Sometimes I wonder how much longer I’m going to be sane. Maybe I’m already insane. My daughter is driving me crazy. You may remember this. I don’t know what the problem has been the last two days but I’m sure tired of it. Maybe it’s the lack of routine. Usually she goes to pre-school on Fridays, but it was cancelled last minute yesterday. We went to the lake and fed the ducks instead. It was a fun alternative activity and both kids were really good. The hard parts started yesterday afternoon. Of course she refuses to nap. Then quiet time becomes “time for London to try anything she can to get out of quiet time.” That becomes not so much fun for her parents.
I’m pretty sure her actions are ways for her to get attention. Maybe she feels like Ashton is getting more attention and she wants it. She does everything possible to make me mad at her. She even hit me once yesterday and once today. I don’t know where she gets that because I have NEVER hit her. Sure, I’ve spanked her once or twice, but never hit. And even so, I can count the number of times she’s been spanked on one hand. But nevertheless, I guess she’s starved for attention. She wants it, whether it’s negative or positive. This afternoon after coming home from running a few errands as a family, I left again by myself. London threw a fit because she wanted to come with me. Of course I didn’t want to take her. She was rude and disobedient all day. Why would I reward that? So I left her home with Taylor to deal with the craziness. She’s not as bad around him. She wants the attention from me. Maybe I need to re-evaluate. I guess she needs some London/Mommy time. Maybe that would help us both to me more sane.
Last Christmas my parents bought London a DoodlePro. She has always really liked it, but recently, she hardly ever puts it down. She is constantly walking around with it like she’s carrying a painter’s palate. She draws pictures of everything and she’s getting really good. My favorite is her cow drawing, udder, milk bucket and all.
I took London to get her hair cut at a salon yesterday. I chose a kids salon and read some online reviews, just to make sure that’s what I wanted to do. There was one bad review, but the good outweighed the bad, so I decided to go ahead and book an appointment. When I called, I asked if there was somebody who does especially well cutting curly hair. “We all know how to cut curly hair,” was the response I got. Yes, I understand that, but I’m sure there are some that are just better at it. I shrugged it off and set up the appointment. When I walked in and signed in, I was kind of surprised at how dirty and cheesy the place looked. It is for kids, but it looked like a Supercuts with pictures on the walls especially for kids and dresses for sale. There wasn’t really anything special about the place at all. I should have followed my instinct and left then, but I didn’t. I signed in and waited a few minutes before it was our turn.
When it was our turn, they looked at me like I hadn’t signed in and were confused as to who I was. They finally figured it out and London sat down, where they threw a cloak around her to keep the hair off. The stylist didn’t even cover her completely and proceeded to spray her curly hair with a spray bottle and comb it out. Luckily for London, I had washed her hair that morning because it wasn’t as tangled as it normally is. The stylist didn’t even try to be gentle while combing her hair. London was super nervous and the stylist didn’t do anything to make her feel more comfortable. I stood there holding her hand the whole time. Oh, and I noticed hair still on the floor from the last client that hadn’t been swept up. It wasn’t just a little bit of hair that was missed in the sweeping, the sweeping had not been done. Gross.
Now for the cut. I asked her to take 3 inches off, and give it some layers. When she started cutting, she just cut straight across the bottom. I noticed that London’s part wasn’t straight and brought that to the attention of the stylist. Instead of fixing it, she argued with me about how that’s the way her hair naturally falls. I had to explain to her that when I do her hair, I part it straight. It just happened to not be straight today. I don’t care if that’s the way it naturally falls, it should be straight! When she was finished, I asked her to put more layers in. She argued with me on that point, too, telling me that if she cut more layers, she would cut all the curls off! By this time, I was really mad. I know my daughter’s hair. The curls would not be cut off. The whole point of the cut was to make it more curly! The length was weighing it down. I finally stopped arguing, paid the lady and left. I couldn’t tell what her hair would look like because the lady didn’t style it, or put any product in it (besides a little hairspray to hold the glitter she put on her head). Does she not know that combing curly hair and not putting product in it makes it frizzy?! I did her hair today and it just looked okay. I’m definitely going to cut more layers myself. Since the top is longer and more weighed down, it’s less curly than the underside, which makes it all look the same length right now, even with the miniscule amount of layers the “professional” added. I won’t be going there again. Ever.
London has always been a book worm. I think part of her love of books comes from our reading books to her every night before bed. Because I was so set in a routine with her, it has been difficult to work a baby into that routine, especially at bed time. Recently, though, we have started reading books with Ashton too. She loves reading his books. Sometimes she even reads his books to him. And he absolutely loves reading. He finds books so fascinating.
London really wanted to help with the flooring. She was excited that it fit together like a puzzle. She found scraps and placed them together so she could help Daddy. She was so proud of her work. She’ll probably always think that she actually did some of the floor all by herself.
Obviously she's never had lessons. Check out that atrocious bow hold. (This was a year ago.)
