The Fish Pond: My Heart

These people.

They are going to be the death of me. All of them.

It took me four tries to get this photo (and I recognize it's not a good photo) on Easter morning. But at least all four are looking somewhere close to the camera with a not-unhappy facial expression.

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The oldest? Has thoroughly entered the tween phase. She's embarrassed to be seen with me in public, and we do the shrieking-eye-rolling-door-slamming "MOM!" thing weekly. Sometimes daily. She is wearing undergarments that I had thought I had a couple more years before I'd need to buy for someone else (who gave her permission to grow breasts, hmmm? It wasn't me, that's for sure). She has a report to do on a forest ecosystem and I'm not sure how to help her. Or even if I should, if I should let her sink or swim on her own. It's only fourth grade - is it too early for her to learn to be responsible for her own work?

Little Man is playing baseball. Not well, but it's the first activity he's actively asked me if he could do, and he seems to enjoy it, so we'll see. His first game is on Saturday. Last night, he took 2.5 hours to do what amounted to 30 minutes of homework, and he only did that because I rode his butt and made him do it. His manners are atrocious and he's horribly stuff-oriented and materialistic and I'm not sure how to fix it. We have a sticker chart. He did a week of keeping his hands to himself, and now we're working on using nice words and not shouting. But it's hard for me to make him work on being nicer when I shout at least three times a day - I'm working on it, too. But I don't know where the propensity for using words like "idiot" and "jerk" and telling people they're horrible comes from, because we don't call names. Not even when we are driving. (Honestly! I usually say someone isn't driving very well, because I focus on behavior, not on the person.) I do remember that my oldest male cousin, who is about 8 years younger than I am, was absolutely obnoxious at 8, 9, and 10, and he's a smart, funny, kind, fine upstanding father now, with impeccable manners, so maybe it's just a phase and Little Man will outgrow it just like my cousin did. I hope so.

And my Sunny girl. As her former preschool teacher and good friend said, "The Drama is strong in this one." Wise woman. Sunny is bright and, well, sunny and warm and wonderful until something Is Not As She Has Decreed It Should Be. And then. The whining. The crying. The stomping of the foot and the wailing and "Hmph!"ing. The hands on hipping. She threatened to run away last week because I "hurt" her (she wasn't hurt) when I pulled her arm away from the electrical socket where she was about to insert her wet finger (when asked why she quoted Bill Cosby and said "I don't knoooooow"), and I told her to let me know when she wanted to go and I'd help her pack, but she's not allowed to cross the street by herself. It's a damn good thing she's cute, for her own self-preservation.

The one most likely to kill me, or himself, before he's four:

Note the faint shiner on his right cheek. It's darker and more pronounced now. And how did he get such a thing? Well, your guess is as good as mine. He did it at my in-laws' house on Easter sunday, while playing around with his siblings and cousins. You'd think that either running into something hard enough to give yourself a shiner or being hit by someone hard enough to give you a shiner would warrant much screaming and wailing, but apparently, you'd be wrong. He also has a small, red bruise right next to his eye, source unknown. In the last week he has ripped off one toenail while running on the sidewalk in one of his many, many attempts to run off and do whatever he wants despite my efforts to the contrary. It may or may not have happened while he wasn't wearing any clothes. He's why I haven't been blogging and my house is still a mess - he has to be watched EVERY SECOND. When he isn't, this is what happens. I will refrain from publishing more pictures of his injuries, lest someone who hasn't spent an hour in his presence report me to some sort of authorities. But this is what happens when you let your heart run around outside of your body.

The easter bunny brought chocolate eggs and jelly beans, and chocolate bunnies. And umbrellas. And underpants. And bubbles. It's a darn shame that none of these things being brought by the Easter Bunny has made any difference at all in Nemo's desire to use the toilet like a big kid. He knows how, he just doesn't want to. It is my hope that he does exactly what his brother did, which is to be stubborn until he's three years, nine months old and then announce "I'm going to use the potty today!" and then do it and never, ever have an accident unless he's sick. A girl can hope, can't she?

There were more eggs to be found hidden on my inlaws' farm by my lovely niece. Who will be twelve in May and who is giving my SIL the same kind of grief Trout is giving me. But she did a wonderful job hiding eggs, and she'd walk along and say "Hey, Nemo! Look here!" as she surreptitiously slid an egg down on the ground next to her leg, so that he'd have plenty of eggs to find and his siblings wouldn't take them all.

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For whatever reason, Sunny decided she wanted to do a fashion show on Easter. I wish I could show you all the pictures, but most of them show someone who doesn't want to be seen on the Internet in the background, so all I can show you is this:

This was her answer to being told to strike a pose.