  not? & since we wanted both addy & amelia in the same class (to help amelia who doesn't like to leave wes or i ...unless she's going to a grandma's house), i signed them both up for that swim class instead of the one that started in mid november.

then addy walks by as i'm asking amelia if she want to take tap or ballet (she wants ballet) then addy chimes in: i can't wait to take ballet! i want to take ballet soon! can i take ballet soon?!

so i look again at the ballet classes & see one that's in the early evening & for some idiotic brain fart moment, thought 'sure, why no?!' & enrolled addy in a ballet class.

& i was even contemplating signing her up for an art AND spanish class until i was interrupted by them mean-girl-wrestling fighting--did i mention we were all sick at this time? i had a fever, around 100! so high, i know, i know. let me also add that i had been profusely vomiting. so i was not in the right state of mind to be doing this whatso-freakin-ever.

so yea, adeline is signed up for swimming, ballet, soccer, & preschool & another unmentioned class (school-related). totally around $110. all of that adds up to be parenting fail #2.

then about two hours after that we get an email saying with exclamation that adeline has been accepted into soccer. which meets two days a week. for 10 weeks. meaning we're screwed. yep, parenting fail #3.

learn from our mistakes, friends.

we are going to attempt to pull addy from many of the rec center classes, maybe all of them. what a pain in the ass, right?

anyway. that's what's going on here. lovely, ain't it?