Today London and I are thankful for violins. That’s what London said, but I’m not sure if I believe her. You’ll understand why soon enough. When I think about maybe teaching London violin, I can’t believe any child could be taught that young. I’m sure it would make a world of difference if it wasn’t her mother teaching her. I started the violin when I was London’s age. I honestly can’t believe my mother let me. I don’t know how she stayed sane, especially with another child a year older taking cello lessons. I have asked London a couple of times if she wants me to teach her how to play the violin and she tells me that she already knows how. I’m not going to push it, but the other day she finally did tell me that she wanted me to teach her. Anyway, that’s not what I was going to talk about. I was going to talk about how London really doesn’t like the violin. It’s kind of strange. The violin has always been a significant part of my life until I had children. I haven’t played a whole lot since I had London four years ago. I guess I’m just busy with other things now, but I do try and pick up gigs here and there. Today I played in church. It hasn’t happened for a while so it was nice to play again. My lovely cousin, Brooke, was nice enough to come and accompany me. It was so fun to play with her again. We haven’t done that since we were roommates in college ten years ago! I can’t believe it’s been that long. So I was over at her place practicing the other day and London came with me. As soon as I started to play, she went into hysterics. It’s not just that my violin playing is taking me away from her. It’s something else. For some reason, the music really bothers her. She couldn’t stop screaming. Finally I told her to go into the girls’ room and close the door and turn on music in there so she couldn’t hear us. I really have no clue what the problem is, but she was really, truly upset. She gets that way with some of her toys that play music too. When she turns them on, she gets a really sad look on her face and starts to cry. I’m not sure what to do about it. It makes me sad that she feels that way about me playing pretty music. She’ll even admit that it’s pretty, it just makes her sad. It’s no wonder I can’t play my violin nearly as well as I used to. I’m still thankful for it and hope that someday I’ll be able to play it more.
Before I get to the “N” thankful thing of today, I want to tell a dirty joke. Okay, London made this one up today. She’s hilarious. This is how it goes: What does a pea say when it poops? Poo-pea! What does a pea say when it pees? Pee-pea! She thought it was so funny.
Now for the letter “N.” London is thankful for noodles. I think she just couldn’t think of anything else that started with “N.” So Noodles it is. Sometimes she likes noodles, but most of the time she tells me she doesn’t. In fact, most of the time she tells me she doesn’t like anything (except macaroni and cheese, cheese of any kind, chicken nuggets, hot dogs and frozen peas). One time she got really excited about pasta and ate a ton, but since then she tells me she doesn’t like it.
I’m thankful for Netflix. I love that we have so many movies that we can watch instantly. We use that option often. It’s fun for London, too, to watch things she loves but that we don’t have. It’s definitely a small luxury that we enjoy.
I’m thankful to be a mom. There was a time, not too long ago, that I wondered if I would ever say that again. I wondered how anybody could actually enjoy being a mother. I can say now that I do. I love my children and I love spending time with them. I feel so blessed to be their mom. I love the conversations I have with London and I love the smiles and kisses I get from Ashton. I also love the way they interact with each other. It’s so fun to watch London make Ashton laugh. I hope they’ll always be such good friends.
London is thankful for mix. I had to have her clarify because I didn’t really know what she was talking about. She told me that mix is mixing up cookies and eating dough. She loves baking with me. We both get our aprons on and go to town. And it happens fairly often. London’s favorite part of “mixing” is eating the dough. I think she gets her tastes from me.
London has been really excited every day to come up with something she’s thankful for. Today she asked me what letter it was. When I told her, she immediately said, “LONDON!” So she’s thankful for herself. I’m glad she loves herself. I hope that she keeps her high self esteem throughout her life. I’m thankful for London too, and just my life in general. I had a really good day today with my kids. London has been bugging me to go to Sea World. I wasn’t all that excited about it, but I packed up the kids today and we headed that direction. I was pleasantly surprised how well behaved both of them were. We had a great time. I love my kids. Sometimes I feel bad for Taylor that he doesn’t get to do all these fun things with us. He works so hard for us and I’m so happy that he is a part of my life. I really do have so many blessings to be thankful for. I love my life. Speaking of which, I have been listening to this song a lot lately. It also starts with “L” so I think it’s appropriate for today.
London and I are both thankful for Kidsville today. We have been twice now and it really is her favorite place to go. When I told her that we were going to go, she was SO excited. I thought she wouldn’t be able to sleep last night because of all the excitement. Luckily for me, she slept really well. It was kind of a production getting there this morning, but I learned one thing. I can fit three car seats in the back seat of my 1995 Accord. Amazing, I know.
The first thing she did when we got there was go directly to the costume corner. She immediately found the Tigger costume. Just being Tigger for a few minutes would have made her whole day worthwhile, but she didn’t stop there. She made probably 10 costume changes. While posing for this picture she said, “Ashton’s smiling because he’s getting his picture taken with the character.”
She was Tigger, Pooh, a Jack O Lantern, a Dinosaur (2 different ones), a dragon, Superman (which was a baby costume but the feet were cut out of it so she made it work for herself), a Care Bear, a cowboy, and the list goes on. I can’t remember them all. Suffice it to say that she was in costume the whole two hours we were there. She is definitely thankful for Kidsville. Here she is in her second dragon costume of the day. She said, “Wait a minute, do I have a tail?” She thought that was pretty cool.
