I took the big girls swimming earlier this week with a friend of mine. (The best neighbor in the entire universe kept Sadie…thanks Connie!) I had a baby on December 23rd and unlike Gwenyth Paltrow, Madonna and the rest of those skanks with a six-pack and a six-month-old…I DO NOT look like I’ve never had a baby. I am still trying to lose my baby weight. And I will, I’ve done it twice before, it just takes me some time and I have to WORK for every single pound. I’m talking Spin classes and weight training, people.

Anywho, so we’re at the pool and Aubrey hugs me and says, “Do you have a really big belly Mommy?” My sweet friend Courtney was like, “Nooooo! She doesn’t!” (I told you she was sweet, but she was also a little bit of a liar.) I took the opportunity to remind Aubrey that just a few short months ago there was a PERSON LIVING IN THERE!! Remember???

Aubrey: Will it ever be little again Mommy?
Good question, let’s hope so.
Me: Yes, baby. That is why Mommy goes to the gym to exercise. To be healthy and help my tummy get smaller.

As I mentioned, we went to Target today to blow some birthday money. I make the girls share gift cards and we stretch them out over the entire summer, so as a special treat they were both allowed to pick out a Mermaid Skank…er, Barbie. They have been very pleased with their purchases and have spent a good portion of the day in our indoor swimming pool. (The bathtub, people.)

As I was cooking dinner Aubrey came running into the kitchen with her little, purple finned-skank, pointed at her abnormally small waistline and said…
Mommy, your belly gonna get that little?
Me: (BIG sigh) Yes baby.
Aubrey: It’s going to take a LOOONG, LOOOONG, LOOOOOOONG time! Huh, Mommy?
Me: Go get back in the tub, Aubrey.

It is 4:03AM, I’ve been up for about an hour. Sadie woke up hungry and while I was feeding her I could hear Aubrey hacking coughing in her bedroom and Emma asking her very nicely to “Pwease be quiet Sissy, I so so sweepy!” I stuck my head in the door of their room and told Aubrey to hang on I was getting her some medicine

“Mommy not medicine, MAGIC JUICE. Renember?”

How could I forget? Don’t worry, it’s not all creepy-Michael-Jackson-Jesus-Juice…it’s a Triaminic Cough and Cold strip dissolved in an eighth of a cup of OJ, and mixed with a magic wand, er- a straw. I had to develop Magic Juice, after a particularly bad cold ripped it’s way through our family, followed quickly after by a stomach bug that took out EVERY member of our family, including MY mother and sister.

Aubrey was 3 at the time and refused to take her medicine, a purple dissoluble strip. saying her tummy hurt. “EXCUSES, EXCUSES” I thought! Being the ER nurse that I am, I told my sister just to stick it in Aubrey’s mouth when she wasn’t paying attention. It would dissolve and Aubrey would be forced to swallow it…or not.

As soon as B’s finger left Aubrey’s mouth, Aubrey threw up like she had been eating corn chowder and spun around on the “Spiraling Tunnel-o-Death” ride at the County Fair. Needless to say, I’m not sure that Aubrey OR my sister, for that matter, have ever forgiven me or forgotten. Because Magic Juice was born and for the last two years, anytime I MENTION medicine Aubrey will say, “Renember that time you gave me medicine and made me fro up all over B???”

Back to tonight- I mixed up 2 rounds of Magic Juice because Emma was beginning to cough as well and carried it to their room. Once they finished it, I straightened their covers and tucked them back in. As I was leaning down to give Emma one more kiss, I heard Aubrey say, “Mommy, you’re sorta a little bit a genius.”

It’s not egg-zactly an embossed invite from Mensa, but I’ll take what I can get thank-you-VERY-much!

Aubrey was walking out of the bathroom a few minutes ago, pulling the back of her skirt out of her panties and she said to herself, “AHHHHHHH, good potty!”

I mean, haven’t we ALL felt that way before but never had the guts to say it out loud?

Emma got a package from her Grammy this week full of birthday goodies. There was a small bag of hair clips with tiny little butterflies and lady bugs on them. Emma is somewhat prone to destruction, thus resulting in the untimely death of a few of said butterflies. I rescued the rest and hid them for future use.

This evening Aubrey found one of the poor sad, broken little butterflies and said:
UH-OH! Who breaked this Momma?! Daddy didn’t break this, did he Momma?
Me: Nope.
Aubrey: YOU didn’t break this…did you Momma?
Me: Nope.
Aubrey: You know who’s REAAALLLLY good at breaking stuff? EMMA!

Good call.

Cleaning the house got really old, really fast for Aubrey today. Emma has been a real trouper and has been especially good…probably had a lot to do with the cupcake bribe AND the fact that her birthday party is tomorrow.

Aubrey had a good time dusting the t.v. but was ready to loll about after that. She made a HUGE mess with her crayons and markers and we ONCE again came to a crossroads where it was clean or be punished. After my last, “You’d better clean up, or else…” Aubrey screamed, “UGGGGH! Just leave the house MESSY! WHY does it have to be clean all the time???”
Me: I suggest you check your attitude and stop talking to me like that or you are going to be in BIG. BIG. TROUBLE. Got it, Big Sister?
Aubrey: (MUCH quieter) Ughh, FINE then…I’ll just QUIT BEING YOUR SISTER!”

Ooooo, burn!

Aubrey is at the stage where she loves to “write” all of the time. She’s almost five and while she knows the entire alphabet and recognizes all of them they don’t always look exactly right on the page, nor are they in any particular order. Add to this the fact that she is left-handed and tends to write backwards on some occasions, and you have a typical indecipherable mess on the page. She loves to write “letters” to people. She will “write” what she wants, then give her masterpiece to me and tell me what it says. I write the translation on the page and we stick them in the mail.
A couple of days ago Aubrey brings me a letter she has written:
Aubrey: Momma, what this says?
Me: I dunno, what does it say?
Aubrey: MOMMA, TELL ME what it says!!
Me: I don’t know, Aubrey. You wrote it, YOU tell ME what it says…
Aubrey:(crying) I DON’T KNOW! I can write letters but I can’t read…(OH the drama!)
Me: It says, “WAHZOO-MYL-TH” Happy now?
Aubrey: (sniffling) Yes.

You’ve been warned, this is a little grody. Aubrey yelled at me from the bathroom this afternoon, “MOMMA! Come here!” I went running in there to make sure she was OK. As soon as I walked in the door she said, “Ewww, gross. Momma, smell this!” Seriously? You can NOT convince me that having boys is worse than this. GROSS. ME. OUT.