She's never seen a mess she can't handle.

I was blissfully nursing my little milk junkie while watching Hailey hum a merry tune as she cleaned the table. You know, wiping it of any possible dust that might have - God forbid - collected since the last time she wiped that very table.

Because, you know, a lot of dust can collect in a few hours time.

I mean a lot.

You just don't even know how much.

Mary Poppins, you can move on to the next house, thank you. Spit-spot!

So I don't know who was enjoying herself more; the cuddling mommy, the nursing baby, or the cleaning toddler.

Suddenly, said cuddling mommy feels a distinctly warm sensation on her foot. The one that is attached to the leg curled up on the couch supporting the nursing baby as she, well, nursed. She hadn't moved. She hadn't grimaced. She hadn't come up for air. Yet somehow, she'd produced the super poop. And it was defying gravity, as only super poop can do, as it spilled out over the top of her diaper, and dripped down onto my foot, my pants...the chair!

Really? It had to go on the chair? The CHAIR!?!?

I holler into the kitchen at the genius of a cook that is my husband, as he was whipping up something spectacular for dinner, "Honey, I think this one will require some help in the clean up."

There was no response. I think he was pretending not to hear. You know, with the loud rumble of the boiling water and all. Instead, a bouncy little toddler comes up to me, clean wipe in hand, excited as ever, and says, "ME?!?"

Now tell me, do your kids volunteer to help clean up? And if they do, do they volunteer to help clean up POOP? This kid rocks!

The Belle of the Ball

Halloween 2005 (3 weeks old, about 6lbs.) Hailey was a pumpkin. She was a pumpkin by default. There is very little to be found in the way of preemie Halloween attire. That hat is so big it still fits her now!
Halloween 2006 I made a ladybug costume for her. I admittedly have a certain affinity for bug costumes with tutus. Just look at her. How could I not?
Halloween 2007 Hailey was Minnie Mouse. Last year was officially the first year that I had little say in her Halloween selection, though I think I remember giving her some guidance when it was between this and other weird ideas she came up with. Pregnant and tired, I didn't even attempt to make it...thank you Disney people...and Ebay.
About a week ago:

"Mommy, for Halloween, I will be a bunny rabbit, and Kiki can be a bunny rabbit, too. So we match! I be a cute bunny rabbit!"

Two days ago:

"I will be a kitty cat, and Kiki can be a bunny rabbit."

"Okay, well let's wait a bit longer and make sure you don't change your mind."

"Okay, but Mommy, I want to be a kitty cat, okay?"

"Okay."

Today:

We walked into TJ Maxx this morning with the intention of finding some jammies for Keelyn...no luck, by the way. With time to kill before the library, we began strolling the aisles. That's when Hailey spotted the Halloween costumes at the other end of the store. I kid you not, I think the racks actually parted, allowing her eyes to zero in on her target.

In a voice I have only heard her use a handful of times, she shouted, "OOOOOOOOHhhhhhhhh, I see princess dresses!" Her tone commanded attention, and in case it didn't, the volume at which she used it did. She took off across the store in true Hailey style. This means she took about five steps away as briskly as possible, only to turn around and wait for me repeatedly until we met our destination. "You comin', Mommy? You comin'? Them are all the way over there!"

All the way over there, in a not so well kept corner of the store, was a rack of adorable Halloween costumes for kids just Hailey's size. As I caught up to her, she was lost in the big, puffy dresses, rummaging through in a way only a truly trained shopper could do. As I watched her and pondered over what it says about me that I was so impressed by her skills, she emerged with, "A beautiful Belle dress! I wanna be Belle. I will be a beautiful princess!"

Around the same time, I spotted a really cool bumblebee costume, complete with tutu, and began negotiating.

"Hailey, look at this bumblebee dress! You could be a ballerina bumblebee! Isn't it so pretty?"

"I wanna be a beautiful Belle Princess."

