I struggle sometimes with the whole princess thing that Jocelyn has got going on. I think having a boy first has really ruined me as a mother to a girl. Boys have such hands on play. Concret. Action. Point A to Point B. Dumping, pushing, scooping, driving, tooting, building… it’s all very simple really. When Jocelyn’s 2nd christmas rolled around, I honestly had no idea what to get her. Clueless, was I. What do girls DO, ANYWAY, was what I thought.

Storytime Treasury, A McCall Book Sleeping Beauty
The Wolf and the Seven Baby Goats
 

Now, of course, I have a much better idea, but it still seems to me that her playing is much less concrete. Much less action oriented. She’s quite content to put on a twirly dress and then kind of wander around. The most action oriented playing she does is when she plays in her kitchen or with her dolls. I realize that this type of playing is fine, it’s just harder for me to wrap my head around it. You’d think having BEEN A LITTLE GIRL MYSELF, with a huge interest in dressing up like a princess and dancing around the house would clue me in to the inner workings of my daughter’s head, but I think I’ve been abducted by aliens and lost that part of my brain or something.

Fratelli Fabbri Editori Publishers
I love the stars!
 

She has a very strong fascination with disney fairy tales. Now don’t get me wrong, I love fairy tales. LOVE THEM. I have collected fairy tale books all my life and read and re-read many different ones. I actually kind of took my older sister’s favorite fairy tale book when I went off to college and she had to nag at me for 5 years before she finally was visiting once and outright took it (damn her!)

Baby Princess, before her christening
I love the fabric all through the book, how it folds and trails.. ahh so beautiful!I wanted that hair long before I ever saw Princess Leia, and here’s why!
 

It’s just the disneyification of fairy tales that bugs me. And I’m lucky! My daughter is in love with CINDERELLA, and that was back in the golden age of disney before it started to change around the story! Don’t even get me started on The Little Mermaid and how they messed THAT up! (She dies. At the end, “Ariel” dies. Talk about taking liberties!)

All the fairies gathering at the christening
More stars! and look at those headdresses – don’t you just want to die, they’re so lovely?
 

Anyway, I don’t mind the fact that for the last month, she will often inform us, “I’m Cinderella!” and insist that we address her so. I don’t mind that she has changed the names of all her dolls and stuffed animals to Cinderella as well. I can understand watching a certain movie over and over and internalizing it to such an extent that you want to BE that character. I personally, wanted to be the Lady Amalphia and run around as a unicorn, and that was only when I wasn’t spinning around in a circle pretending to be Wonder Woman while wearing my Wonder Woman under-roos.

The fairies giving their gifts to the baby princess.
I used to pore over this page, and the one above, just studying each fairy and their apparel.
 

I don’t even mind the disney Cinderella movie that much.. But I decided to take some pains to introduce her (and Ethan, by default) to the other sides of fairy tales. The side that doesn’t have mice scampering around making dresses and birds dressing the main character. The disney movies don’t ever transport me to that magical place of times old and past of kings and queens and princesses..

I broke out my most beloved fairy tale book from when I was a girl. My grandmother must have ordered these books from a magazine. They are in a series called “McCall’s Treasury” and the copyright is for Fratelli Fabbri Editori –which i think is just the publishing house name, not the illustrator’s name.

She was my favorite – again, I love the fabric, falling away from the headdress, and also sheathing the princess.
Oh, and don’t forget the stars! Love the stars!
 

Each book contains 2 stories, and though my grandmother gave them to all my siblings, my brothers weren’t all that interested. I have the ones given to me, some of the ones given to my brothers, and some I’ve purchased on eBay.

The witch has done her worst, and now the youngest fairy will try to undo it.
Look at that sweet little baby face.. It’s hard to tell in this picture, but there are halos and halos of ruffles all around the baby’s head – so sweet!
 

This book was my favorite, and if you could see the actual book, you’d be able to tell – the binding is completely shot and one of the pages is ripped significantly. It originally was given to my brother Larry, and my grandmother even wrote a little note to him on the inside cover, with the date as 1972 (2 years before I was born). I’ve been meaning to scan pages from this book for a while, and was going to do it right when my computer died.

