It happens every single time. The phone rings, or I make a call. I’m having a conversation with someone, and it’s usually a conversation of substance, whether it be with friends or family, or business-related. Suddenly, out of nowhere, one of my two darling (the italics are there to signify sarcasm, by the way) daughters starts yapping away in my free ear. About something completely inconsequential, of course. And when I’m having a really great day, it’s sometimes both of them at once.
I have a new job. Starting in January. And the best part is that it’s local. A seven-mile drive from the house. This means two things: my days commuting to New York are OVER. And I’m going to gain approximately ten hours a week with my family because of it.
I had Chloe’s parent-teacher conference today. I arrived feeling a little bit nervous – confident that I would hear mostly good things, but anticipating some critical commentary about her talkative nature.
The other morning, Chloe, Sophie and I were walking to the school bus stop. The sky was a bright blue with some stray clouds, and the full moon was still visible.
One candle down, only seven more to go. As you can see from the photo, the girls were very excited about Hanukkah. We started out the evening listening to an entertaining song about the holiday written and performed by my cousins. We then lit the candles.
It was finally time to open the presents. I decided that there would be a theme this year: reading and writing. Tonight’s gifts were personalized pencil cases and pencils, a little electric pencil sharpener, and little notebooks.
Chloe is definitely her father’s daughter. She loves gadgets. So she loved the pencil sharpener. But Sophie is also her father’s daughter. And there was only one pencil sharpener. There were some screams, and some tugging. But Chloe let Sophie have a turn, and as quickly as you can say Maccabees, first crisis averted. I promptly put the gizmo away in a safe place out of Sophie’s sight, for Chloe to use as needed.
Shortly afterwards, we all sat down at the dining room table while Chloe completed her homework. It was then that Sophie realized that her notebook was different from Chloe’s. Mommy was wearing her stupid hat when she bought those little books. What was I thinking? Sophie preferred Chloe’s because it had colored paper inside, and hers only had lined white paper. When I tried to explain why her notebook was so terrific – that it had lined paper and stars on the cover (Sophie loves stars, and she especially loves singing “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star”), she made her toddler psycho face and threw her notebook onto the floor.
I sometimes think Chloe is smarter than me when it comes to handling her little sister. Here I was trying to reason with my little girl for the umpteenth time. But you don’t reason with 2-year olds! And here was my big girl, Chloe, who came to the rescue again. She allowed Sophie to borrow her notebook for a few minutes, and what do you know, second (and last) crisis averted. Needless to say, Chloe’s success in appeasing Sophie was Chloe’s perfect Hanukkah gift to me.
My dear husband is going to Nashville tomorrow for business. He flies there every month or two for a couple of days because his company, for some mysterious reason, decided to plant most of its back office in Tennessee. Mind you, I’ve never been to Nashville, and it would never make my list of 1,000 places to see before I die, but I imagine it’s a nice enough place to visit. Perhaps I’ll go with him one day.
We had our first more-than-just-flurries snowfall today, and the girls regaled themselves sledding; Sophie for the first time.
I hate the winter and the snow, so I stayed inside to (1) nurse a cold, (2) do laundry (truly, I never thought this would be me at 39, but best-laid plans…), (3) belatedly order snowpants for Chloe since I thought I’d have at least another few weeks before she’d need them and (4) frantically try to wrap holiday presents before the girls returned to find me in flagrante delicto (and not in the sex sense, just the gift-wrapping sense).
Sophie was visibly excited about the white stuff; Chloe just a tiny bit blasé – all of those years of experience, you know. My husband thankfully noted how glad he was that we didn’t live in Canada, because it must have taken about 20 minutes just to get the two girls ready to go outside. Imagine having to do that everyday…
It’s one of those dreary, eerily quiet kind of Sundays. And it’s only December 2. Granted, we had an amazing spring, summer and fall, so who am I to complain? But it’s going to be an extremely long winter, if today’s weather is any indication of what the future holds. I’ve been thinking of taking a trip down to Florida in a couple of weeks to visit my ailing grandmother. That idea is becoming more appealing by the hour. Sunshine, here I come!
I don’t know whether to be flattered or run for the hills. Chloe was watching her daily dose of TV when a commercial for a Betty Crocker baking kit appeared. You can guess what followed: “Mom, can we get this? It’s really creative! It’s only $10. You have the money for it.” The commercial showed a homemaker-type woman expertly decorating various cakes using all sorts of plastic tips and icing.
I’ve written a lot about the things my girls do that drive me crazy. I’ve also written quite a bit about why I love them so much. Sometimes, however, the things that drive me crazy make me love them that much more.