"Or what about this kitty cat costume (also adorable)... didn't you say you wanted to be a kitty cat?"

"Um, no, that's okay, Mommy. I wanna be a beautiful Belle Princess. Oh, and Kiki can be a Disney princess too, Mommy! We can match. We can be so pretty!"

"Okay. Belle it is."

Obviously I will not be making anyone's costume this year. Fun as it may be, I have no time, and when I do have time, I am typing up these blogs, so there you go. And obviously I have absolutely no say in how Hailey dresses this year...or Keelyn, for that matter. Two beautiful princesses will grace the street this year. Now all I have to do is put up with what I heard the entire ride home today:

"Mommy, Halloween is tomorrow?"

"No, baby, Halloween is in a month...after your birthday."

"Mommy, my birthday is tomorrow?"

So pictures of birthday and Halloween to come, in due time, which is not tomorrow...or the next day...or the next.

I'm really in trouble.

When Hailey was a baby, I couldn't wait for each milestone to come. I would read ahead in my books about what to expect in months to come, and watch her develop into a different kid with each month. It was so exciting watching her learn, and looking at things with her from a whole new perspective. This time around, I have no time for books. Each time Keelyn starts to do something new, I'm shocked, and I'm all, "No way, it's not time yet, I'm not ready yet...she can't be crawling." Of course it is amazing, exciting, joyful, and all those other great feelings a totally awesome kid can bring on...but with a side of terrifying. Two children moving around my house is terrifying.

And Keelyn is into everything. And everything goes into her mouth.

For a month now, she has been getting around via her own style of crawling, inching, rolling, squirming, pushing, pulling, and anything else that might move a baby across the floor. All of these things proved both useful to her, and convenient for me, as they were S-L-O-W.

Yesterday, she turned seven months old...and she also decided to kick those old habits, and get down to business. This is proving both useful to her, and a nightmare for me.

It's the real deal now.

It's only a matter of time until she heads off to college.
In case you are wondering, the answer is yes. Yes, she took all of those diapers out of the bag, and then proceeded to devour them.

Some Girls

Let me set this up for you:

When Hailey woke up from her nap today, I helped her go to the bathroom after removing her nap time pull up. We were at my mom's and it was time to head home, so I was anxious to get her help with cleaning up the array of toys speckling the floor. She LOVES every toy my mother has (most of which used to be mine), so by the end of a visit there, the house is inevitably a disaster. Anyway, the pull up was off, but I totally forgot she needed...um...what do you call them???...p, p, p...PANTS!!!

Me: Hailey, come help me clean up please, it's time to go.

Her: (Giggling and running around like a lunatic) But Mommy, I need my underoos and pants!!!

Mom: Hailey, that would have been pretty funny if you'd just left the house without your pants on, huh?

Her: Oh dear. Well, some girls do that.

WHERE has she been hanging out???

1, 2, 3, BLOW!! Green light means GO!!

Note the matching outfits...Hailey and Baby Emma...same dress. Apparently this sets the mood for a great day.

"Excuse me, is that your daughter?"

Gulp... "Yes, she's mine."

This quick conversation at the library today got me thinking...

I remember the first time I actually referred to Hailey as my daughter. I was calling the pediatrician upon returning home from the hospital to make her first newborn appointment. The word daughter didn't exactly roll off my tongue. I could feel the weirdness as I said it, as I realized this was the first time I had said it.

It's the same feeling I had the first hundred times I called myself Cassidy Plunkett, or called Andrew my husband. Eightish months of trying to conceive, eightish months of shared gestation, and still, the word daughter was foreign. It made me feel old. Old in that I shouldn't actually have this responsibility because I am not really an adult yet and can still remember my class schedule as a senior in high school kind of old. I felt even older when the doctor who delivered Keelyn was only a couple of years my senior. Like, now I am actually old enough I could even be a doctor kind of old. Like I can hang out with real adults and I don't have to sit at the kids table any more old. Like I have my own kids old.

