Baby Bunnies!

Yesterday morning, Jayson noticed a bunch of fur in the back yard and went outside to check it out. He found four dead (or almost dead) baby bunnies. It was a horrible sight. The girls were immediately curious about what was going on, and we spoke in code as we tried to figure out what to do. Lydia was completely freaking out, wanting to go outside and see what was going on, and I finally told her, "It's a dead bunny and it's really sad and I don't want you to see it." That was enough for her.

But then, Jayson found the nest and told me there were two or three more bunnies in there that were alive. I went online to figure out what to do and found a website that said to put stuff over the nest and leave it overnight and if it hasn't been disturbed, the nest has been abandoned. So, that's what we did.

This morning, the nest hadn't been disturbed. So, I made a couple phone calls and found a place that took abandoned bunnies. I went out to the nest with a paper bag and some old T-shirts and tried to figure out how I was going to get the bunnies out. The were delicate and wiggly and I didn't want to hurt them. I was able to get them out and into the bag once I realized they weren't going to bite or scratch me. They kept coming, too. There were six total. Once I had them in the bag, I let the girls pet them.

"They're so little and cute!" Lydia squealed. I asked them if they wanted to hold one, and they both held out their hands, so I first gave one to Lydia, then one to Audrey. Audrey freaked out and threw her's back into the bag. Luckily it landed on the soft T-shirts. We put the other one back in the bag and then washed our hand. We drove out to the animal rescue place and said our good-byes.

Audrey was very matter-of-fact about it. "The babies are at the hopsital (her pronunciation), and the mommy is dead and the daddy is dead. I droppeded mine because I thought it would bite me. That makes me sad."

Lydia was more dramatic and told me all the way home that she missed the cute little bunnies and cried herself to sleep, "I just miss those bunnies so much." Awww. She asked if we could go visit them, but I told her that they would get healthy and then live outside again. I told her we could go visit bunnies at the pet store, and she seemed OK with that.

Mother of the Year

This weekend, we took the girls to Green Bay to visit our good friends, Adam and Jenny. We love visiting them because they are so great with the girls and going to their house is like being on vacation for us. The girls get to play somewhere new and fun and get loads of attention and Jayson and I get to hang out with our amazing friends. This past visit, we were up past midnight drinking beer and playing cribbage. A perfect night.

The girls love going to Bay Beach, which is an amusement park just minutes from Adam and Jenny's house. There's tons of rides for the girls to go on, including a Ferris wheel, carousel, train, the Scrambler, the Tilt-a-Whirl, big swings, a giant slide, bumper cars, and smaller rides for the little ones. Each ride is only one or two tickets, and each ticket is a quarter. We were there for about three hours and went on as many rides as the girls wanted and got popcorn and ice cream, and didn't spend more than $20. Here's a picture of the girls on one of the rides last year (I didn't take pictures this year because Jenny is a photographer, and part of the trip was Jenny taking their pictures for us in formal clothes in her studio and then in casual clothes at Bay Beach, so those pictures will come later). You might notice that Lydia is enjoying herself, but Audrey has a look of cautious enjoyment on her face and is firmly clutching the caterpillar.

Last year when we went, Lydia wanted to try The Scrambler. The website describes it as "Here is a fast and fun ride. Each set of four buckets twirls around and at the same time "shoots" out towards the outside. Everyone has a smile and a scream on this ride!" I was unsure at first. I didn't want to be stuck on a ride with a screaming child and be responsible for ruining her day and possibly her life. But, we did it, and she loved it. This picture is from last year when we went on it:

This year, Audrey asked to go on the Scrambler. She's a year younger than Lydia was when she went on it last year, so I wasn't sure. I suggested the Tilt-a-Whirl instead. I knew it was still a fast ride, but it just spun around, right? Not a big deal. She loves it when I spin her around. Plus, Lydia went on that one last year too and did fine. So, Jenny, Lydia, Audrey, and I waited in line for the Tilt-a-Whirl. We sat in our little car and put the bar down, and Audrey immediately got a look of concern on her face. You could see the wheels spinning in her head as she tried to figure out what the hell we were doing and what was going to happen next. I kept talking about how fun it was going to be to get her pumped up.

