Once Upon a Time

 

Ember, aka The Little Mermaid, aka Cinderella

I'm so excited. Emmy LOVES fairy tales. She loves reading fairy tales, watching fairy tales, and pretending to be characters out of fairy tales (like, 24 hours a day). This is a stage I can TOTALLY relate to. Fairy tales were a HUGE part of my childhood, and now discovering the stories again with Emmy is like reuniting with long lost best friends.

We've only introduced Em to a handful of tales: Cinderella, Bambi, The Princess and the Pea, Goldilocks and the Three Bears, and The Little Mermaid. Em ADORES fairy tales. Actually, she is more than slightly OBSESSED with them.

The Princess and the Pea was the first fairy tale I read to Emmy, where she actually sat through the entire story and seemed to understand it. It's a pretty silly story, in my opinion, and isn't exactly “relatable”. But because it is such a basic, short story, it is a great “gateway drug” to more complex fairy tale plots and themes.

Ember asks me to tell her the Goldilocks story at least three times a day. I have taken creative license and changed the end of the story in my retelling of the tale. In MY version, Goldilocks doesn't get off so easy after basically ruining the home of the three bears. Rather than just screaming and escaping through the bedroom window after being woken up by the bears, Goldilocks is told by Papa and Mama Bear that she needs to stay and help fix all of the things in their house that she has destroyed. First she must help cook up a fresh pot of porridge for the bear family to eat and enjoy, then she has to help repair the chair that she so carelessly broke, and finally she must APOLOGIZE for messing around with objects that didn't belong to her. Once Goldilocks has done all of these things, the bears let her leave their house.

Em and I watched Bambi just the other day, when she was getting over a bout of the croup. Watching Bambi made me REALLY miss the simplicity of old animated films – it was so QUIET and SUBTLE compared to animated films today. Of course, I was not excited about having to explain the shooting of Bambi's mother to Emmy, and was worried Em might be scared by the forest fire scenes, but the viewing (and explaining) went much better than I had anticipated. Em seemed genuinely concerned about these scenes, but she was not at all traumatized by them.

As for Cinderella and The Little Mermaid? Em spends most of the day pretending to be either Cinderella or Ariel, or as I like to call it, Arirella. She gets the plots of the two fairy tales confused, so she will often pretend to be a mermaid who has lost her glass slipper, or a poor humble housemaid who has given away her voice. Lovingly, she always asks her father to play the part of the prince. And then she asks me to play the part of the “mean mama”. Sometimes, if I am really lucky, she lets me play the part of the fairy godmother. Oren gets to play the part of Gus Gus the fat mouse, or Flounder, Ariel's fishy sidekick. He doesn't seem to mind as long as we feed him pretzels.

So just please don't be surprised if you stop by our house, and you see Ember dressed in an ad hoc mermaid costume, and you hear me ordering her to sweep the floor and wash the windows and vacuum the rugs. Also please don't be surprised if you see Ember and Oren and I dancing around our living room, with magic wands in our hands, singing Bibbity Bobbity Boo at the top of our lungs.

At the moment, we're all just a little fairy-tale obsessed.

The Little Buddha Boy

Much thanks to Courtney for this beautiful photo.

Children are amazing.

Oren is sick with the croup. His voice sounds like Yoda and his breathing sounds like an old, rickety Hoover vacuum. His whole body seems to be fighting off some pretty mean germies.

And yet, he smiles. When Emmy holds his hands and makes weird googly boogly sounds at him, he laughs. When we sing songs to him at the dinner table, he sways and claps his hands.

I am never happy when I am sick. I never clap my hands or giggle when I can't breathe.

Oren is my little Buddha boy. I have so much to learn from him.

Obladi Oblada

So much has happened since I last wrote a blog post. I've WANTED to write so many posts (the one about Ember's three year old check up, the one about Oren's obsession with his own nostrils, the one about Emmy CONSTANTLY asking me to pretend to be the “mean mama” from Cinderella), but I've had no time or energy to write. And now it is daunting and overwhelming to even attempt to write a “catch-up” blog post. But if I don't write and publish this post, I know that feeling of “block” will just multiply and balloon, and soon I will be considering discontinuing this blog.

So here is my attempt at summing up the ridiculously busy, very emotional last few months that have passed relatively undocumented.

Ember turned three years old (THREE YEARS OLD!!) on October 13^th. That same day, my father-in-law (Grampy, as he is now referred to for the kids' sake), whom I love and adore, had a stroke. The weeks that followed were (and continue to be) a whirlwind for our family.

I don't want to say too much about Grampy, or his recovery, or the impact this experience has had on my husband, our family, etc., because of course it is a private family matter. All I want to say is that I am incredibly inspired by Grampy's will and motivation, and by his ability to face this totally unexpected, shocking challenge with amazing strength of mind, body and spirit. I truly hope his recovery will be swift and complete, and that he will quickly return to participating in all of the activities he loves – fishing, walking, gardening, etc. We will all do whatever we can to support him in his recovery.

Aside from that, I've been adjusting to life as a stay at home mom. I've gotten used to the fact that there are good days and there are bad days in stay-at-home mothering, just as there are good days and bad days when working at any job. There are days when I feel like I have finally hit my stride, and have finally figured out the secret to being a happy parent, and the key to raising happy, well-rounded, somewhat well-behaved children. And then the NEXT DAY happens, full of tantrums and hair-pulling and pee pee accidents and exhaustion, and I feel like I am back at square one, that I have millions of things to learn about parenting, but absolutely no energy to actually LEARN those things. And then the NEXT DAY happens, and all is miraculously fine and good again.

Watching the two kids has gotten more complicated, especially since Oren started walking... and dancing... and spinning in circles until he gets dizzy and falls down on the ground. He is a joy-filled child (most of the time) who loves cuddling and snuggling and eating markers and pulling all of the tissues out of tissue boxes. He also, unfortunately, LOVES grabbing Ember's toys right out of her hand. He also LOVES pulling Ember's hair. He also LOVES pinching her hard on the arm. He also really LOVES stealing her juice.

Emmy retaliates by loving her brother a little TOO hard. She will play “smooshy head” with Oren, which basically consists of grabbing him and smooshing his head REALLY hard against her body. She also attempts to “carry” Oren by grabbing him around the neck and lifting UP (nearly decapitating him). She also LOVES giving Oren hugs that closely resemble strangulation.

Watching Emmy and Oren interact is a little like watching an episode of The Three Stooges (Oren would be Curly and Emmy would be Moe). But, because I am Em and O's mama, most of the time I am so concerned that one of them is going to land the other one in the emergency room, that I am unable to truly appreciate the comedy of it all. So my solution is to play the part of peace keeper, which means I just throw my body between the two kids and offer them snacks as a distraction.

And now we are on the edge of winter, which means soon each week will likely have one or both of the children ill with some rare disease, and our house will be full of used tissues and baby Tylenol, and playground visits will be replaced with visits to the doctor. I AM going to try to think positively, though, and will try to use the winter months as an opportunity: an opportunity to teach Em to recognize all (or most) of the letters of the alphabet, an opportunity to teach Oren new words, and an opportunity to eat Snoopy Snowcones on a daily basis.

I am not going to lie. I DO miss working outside the home. But the minute I think about returning to work (which I think about A LOT), I look at my two little mischief makers and wonder how I could get through a full workday without seeing their beautiful, silly faces.

So life continues, with each day being it's own unique adventure. I am hoping that I'll be able to blog a bit more often during the winter months, but I can't make any promises. These kiddos of mine require lots of time, attention, and brain power!