Daddy's Girl

Last night, Anthony made Tessa mad by insisting she put on lotion after her bath. She has been scratching her skin off, and she really needs it. So a battle ensued and Daddy won.

Then I overheard this on the monitor:

TESSA: Tessa doesn't love Daddy anymore.

ANTHONY: Oh. Well, that hurts my feelings.

TESSA: Silence

ANTHONY: Well, if you don't love me anymore I guess there's no point in me reading you a story tonight.

TESSA: Well, Tessa loves Daddy a little bit.

At least Jack loves Daddy.

Jump Street

My Thursday Mommy Club went to Jump Street this last week. It cost me $4 for Tessa and Jack and I were free. Here is some of the fun that happened there...

Can you count how many times Tessa wipes it?


Jack spent a lot of time making out with himself.

OK. I finally got Jack doing peek-a-boo on film. It's brief and followed by Tessa referring to herself in the third person. Maybe she's practicing to be queen some day.

Speaking of queen, she found a loyal subject. This poor kid was somehow manipulated into doing this for WAAAAAAY too long.

Date Night With Tessa

I haven't posted about date nights with Tessa in a while. Probably because they have been pretty run-of-the-mill. However, last Friday was a special one. We went to Disney On Ice at the Pepsi Center. It was a very extreme date for Tessa. She was surrounded by little girls in princess dresses. She got to meet THE Cinderella. She also got to see the new princess, Tiana, who is brown (Tessa's words, not mine).

At dinner, Tessa showed off her ice-eating skills:

Before the show, there was a display of princess dresses:

This is what it looks like when your excitement bubbles over and you can't help but share it with strangers:

The show itself was lots of fun. Tessa was so overjoyed by Prince Eric skating with Ariel, that she couldn't find words. She just turned (she was in my lap) and hugged my neck before turning back to the show.

She also loved Tinkerbell:

They had Cars and the Lion King, but these paled in comparison for Tessa with the princess factor.

In fact, sometimes, I think the night got a little overwhelming for her. What do you think?

A Sign of the Season

Does time blur together for you, too?

I sometimes feel like my thoughts are a long tangled string of repetitious obsessions. They stumble over each other in my head and fight to get priority. Some are highly emotional. Those always surface strongly during a dramatic scene in a movie or because of a poignant line in a song. I will linger over these and let the feelings steep until they permeate all of me. They leave a sense of emptiness and melancholy behind when I am forced to get out of my now tepid mind soak and re-enter reality, shivering and dripping. Some of my thoughts are starkly logical. They are thoughts about cold hard facts and they usually involve numbers. Like the dollar amount I spent on something or the number of calories I just ate or the ounces of water I've drunk subtracted from how much I need to drink in a day. The minutes I have left until...everything: lunch, nap time, I leave to get Tessa from school, dinner, Anthony gets home, bedtime. Numbers that surround schedules of what is coming and what needs to be done and with whom.

And before I know it, a day has passed. Two days, three. A week. And the knots get tighter and the thoughts multiply like rabbits.

"How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and every day have sorrow in my heart? How long will my enemy triumph over me?" Psalms 13:2

"For the Lord searches all hearts and minds and understands all the wanderings of the thoughts. If you seek Him you will find Him." 1 Chronicles 28:9

"Be still and know that I am God." Psalms 46:10

Chilly Tradition

Last night we went to the 26th Annual Downtown Littleton Tree Lighting. I'm not sure that is the official title, but I capitalized it anyway. So. It was pretty cold--but it could have been so much worse. The Christmas tree was beautiful, and Tessa really enjoyed seeing Santa and REAL reindeer. We had candy canes and hot chocolate. We wore hats and gloves and scarves. We held lit candles and sang carols. We cheered and jumped around when the tree was lit. We skipped all the way back to the car while holding hands (me and Tessa, that is). Jack spent the whole evening immobilized in his snow suit. He was warm, but stiff. Still, it was past his bed time and he was content to just quietly watch the festivities. And he gave the appropriate smile when I whipped out the camera.

When Tessa reminds me of Trisha

My little sister, Trisha, has always had the lions share when it comes to being photogenic. The girl doesn't take a bad picture! And can she ever ham it up with the silly faces! Looking at these photos reminded me of several silly-face shots I cherish that I have of Trisha.

Here is how the conversation went:

ME: Tessa, did you eat some of the cookie dough?
TESSA: Did I eat any cookie dough?
ME: Yes, you. Did you eat some of it?
TESSA: Mom. This is me you're talking to. Do I look like I would eat any cookie dough?

ME: Alright. Look me in the eye and tell me you didn't have any.

TESSA: ....

ME: Ha! Very funny! Well, since you're so good at making faces, why don't you smile so mommy can take a nice picture.

ME: OK. Now try a nice smile.

ME: Now that you've gotten THAT out of your system. Let's try again.

ME: I give up.

TESSA: OK, I'll smile.

And, yes, Tessa is topless. Those of you who didn't already know, Tessa just doesn't wear clothes at home. Ever. She had been running around the house for over an hour wearing only Big Girl Panties. She even helped me bake cookies in them. Hence, the conversation about cookie dough snatching. Which she did.