You'd think I'd be used to it now. What, with three year's experience, and a second daughter to boot. But I'm really not. She is my daughter. But she's really just my Hailey. And Keelyn, my Keelyn. I like to think of them as pocket sized buddies who enjoy snuggles and play, while also requiring I meet their most primal needs on a regular basis so that they can grow and continue to snuggle and play.

Lately Hailey's been driving it home that she is becoming more than a pocket sized buddy, as she is developing her own thoughts, feelings and opinions, and expressing them rather well. She verbalizes her every thought when she's in the mood, and it's really interesting to learn how she thinks the world works. It's really very simple.

We passed a tractor-trailer today painted with characters from children's books. Clifford the Big Red Dog was plastered across one side. Hailey's comment: "Wow, Yook Mommy! Dat truck is big enough to cawwy Cyiffod and Emiyee Eyizabet in it!! Where you think them goin'? I bet them goin' to da yibwawy too! Yeah, for story time just yike us." Of course that is what they are doing. Of course that huge truck was built just to carry a huge dog. Of course.

In the car on the way to the library, Keelyn fell asleep. It was about 9am, and the moon was visible in the clear autumn sky. "Mommy, the moon came out so Kiki can take a nap! That's a nice moon. Nice moon just for Kiki."

My mom and I were pretending to have a valid discussion about Bolivian politics that was way over Hailey's head...and mine. There was a pause in conversation, and Hailey chimed in with, "Yeah, that's what she says all the time. I know. Haha!" She sat there with her legs crossed. Her fingers were folded over her knee. I looked at her with a questioning expression. "What?" she asked, "It was my turn to talk." No idea what she was talking about.

So you can see, her mind is full of thoughts, and my job is to decipher which are real to her, and which are imaginary. Most are real, even when she knows they should be imaginary.

The biggest change in Hailey recently has been her ability to handle overwhelming situations. If you are tired of me praising the ballet experience, you'll have to suffer through yet another great credit to the world of dance. I totally attribute our experience at the library today to her new independence in dance class, and her knowledge that it is okay to step away from me for a minute once in a while.

We have been regularly attending story time at our local library since Hailey was six months old. She always enjoys it, always from my lap. She rarely participates, rarely smiles, always says it was fun and wants to go back. Today we walked into the library, and I followed her to the ticket counter, and then to the story room. She stood beside me and participated in every one of her favorite songs and rhymes, jumped through bubbles, and even included her baby sister, who is also beginning to enjoy the entire experience (though she would prefer to crawl halfway across the room rather than sit quietly in my lap). It was like I had a different child with me today. A child who knew how to enjoy this time. A child who was happy to be there. A child who took all of it in stride. It was amazing.There are moments when I wish we had a floating photographer who could snap a picture of us in our daily life once in a while to preserve the exact moment, and the exact feeling. Moments when we are all integrated, and completely in sync. Moments that feel as if they were hand crafted to be just as they are. Today at the library, as I watched my girls hug, sing, dance, and play, I felt that. Today as we all sat in Hailey's bed before nap time, I felt that. Today as we carried our groceries into the house, I felt that. Simple, perfect moments.On a final note, I have recently become aware of the waves I seem to ride on this blog. I think I have times in my life where all I see is the humor, and I share the funny things that happen, or my thoughts spin things that may otherwise be mundane, into a humorous situation. I also have times when I am feeling all mushy about my life, and I am oozing pride and happiness and love and gushy stuff, and that's all I can write about. I am definitely in mushy mode right now. So, in case I am boring you, or causing you to throw up in your mouth while reading, we'll end lightly, and I'll send you a breath mint.

Keelyn is finally growing hair.
It is not growing straight. It is not growing down.
It is going up, up, up, and curling around.

Call her Cindy Loo Who, or a Sneetch, or what you will.
I think she'll have her daddy's curls, and those are big shoes to fill.