The princess as a teen, just after she pricks her fingers.. the material of the clothes – gorgeous!
 

I loved these books as a child, and I think I love them even more as an adult. These illustrations are simply breathtaking. I, of course, loved to pore over the fairies, especially their dress and their headwear. I love the way there are little stars in almost all of the pages, giving it that magical glamourous aura.

Love the teeny kingdown in the distance..
 

So far, the reception of this book has been met with all around approval. They’ve both requested it to be read to them at bedtime. Because of it’s condition (falling apart) and it’s value to me, it is kept away from other books out of their reach, but if they ask for it, I’ll sit down and look through it with them, and then put it away again when we’re done.

Stunning 2-headed dragon!
 

This page is so beautiful! It’s laid out over 2 pages and I had to scan the 4 corners separately and then try to fit them together. This is the last one I scanned, as the “wake up” scene is also on the title page it seemed pointless to scan it again. I strongly urge you to click and look at the bigger versions – they are even more stunning and you can see more detail.

I was thinking I may get some prints of the illustrations framed and put them up on the wall.

Anything to counteract this, currently on the wall above Jocelyn’s bed:

-amy needs a headdress like those just to wear around the house and wash dishes in.

Day 5 of Jocelyn Watch draws to an end. Beleive that it has been a success. Subject had a few moments where the mother figure was worried she would see massive snot production (the biggest downfall to milk protein intolerance) but the subject pulled through and seems to have even fully recovered from her slightly hoarse throat. Any and all post nasal drip has since cleared up, and subject appears to be in normal healthy state.

YAY!

So what does this mean?

I have no idea.

It could mean that she had ice cream that was made with a cooked custard or just crappy highly processed ice cream in which the proteins were altered or broken down enough that her system did not view them as the usual threat.

Or it could mean that she’s well on her way to being milk protein intolerance FREE!

I am tempted to test this further. Now would be a good time, if she does get sick she’d have a week or so to recover before our not-really-camping trip at the end of the month. I would probably go about it by adding a bit of cow’s milk to her soy milk and see what happens.

Must discuss with father figure. Will ponder results and will jointly decide future action.

Word.

I feel like we’re on an express train hurtling toward the end of the year. End of the year, you say? Yes, well, sort of.

This week is the last week of “Summer Camp” at our kids’ school. Today is the last “splash day” until next year

Of course, every time I try to mention this, there are misunderstandings – Ethan has this memory of when we all stayed HOME together (even daddy, who worked at home in the basement office and popped up for lunch and to witness important feats in block castles) so news of anything school related being “over” instantly translates into not going to school anymore. I try to explain. He gets it. I think I confuse Jocelyn a lot though.

We had our “big” vacation this year in May when we went to Utah to see my family and go camping, but we also planned a wee little getaway for labor day weekend. The kids’ school year (kindergarten & preschool) starts Tuesday after Labor day, and the previous Friday they are closed for a teacher work day, so we took it as an opportunity to take a mini vacation.

I wanted to go camping, especially since we bought stuff in may and hauled it home (mostly I guess it was a tent), but I also didn’t want to go somewhere where we’d be miserable with the heat and humidity. A happy medium was found when we found an almost amusement park type camp ground with water slides, mini golf and… (drum roll) air conditioned cabins. With bathrooms and fridges. So that’s where we’ll be heading that weekend, for what I can’t stop calling our “Camping, but not really camping, trip.”

The other day, Ethan said to me, “Mommy, is it fall yet?”

I looked at him quizzically and said, “No, not yet. A few more weeks. Why?”

I expected him to talk about how he can’t wait to wear long sleeves again, or show his excitement for being a kindergartener, so I was surprised when he answered, “I can’t wait to play soccer again!”

I was quick to point out to Jocelyn that SHE would be playing soccer too, and they both got all excited and wiggly over it. Jocelyn was enamored to hear she would have her VERY OWN shorts and jersey and socks. Now that I think about it.. I wonder if this is why she says “When I turn into a boy…” — maybe because she sees soccer clothes as ‘boy clothes’ and soccer as a ‘boy sport’ (which is crazy because there were tons of girls on ethan’s team in the spring) and since she knows she’s going to play soon, she thinks she’ll turn into a boy.. Hmmm. Will have to ponder this theory.

