It's finally happened; take cover while you still can...

Deirdre: "Look, Mom! I eat Kalel's BRAINS!!!"

Oh, and just for shits and giggles...that shirt Kalel is wearing in the above picture, is a shirt I made for Deirdre, for Halloween, four years ago -

Deirdre does Goth, at 17mths old (Kalel is 20mths, above, for reference).

Cake or Death, or Why I Love My Daughter

Recently, I've noticed that my blogs have been focused much more on Kalel and Lucien. It makes sense, with Deirdre being in school all day, but I did feel a little bad about it. Just yesterday, I kind of had it in the back of my mind to do a post on all the various little bizarre anecdotes from her new life as a Girl in Pursuit of Education - it was on the old mental to-do list.

I needn't have bothered pondering What to Write About Deirdre. Girl Wonder never lets us down, for long, and WOWZER, has she been on a roll, in the past 36hrs.

So, before I even start...thank you, my eldest, weirdest daughter, for doing the work, for me. Thank you, for reminding me that no matter how dumb your brother, or how wicked your sister, you have been and always will be my Most Bloggable Child.


It all started, yesterday evening. After we went over her homework together, Deirdre settled down to draw a hieroglyphic letter, for one of her friends (whom she actually has only met once, three years ago, but you know...she's 5; everyone she sees is her "bestfriend"). I left her in the dining room, with the much-coveted Mommy's Markers, and came back into the den, in hopes of finally getting a little respite from the usual Crazy.
Not too long after, Deirdre came in here to ask "how many days" 'til my next birthday, having been vaguely aware that her mother had aged yet again, last month. I told her it was a long-long-time, nearly a year, and when she then informed me that she was going to make me a cake, ALL BY HERSELF, I just nodded, said that was nice, and didn't give it a second thought. Naturally, I assumed the five year old who cannot reach anything and has never so much as used the microwave, was about to go draw me a cake - "make" and draw often mean the same, to her. And anyway, Deirdre is always full of shit; she's constantly making nutty proclamations like "I am Moses" or "I'm going to go see my friend and have her party and give her presents and we'll love each other forever, in ONE days," or even "I'm going to freeze that monster with how I shoot ice like this - shhhhhhhh! - an then I'll EAT HIM like a popsicle."

You get the picture. Five year olds are crazy and pathological liars and not to be believed.

So, I approved this idea, patted her head, and fully expected to be interrupted in ten minutes or so, with an invisible cake, or a picture of cake (I've been given lots), or maybe even plastic blocks in the shape of a cake. When she did not reappear in the next 10-15min, I wondered, but still didn't give it much thought; I just went to look for her, to remind her that the dinner hour was approaching, and make sure she wasn't eating her newly-finished homework, or some such nonsense.

I found her in the kitchen. Standing on a chair that she'd taken from the dining room. Stirring with a spoon she'd found in a drawer (and that I'd actually never even seen before). Stirring something that she'd put in my God-Almighty-Huge casserole dish - the one I pull out, when I have a need to feed a small army...or Peyton, twice. She'd carried that heavy glass casserole over to the counter, and up a chair.
There was no mess - or at least, no mess that she had made. There was just a tiny girl, calmly and cheerfully making her mother a cake, as if she had done it a hundred times, before. But when I saw what was in the casserole dish, I spun around on one heel, took off after my camera, and immediately began Blogging It In My Head.

I asked her to show me what she had put in my "birthday cake," one ingredient at a time:

Froot Loops, in a nod to the stereotypical KidFood (Deirdre rarely eats them)

And eggs? "Oh, Deirdre...you did not put EGGS in there!" Deirdre has never handled, much less cracked, a raw egg, so I found this difficult to believe.

By this point, Lucien had appeared, playing the role of Secondary Pointer. Here, Deirdre is telling me that she also used strawberry yogurt and Cool-Whip. Again, foods she does not eat, which made them seem unlikely candidates for her recipe.

But checking the garbage...I'll be damned. She DID use yogurt and an egg. I go back for a more Serious Look at that "cake." Meanwhile, Deirdre is far from done, and I am THRILLED to let her run with this, sensing a Legendary Tale, in the making.

And here, is your first good look at The Horror in the Casserole.