Roads and Rubber

Do you ever wonder what you will do when the "rubber meets the road"? I guess I always thought the rubber meeting the road would be pretty big. Like loss of a job big. Or really bad hair day big. Suffice it to say, I was thinking B-I-G.

But I have come to realize that the Lord puts roads and rubber together in our lives to help us get movin' again. And boy have I been movin'. Anthony has been working 70 hour weeks for about a month now. He will be done a week from Tuesday. So that is when I can expect my next stop-to-fill-'er-up. In the mean time, I feel like God has been taking care of me like one of those mid-air refuel planes. I'm not stoppin', but somehow I'm not running out of gas. These little refuels have come in the form of good advice (thanks mom), encouarging words from friends (thanks Erla), moments to sit around a table and eat and laugh (thanks life group and Phillips), play dates at the park (thanks Christina), or fun nights out with no point (thanks Kristen A).

The biggest thanks goes out to Anthony whose sensitivity to a stay at home mom has been off the charts. He has come home from a long day and jumped right into dirty diapers, bath times, and countless rounds of pretending to be the prince while Tessa is the princess. Well, you are my prince, Anthony.

So it might not be BIG on the grand scale of things, but my tires are squealing. The Lord is moving me down that road that eventually ends in His perfection.

Thank you, everyone.

Thank you, Anthony.

Thank you, Lord.

Supermom

Seventeen minutes into the movie, Nanny Diaries, this afternoon and I had to stop and look around. I was literally being swallowed by a pile of laundry waiting to be folded on the couch. Supermom I am not. So when I reached base camp of Mt. Big Girl Panties, I stopped to take a breather. I am hopeful I will reach the summit before it gets dark. From my vantage point, I could see five dirty dishes (coffee cups, cereal bowls, etc) that needed to be carried upstairs and washed. And there was that mysterious smell in the kids' room I keep forgetting I need to investigate. I always notice it when I go in there in the middle of the night to resettle Jack. And then I don't notice it in the morning--probably because I'm sleep walking at 6:00 AM from having to resettle Jack all night. Anthony always helpfully suggests things from his side of the bed like, "Turn the monitor off and sleep--they'll be fine."

What a girl really wants to hear is "You stay in bed--I'll go take care of it."

But really, when daddies watch kids...

Stuff happens.

At least I'm not having to drive to work every day in the rush hour traffic.

Press Play on Video and Then Play Music!

Note: Wet spot is from sitting on snow--not what it looks like!

So what do you do when it's snowing and cold outside?

If you are a mommy, you can:

1. Try to remember who talked you into kids. (Lucky for them having kids has turned your memory into something closely related to your skinny jeans--they're hanging right there in the closet but you just can't get into them!)

2. Put your feet in a tub of hot water and turn on beach sounds on your ipod and c-l-o-s-e your eyes (But not where kids could get into the water. And you will need to keep one ear open to hear your children. Oh, and you will have to get up every 12.36 seconds to fetch a sippy, bottle, or princess shoe.) Oh forget it!

3. Bake all morning and then eat all afternoon (for the kids).

4. Watch movies. (This has a catch because you're a mommy. All movies will be kid friendly--aka cartoons.)

5. It all just goes downhill from here.

What do you do if you're a kid and it's snowing outside?

1. Watch your big sister play in it.

2. Play in the snow.

3. Contemplate life.

4. Then remember how great you have it.

5. Lose your mittens and revel in it.

6. Have a snack.

Before

After

7. After you get changed into clean clothes because you got food all over them, give your mommy a leg hug and melt her heart.

8. Paint a picture.

Trunk or Treat

Actually, trunk or treat was moved inside the church building because of weather, so it was mostly "Table or Treat" and occasionally "Chair or Treat". Same rules applied. Get as much candy as you can. And it was fun to see the kids in their costumes. Most of us dressed our daughters up as cats or princesses and our boys as super heroes. But there were a few surprises. Like little Luke was a sock monkey. And I saw one girl in pink and turquoise camo with "Major Trouble" embroidered on the chest. One mom came with a printout of one of her sons' heads as a mask wearing a sign saying he was home with strep and would you please give him some candy. Now that's a cool mom. And hey, at least that kid was sick unlike when Anthony gave up trick or treating in order to watch Buck Rogers. Needless to say, his parents didn't wear his face on their heads.

Tessa begged to go to the store to buy a princess costume. I guess she was tired of being a cat. Jack was Charlie Brown, obviously. You wouldn't believe how many kids came up to us to ask who he was. Tessa was telling some of them because she was watching the Great Pumpkin movie earlier today.

When we got there, all she did was covet other girl's princess costumes. She even forced them to stand in pictures with her. You can tell Cinderella here was NOT thrilled by this. And Tessa's smile says something--is it guilty?mischievous?

Jack is going: Where's the pumpkins full of chocolate flavored formula?

My super hot man with the kids:
And then we tried to get a picture of the kids with me. Here is what we have about 5 different shots of:

And finally, we settled for a perturbed kitty cat and a befuddled Charlie Brown.

Have a Happy Halloween!