What Say You, Sylvie?

SYLVIE-FAYE: Mommy? What's dat, mommy? What's dat?

ME: That's your dinosaur, honey.

SF: What? He's in da twash, mommy.

ME: I know. I put him there, okay?

(Sylvie scowls at me and shifts from left to right to left)

ME: Mommy's cleaning. I'm throwing dinosaur away because you don't play with him.

SF: Well. You naked.

**Just for the record, I was not totally not naked. Not even close. It was like she was trying to insult me with that because she was mad that I was throwing away her dinosaur toy. Yes, you read that correctly. The dinosaur was actually hers. No, I did not buy it for her. Somebody gave it to her because she really wanted it. Anyway, I'm doing some major cleaning out in their room and dinosaur was just part of the mess. She wasn't playing with him anymore.


ME: Something smells like bubble gum. Who smells like bubble gum?

SF: Well. I not, mommy. It's Chwoe.

ME: Chloe smells like bubble gum?

SF: Yeah. Chwoe do dat.

ME: Chloe did what?

SF: Chwo eat mommy's gub gum. (Turning to Chloe and pointing a scolding finger) No Chwoe, okay? No do dat mommy's gub gum. Want spankings? Huh? Wanna go time out?

CHLOE: NO! NO!

ME: Come here, Sylvie.

SF: What?

ME: Somethings bulging in your pocket. Come here.

I discover an entire pack of gum in there, which has been opened and a couple of pieces are missing.

SF: What's dat, mommy? That's gub gum.

ME: Yeah. That's mommy's. Where did you get that from ?

SF: Well...I not sure.

ME: You're not sure.

SF: Umm...Chwoe do dat.

I go to my stash cupboard (I've replaced candy with sugar free gum in all flavors, which entices the toddler). I open my stash cupboard wide.

ME: Is this where you got mommy's gum?

SF: Uh....YEAH! Dat's mommy's gum. Sylbie no touch it, okay?

ME: Sylvie-Faye Coppee! You ask mommy. You don't get into mommy's gum, okay? If you ask me, I'll give you a piece.

SF: Okay, mommy. (Raising her hand and staring intently as she tries to hold up fingers and count) I do one, two, free, four times and dat's all, okay mommy?

ME: No. You don't do two, three or four more times. You don't do it anymore.

SF: O! K!

ANNOUNCER: "The Heroes Have Entered The Building. I repeat. The HEROES have ENTERED the building."

Look at that! I can't compete. He is like their hero or something. He comes home from school and they just squeal and jump him every time. Look at Chloe just adoring him off to the side.

And then there's Papa! Chloe is actually crying because she has to share him with Sylvie. She hates when Sylvie gets to get picked up too. They want him all to themselves.

Nobody wants me....except when they need something.

Not So Random

I've been tagged. I apologize. I must give 8 random facts. And you all must suffer through one more round of randomness. However, I'm really not that exciting. Not very random. My life is pretty mundane and predictable, though I do try to make certain choices to throw things off a bit just for fun. THAT was random. Let's call that number one. And no, I won't go into detail.

2. I love dark hair and dark skin. Really wish I could have had that naturally. Instead I must dye my hair and sunbathe and explain to strangers on a regular basis that YES, the girls are in fact my biological children even though their coloring is NOTHING like mine because I'M TOTALLY FAKE! (All right. Got a little carried away there. Anyway....where was I....ah yes..)

3. I'm going to make a movie someday with James McAvoy. I know. Totally random. I'm not even in the movie making business. Not even close. But I will. Just watch. It's not IF, people. It's WHEN. Keep watchin'.

4. I used to wear wigs and go out on the town and put on an accent and pretend to be someone else. If you know me well, this doesn't surprise you. I KNOW! I should TOTALLY have gone into acting. I'm still going to. Check out #3.

5. My wedding ring is totally fake. HA! And I can't stop telling people that. My husband hates that I do that, but I think it's awesome. My ring is like HUGE! Totally fake. I mean, come on. I drive a Hyundai Elantra. Why would I have a REAL 5 carat ring? Seriously! I'm sorry, but when a doctor's wife complains that her ring is smaller than mine, I can't just stand there and pretend like it's true that her husband is a cheapskate, even though he probably is because most doctors are. But anyway, I can't let her go home and make her husband feel bad. My ring is FAKE! Just like me.