This express train feeling is all my own doing, really. The kids are kind of getting antsy with school, and I fear it will get worse once summer camp is over and school is only doing general open play for the next 2 weeks w/out any structured activities, but they’ve only fixated on the end of summer and our vacation and the beginning of school/soccer. I think that’s all pretty natural. But I am the big dolt who keeps saying things like, “Maybe for christmas,” when Ethan expresses his wish for a certain toy, and then walking him through the order of everything left in the year, “First our vacation, then school starts, then we have soccer season, and then a few months before Halloween, then Thanksgiving and then Christmas!”

A-duh. If I lay it all out like that, of course I’m going to feel like I’m running a race with the end of the year as the finish line.

So, my goal for the last few weeks of summer.. Live each day. Try to play with the kids more. Try to spend more time with my honey, instead of letting the day-to-day stuff act as “time together.” Let these last few weeks of summer be lazy, no matter what push may be on to get to the end.

And quit laying out the rest of the year like a damn race! 🙂

– amy

You thought I was kidding about turning this spot into a design blog.

Well I wasn’t! I’m all a-flurry with ideas and I must get them out somewhere!

Here is the basic dimensions of our big room in the basement. I’ve dropped some furniture in there too, but it’s all up for grabs at this point.

Created with EQ3’s Room Planner:

There are 3 basic areas this room will have. TV viewing/seating area, kids play/toy area, and my sewing area. Right now I think I want 2 to be the toy area, and 3 to be the sewing area.

I’ve been collecting ideas on all three of these areas, but I’m going to try to consolidate all those thoughts right here over the next few weeks.

Starting with the kids’ play area! First off, I’ll be so glad to get their toy/play area out of our front room and downstairs. Of course, after that happens, I’ll need some furniture to GO in that front room, but let’s take this one step at a time, shall we? 🙂

So.. take a look at the #2 area. The door goes into what will someday be the bathroom, but is now just part of the concrete-floored utility room. We also plan on moving that door to the other wall at some point.. but that is in the distant future and I’m not figuring it into our current plans.
The kids need to good bit of toy storage, and what we currently have going is assorted plastic bins of various sizes and colors filled, and sitting on the lower shelves of a normal sized bookshelf. It works, but the bins stick out a bit and it’s just generally not pretty.

I’d like to get a white expedite bookcase, 2×4 cube size, laid on it’s side, with white or colored boxes/bins in each cube for toy storage.

I’d love to do something like this for the surface of the bookcase for the kids to draw and play:

Need to make sure the bookcase on it’s side would be tall enough for them. Could I attach some short legs to it? Interesting idea.

Above the bookcase, I’d like to hang some of the ikea kitchen caddy’s for storing smaller items (crayons, markers, miscelaneous lego dudes, etc.)

And then further up on the wall, some floating white shelves that would be parent-only reachable.

I love these two chairs from Ikea and know the kids would LOVE them:

2 svinga ikea chairs $60/each

OR

2 egg chairs, blue $70/each

I’m not sure how these will work. I would love to incorporate them, but I’m not sure it’s possible in that space… the door is problematic and I wouldn’t want to hang them in front of the back wall.. If you look at the floor plan, you can see how I tried to place them (i used the dimensions for the hanging chairs) on either side of the door. Of course, if I used the egg chairs, the kids could move them all over as needed. I wish that door was gone already. Anyway. Need to think on it.

RUG

Little knees on hard floor does not a happy camper make!

3×4 FLOR puzzle rug tiles (would equal approx 5′ x 6.5′ in size)
undecided on color, but probably blue or green
cost: $15.99 / tile = $192

Less fancy FLOR:

I could buy two of these prepackaged dealios from Target ($60/each for a total of $120) for the same size rug (12 tiles). I will miss the puzzle pieces though – I just LOVE THEM!

other rug ideas (cheaper)
sew 2 or 3 of these together:

Barnslig Rand, $20/each ($60 for 3)

And this just struck me… we already have a road playmat rug currently residing right in our front entry, andwhile it is on the small side, we could just put that down there in lieu of something new.. It definitely will need to go somewhere, as it is used heavily! I guess in my head, I figured that it would stay on the main level with a bin of cars. Hmmm.