Daddy's Heath toffee syrup, because she thinks it's chocolate. I intervene, briefly, when she next suggests using the last of Daddy's Vanilla Chai Spice Coffeemate, then return to my position of Gawker and Non-Authority Figure.

But what else do we need, for a really GREAT cake?

Why, PEPPERONI, of course! In Deirdre's world, it goes with everything.

Now, more eggs, and would you look at her? Perfectly cracking, without a scrap of shell - she, herself, could not explain how she had learned this skill.

But something's missing....

Nutella! The chocolatey hazelnut spread is PERFECT with a pepperoni/frootloop/toffee/coolwhip-laced egg and yogurt base!

Add a dash of salt, and she's done! Or at least, add a dash of salt, and then insist that it needs to be "bigger," at which point, your mother begins lying her ass off. I reassured her that it was the Magic of Baking that made cakes "bigger," and that this was GREAT, just the way it was - too many flavors would just overwhelm the delicate balance she had already attained.

All the while, my mind is racing, wondering "How the hell do I get out of THIS ONE? Shall I "save it for when Daddy gets home," then hope to distract her until after bedtime, at which point we can claim we ate it while she slept? And then...

Eureka.

We proceeded on to Baking, in an oven specifically adjusted for such a culinary masterpiece, which translates to "Preheat, at 100 degrees." Also known as "a great temperature in which to grow bacteria."

Random Glum Face - she was actually still quite thrilled over her mastery of cooking.

I began Project Lie, and reminded her that cakes take a LOOONG time, to bake - many, many hours, and sometimes even all night. This lie found fertile ground, as I prompted her to recall how many times she'd seen me up very late at night, making birthday cakes. She doesn't know the difference between "up all night baking" and "up all night making apx. 738 different shades of custom-tinted frosting," so it made sense, to her.

I also made sure she understood that "Cakes look different when they finally, finally get done. All the colors of stuff you put in melt and blend together, and the cake gets MUCH bigger; it even tastes different."

Remember: I are a genius, and just as Deirdre uses her gifts in Strange and Terrible Creative Ways, I, too, have a Special Way of using my own gifts. It's called Lying.
Forced to wait for her cake to cook, she turned her attention to my birthday gift, or rather, its wrapping, which seemed the only important part (like mother, like daughter).

This child never picked up a pair of scissors, until she started school, last month, and she has certainly never touched real *adult* scissors. Yet here she is, without a moment's hesitation.

And now glue, as Scotch tape proved too annoying for her. Later, she moved on to my heavy clear packing tape. Looks like there's something in that paper, doesn't it? Nope; still just wrapping air.

Though she seemed to be doing well, for a time, eventually, the Green Paper of Doom thwarted her best efforts, and she switched to Stripey Masculine Paper of Slightly Less Doom.
This was taken this morning, right before the bus came - Success!

THIS time, there really IS something in there. Although I have been told that it is NOT my birthday, and that Deirdre will tell me when it's my birthday, I cheated as soon as she got on the bus, and looked inside an opening in her wrapping paper-envelope.
OMG! I GOT CHICKEN LITTLE! THE EXTRA-HAWT BIENVILLE PARISH PUBLIC LIBRARY DVD VERSION THAT PEYTON CHECKED OUT YESTERDAY! SCREW YOU, LIBRARY; IT IS MINE, NOW!
Don't worry; I'll still act surprised. ;D

"But What About the CAKE??!" you may be asking. Indeed...what about it?

It looks fine, to me.
After a nice night of baking, it turned out just as I predicted - evenly colored, much bigger, and totally Cake-like. Deirdre was thrilled to see how well it had turned out, and assured me I would love it. Actually, I think she said "Loves it," considering the fact that she asked me "Do you love it?" quite a few times, the night before, while making the cake - apparently she's groovin' on some kind of Paris Hilton/Nicole Richie vibe.

What?

Ohhhhh...I get it; I know what you want to hear.
Okay, so here's the deal: Once Deirdre was finally distracted with dinner, I sent Peyton a text, asking him to swing by and pick up a few things from Walmart, on his way home. Meanwhile, Deirdre's cake was still in the oven, when she went to bed, as I'd promised her that we'd take it out for her, when it was "done."
I had already asked her what this cake was going to taste like, and she assured me that the yogurt and Nutella would make it taste like strawberries and chocolate - that sounded like a plan, to me! Once she was down for the count, I sprung into action, scraping out that Abomination Casserole into the trash, and making Peyton take the evidence out to the garbage cans.
But first, of course, I took a picture:

Mmmm. Who says you have to choose, between Cake or Death?

