Badness, Fatness, Weirdness, and Happiness - a Photo Essay

I cannot believe twenty-one people, thus far, are convinced that I sit around blogging with no pants on - what kind of woman do you think I am??!
Not that I'm actually going to deny it. But still...I'm certain I should feel indignant.

You know, it's amazing what subtracting one perpetually busy-bodied little five-year old can do, for a household's peace and harmony. What's even more amazing, is that it hasn't helped - since Deirdre started kindergarten, Lucien and Kalel have proved themselves able and VERY willing to pick up the slack.

Lucien & Kalel, in full-on Badness Mode, getting a lecture from Peyton

Lucien, whose vocabulary previously consisted of about a dozen words and 364 distinct forms of whining, has now erupted into loquaciousness (and that, kids, is your Word of the Day - use it as often and as incorrectly as possible, and be amused at how few people are familiar with its meaning - try "I thought it was just poison ivy, but my doc said it was actually a symptom of loquaciousness...so anyway, now I have to put a cream on my naughty bits, three times a day").




















The result of this vocabulary expansion, is that I now know more of what goes on in a not-quite-three year old boy's mind than can possibly be healthy. Being that - in the case of our model, anyway - what goes on in a three year old boy's mind is made mostly of marshmallows and stupid.

Kalel, meanwhile, having finally decided to give walking a try, at the belated age of 18mths, now spends much of her time, shuffling from one side of the den to the other, Sowing the Seeds of Discord. If you are missing something, chances are, Kalel has hidden it - I turned my back on a library book for a few minutes, yesterday, and it was later discovered inside a basket of toys, in Kalel's Secret Lair - or what used to be known as our den cabinets.
Another favorite new hobby of hers, is making her brother cry, and let me tell you - there are few things as pathetic as watching your son collapse on the floor in tears, after being outwitted/overpowered yet again, by his baby sister.

In his defense, the girl really is Alarmingly Clever; we are beginning to suspect that she may be not only our brightest child, but more cunning at 18mths than either of her siblings are, presently. Certainly, she has already displayed more Resourceful Evil than Lucien, and seems now to have designs on Deirdre's reign as Queen of Everything.

Kalel, making ready to lob a bottle at any would-be challenger to her throne.

Meanwhile, we're still baffled by her recent ascension to Sumo Baby. I'm an expert at condensing babies, and with all three kids, have had the distinct pleasure of owning the kind of trial-size infants that cause strangers to gasp and exclaim"WHY WON'T YOU FEED THAT BABY??!" Kalel was my largest newborn, at a whopping 7lbs, 11oz, and Deirdre was my smallest, at 6lbs, 10oz. Each child appeared, however, to weigh about as much as a wet kitten, and could be packaged into remarkably tiny forms.



















Behold, the Wee that was Deirdre. Yes, her wretched mother really did have a need to see if her firstborn could fit in a tiny decorative baby gift basket.

And now my 18mth old is stretching out her 18mth clothes, grunting when she moves, and has developed around-the-back-boob-fat. And boobs, for that matter. All the more disturbing, because she has taken to the habit of gently cupping and squeezing one boob, while deep in thought, or just chillin'. Could be worse, I suppose - Lucien used to massage his own ass, for comfort (why can't I have normal kids?).

It's that Awful Time of Year, again - time to start moving out the kids' fall/winter wardrobes onto Ebay, and Lucien's turn came up, yesterday. As I sorted through last year's clothes, I realized just how much Boy has shrunk - at 2yrs, he was fitting into most 2T clothes just fine. A year later...and he's still fitting into most 2T clothes, just fine. And then it hit me...somehow, some way, Kalel is stealing her brother's fat.

Exhibit A: Lucien, at Kalel's age, literally too fat to walk, and certainly too fat for this bouncy seat, which was the only place Fatness would sleep.

Now, Lucien EARNED that fat, by hoovering up anything that would sit still long enough to be eaten, including but not limited to:

• paper
• garbage (literal garbage, straight from the can)
• bugs
• toys
• his food
• his sister's food
• your food
• items in any accessible shopping cart
• dvds
• books
• members of his own family
• basically, anything Amazon might sell, the CDC might label a public health risk, or a dog would likely refuse to eat.