I’m referencing Ikea a lot aren’t I? What can I say. It’s because it’s cheap. And easy to link. And for kids… Ikea just makes sense. Moving on…

On the back wall, I’d like to paint the bottom half(ish, maybe bottom 1/3) with magnetic black chalkboard paint

Inspiration:

and the top half a bright color. I thought at first gray would be cool, but since it’s the toy area, I’m thinking a blue or green. will depend on the other main color of the room.

Oooh, I almost forgot.. I also would like to put ceiling to floor curtains on that back wall – the one with the window (which is one of those tiny, up high basement windows, by the way). They will likely be pulled back at all times, but I think it will make a storybook sort of feel, especially to whatever the kids are drawing on the chalkboard wall. What sort of fabric for that however, I’m clueless on. I love so many fabrics, but at the same time, fabric kind of scares me. More on that later when I expound on my ideas for my crafty sewing corner.

So those are my thoughts for the toy area! Any thoughts? Would love some more ideas. In my mind, it all works together wonderuflly, but working with that floor plan was kind of a eye-opener.. Not sure it would actually work in that space, but I guess we will see. This whole thing is going to be a big work in progress for a while, since it will be put together bit by bit rather than all in one fell swoop.. For example, I think the chairs would be a good christmas present for the kids.

THOUGHTS ON WALL COLOR FOR THE ENTIRE ROOM:

Probably a brown. Not too dark, as this is a basement we’re talking about. Although if I keep the furniture light, a dark espresso might look stunning. Oh decisions! I figure that the main color will go everywhere, with 2 accent walls – The kids chalkboard wall, and the small little wall in my sewing nook. the rest will be the main color.

How beautiful is this gray featured in domino magazine???

I like this light brown – and how cool is that ceiling? I think it works so well here because of those super tall ceilings. I wonder how it would work with normal ceilings. Could use that color for the upper half of the chalkboard wall in the kid’s nook..

Also quite fancy these colors as well:

Mmmmmmm. Yes. I like that. I definitely like that.

I also need to keep in mind the green color that is through the door into james’ office.

And I also need to remember that the color will have to carry up the staircase onto the main level too. Ooooh that gray is looking better and better! I think I need to resist.

Isn’t this fun? I think so. I’m having a ball. Since I’m a decorating clueless person, any thoughts anyone wants to offer me is VERY welcome 🙂

– amy can’t figure out what her style is.

1. James finished laying the flooring in our basement. THIS IS HUGE. This project has been lingering all summer. Maybe even back into spring. There is still lots to do, like emptying out the closet and laying the flooring in there too, laying down quarter round (the trim that goes along the floor) and then of course PAINTING and picking out furniture… Notice how that one step about the furniture is the very LAST thing.. and yet when I awoke this morning, I was dreaming about where to put the kids toy nook and where to put my craft nook and what kind of rug would look best… Yeah. Me = jumping the gun a bit. Very exciting. We are going to have a few boxes of flooring left over, and I said, “It’s costco, they’ll take them back.” And James said, “Or we could do another room!” Which is tempting, and while I’m always surprised at how nice the floor looks whenever I go downstairs, I think for the rest of the house I would like to go dark. I’d love to get chocolate wood floors. (Yum!) I foresee this blog turning very design oriented in the upcoming months! Here’s the same flooring in James’ office:

   

   this is the same stage that our basement room is in now

   

   This is james’ office, looking through the door into the big basement room that now is also laid with laminate! This is the “done” picture of the office, the quarter round trim all put up. Please note, that laying floor on a diagonal like this is, in a word, INSANE. It takes SO MUCH MORE WORK. We didn’t do this for the big room. I don’t suggest you do it either.