It's a mohawk and it's here to stay.
It curls atop her head more and more each day.

While I was sleeping...

...the laundry was done...
...they rode the carousel...

...baked apple pie...
...her eyes turned green...
...she napped with me...a lot...
...and her toenails were well cared for.
I kinda feel like I missed a lot. I think I mentioned that before. I got to take Hailey to ballet today for the first time in a few weeks. It was so great to see her face when she was done. You just can't match the feeling that comes over you when your little girl flashes a real, true, proud smile. And Keelyn is busy trying to crawl, so every moment with her is exciting right now...and dangerous. The things I missed were little, but they were moments that would have been mine.

Looking at these pictures makes me realize just how much I love our every day life, and the things I get to share with my kids...from eating laundry, to taking naps. Okay, so I didn't miss out on any naps, and I did get to eat that apple pie...but I even miss being the one to go to Keelyn in the middle of the night when she cries. Sometimes it wears me out, but taking care of these girls is the biggest blessing I could ever imagine in my life.

So Very Scary

Twenty pounds of sheer horror. That's our cat for ya. She's just a big fat scary bucket of lard. With claws. And sharp teeth. Boy are they sharp. Oh, and those eyes. They can stare you down like the face of a blizzard. Whatever that means. That and her belly looks like she actually did swallow a small child at some point. Anyway, if you are of equal size, and significantly less mobile, she's rather frightening, apparently.

Keelyn is terrified as of today. It used to be that whenever Diva walked into the room, Keelyn's body would jump around as she squealed with delight. Her eyes danced around the room as they followed that fluffy party of a tail that looked just perfect for pulling if she could only get to it.

That's right, I said party.

She's spent weeks now just trying to get to it. The party tail.

She's pretty mobile now, Keelyn, that is. The cat would be faster if her belly didn't sweep the floor as she walks. But Keelyn's mobility...we'll call it an inch worm maneuver that involves hoisting her bottom into the air, toes curled under, and then diving forward to catch herself on her hands only a split second before her nose would otherwise plunge into the floor. I think crawling would really be easier, but to each her own, right? At least she is going forwards now. Last week was full of frustrated whines as she found herself only moving further away from the things she desired with each attempt at crawling...or inching, or whatever.

So now that she's mobile, she keeps ending up near the cat without such intention, and then she just freaks out. It's like she's afraid now that the big beast sees that she can move around, there will be some sort of competition in which she will certainly lose. If only she knew how horrified the cat really is at the revelation that there are now not one, but TWO small people living under our roof that can chase her around the house, splash her water around, and throw things at her. I bet she never thought the day would come that she'd wish we still had dogs.

Twice today as I was changing out laundry, Diva walked by Keelyn and had her in tears. Then, this evening Keelyn was playing on the floor in her bedroom, and the cat just came and sat down in the doorway to watch. You'd have thought I just threw the cat at her and said, "Watch out! You better catch her, or she'll eat you!" She was shrieking with terror by the time I scooped her up to save her.

In all honesty I can understand. Imagine if there were an animal walking around your house of similar stature all day long complaining that there isn't enough food. Imagine you knew in your heart of hearts, that creature could catch you if it wanted to. Come on, you'd scream.

The best therapy money can buy

When I danced growing up, we all used to joke about how you had to have a little emotional baggage, or at least some quirkiness of character, to be able to bare your soul on a dance floor...to be able to sweat endlessly for something that most of us knew would not take us much further than our early 20's in life...and to be able to do all of this with the same people (who happened to mostly be of the estrogen-producing variety) for hours upon hours every week. I think I could write a book about the crazy minds of most dancers I know. Creative, open, and crazy. It's a way for lots of very different personalities to leave differences that might divide them at the door, and appreciate the wonderful things that make them the same...

I think I mentioned before that I really want my girls to experience this. Maybe even through dance. I'm not saying Hailey carries the emotional baggage of a female teenage product of divorced parents, but she certainly could use a regular outlet in her life, even at her young age.