So, although it shamed and worried us, we understood why Lucien would be gigantinormous. And slowly, he consented to try walking, which began to shave off those pounds and reveal his ankles, once more. Today, he's a supremely active child who would rather hold food in his mouth and salivate uncontrollably, than chew and swallow it - thus, he is also turning into quite a slim young lad.
But lately, even as his eating habits improve a bit, he's getting even smaller. Watching my children more closely, and seeing that yes, Kalel certainly is a Jealous God, I'm starting to see a disturbing pattern - as Lucien eats more, and Kalel eats less, the wrong child is getting larger.
That little beast is stealing her own brother's life force! On the positive side, she'll likely be big enough to steal his clothes, as well, in another couple months.

All fat-stealing conspiracies aside, the kids are just getting nuttier, and Deirdre being gone at school each day seems to only inspire her siblings on to newer and better forms of Weirdness, in the unending competition to see Who Can Make Mommy's Hair Turn Gray, First? The grand prize, as usual, goes to whichever kid pushes me just far enough to snap, with bonus points if I can be distracted into forgetting that the den windows are open. Nothing beats the humiliation of realizing I've just lost my cool and started yelling at the kids, right in front of an open window that looks out onto the street - invariably I will be in a robe, screaming like a lunatic "WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU? WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT? WHY ARE YOU ACTING SO STUPID?" And with my usual luck, there will even be neat sound effects, like my chair scraping across the floor loudly as I leap up from the computer, where I have been begging and bribing them with snacks to let me work - on a really stellar day, this Screamy Fit will be accompanied by Crazy Hair, and my robe falling open, right as I stand in front of a window. Great. Very young children should really be employed by the military, as interrogation specialists; give my kids ONE HOUR with a terrorist, and I assure you, he will break.
I'm always tempted to try and redeem my neighborhood reputation by screaming out the window "I LOVE YOU; YOU ARE SPECIAL, WONDERFUL CHILDREN AND WILL GO FAR IN LIFE!"
I try to reassure myself that the occasional freak-out is an effective way of establishing limits and reinforcing cause-and-effect relationships, like "If Mommy ends up in a padded cell, then who will make you cookies?" but I'm still developing a nervous tick from the strain.

Deirdre, smiling as she relishes her brother's outraged screams that she has stolen his car.

Still, I must be doing something right - the other day, Deirdre brought me home a present of candy that she'd bought at the school canteen, made ever more delicious by having been carried around in a pocket all afternoon. And who says motherhood is unrewarding?


Oh yeah...last night, we discovered one of Kalel's primary objectives in her constant Cabinet Spelunking. Last night (when I actually started this post), I turned to check on the little thumps I was hearing, from the cabinets, to find Kalel carefully emptying one section of its contents - that would be the now-infamous paint-containing cabinet. Deep inside that cabinet, nearly forgotten, lay The Greatest Toy Ever. I'd originally bought it for Deirdre, who passed it to Lucien, who never shares anything and will likely go feral when he sees his baby sister playing with it.
I just wish I'd been able to grab a shot of Kalel still in the cabinets, holding aloft her Amazing Find, with an expression of pure "MINE!" Unfortunately for her, she wasn't ingenious enough to turn the thing around so that it would fit through the cabinet door, so I hurried over to lend a hand before Fatzilla had a chance to frenzy and start trying to smash her way out of the cabinets with it.
For the next few minutes straight, Kalel nearly made my ears bleed with her patented Happy Shriek, as she followed me around while I found batteries for it and tried to clean off the I-don't-want-to-know that the kids had smeared across it, god-knows-when ago. Little finger-sized streaks of paint here and there, from the Paint Incident a few weeks back told me that yes, this particular Search and Rescue Cabinet Mission had been attempted, before.

And what is this miraculous toy? This...

Kalel, in full-on head-shaking, Happy Shriek joy.

Eventually, we'll have to explain to her that this is not an appropriate way to express her gratitude.