Warning: This particular blog is not about the girls.

I LOVE the women in this town! I have so many that are secretly mentoring me. That's what I prefer to call it rather than...stalking. Haha! It's so true! Sometimes I'll be at a store or garage sale and close my eyes and think, "What would (insert someone's name here) like?" It's not "What would Corrie like?" because I want to have their taste! I just want to be a mash-up of all of them!

Today, it only confirmed how much I love these ladies. After fitness class, I got invited to go for a run with two of them. I know what you are thinking; I was thinking the same thing--"Haven't we had enough already???" Anyways, I went and one of them was fiddling with what looked like those thin, sleek running belts that you can put things in like keys or phones--much cooler than a fanny pack. The other one said, "We need to slow down for a minute, So-and-So's packing heat." Hahaha! What? I don't understand. Well, don't blow it, just play it cool, Corrie. Then the one fiddling said, "My holster keeps flopping around." And she lifted up her shirt and strapped to the back of this PTO-working, coupon-clipping, car rider lane-idler, make-ahead freezer, stain-removing genius of a mom was a small gun in a sassy blue holster!!! I was stunned! Nothing can suprise me now! I love it.

Hatin' and Lickin'

It's happened. Beatle told me "I hate you!" for the first time today (she's home for parent/teacher conferences). Luckily, it didn't sting as bad as I thought it would. You could call it a soft opening really because she was trying to decide if she did hate me or really love me and my crazy ways. We got T.P.ed (or "rolled" as they say in these parts) this past summer. I cleaned it all up, I thought, but as all of the leaves started falling, I saw that there was a full roll stuck up in the top of one of the trees. I got the broom out and dislodged it today. When it fell with a "thud", it occurred to me that it was still sopping wet from a rain we got two nights ago. In an instant, my eyes lit up because I realized that I had an over-sized spit-wad on my hands. Muhahaha! I nailed her a few times in the back before she reached the house. She was squealing and giggling and then she said it, part laughing, part angry.

She was watching a movie this morning about Beatrix Potter and said, "Ewwww!" I asked, "What was it?" from the other room. "She licked a stamp! Why would she do that?" That blew me away! She's of a totally different generation! The self-adhering stamp generation!

We got to have Nadya for a little while this weekend. Oh my goodness, we have missed her! She's walking now and it was so surreal when she'd just stand up and do it. We never knew a walking Nadya. The new foster family have dubbed her Emmy...don't get me started! But she'll always be Nadya to us. She looked at us hard for awhile after we got her but she really started loosening up after we got her in the house. She just cried and cried when she left us yesterday. Oh, it broke my heart! Poor kid; so many people coming and going. She's an insecure little sweetheart. While it reminded me of how stressful it is having two the same age, (it was better now that they can hold hands and walk into church together!) it reminded me of how much we loved her too. She'll always be special to us because she was our first foster baby.

Fading

Oh, by the way, I'm in the club: the stay-at-home, cut-your-husband's-hair club! He found some clippers and scissors at a garage sale and brought them home and dubbed me his new barber. I've cut Beatle's hair (when she lets me!) and I think I've done a good job but to think of cutting boy hair is paralyzing. There are clippers to wield and fading to execute. I was TREMBLING when I cut it the first time. After it was over, I was proud because I gave him a pretty bomb-diggity haircut but then he brought to my attention that I didn't go back and cut around his ears so he had longer hair hanging over his ears until I cut it again last night. After scalping him a little, we went shorter all over and I was able to make my mistake blend and it now looks fine. Whew! I'm improving--slowly but surely. He's a brave man. Beatle's begging me to shave a lightening bolt in the back without telling him.

Also, in last week's school newsletter, I found out that Beatle's school was ranked number one in Arkansas for literacy, based on last spring's testing and number two in the state with literacy and math. I feel like I can now understand the fullness of the situation--why I felt like we were in crisis mode with my "average" child. She's improving, by the way. Today's her first after-school tutoring with her teacher. Her teacher is providing lots of opportunities to make forward strides.

Anyone seen the new Capital One commercial with Jimmy Fallon? That baby is SO Birdie.

