1 down, 19 to go

It's me again, Clarissa the rare blogger. I have to write this down before I forget it all. I forget a lot of things these days, something I chalk up to a side effect of 6+ years of sleep deprivation.

Anyway. I started my life as a sometime single mother this week since Jason started a new job and went to training in Titusville, Florida. He was gone Tuesday through Thursday and wouldn't you know it, when I picked Caroline up after school on Tuesday afternoon, she had a loose tooth. Just like that! I sent her to school on Tuesday morning with all teeth intact and a few hours later she's got a wiggler.

She WOULD NOT let that thing alone and kept shoving her tongue against it all evening long. She wouldn't eat at the dinner table because it would take time away from the tooth wiggling. Now, don't forget that I was all alone in this adventure because her dad was livin' it up in Florida and too bad for me because I can't stand loose teeth. They make my insides squirm. I told her that she better not expect any help from me because I was NOT pulling any teeth. If I'd wanted to touch teeth, I would've gone to dental school.

I guess she took me seriously because after the non-eating of dinner, she wandered off and then came running back into the kitchen (while I'm on the phone, of course) and shrieked, "There's blood!" And sure enough, that little-girl tongue had pushed that tooth right out! I hung up on my phone conversation (sorry, Grandma) and rushed her to the bathroom to rinse out the blood. And there on the counter was a little white rock of baby Caroline tooth. I held it in my hand and thought about when I first saw that tooth pop out of her little baby gums and of course started to get teary looking at this big girl standing excitedly before me. How did the last six years go by in what seems like a blink and oh my gosh, are the next six going to go by so quickly and oh, how sad, her daddy missed all of this and HOLY MOLY next thing I know she'll be getting married. The rational side of me tried to reason with myself, saying, "Get real, Clarissa, she still has a lot of teeth to lose and this is just a part of life - it means you are doing your job by helping her grow up - look how excited she is! Enjoy living these milestones again through her eyes!" But of course the other side was saying, "SHUT UP, look how big she is, graduation is just around the corner!"

I know it sounds like I am crazy, but these are my internal voices, I'm not hearing strange other voices telling me to do things, so I think I am still OK. For now.

Anyway, Caroline was SO excited and kept asking me, "Are you proud of me, Mom? Aren't you happy?" And I wasn't, because my BABY just lost a tooth, so I said, "Yes, I'm proud that you did it all by yourself, and I can tell that you are so happy about it!" (See, all that was true.) I put the tooth on a high shelf in her closet so that little sister wouldn't mess with it, and we went about our bedtime routine.

And then . . . she just couldn't bear to be without that tooth, so she climbed up to the shelf and got it down. She walked to my bedroom with it in her open hand . . . and then . . .

(you see this coming, right?)

SHE DROPPED THE TOOTH.

Several minutes on hands and knees later, and I finally told her I just couldn't find that itty bitty tooth, and she dissolved into tears. I felt so bad for her. So I suggested that we write a note to the tooth fairy explaining the problem and put that under the pillow and hope for the best.

Caroline dictated,

"Dear Tooth Fairy,

I have dropped my tooth in my mommy's room and I never got a visit from you. Will you leave me money anyway?

Your friend,

Caroline"

So, still sniffling, Caroline put the letter under her pillow and fell asleep (pretty quickly, thankfully, unlike her sister but that's a different story). The Tooth Fairy apparently accepts lost-tooth notes because she took the note and left a gold dollar coin (which, thankfully, she had gotten a few months ago just for this purpose because she had no cash in her wallet at all and, if not for the gold dollars, would've had a lot of 'splainin to do in the morning). The Tooth Fairy breathed a sigh of relief, patted herself on the back for her quick thinking and preplanning, and waited for morning.

When Caroline woke up, the tears started to flow again because, she claimed, the Tooth Fairy didn't leave her any money after all. And, sure enough, there was nothing under that pillow. YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME. I know for a FACT that Tooth Fairy left it there. So, even with the very real threat of a tardy slip looming, we searched all over the area for the money and finally found it under the bed. (?) Caroline was half happy, but still sad that the Tooth Fairy didn't get to take her tooth. I told her that the Tooth Fairy probably picked up a lot of other kids' teeth that night and would be OK with accepting her letter in lieu of a tooth.

So, that is the story of the first lost (literally!) tooth in the Hodges household. I sure hope Daddy is here for the next one!

Disney movies of the week

Last week we watched "Aladdin" on Thursday and "The Adventures of Winnie the Pooh" on Friday. Caroline was a little bit scared during Aladdin (at the end, when Jafar turns into a big snake), but she liked the movie. I had forgotten how Robin Williams gave such a rapid-fire delivery of the genie's lines; you had to listen really closely to get all his references, and I know I missed a lot of them. It's hard to pay close attention when you have a destructive, squealing one-year-old roaming about the room. I would've watched it again, but we had to get it back to the library before they started charging me the dollar-a-day late fees.

Winnie the Pooh was sooooo sweet. Caroline got a little bored toward the end, but I loved it. I guess it reminded me of a simpler time. We have been saying, "Tut tut, looks like rain," (we had a lot of rain this weekend) and singing the Pooh song. Willy nilly silly old bear.