Oh thank goodness we're almost done with this torture. Are you hanging in there? You're still reading this? All righty then - I'm bringin' it. Here we go.

6. I love the color purple. A lot. BORING! I know. But there's more. One day I read an article that this lady loved pink so much that she dyed her white cat pink. So the other day I was like driving down the road listening to "Muse", which totally inspires me to write lately. But also, it inspired me to want to buy a little white dog or cat or something and like dye it purple. But then I was like, "Well, how would I do that? Because I think that lady did it with Kool-Aid, but then wouldn't that make the cat be all sticky and stuff? That's no good. The cat will just lick it off. I guess I could use food coloring. Wait. Is that safe? Aw, who cares. I can't believe I just spent 10 minutes of my day thinking about that. Never mind". The idea seemed fun, though....for about 10 minutes.

By the way, in case you're wondering - no. I'm not doing drugs right now. This is how my mind works and you're the innocent victim getting a, most likely, unwanted peek inside the madness.

7. If I could have a super power, it would be to become invisible so I could spy on people and not be seen. Okay, if you've had this conversation with me before, I said a totally different answer - the one I always use because it's safe - "I wish my super power was to be able to see the future because I'd find out the winning lottery numbers and WIN!" Sounds safe enough, doesn't it? But here's the awful truth - I am a voyeur. People fascinate me and I like to watch them. I wish I could be invisible and just stare at people and they wouldn't even know I was there. (I'm doing an evil laugh right now. You should be very afraid of me). It's totally true - I would rather spy on people than win the lottery and be rich. CRAZY!

8. I always wanted to be a goth chick. I just thought it would be cool. One of my good friends told me once that she's a former goth chick and I didn't believe her because she doesn't seem the type. Not at all. But she was. And now I'm kind of bummed I didn't get to have that phase. I think it's kinda too late for me now. I mean, I have kids and stuff. And also I'm 32. That's kind of lame. Maybe for Halloween....or not. I think I embarrass my kids. Well, not the 1 and 2-year-old. They don't know any better. But the 11-year-old....yeah! Definitely.

Oh, would you look at that! I gotta go. It's like 9:40 PM on a Saturday night and I totally need to go grocery shopping. Can't be breaking Shabbat now, can we? Nope. Not me. Have a good one. Hope you enjoyed the insanity. Buh bye now.

**Disclaimer: I was totally joking. This whole post was a joke.

What? You don't believe me? Oh. Okay then. Never mind. It was all true. I'm just feeling a little vulnerable, that's all. No big deal, though. We're all freaks, right? At least I admit it. Right? Hello? Okay, I'm thinking I should probably hide out for a few weeks. Let this all just pass.

Happy Sabbath To You Too!

Sylvie-Faye is quite the character. Lately she's been spewing out a few phrases that I'd like to be able to blame on other children or television or....just anything else besides the ugly truth - it came from me.

Here comes the big defense: Sometimes both girls scream and we're in the car, which is small and it echoes and they won't stop, so I have to resort to shouting "Shut up! That's enough! Shut up right now or I'm pulling over and you're getting spanked". Not only does this work, but unfortunately it's the only thing I've found that seems to work. My girls know I mean business, so when I threaten to pull over and spank, it's gonna happen no matter what. Now, you may be thinking, "Well, why don't you just say 'be quiet' or something like that?" Believe me. I've tried. 'Be quiet' doesn't work. 'Shut up' does.

SO, the other day Sylvie-Faye said, "Shabbat". I said, "What did you say?" She became sheepish and mumbled "Shabbat". I was mortified. I thought, "Oh no, my sweet little toddler is saying horrible things". I hyperventilated a little bit and felt really guilty. Then I stopped and thought for a second and said, "Wait a minute. What did you say, Sylvie?" She said, "Shabbat, mommy!"