2. Jocelyn dairy watch: She confirmed that she ate ice cream on the ride home on Friday. Saturday went ok. Sunday she woke up with a little scratchy voice and an occasional cough and sniff. I wrote it off to typical morning congestion. Her voice improved after she was up for a while, but by the end of the day her voice was getting seriously hoarse. No real coughing though, but still, I took it as a sign that she’s got some post nasal drip irritating her throat. This morning, still pretty hoarse and some minimal sniffing and coughing. I am still looking on the bright side because there is no visible snot leaking out of her nose. I hope that’s not waiting for tomorrow.

   So to sum up, I think the milk intolerance is still there, but if this is the worst it’s going to do, then it has improved quite a bit. It could still take a turn for the worse however, and I will lift my phone every time it rings the next few days with trepidation that it’s school calling because she has a fever.

3. My mixing bowl did arrive a week or so ago, and I decided to christen it in a variety of ways, one of which was making cinnamon rolls last weekend. Yum. The other of which was to make chocolate zucchini cake yesterday. Except I couldn’t find a recipe for chocolate zucchini cake so decided I’d just use the recipe for zucchini bread and toss some chocolate chips in there except that after cake bread was completely mixed and just waiting for the last minute addition of chocolate chips, I was shocked to find that there were none in the house. So now we have zucchini bread in a cake pan that tastes nothing like cake. It’s still pretty good. And now I don’t have a gargantuan zucchini on my counter anymore. yay!
4. Since I’ve been carting my mixer in and out of the cupboard above the microwave periodically lately, I’ve taken note of several items that I have and never use and therefore must go. In fact, I’ve been taking note all over the damn house. Our garage has slowly pushed our cars out of being able to park inside, and I’ve taken note of stuff there that must also go. And since our toy collection grows and I always say stuff is GOING already and then neglect to actually get rid of it and then the kids find it and it gets put back into the toy mix, that’s out of control as well. And lastly, our son has outgrown his britax Marathon carseat(!!) and I purchased him a booster this past weekend, so there’s another thing that can go. My point is, I foresee a post about how dumb people are on craigslist in the near future. Possibly more for my own benefit than yours (although if you’re in the dc metro/no va area and are interested, feel free to contact me, as the friend price is always better than the craigslist price), here is what needs to go:
   • pampered chef cheese grater
   • pampered chef apple slicer corer
   • diaper genie (hardly used, therefore no stink)
   • Britax Marathon (close to 5 years old – probably shouldn’t be used after 1 more year, freecycle?)
   • old dresser from kids’ rooms (possibly freecycle)
   • little tikes work bench
   • ball popper
   • should we get rid of one of the slides?
   • weeble wobble village
5. My son. My tiny baby boy. He is going to be in KINDERGARTEN. He has outgrown the seat we bought him when he was too big to fit in the infant carrier anymore (at FOUR MONTHS). He is going to continue at his school in their private kindergarten program, and they have a certain dress code they must adhere to. Khaki or navy pants, white, red or navy shirt. Red or navy sweatpants for PE, with red, white, or navy t-shirt to go with it. For some reason I just hate this dress code, because it seems like kindergarten is a little young to alleviate the problems dress codes/uniforms are supposed to alleviate (designer jeans and clothes envy and what not). I guess I can understand though, there is probably still envy about what another kid is wearing at that age, but still, I am somewhat irked by it, probably mostly because he has a MOUNTAIN of clothes that he’ll now not wear much and grow out of before next year.

   BUt oh well, right? I’ve tried to get behind the dress code and the school has even asked parents of past kindergarteners to donate what they dont need anymore, and offered those donations at $1 a piece. I spent a whopping $12 dollars and walked home with a pile of stuff. I finally sat down with Ethan this weekend and made him try everything on. Surprisingly, he was very adamant that nothing go back to the school to be exchanged – there were only 2 questionable items, a shirt that was too big for him, (“I’LL GROW INTO IT!”) and a pair of pants that were not only too small, but were girl’s pants (had the bootcut bottoms that you can’t avoid in girl pants nowadays) (“WELL THEY’RE MINE NOW SO THAT MAKES THEM BOYS!”)

   He was so enamored of a pair of red sweatpants and a longsleeved red polo shirt that he insisted on wearing it all weekend. “Look at me, mommy! I’m ALL RED! I’m wearing my KINDERGARTEN CLOTHES!” Cute, but annoying when we wanted to go out into the very hot and humid world and do anything. That boy loves his long sleeves and pants, he will be so happy when fall comes and he can wear them every day.