I think this week we'll watch some of the movies we have at home that I haven't seen beginning to end, probably Snow White and Sleeping Beauty. Oh and, I just found out Monday that the Pirates of the Carribbean series is Disney too, so I have to watch them as well -- (no I haven't seen them, I'm not really a movie watcher so much) -- I don't know if I'm going to get all the movies watched by May that I need to see!

Scatting queen.

So. Basically, the reason that this blog is so unhappenin' is that I put all my photos on the "slow" computer, the one that we use solely to house pics and iTunes, but I do all my web surfing on the "fast" (comparatively speaking) computer. Therefore, I'm rarely on the photo-equipped computer to do any posts. That's why you're getting this words-only one today, just for the purpose of telling you that we are still here and still boring.

One non-boring thing coming up is that we have a trip planned to Disney World in May (yay!). Accordingly, I announced a weekly "Disney Movie Night" from now until then so that we will know what we are seeing when we're there (besides the princesses, of course -- we're all stocked up on that knowledge). The girls and I went to the library to borrow a couple of Disney movies and walked out with 101 Dalmatians and Aladdin, plus a children's book about Ella Fitzgerald that I thought looked interesting. Side note: I think I'll take a stroller next time to keep Julia corralled -- that girl can run pretty quickly for a one-year-old, and one of her favorite activities is pulling books off shelves. Need I say more?

Well, the inaugural Disney Movie Night didn't happen because of Dad's calling dibs on the TV to watch bobsledding. We did read the Ella Fitzgerald book, though, and I found a song on my iPod by Jane Monheit that had some scatting in it so that I could let Caroline hear what scat sounds like. Then we practiced our scatting, which was interesting. Ella was called "Queen of Scat" and Caroline informed me that she wants to be a queen too, but Queen of God. Hm. I asked her why, and she replied, "Because I want to cook for Jesus."

I didn't really know where to go with that, so I just told her that Jesus was probably set for food and what he really wanted was just to be her friend and for her to make him happy by doing things like being kind to others. I could tell she wasn't too sold on that, she still wants to make dinner for Jesus.

I'm on the faster computer, so you get no pictures tonight.

Look what I've learned!

Caroline is really learning a lot at Primer School (well, it seems to me she is anyway). I tried and tried to help her learn her alphabet with these soft letters and she never took to it much (well, except for C and X -- X is a fun letter to say). But now she can identify all the letters and put them in order -- something I never could teach her to do -- I guess homeschooling is NOT in our future.
She can also spell her name, and she likes to write it everywhere now. I think it's funny how she (and, for that matter I guess, kids generally -- I've seen lots of little ones do this) is not fazed if she runs out of room on the page; she just writes the letters wherever she finds space for them. There's an "i" over here, and an "ne" over there, but no matter, she's still pleased as punch. But she did have enough room to spell her name here. (Like the glitter in her hair? That was a stocking stuffer, thanks Santa.)

I had never realized before how fun it is to watch your kid learn new things!

Eating at the big(ish) table

Julia's eating habits have been frustrating lately because she throws everything on the floor. Not just the food that she doesn't want -- it's everything, including drinks. As an experiment, I put her at the little table with Caroline to see if freeing her from the highchair and letting her sit at the table like a big girl would improve her table manners. So here's the two Miss Messes at their first breakfast together:


(Notice all the stickers and markings on the table and chairs? We got this little set for Caroline for Christmas when she was 1 1/2 years old. She has obviously given it lots of "love" since then.)

Both girls liked it -- here they are waving at each other:


And here is Juju's silly face:


So, that was fun, but as of now she's back in the highchair because the experiment didn't work -- she still threw food on the floor, and added plate tossing as well. Since I don't have a plate that suctions to the table, I'm now trying the "Love and Logic" method of saying empathetically when she starts launching the food off her tray, "Uh-oh. Looks like dinner is over since you have decided to throw food. We'll see you again when it's time for snack." Then I clean her off and send her on her way. That has worked better than the big girls' table -- I guess she wasn't quite ready for that. (Or was it that I wasn't quite ready to take on her plate tossing? Yeah, probably it's more the latter.)

Train up a child . . .

So it should come as no surprise if you know me at all that I'm a worrier. I always worry that I'm not doing good enough at whatever it is I'm doing -- school, work, social life, it's been that way forever. Lately, Caroline never wants to pray at bedtime so of course I worry that it's because of something wrong I've done. But I pray anyway in an attempt to model behavior for her, and tonight she broke in three times to say her own stuff, so maybe she wants to pray after all :)

First, it's short and sweet: "Dear God. Amen."

Later, it's some instructions: "God, please help Julia to stop screaming so much and stop throwing her food on the floor." I added a silent "SECOND" to that one in my head.

Finally, it's just sharing & being real, which I love: "Hey God, guess what? I learned to color in the lines today and used some pretty colors! Amen."

So, maybe she actually is learning the way she should go. God please bless our fumbling efforts to parent these girls . . . and please help me to worry less!

Merry Christmas!