Currently Caelan

Here follows a list of Caelan's current preferences, dislikes and quirks.

• She prefers the crust on a sandwich rather than the sandwich itself.
• She likes ink, especially on her skin. Current body decorations: black on the tip of her nose, black on her arm, red on her chin, yellow on her leg. This could, more than likely, change by the end of the day.
• She is never without her Tinkerbell blanket and pillow.
• She wants her hair done with a bow every morning. This rarely lasts longer than an hour or so.
• She also wants 'lipstick' and anti-bacterial hand lotion ALL the time.
• When she is forced to wear clothes, this is her favorite ensemble.

• She prefers tights or leggings to actual pants.

• There is no chocolate in the house because she has personally consumed every last morsel.
• Her favorite books are One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish, There's a Wocket in My Pocket, Snoopy and the Red Baron, Oh the Thinks You Can Think, and Put Me in the Zoo.

• Her favorite movie is Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (Johnny Depp version) and knows most of the lines, saying them along with the characters.
• Her favorite songs are Allstar (Smashmouth, from Shrek), There's Gonna Be a Heartache Tonight (Michael Buble) and the theme song for The Electic Company on PBS.
• Her favorite TV show is Wild Kratts which when translated into 'Caelan' is Wild Kraps.
• She loves Chaucer, likes Evelynn and tolerates McKenna.
• She cuddles only in the morning right after she wakes up, but doesn't call it cuddling. She "only cuddles with Grandma."
• If there's anything to swing on (door knobs, handles, ledges) she will swing on it.
• She believes that pixie dust really is sugar and all she has to do is throw the sugar into the air above her to fly.
• Now that her drawers are locked on her dresser, she has decided that to change clothes multiple times a day she must borrow from her sisters and her parents.
• She loves black pepper and wants it on everything, including cereal and oatmeal.
• She prefers not to see her bedroom floor and keeps it covered with anything and everything her mother would rather see in the baskets and bins.
• She likes to move furniture around, including her own bed, as amazing as it might seem given her tiny body.
• She prefers Spongebob fruit snacks to Scooby Doo, but only when there are no Princess fruit snacks.

And that's just a few...

And That's a Education

    Discipline for Caelan has lately revolved around her not taking 'no' for an answer. She asks for something and I tell her no. Then she says, "But I want..." repeatedly, thinking that any minute I will change my mind. I don't tolerate this and for this evening, she found herself in bed far sooner than she had anticipated, making the discipline quite effective.
    Evelynn, being the observant child she is, had this to say about the discipline: "Caelan got sent to bed because she didn't listen to you. If you tell me 'no' I will say 'yes, ma'am' and I won't say no. She needs to learn that. She was talking bad to you and that was not very nice. I won't talk bad to you, Mom. If she learns that, that's a education."
    It's a blessing that my four year old can pick up on the importance of listening and that would be the beginning of education.

Evelynn Thoughts

What follows are some of Evelynn's thoughts over the last few days:

• I wish I had wings. I would fly to the store, but the wings have to be like the wings of a fairy. Pretty and sparkly.
• I wish I were a wolf. I would be like Balto and get that medicine for Rosie.
• Caelan can't find her prince. I told her she has to kiss a frog, but I wouldn't do that. I might turn into a frog, too, and I wouldn't want to see what Dad would say about that.
• Can we talk about beavers?
• Can we talk about frogs?
• Can we talk about cows?
• We took all the books off my bookshelf. It was an accident and accidents happen, Mom.
• Violet Beauregard is an ugly little girl. She is not talking very nice and she's not listening to Willy Wonka. She better watch out. She'll be a blueberry. Look! She's a blueberry. I told you, didn't I, Mom. She was selfish.
• This is the best Valentine's Day ever.
• I am so excited to go to dance!
• I'm pretending to be a wolf, did you hear me howl?
• Isn't it time for McKenna to go to bed? She's really annoying.
• I'm going to show you a trick. I'm going to pour this water from here into here. Did you see?
• We're pretending to be beavers. We're piling sticks to be our home.
• Don't worry, Mom. Caelan is just pretending to cry.

And lastly, Evelynn asked to listen to German music. I was already listening to some music and told her that what I was listening to was German music. She disagreed. I could understand her confusion. We were not listening to music with German lyrics, but to Fantasie C Major, Op. 17 by Robert Schumann. I still don't think she believes we were listening to German music.

Killin' Meat

    Evelynn is an inquisitive little girl and what she learns ruminates in her mind for weeks, taking on new meaning for her. After she has acquired enough information on a subject she educates Caelan with what she has learned. One of the things that has interested her greatly in recent months is discovering where 'meat' comes from. This evening as I was cooking dinner Evelynn came in to smell what I was cooking (spaghetti) and to inquire the source of the meat. She left the kitchen with her answers and soon brought Caelan back with her.
    "Caelan, I have something I want to talk to you about. I want to tell you about the meat Mama's fixin'. Grandpa killed that meat. Isn't he so sweet to kill it for us? It's like cow meat, but it's not. It's deer meat. It's gonna be so good. Mama's makin' pasghetti with it. It smells lovely. Grandpa would think so, too."
   The explanation given, she now can't wait to eat that 'killed meat.'
   

