Eleanor has the annoying habit of vehemently insisting on…..something…..
Here are some typical quotes:
This is my this one.
Mommy! He’s doing that downstairs. (AND a tattle tale!)
Ouch! I hurt my this one.
Eleanor: I don’t waaaaant it. Me: What DO you want? Eleanor: I don’t waaaaant that one! Me: WELL, which one DO you want?! Eleanor: I want the one I want!
Great – thanks so much for clearing that up.
Just a sample of the ridiculous things I’ve heard myself say to my children recently:
Honey, be gentle with the inchworm…you’re scaring him.
You guys – DON’T hug the mannequins…
I love you too…can I have my head back now? No really honey, I can’t breath.
Don’t lick people!
[To a whining crying Eleanor in the car] Me: What’s wrong Eleanor, you don’t like Barry White? Eleanor: Nooo-hooo-hooo-hooo. Me: Well, that’s too bad sweetie [turning up the volume] because I looooove Barry White. [This was less ridiculous than it was mean – but honestly, WHO doesn’t like Barry White?!]
Oliver, honey, please stop kissing the mannequins.
Hey! Naked people stay inside! NAKED PEOPLE STAY INSIDE!
Oliver sweetie, what are you eating? Show me what you have in your mouth…okay, but just please tell me that it’s food.
George – do NOT spit that out. I want you to swallow. I mean it – you swallow. Don’t spit! Swallow!
I don’t have much time to write – but there have been some little things that the kids say that make for a nice little sound byte.
One of the funniest things (to me of course) that they’ve done recently is this:
Me to George & Eleanor: Can you guys ask Daddy to come upstairs?
George & Eleanor: [walk over to the top of the stairs and yell in unison] CHRIS! HONEY!
And I wonder why they can’t grasp the concept of an “inside voice…”
Conversation with Eleanor and George on the way up to bed the other night:
Eleanor: Mommy, I’m hungry.
Me: But you just had dinner.
Eleanor: Mommy, I’M HUNGRY.
Me: Eleanor, that’s not possible.
George: Popsicles?
-Eleanor Hood, Age Two
This is one girl who knows what she wants!
Even if she doesn’t know what “it” is…
It seems like I have a lot funny Eleanor stories lately… Probably because she’s such a little talker now. I typically don’t chronicle every precious anecdote – but one from this weekend really made me laugh.
Warning: There is bad language involved – but it can’t be helped since it’s kind of integral to the story.
On Saturday morning, I was sitting at the kids’ table setting up an elaborate craft project for us to all do together (translation: I was sitting at the kids’ table with my laptop reading blogs and absentmindedly talking to them about the DVD that was playing).
Eleanor – who isn’t into dolls but IS into “ballminas” (ballerinas) came over to me with a little Polly Pocket doll that someone gave her for Christmas. We have very few of these little girly items and I find it interesting that she’s the ONLY one who shows any interest in them (nurture over nature indeed! ha!).
Eleanor: Mommy? What the fuck?
Me: What?!?
Eleanor: What the fuck?
Me: I’m sorry – I must not be hearing this right…what did you say?
Eleanor: What. The. Fuck.
Me: Try again – but slowly. What are you asking me?
Eleanor: Wha….The….Fog?
Me: What the “frog?”
Eleanor: Yeah! Wha the fog?
Me: OH – you want to know where the frog is…because she’s a ballerina…which to you, is the same as “princess”….and princesses kiss frogs!!
Eleanor: [blank stare]
Me: No – it’s funny – because I thought you said… Well – never mind. One day I’ll tell you about this and you’ll think it’s really funny.
Eleanor: What the fuck?
One evening over the weekend, I was playing with Eleanor in my room. Inexplicably, the boys were nowhere to be seen. This made for an environment more conducive to quiet conversation and hair grooming. Usually there are small male bodies flying in trajectories conducive to massive head trauma. So tranquil hair brushing was a bit of a treat.
When I finished brushing her hair, it looked like very fine corn silk and curled just a tiny bit around her face. When she finished brushing mine, I looked like I needed just a little blue mascara to finish my makeover for the 1985 We Are The World concert.