We have now had two successful weeks of ballet class for Hailey. Two weeks with minimal concern about going in on her own. Two weeks of sheer enthusiasm coming out.

Apparently, all you have to do is tell her there is somewhere you have to be during class, and that you will return upon completion of that errand to pick her up, and she's all, okay, well I'll just go to ballet then, and see you in a bit. Happy shopping! So far Andrew has taken her, while he has gone to the drug store (last week), and the book store (this week). I am totally intimidated by the thought of coming up with a new place to go each week while she is dancing, but I'm guessing once this becomes even more comfortable, it won't matter much what we are up to, because she'll just want to be there anyway.

Today she got ready about an hour early. Andrew came to get her, and she was out the door and down the front steps before he could say hello. This is just great.

She absolutely loves it. She is "flying" around the house, twirling on her tippy toes, and singing the opening circle song all day long.

Oh, and she's pretending she's Ms. Sandra. And she needs everyone to come to the ballet room, otherwise known as Target, otherwise known as the living room. And she needs all her ballet girls to sit on the blue line...and they need to sing "Open, shut them"...and they need to march, march, march. And then they get their stamps. Which might even be better than stickers.

I can't tell you how proud I am. My heart is just a big ol' bucket o' proud. So is hers. The transformation she's made, the accomplishment she's made, the fear she's overcome, the creative mind she is opening up...it kinda takes my breath away.

And then I think, well, she is almost three. But then I think, but she's only three.

Absense makes the kids grow cuter

I'm here, but not really. I'm pretty much stuck in bed, with the occasional motivation to get up and move around a bit. That motivation is usually shot down by the distinct pain I am feeling, and I quickly find myself frustrated and back in bed. The doctor said two weeks to recover. I was thinking two days and I'd be partying, selling off my monster bottle of pain killers to the highest bidder. But, alas, those pain killers are mine, I tell you, and I fear I will clean out the whole bottle all on my own before this is over.

I think I'll indulge just a little further into my sobfest and say that the worst of it all, just as I predicted, is what I am missing with my girls. They have done all sorts of cute things without me, thanks to their very wonderful Super Daddy who is juggling all things house, child, and laid up Mommy.

I kid you not, I so much as breathe heavy, and he's at the bedside with a cup of water. But, oh I miss the babes.

Thankfully, I am feeling well enough to indulge in my usual make-out fests with Keelyn. Have I mentioned her affinity for showing me affection? It's constant with her. She makes funny noises (we'll call them her "mommy call") while grabbing my face and throwing herself on me repeatedly. It's her ritual. She's all smiles, all drool, as she works to slobber all over anything she possibly can. This mostly involves, but is not limited to, my nose. It's just how she kisses, and so far, she saves this outpouring of love (and drool) just for me. So...we're back to that. And it's a good thing, as the first day or so of not much Mommy time did a number on both of us. It works well with the nursing in bed, because she finishes eating, and then she can just shimmy her way up to my face and have at it. I love her so much.

Hailey has also shown lots of affection by bringing her night time stories to me in bed, and cuddling up to chat regularly so as to keep me in the loop on what she's doing all day with Super Dad. Her days so far have included riding boats and trains at the park...all by HERSELF!!! She also made apple pie. For weeks now, she's been asking to make apple pie. So she and Daddy finally did it, and guess what? She doesn't LIKE it. Go figure.

Let's see, what else have I missed?

I think Keelyn has grown like an extra foot or something, and I swear I heard her talking this morning. Like with real words and stuff. And Hailey taught Daddy how to do her hair. It looked great, but when I asked her how many times it took Daddy to get her hair up in that pony tail, she said, "Um, he tried 1, 2, 5, 6, 7 times...yeah, whole lotta times." Hey, at least I know I'm still needed around here when I get done enjoying these pain killers, I mean healing from surgery.