Are You a Princess or an Ogre?

There comes a time in every kid's life when bodily functions are either 1)ignored/oblivious or 2) uproariously funny. Evelynn and Caelan vary between the two options. Today, however, one of my beautiful daughters let one rip on the wooden pew of the church, not just once but twice. And then thought it was hilarious. I was somewhere between incredibly embarrassed and hiding behind my hand in an attempt not to laugh. A quiet reprimand was made but the true moment of instruction was on the way home from church. Ah, good thing for the kids that we went to the church that is seven blocks from the house and not the one that's 45 minutes away, or, rather, it was good for me.
    The additional words of reprimand were made by my husband and again, I found myself forcibly holding my face from smiling. Oh, it was a serious conversation, but there are some things that I never thought I would hear myself or him say to our children. It went something like this: "We do not toot or burp in public, and definitely not during church. It's nasty and not nice. Are you a Princess? Well, princesses do not do that. They go somewhere private to do that. Like the bathroom. Only trolls and ogres do that. They are gross. Are you a troll? Are you an ogre?"
    I know the conversation was necessary and he played well into their interests, but I was dying inside. I have no idea how he could do that without at least cracking a smile. Maybe because he was driving? I couldn't look at them. There was the "Yes, I'm a princess," and the "No, I'm not an ogre." I think they certainly understood, but I'm sure this will not be the first reprimand of this kind.

It's Come Down to This

    My two youngest children absolutely love to remove the contents of any box, basket or drawer. Caelan is by far the worst (or most talented) at doing this. It's been a daily battle for months to keep all her clothes in her drawers. She is the fashion show queen and enjoys multiple changes a day. I, on the otherhand, have somewhere along the way lost my amusement with this pastime. This last Monday, Keith took one of her drawers out of her dresser and took it down to a restoration center. The dresser itself quite old and has keyholes in each drawer. And they had a key that fit the drawers! Ha! And the key fits all the other drawers, too. Ha, ha, ha!
   Tuesday morning, I heard the confused wail. "I can't open my drawers! It's stuuuuuck." I tried to hold back my smug grin, really I did. Every day since has been so nice. I've had less laundry, fewer minutes of my day spent picking clothes off the floor. I've been motivated to actually put her clothes in the drawers after they've been washed. This is great for me. Caelan still gets upset. I still happily go unlock her drawers and hand her the clothes. She is generally too busy to go to the bathroom when she should, but now that she's allotted one pair of panties, instances of wet ones have dwindled. It's awesome.
    She realized today that I had a key. "Can I see the key?" she asked, slyly. I laughed. Of course not! "But I just want to look at it." She will never touch this key as long as I stay a step ahead of her. "Well, can you just put it right here?" Here being on top of the dresser, well within reach. Hahaha. I am beyond thrilled. They knew what they were doing back in the day. Now I think all dressers should have keys. One of the greatest ideas ever.

The Unnecessary Freezing of Water

    I find myself at odds with the climatic substance known as snow. There wasn't much of it growing up in Texas and when I moved to the northeast, it was with great expectations of it. Snow appeals to my nostalgic ideals and also my enmity. I love it for the very same reasons I can't stand it. For weeks on end it conceals the ugliness of winter, that gray dead that washes out color for too many months. When the snow shimmers under a bright winter sun, it catches my breath. Literally, it does. For with the brilliance of snow and sun come the migraines. It's cruel, really. But then I love staying indoors next to a warm fire, comfortable in my sweaters and houseshoes; then it goes on for weeks. And then I get the bills for the necessity of staying warm. The realities of life quell the joy of snow that is once again fluttering past my windows. Blech.

    So to put a different spin on the snow, here are some things others have said about it.

1. A lot of people like snow. I find it to be an unnecessary freezing of water. ~Carl Reiner

2. Advice is like snow - the softer it falls, the longer it dwells upon, and the deeper in sinks into the mind. ~Samuel Taylor Coleridge

3. I grew up thinking of snow as a luxury you visit. ~John Landis

4. Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces us up, snow is exhilarating; there is really no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather. ~John Ruskin

5. When it snows, you have two choices: shovel or make snow angels.

6. The future lies before you, like paths of pure white snow. Be careful how you tread it, for every step will show.

7. A year of snow, a year of plenty. ~Old French Proverb

8. Don't complain about the snow on your neighbor's roof when your own doorstep is unclean. ~Confucius

9. Cleaning your house while your kids are still growing is like shoveling the walk before it stops snowing. ~Phillis Diller

10. I used to be Snow White, but I drifted. ~Mae West (I know, it's not about snow, but it's Mae West!)

Happy Snow Day.