Sometimes I Terrify Them, Sometimes They Terrify Me

The other day, we were all walking into Walmart together and it jogged my memory about a story our neighbor, Ms. Mary, shared with me about her aging mother and an embarrassing scuffle they had at Walmart so I shared it with Brent and Beatle. We kind of got a giggle out of it with me concluding that if my parents ever acted like that, I would spank their bottoms. :) On the way home from Walmart, panic washed over me because I started thinking about how Beatle confesses EVERYTHING to our neighbor. Because it wasn't a cherished memory between the neighbor and her mother, I don't know how she would like it if a 6-year-old strolled up and said, "Haha! Remember the time your mom got mad at you and rammed you with her motor scooter. She had you pinned against the bread aisle and bread was falling all around you and you had to shout at her before she put her scooter in reverse and acted like nothing happened while everyone stared at you like you were the bad guy??? Haha! That was so funny!" I got freaked out by that scenario so I took a moment to make everyone in the car solemnly swear that they wouldn't bring this story up around Ms. Mary. But that wasn't good enough, because all the while different scenes were flashing in my head of when Beatle had betrayed me to Ms. Mary so, ever so intensely, I reiterated the seriousness of NOT talking about this with her. Beatle starts breathing like a weirdo in the backseat and I commanded that she stop breathing like that. Brent, my life, my love, had to draw the line at that point. He said something to the effect of, "I was with you until you started telling her how to breathe." It broke the tension in the car and made me laugh a little when I realized that I was careening out of control. I asked Beatle, "Well, why were you breathing like that?" She took a moment and said, "Cause I was scared of you!" Oh my goodness! That's exactly what every mom dreams of hearing their precious child say someday.

I don't call Birdie by that endearment much anymore. Lately, Mighty Mouse has been more fitting. She'll do pull-ups on anything. It's terrifying. And while I was writing the above paragraph, I watched as she struggled to move the step stool from the kitchen to the front door. She stood on top and was working the handle of the front door. Had it not been locked, she could have easily opened the door. I texted a picture of her silhouette, hand on the handle, to Brent and he texted back, "Really?!? Like we don't have enough to worry about with her!!" I get such a kick out of watching him try to keep up with her. He doesn't think about where he sets stuff down so she's constantly grabbing his iPad, glasses, coffee cup, etc. He gets so frazzled.

Birdie has Turret's...but thankfully with only the word, "No!" We'll be having a fine day and then she'll just burst out with "Nnnnnn...O! No! NnnnO!" It was so awkward when she started shouting it at this old couple loading their car in the Walmart parking lot.

Oh! I have found the best thing for Birdie at Walgreens (Target or Cracker Barrell, too)! They're called Skidders.



They are socks/shoes. I can throw them in the washing machine, don't have to keep up with socks and shoes and she can't get them off very fast. Plus, I think because so many people are making a fuss about them, she thinks they're pretty cool.

Camping with Kids

Ahhh...camping with the fam. We love to camp but it's not much fun with babies so this was Birdie's first camping trip. It was only for a day but it was just enough fun for us. It ended bad for Beatle and she was ready to go home. She was walking backwards and tripped, and her pinkie finger got burned kind of badly because it touched the metal barrier of our dying fire. It was sad because it was really painful for her. She took her first pill (acetametophin) for it and she felt so big and keeps asking to take pills...a little freaky for me but maybe I watch too much Intervention after the girls go to sleep.

My favorite part of the weekend was seeing Birdie at bedtime lighted by glow sticks on the other side of the tent in her pack-and-play saying, "Whas sat?" Then she'd pant heavily as she'd bury herself further into the blankets.

We have some quasi-friends that have the weirdest kids in the world! Super weird! It blows my mind. The other day, Beatle was meticulously eating her toast and then she said, "Look, mom. A donkey!" And by gum, she had eaten her toast to look like a donkey. I thought it was so funny and clever until I started wondering if those weird kids had ever eaten their toast into a donkey. Yikes! There's a fine line that I really don't want her to cross!

I love that Beatle's teacher switches the kids' seats around a lot; it keeps them moving and not just stuck by someone that they may have personality conflicts with. There was this one boy that all of a sudden he started punching Beatle in the gut and kidneys every time he could because she outed him that he was hoarding glue sticks. Well, she got moved with only one person in between her and her bestie, Bailey. She whole-heartedly said it was worth the kidney shots to be that close to Bailey! That is love!