Then the ride began. The first time the car spun around, Audrey laughed nervously. Then I became the worst mom ever. As the ride continued to spin, Audrey looked horrified. Her chin quivered. She started crying. The worst part was that Lydia was between us. So, I tried to wrap my arms around Audrey and comfort her while Lydia yelled at me to get my arms off her. I felt so awful and helpful and just kept telling Audrey that everything was OK and it would be over soon. Finally, the ride stopped and I held Audrey as we walked off.

Audrey told me she didn't want to do that ride again. We went to the little kiddie rides and Audrey picked the caterpillars. I helped get her situated and went to watch and as the other kids loaded, Audrey broke down in tears again. She was afraid it was going to be fast like the Tilt-a-Whirl. I assured her and the guy running the ride that she would be fine, and once the ride started, she loved it. She was getting tired though, and on the next ride, she asked Jenny if she could just hold her hand, not quite understanding that Jenny couldn't just walk around holding her hand as the ride rotated.

So, we headed back to Adam and Jenny's and then headed home after a quick lunch. Audrey keeps talking about how she doesn't like the Tilt-a-Whirl and she cried on it because it was a little bit fast. So far, it doesn't seem that any damage has been done. Until she's 30 and in therapy and it all comes out that her mom made her go on a fast ride at Bay Beach and that explains all her insecurities and failures in life.

Grandma Deb

"When is Grandma Deb going to be here?" This is what I had to hear all morning on Saturday. The girls LOVE when Grandma Deb comes to visit and when they know she's coming, they won't stop asking for her until she gets here. They spent a good part of Saturday morning looking out the window for her red convertible to pull in the driveway and anxiously awaited the gifts she would bring.

Jayson and I love Grandma Deb's visits too. It means we get a night out and we can sleep in the next morning when she takes them to get donuts. Grandma Deb comes about once a month. Whenever we need somebody to watch the girls, she jumps at the chance. In fact, she's gotten mad at me before when we didn't ask her first.

Strange things happen when Grandma Deb visits, though. When we come home late at night, we never know what we're going to find. Once we came home to every measuring spoon we own (two sets) in the sink, and another time, glitter all over the deck. Sometimes discoveries don't happen until the next morning, like when I woke up in the morning to change Lydia's diaper (when she was little), and it was on backwards. Or, recently when the girls told me that Grandma Deb let them have "one of those granola bars" for a snack before bed. Knowing that we didn't have granola bars, I asked them to show me, and they pointed me to the Clif Bars. At least they got their protein for the day.

This past Saturday, we got home earlier than expected, at around 9:00, which is still well past the girls' bedtime. Lucky Grandma Deb sleeps with the girls on the futon. They insist on it. When we got home, we could still hear them giggling and whispering before falling asleep, so we went in to give hugs and kisses to say goodnight. Lydia had green cat whiskers drawn on her face. I took her into the bathroom to wash them off, and she looked at her toothbrush and said, "I didn't brush my teeth."

Grandma Deb may not do things the way we would, but we know everything she does is out of love. We know that when our girls are with Grandma Deb, they are loved, they are safe, and they are happy. That's what matters to us. We are so thankful for her!

Happy Mother's Day

I never thought I would have daughters. I always knew I would have kids, there was never a doubt in my mind that one of my callings in life was to be a mother. To sons. Not daughters. I knew I would have sons. Four of them, to be exact. I daydreamed of my little clan playing football in the back yard and wearing matching jerseys to baseball games. Aside from being athletes, they would also be very smart and have top-notch personalities.

I told people that I didn’t even know what I would do with a girl. I rarely wore make-up, my clothes were fairly basic, and accessories were an afterthought. Even my job, a construction engineer, required me to wear steel-toed boots and an over-sized fluorescent orange vest. I felt I would ruin a girl. I was too uncoordinated to be considered a tomboy, but I definitely was not a girly girl. I just didn’t care for girls, especially that six to nine year-old range where they play with Barbies and My Little Ponies. Luckily, Jayson felt the same way, and was looking forward to raising our brood of boys.