   I just can’t beleive this boy is so grown up. It’s shocking, really.

Well, that’s all I’ve got. Probably more than enough for one monday. Ethan also ran around the house taking pictures of everything with our old camera yesterday (and this morning), so I’ll try to get those downloaded and post them for tomorrow. And FLOOR PICTURES! WAHOO!!

Hope you all had a good weekend!

Today at the kids’ school, they’re having ice cream sundaes. Last year when we saw some sort of notice that that was the special friday event before it happened, and I made frozen yogurt and sent it in with Jocelyn so that she could have a sundae. This year, we didn’t see anything, but Ethan mentioned it yesterday on our way home. James and I discussed it, and decided to let her try it and see what happened.

This whole milk protein intolerance is soooo frustrating. I hope she doesn’t come down with a cold next week (which is how it usually goes when she has anything with milk.)

It’s odd the things that can trigger it vs. the things that can’t. When we went on our utah family reunion camping trip in May, I tossed in the towel and let her have hot cocoa. I was sure she was going to get sick, as hello! It’s all powdered milk and chocolate! But she was FINE! I was flabbergasted. Either she’s outgrowing the intolerance, or the process of getting the milk to a powder cocoa form alters the milk protein enough that her body didn’t go into “germ mode” and start the snot production factory up.

A lot of ice cream is made by cooking egg and milk/cream in a custard and then freezing it – cooking the milk could also alter the milk protein, so even if she doesn’t turn up sick, I’ll still probably wonder if it’s her outgrowing it, or it just wasn’t protein-y enough.

So since we decided to let her have the ice cream today, which we decided during dinner out at Friday’s last night, we decided what the hell, and got the kids ice cream sundaes for dessert. I leaned over to Jocelyn and said, “We’re going to get you a cow’s milk ice cream sundae Jocelyn, and we’ll see if your body likes it or not.” She GASPED with excitement and was soooo excited. It was pretty cute. Then, when the ice cream came, she ate all the chocolate syrup out of the dish and barely touched her ice cream (too cold!)

So she may not get sick and it also may be just because she didn’t eat any ice cream in school! 🙂 I bet she will though, she usually doesn’t have any problem with cold things.

So, yeah. Cross your fingers for us. We’ll probably know come Monday or Tuesday.

Made this real quick for Ethan’s costume for tomorrow. It’s “dress up like a story-book character” day!

I bet no one can guess what he’s going as!

It was very easy to make, took about 20 minutes, most of it just getting the size of the template right.

I used these directions.

Edit: I had linked the wrong website for the hat pattern – corrected now.

Jocelyn has some weird notions about boy vs. girl. I don’t know if that’s because we took so much time explaining everything to Ethan (who is always wy? why? why?! all the time) that we wave and say “sure” to Jocelyn. But according to her, some things are boy and some things are girl.

Let me explain a bit better.

When she is in the bathroom and has finally finished doing her business, she will pull off a length of toilet paper and then carefully wrap it around her hand before pulling it off all nice and neat and wipe.

“This is the girl way.” she informs me on occasion.

Maybe this is because she has seen her brother yank off a chunk, wad it up in a ball, stick his rear end out and wipe vigorously. Obviously, that is the boy way.

I can’t think of any other examples, but she has a couple of these boy vs. girl things that make little to no sense.

The one that took the cake though came today on our way home. We’d gone out to dinner as a family, me and the kids meeting James there, and then divided into girls in one car and boys in the other for the ride home, as Jocelyn and I stopped at Target to get her some new shoes.

“Mommy, I’m huuuuungry.”

We’d just bought some snack type stuff that I keep in the car for after school snacks. I knew she wasn’t hungry, she just wanted one of the granola bars I’d let her pick out.

“We just ate dinner honey.”
“I want a snack.”
“No, we just ate dinner, when we get home, you can have a drink. Soy milk or water.”
“SOY MILK!”

She drinks soy milk because she still has an intolerance to cow’s milk protein. If she has something with un-tampered with cow milk*, she will get really congested. Ethan had the same thing but outgrew it by the time he was about 18 months old. We’re still waiting for Jocelyn to outgrow it (cross fingers!).