I then lifted her up to the mirror so that we could admire our work:
Me: Let’s take a look… Oh look!
Eleanor: Look!
Me: So pretty!
Eleanor: Pretty!
Me: What a pretty girl!
Eleanor: Wha pretty girl!
Me: Who IS that pretty girl?
Eleanor: It’s Mommy!
How long will this phase last? Or more accurately, at what age will she decide that I have no sense of style and cause her nothing but embarrassment in front of her friends? I need to appreciate this while it lasts.
On Sunday, we all had lunch at a local kid friendly restaurant. We spent most of that hour simultaneously keeping an eye on all three children as they ricocheted around the room in separate directions, encouraging them to actually ingest the grilled cheese sandwiches we ordered for them and moving all condiments as far away from the twins as possible (Eleanor seems to think that ketchup is a delicious “dip” that can be enjoyed as a meal on it own).
As we tried to eat our mediocre food, Chris and I had the following conversation:
Chris: Remember – I once suggested that we take on another wife to help out. So you have only yourself to blame.
Kate: What are you talking about? I told you that I was totally on board with that after I had the twins.
Chris: It would definitely simplify our lives… And hey – I can be fair. We don’t have to get another wife for me. We could consider getting another husband for you…
Kate: What?! Two husbands would just double my workload and nothing would ever get done. I’ll take the sister wife thank you very much.
Chris: Gotcha.
Epilogue: That night we watched the pilot for Swingtown and concluded that we’d have to make due with our two parent set up.
An excerpt from our morning as I got myself ready for work, got the kids ready for daycare and talked to my husband, Chris about what he would do with his day at home:
Kate: Since you won’t be going anywhere – you could work on cleaning out your closet. You keep saying that you’ll do that – and now you have a whole day!
Chris: Mmm hmm.
Kate: I bet you’ll find all kinds of things that you thought you lost…
Chris: Mmmm.
Eleanor: [drops yellow magic marker on the floor] Daddy – help!
Chris: Did you drop your pen? You can pick it up yourself – you don’t need me to do it for you.
Eleanor: No! Help!
Chris: You know – you shouldn’t get into the habit of relying on men to do things for you. They’ll never follow through, and even if they try to, they’ll only do a half assed* job of it.
Kate: Are you talking about your closet…?
Chris: Mmm hmm.
*Chris is trying to clean up his language around the kids – but things do slip through.
Hope all of my readers are having a great Friday. I haven’t been writing as much as I would have liked this week due to many sick children, snow days, and the fact that I was literally iced into my house for 24 hours (Obama really has a point regarding what wimps DC residents are about “bad weather”).
I may not get to my weekly Friday Confession today. But I promise that I’ll do it this weekend. Now I just have to think about what it will be…possibly barricading my husband in his closet until he cleans his way out of it.
The other night, we were in the middle of our evening routine (dinner for kids, baths for kids, bedtime for kids, bottle of wine for parents) and had the conversational equivalent of a wardrobe malfunction.
It was Eleanor’s turn (we’re still doing separate baths since Oliver goes to bed later and George…well – the explanations are boring and not based on any real logic – we just do it that way most of the time). Anyway – Chris agreed to do the bath while I cleaned up the kitchen, and he brought my daughter over for a goodnight kiss.
I said something about it being bath time and she tossed back the house party line, “no.” I explained that she had played outside that day and that her legs were so dirty that I could wet my finger and write my name in the filth (kind of like what people to do my – I mean – dirty cars). Actually – I didn’t say that to her because she wouldn’t have any idea what I was talking about, you know, not being two yet and all…but it’s good imagery for the amount of grime she had acquired during the day.
The rest of the conversation went like this:
Me: Okay – I love you – night night.
Eleanor: No!
Me: Yes – you need a bath. You are SOOO dirty. You have to clean up.
Eleanor: NOO-HOO-HOOO-HOO!
Me: YE-HEH-HEH-HESS! You are too dirty. You HAVE to take a bath.
Chris: That’s right – cause you’re a dirty girl.
(long pause as parents take in the words that seem to inflate like giant porn balloons in the air between them)
Kate: Don’t ever say that again?
Chris: Yeah – that didn’t sound good…