When I was pregnant with our first child, we did not find out the gender. Why would we? It was going to be a boy. I bought boy clothes, and to be safe, some that would be considered gender neutral just in case it was a girl. Of course, if it was a girl (which it wasn’t going to be), she wouldn’t wear pink anyway, since I despise pink. The nursery was painted green and yellow and the dresser was stocked with Milwaukee Brewers onesies and blue outfits with puppy dogs on them.

Then, Lydia was born.  Defiant from the start just by refusing a Y-chromosome, she was born when I was induced over a week past my due date. My mom, the mother of three girls, showered us with pink clothes. Dresses, rompers, ruffley socks, onesies that proclaimed “Born to Shop!” I remember my mom calling shortly after Lydia was born and she asked me what I was doing and I complained, “Laundry. A load of pinks.”

When Lydia started to lose that newborn squishiness and stretched out into the world a bit, I realized she was beautiful. Yes, I know all moms think their kids are beautiful, but at the risk of sounding like a huge jerk, mine really was.  She had enormous blue eyes surrounded by long dark eyelashes.  Her face had a tiny delicate nose and her chin was slight and angular.  When her hair grew in, it was a mop of amazing blonde ringlets. People would stop me to tell me how stunning she was.

Then a strange thing happened. I started to enjoy clothing her in frilly pink dresses. I attempted to tame those ringlets. I painted her fingernails. I embraced the girliness. Then an even stranger thing happened. I started to wear make-up. I cared about my clothes. I wore pink. Somehow, my daughter became an accessory and I felt obligated to live up to this amazing ornament I had been presented with. I felt like a frumpy housewife who had been given a designer purse and honey, I was going to work that purse.

I still held out hope that she would at least be athletic. We signed her up for soccer and showed up with a water bottle and goldfish crackers, ready to cheer on our protégé. We watched, horrified, as she hid behind trees and ate grass. We cringed as the team took a lap around the field and she was the caboose, looking dreamily at the clouds. We gave in when she asked to take dance lessons instead. I had envisioned cleats and cups, and I was now faced with a reality of tap shoes and tutus.

Jayson and I have obviously had two more girls since Lydia.  Audrey and Charlie. I have several sets of matching dresses for them. We have drawers full of hair ribbons and nail polish. We have more babydolls than we know what to do with, and even a couple Barbies and My Little Ponies.  Last spring, Lydia had her first dance recital the day after I gave birth to Charlie. I made Jayson bring Lydia to the hospital so I could do her hair and give her a little lipstick to wear.  

So, now I have my three girls who I love more than I ever could have imagined. We're done having kids, and I know Jayson is disappointed he doesn't have a boy, but I also know he would give his life for his girls, and I also know he isn't willing to try his luck on a fourth, for fear of ending up with twin girls. We are constantly amazed by the lives we have brought into this world, and every day is an adventure. We sit back and marvel at how quickly they learn, laugh at the goofy things they do, feel our hearts swell as they hug and love each other, and just try to soak it all up before we blink our eyes and they're teenagers.

More Quotes

The other day, Audrey pointed to some freckles on my upper arm and asked what they were. I decided to be goofy and pretended like she was pointing to my arm, not the freckles, and said, "They're muscles!" She got a big smile on her face and said, "They're little ones!"

We were doing pedicures and manicures last week and the girls were telling me their favorite colors. Audrey said, "My favorite color is sparkles!"

Audrey also constantly asks what time it is, even though she has no concept of it. She'll say, "Mommy, what time is it?" and I'll say, "4:23." and she goes, "Oh, 4:23? OK."

Quotes

Part of the reason I wanted to blog was so I could document all the things the girls do. I found I've focused on the big events, and not the day-to-day funny things the girls say, so I'm going to post short quotes more often.

As we were watching the royal wedding on Friday, Lydia heard them say they were in London and she turned to Jayson and said, "Daddy, you've been there! I don't know why they didn't just get married in Madison."

Last Sunday at church, there was a bald lady and Lydia asked me why she was bald and I told her we'd talk about it later. So, later on I explained to her that the woman had cancer like Grandpa did, and when you have cancer, one type of medicine is chemotherapy, and it makes your hair fall out. Later on in the week we went to the grocery store and there was a very butch woman and Lydia said, "Look Mommy, she has cancer too."

Audrey has been telling me, "Mommy, I love you. Even when I'm naughty, I still love you."