"OOOOHHHH!" I replied. "SHABBAT. Now that's different. That's not shut up. That's shabbat, which in Jewish means happy Sabbath. Now THAT's okay to say". So now when she says, "Shabbat" I just reply with, "Happy Sabbath to you too, my friend". Man, that girl is smart! I did not know she was learning Jewish too! Wow!

Monkey! WHAT have you DONE?!?!?!

WARNING: I'm just gonna' tell you right now - this is NOT for the weak of stomach. And you should definitely not be eating while reading this blog. So, if you're sitting there, having a little snack, or eating your breakfast or lunch in front of your computer and just checking out some blogs for fun, this is not the blog to check out today.

Okay, now that you have been fairly warned - let us proceed.

When our kids reach a certain age, we take them to a store with stuffed animals and let them loose. They roam the store and make a selection. This then becomes their animal for life. The reason we let them do this is because we've found (just in our personal experimentations) that our kids are drawn towards the animal which best represents their personality and then we can study that animal and find out how best to deal with our kids. I never thought of this idea with John, therefore he does not have an animal attachment.

With Sylvie-Faye, she chose a cat. I thought "She's only 1 year old. She can't possibly know what she wants." I took the cat away and put it back. We tried for the next 10-15 minutes to get her interested in something else, but to no avail. She wanted that cat and to this day, has not let go of it. That cat is her constant companion. The cat no longer looks like the beautiful ball of fluff in the picture above. It's been with her for 1 1/2 years and it's pretty mangy because those two do EVERYTHING together.

We've noticed that Sylvie is like a cat. She loves to cuddle up and cozy her face into your neck and purr, but other times she wants to be left alone and keep to herself. And if she's trying to get somewhere or do something and you try and stop her, she hisses and scratches and puts up a terrible fight. Also, she loves fish and milk, hates baths and will only let you groom her when she's in the mood for it.

Next came Chloe. Sometime around her first birthday we took her to the Phoenix Zoo. As I'm sure you know, they have vendors all over that place with stuffed animals of all kinds for sale. We took Chloe around the zoo and introduced her to nearly every stuffed animal they had. She made her selection and, once again, we tried to take it away from her and get her interested in something else, but she always went back to that particular animal. It's what she wanted and to this day she has not let go of it. It has become her constant companion.....and her partner in crime.

And this is where our horrific tale begins.

This week, the girls have had to stay home with me. Their caregiver has had Strep throat visiting and then my girls became ill themselves, so we all had to stay home together.

One late morning, I put Chloe down for her nap...with her monkey...as usual. But this was no ordinary day.

All was still. All was quiet. And this lasted a good two hours.

Suddenly I heard talking, very soft, gentle cooing, some faint little squeals. But no crying. No "Mommeeeee", which is usually what she says when she's awake and ready to get out of bed. I let her play a while, but then I decided she needed to get up, so I slowly opened the door and peeked in. The smell just about knocked me back out into the hallway.

I opened the door completely and walked in, squinting at the floor beside her crib. The girls' room is always an absolute disaster, so it's hard to tell what things are sometimes. As I crept closer, I realized....

There were little turds all over the carpet. "OH MY GOSH! That is DISGUSTING!" I cried. "Chloe! What did you do? Why is there poop on your floor?"

I jumped up and looked in on her in the crib. Her hands, hair, nails, bed, walls were covered in poop. The smell was unbearable. She could see that I was upset, so she jumped up, ran to the corner of her crib farthest from me and hid her face.

"Did you do this, Chloe?" I exclaimed. Now you're probably thinking, "Duh. Of course she did it. Why would you even ask her that?"

That's when she peeked out from the corner and pointed her long, skinny finger at the real culprit.

MONKEY!! As you can see from this picture, the evidence is blatantly obvious. Monkey has been caught at the scene of the crime...checking out his handiwork.

Bad, Bad Monkey! Monkey had to go away for a while (okay, just to the washing machine with all of the other bedding covered in feces). Chloe went into a temporary state of depression without her sidekick, but monkey soon returned - clean and fresh and ready to get into more trouble.

Oh, and by the way - Chloe loves to eat bananas, she has long skinny arms and legs, which she wraps around your body when you hold her, and her favorite pastime seems to be jumping up and down on beds and screeching....like a monkey.