So back to our conversation. she expresses her desire for a drink filled with soy milk, and then lets out this astute observation:

“When I turn into a boy, then I will drink COW MILK!”

She has let some real stunners out lately. Like how I ate her and then she was in my tumm when she was a baby. (She said that AGAIN recently, I had better buy her a simple reproductive book I think..) but damn, this one really threw me for a loop!

I tried a few tactics. Correction never works, because she will just adamantly insist that she’s right and I’m wrong. I tried to explain that it was because her body doesn’t like cow milk. and maybe someday her body will decide it DOES like cow milk, and then she can drink it, but she will still be, and ALWAYS be.. a girl.

I guess we’ll have to wait and see if that one sticks.

*By untampered with, I mean, uncooked, or changed in any way. Yogurt = OK. Cheese = OK. It’s because those milk proteins have been changed from their original state. But milk, or a milk based sauce (like macaroni and cheese) is no good.

… when I heard this story involving Jocelyn.

Go on over to James’ often neglected site to hear it for yourself.

Today, the cleaning ladies come.

So yesterday, we had to clean up the house.

After we finished putting the gazillion toys away and straightening up for the cleaning ladies, I decided to rearrange the family room. After we moved the chair and couch, all the lost lego wheels and baby doll bottles were discovered underneath their depths and were returned to their rightful homes, we broke out the vacuum and vacuumed up all the accumulated grime before moving the furniture to their final homes.

So the furniture got moved, and everything was settled, and we were sitting on the couch resting from our labors, when Ethan, in his poking around of the vacuum cleaner, unlatched the barrel that holds the dirt, and emptied it all over the family room floor. Mine and James’ let out an indignant, “ETHAN!!!” which was followed up in our heads with, “What the &$%* are you doing?!”

Sometimes Ethan will instantly say, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” before we can even get any exclamation out, as if he’s trying to pre-empt anything we might say. But this time, he pulled the Turn-Around. Out come the grumpy face, the hands went straight to the hips, and he turned to us and said, “WELL! You guys shouldn’t keep so much DIRT IN THERE!”

It was comical really. I mean, hello! Of course! We shouldn’t KEEP DIRT IN THE VACUUM how silly of us! Obviously, this is our fault, and we should apologize for the outburst. HA!

This, unfortunately isn’t an uncommon occurence.. The Turn-Around, I mean, not the emptying out of the vacuum all over the floor. He will often try to turn things around to get out of something he has done, and this is probably because James and I both are more than willing to admit that something could have been our fault.

The little smarty pants obviously is on to something with this Turn-Around thing. It was just the ridiculousness of his claim that made me realize this defense mechanism he had been honing all this time.

So, the anger of the mess was quickly overcome at the comedy of the fact that Ethan thinking the dirt all over the floor was OUR fault, that I decided we needed to turn this sort of thing around. We need to turn around the Turn-Around, if you will!

He was about 80% in Grump Defensive Mode, which made it more difficult, but I started to tell him that when you do something wrong, or have an accident, the better thing to do is to apologize, and then see what you can do to make it right. He stalked off in the middle of it, and then came back just to stick his face RIGHT in mine, which is what he does when he’s mad at you. I pointed out that I wasn’t angry, and I just wanted to talk, and then continued. I told him that the right thing to do when you’ve made a mistake, the manly thing to do, is to admit it, and then try to make it right.

He was resistant, initially, but after I prodded him a bit, and said, “How can you make this mistake right? What happened? [I made a mess on the floor] How can you get rid of the mess? [VACUUM IT UP!]” Then, he got pretty excited, because the thing that got him into this mess in the first place, was screwing around in the vacuum, which he LOVES to do, will now get him out of it. He pulled out the handle attachment and started vacuuming up all the mess, and then when most of it was sucked up, he vacuumed the actual floor. It was very cute.

We’ll have to see if the lesson behind it stuck at all, or he will just remember the fun vacuuming part. I’m definitely going to be on the lookout for the Turn-Around and try to follow through on the “Be a Man” initiative.