One of Those Days....

Vacation is over. Camp is over. Swimming lessons--over. But that's okay, because in three short weeks my son will be starting kindergarten and I will miss him terribly. So I'm happy to be spending all day, every day of these next three weeks with my two favorite people. BUT (big but)...that doesn't mean my kids don't drive me insane daily now and then. 

Take today, for example. The day started out so well. My youngest had her last toddler music class, and my son tagged along. Nice. Then a short walk through the woods and a fun splash through a stream to the Chappaqua library (luckily we wore our rain boots!) to watch a series of short films based on kids' books. The mini-movies were cute and we laughed. Then we investigated whether there could possibly be anymore Angelina Ballerina books that we hadn't yet read, and--SCORE!--checked out two new ones.

Things went smoothly when we got back home--the three-year-old was successful with the potty (a sticker for her Potty Chart and three M&Ms, yay!)--and no one complained about lunch. But before long, things slowly began going downhill. 

It's never one big thing that changes the tone of the day, but rather a bunch of tiny, annoying occurrences that, added up, are enough to push a mother over the edge. A toddler who won't nap (but desperately needs to), a kid (or two) begging for just one more cookie, removing the husk from the corn-on-the-cob that's supposed to be for dinner to discover it rotting inside, trying to weed the overgrown mess that passes for the backyard and getting pricked by the weird, thorny vine that is slowly asphyxiating all the nice plants. The small snowflakes build up into a massive, dangerous avalanche.

Then the whining starts. Mostly from the three-year-old, but the five-year-old isn't too old to chime in with the occasional well-timed moan just when I'm about ready to crack. The half-hour before my husband gets home from work consists of me trying to give my son positive reinforcement on the marble run he's just built and read my daughter Dora and the Snow Princess (for the five-millionth time), all while eye-balling the oven to make I'm not burning dinner. 

Then they whine throughout dinner, and I end up not even tasting the food I made, or else I'm up and down so many times that it's cold by the time I get to eat. By this time, not even the bottle glass of wine I'm drinking is helping me chill out. 

I love, love, love my kids more than anything else on this earth, but bedtime cannot come soon enough. The three-year-old whines until the last possible minute but I bite my tongue because I know if I get testy with her right before lights-out, it will only delay things. So I take a deep breath and just get through it.

Then, on the way from my daughter's room to my son's so I can kiss him goodnight, the cat slinks up and makes her "PET ME" noise. It's somewhere between a meow and a purr (it sounds a little like hoochie-coochie Charo rolling her R's), and I can't help but laugh because I thought I was done, I really did, but now here's THE CAT demanding my attention. 

But with the cat, at least I don't have to look or listen or talk or read Dora. I can just sit and enjoy the peace and quiet. Phew.

Uno, Dos, Tres

I'm going to admit it: I kinda hate Dora. She's shrill, she yells, her singing is painful, and as my five-year-old son noted, "Dora is rude. She is always telling you to do something but never says 'Please.' " He makes a good point. "Say 'salta'! Again! Salta! Say 'salta'!" Jeez, stop bossing my kids around, Dora.

BUT. But my daughter LURVES Dora, and has for over a year now. (Over a year! Good god!) So, yeah, we have to live with the annoying, giant-headed, bilingual, monkey-loving beyotch.

However, I'm sort of loving Dora at this particular moment because I just realized my three-year-old can count to ten in Spanish--and really well, too. Like, if I plopped her down in Mexico, her counting would be understood by the locals.

This may not sound like a big deal, but my little girl was slow to talk--she was barely saying anything at two. So the fact that she knows her Spanish numbers (in addition to her English ones up to twenty) blows my mind.

The reason I was unaware of my daughter's proficiency en Espanol is because I NEVER sit and watch Dora with her. Yeah, I know I'm supposed to, but Dora is just too painful. So tonight, there we were on the train after enjoying dinner in the city, my daughter watching Dora on the iPad right next to me. I couldn't help but listen. Suddenly, I hear my baby counting, "Uno, dos, tres," etc.

Dora, I owe you a big apology--sorry for hating you. And thank you for teaching my baby some Spanish.