Once the Official Food of the Church of Satan was out of the way, I whipped up a fast swirly mix of strawberry and chocolate cake batter, in the same (sanitized and prayed over) casserole dish, then sprinkled in some chocolate chips, for a chunkier effect. It actually looked pretty gnarly, as I'd spiked the strawberry batter with a hint of pink paste food color, so it was bright pink and brown swirled. Once it cooled, I melted chocolate frosting and sealed it in a thin layer (cause of course, that's the Nutella!).

I did worry, for a moment, that she might not buy the switch - she's a REALLY bright kid, and observant as hell. However, her self-esteem is such that it actually does make sense to her that whatever she throws in a pan will just naturally turn into a perfect cake - this is a child who is almost completely without insecurity, fear, or self-doubt.
She bought it hook, line, and sinker. ;D

So here I am, Bad Mommy Extraordinaire, having pulled off a Grand Lie that has boosted my child's already unnaturally high self-esteem, and brought Wonder and Joy into her little life.
Know what I call that? CASH IN THE BANK. Yessirree, I have just bought myself one helluva lot of Good Mommy Karma, which means I can totally read her diary, when she's older, and not go to Hell, even a little bit.

Happy Late Birthday, to me.

Sh-Boom, Sh-Boom

Begun yesterday, finished today; still sadly lacking the creamy filling of sanity...


Fun day, thus far.

Perhaps I can sneak a few minutes of Sane Time, now that I've completed The Great Clifford Hunt. Lucien, who has the attention span and energy levels of a hummingbird on crack, was intent on finding "A CLIIIFFFORRD!" despite the fact that we do not even own a stuffed Clifford the Big Red Dog. There's no explaining concepts like "DO NOT HAVE" to a crazed toddler, of course, and so I finally consented to go see if perhaps the desired stuffed toy had fallen out of the air, or been left here by some Clifford-loving aliens.
Thus began ten minutes of searching high and low for an item we do not possess. Lucien's first stop was (naturally) his sister's potty, where he lifted the lid and leaned down towards the bowl, inquiring "Clifford in here?" I don't know if I'm more disturbed by the fact that he actually believed a toy he has never seen in our home might appear in a potty...or that he thought Clifford might actually answer him, from inside the potty.
I'm quite sure if he were in there, we would have heard him screaming. God knows I would scream.

In the past hour, Lucien has:

• Watched apx. 20min. of Clifford cartoons
• Watched apx. 12min. of Cars
• Watched apx. 15min. of The Wild
• Asked to watch a Justice League dvd
• Wept, at not being allowed to sample his fourth movie in an hour
• Screamed because we have no Clifford toys
• Screamed because Kalel came too close to his food
• Screamed because Kalel saw him lying on the floor, took advantage, and sat on his head (my kingdom, to have gotten a picture of that)
• Screamed because I would not get him a "hurrrnngglllhh" (your guess is as good as mine)
• Loudly announced that he is watching (insert dvd title here) apx. 87 times
• Run about the room on all fours, barking and mooing (continuous). I have no idea, regarding the mooing
  

In the past hour, Kalel has:

• Stolen everything her brother has been holding, looking at, or thinking about
• Bellowed a war cry fit for a Spartan, then smashed her snack bowl across the room and into the floor, sending unacceptable food all over the den
• Screeched in rage because I would not let her throw a book out the window
• Screeched in rage because she had thrown her own cup across the room, and was now displeased with this decision
• Screeched in rage because she did not want to watch The Wild
• Built a small house out of blocks
• Yelled "AH-DEE-YA-YA-DEH-DEH" apx. 214 times
• Hurled a number of small plastic balls against the opposite wall, narrowly missing my head, as I foolishly crossed her path
• Shoved the entire front of her dress into her mouth and shuffled around the room, yelling a garbled "UUURRRRGGG!!!" through a mouthful of skirt
• Sat on her weenie brother's head, making him cry - which I fully condone, and would like to try, myself

And still, Boy continues to pester me. He never gives up; no amount of Gentle or Forceful "no"s will do the trick, and as for reasoning...pffft...I'd have better luck reasoning with a stale Cheesy Poof. The more I "reason," the more he jumps up and down like an agitated gorilla, waving his arms and becoming increasingly loud.
What DOES work, I've found, is hitting him. No, bear with me, here - Lucien is, of late, obsessed with "ows." He LOVES an excuse to say "OW!" This child actually invents imaginary injuries, just so he can claim pain and get a kiss for it; he's like a neurotic little dog whose foot was stepped on once, and is still limping, years later, often forgetting which paw is supposed to be injured.
Sooo...if he won't stop, after about the twentieth "NO," I just smack that little waving hand. Immediately it's "OWWW! HUUURRRRT!" And he'll go away and leave me alone, for the price of a kiss - the kiss means he's gotten something he wants, and he completely forgets that the kiss wasn't what he originally wanted. Awesome. I'm convinced that God made little kids dumb, for precisely this purpose.

Time for me to add, here - I started this blog THIS MORNING, and it is now 5pm. Welcome to Motherhood.

It's been a pretty crappy day, or at least, it should have been. I don't even REMEMBER this morning - that should tell you how *chipper* I was, upon waking. Later, after Deirdre left for school, Peyton discovered (apx. 20min before he was due to go to work, of course) that he had no earthly idea where his wallet had meandered off to. How this even happens to a person, is beyond me. I lose MANY things - some of them quite important - but losing a wallet baffles me. Worse yet, as usual, he was convinced he knew just where it was, an idea which never, ever proves to be true.

If it's just like a man, to lose his wallet, then it's doubly Just Like A Man, to be in complete denial of the shoddy memory that has resulted in that loss.
And my own dear husband is King of the "But I Remember Exactly..." Tribe. Sadly, my love for him precludes me mocking him any further, over this incident, as I promised him I wouldn't.
I said "this incident." I am, however, perfectly free to mock him over pretty much everything else in the world. Fine print is everything, in a marriage, you know. ;D

At any rate, wallet was eventually found, but (of course) not before we'd had a nice little fight over it, or more specifically, Peyton's insistance that he knew just where it was. Add to that the fact that, with all the kid-interruptions, it took me literally half a day to list half a dozen items on Ebay. Those same kid-interruptions also distracted me enough to miss out on bidding on a few items I'd hoped to win - fall clothes for them, as usual - and as that happens frequently, I'm always tempted to start yelling "Alright; that's it! No clothes for you; you will all have to run around naked this winter! Noooo...it's too late to be sorry - those were THE LAST CLOTHES IN THE WORLD, and now you're just STUCK, aren't you?" There's just such a short window of time during which you can get away with that sort of lying, and it seems a shame not to take advantage of it.
On top of that sort of thing, and the usual badbadbadbadohwhatiswrongwithmykids, I somehow managed to ram my right thigh into...you know, I don't even remember, now...ram it into something, at any rate; something that left a bruise bearing a remarkable resemblance to a hickey. On my thigh. So now, I look like a slut, but with none of the fun benefits.

So, as I said, it should have been a bad day. But I did get most of those auctions up, and I also snagged a brand new silk coat and pants set, for Kalel, that I remember seeing selling for around $30, earlier this year (on Ebay; God knows how much it was, new), for the ridiculous sum of less-than-$10-including-shipping. And look! I'm blogging, even if it took all day, to do so.
More importantly, I've had "Sh-Boom (Life Could Be a Dream)", by The Crew Cuts, playing at downright Zany volume in my head, all day.
And it's just damned hard to stay dour, with "Hey nonny ding dong, alang alang alang...Boom BA-doh, ba-doo ba-doodle-AY...Oh, life could be a dreeeam, SH-BOOM!" toodling along as a soundtrack to your day.

And now, since this post is moving into it's second day of not-being-posted, I'm cutting this sucker off, right here. Tune in Next Time, which will assuredly come much sooner than This Time did. Same Bat Time, same Bat Channel.

Oh, and you guys REALLY need to go click this link, to see a perfect example of just what Bad Parenting is all about.

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.