Tag Archives: Catie

New Routines

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We’re starting to get settled into our new routine now, and it’s good. I’m getting in the habit of making lunches at night before I go to bed, plan out the kids’ outfits in advance… all little things that make the mornings a lot easier.

Once we’re out the door in the morning, I drop Lucy off at daycare first, then take Catie to kindergarten. (The daycare is less than 2 blocks from the elementary school, so it’s an easy commute.)

Me & my buddy.

The past couple of mornings, we’ve gotten there early, so I park the car, and Catie climbs into the front seat with me, and we talk for a few minutes before we head inside. I love that time with her, where we can just sit and talk about what she’s excited to do at school today.

Her reviews of kindergarten so far have been mixed. She mostly seems really happy, but big changes are scary. She likes her teacher a lot (so do I, for that matter), but the rules are a little more strict than at daycare, so I think she’s going to need some time to adjust to that.

Our daycare has an after-school program, so in the afternoons, they pick Catie up on their bus and take her to daycare. Catie was so excited to ride the bus with Miss Debbie (the assistant director of the daycare who picks them up), and it lets her keep a little bit of her routine, since she spends a couple of hours with all of her daycare friends who she already knows.

And, bonus for me, it means that I only have one stop to pick up both of my girls in the evenings.

So, things are working out really well, is I guess what I’m saying.

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In completely unrelated news, Lucy would like you all to know that she has 7 teeth now. SEVEN!!

See?

That is a hard cheese there, Lucy.

And also, that she’s still being a pain in the ass about waking me up in the middle of the night. Which might be the impending arrival of tooth #8, I don’t know, but Motrin at bedtime hasn’t helped at all, and I still feel like I’m going to lose my mind.

So, she needs to knock off that nonsense immediately. Because I’ve decided that part of our new routine needs to be that everyone in our house gets a good night’s sleep. GET ON THAT, LUCY.

First day of kindergarten

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Yesterday’s post was all about Lucy, so now I need a minute to brag about my Catie-bug.

Where we live, the public schools have both traditional and year-round calendars. We opted for a year-round school (meaning, kids go to school for 9 weeks and then get 3 weeks off, every term), because I like the idea of being able to take off-season vacations, and it also works out well for planning visits from Dave.

So, year-round schools started today. This means that I am now the mom of a kindergartener.

Catie on her first day of kindergarten!

She has a dinosaur backpack with an Angry Bird clipped onto the zipper, a Sonic the Hedgehog lunchbox, a My Little Pony nap mat, and new sneakers that light up when she walks (her “sparkle shoes”). That pretty much encompasses Catie in a nutshell right there.

She knows how to write her first and last name. She can count to 100. She knows more words in Spanish than I do.

I love that Lucy's mouth is all, "SHUT. UP. No way!"
See look, even Lucy is all, “SHUT. UP. No way is my sister starting kindergarten already!”

She says she wants to be a paleontologist when she grows up, so she can look for dinosaur bones. But she wants to live with me and have me drive her to work every day, because she doesn’t want to learn how to drive a car. (I expect that desire to drive will kick in sooner than I want it to.) I’ve told her that she can live with me for as long as she wants, and I’ll drive her wherever she wants to go.

Lucy & Catie
Lucy will probably be hotwiring cars before she even hits middle school. That kid is gonna be trouble, I tell you.

She was so excited about starting kindergarten. I, on the other hand, have been a nervous wreck. My stomach would knot up every time I thought about it. I’ve been faking it for her sake, acting like I’m super-excited too, because I didn’t want her to pick up on any of my worrywart vibes.

Only this morning did she finally say, “I think I might be a little bit shy at my new school.” I told her that was normal, and that a lot of the kids are shy at first because it’s new for all of them.

We dropped Lucy off at daycare first, and then Catie and I went to the elementary school. We got there early, and waited outside (along with a lot of other parents and kids) for the doors to open.

A little apprehensive before school opened on the first day.

We made our way in and found her classroom. She was a little bit clingy and wanted a lot of extra hugs and kisses before I left. But really, she was fine. Great, even. By the time I got to the door, she was happily working on a dinosaur puzzle with a little boy.

No tears at all for either of us. I think we both deserve a cookie.

Me & my Catie bug. First day of kindergarten for year-round school.

I am so damn proud of her, y’all.

Pre-K graduation

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Last Friday, Catie graduated from her pre-K class at daycare.

Catie and her pre-K graduating class (she's 3rd from the right)
She’s 3rd from the right if you’re doing a “Where’s Waldo?” of the teeny-tiny caps & gowns.

I also love this picture, mainly because it captures exactly how bored all of the kids were precisely two minutes into the program.
The pre-K crowd isn't exactly known for their long attention spans.

But then there was this, which I loved.

(It seems that I am incapable of filming a non-jiggly video. Sorry about that.)

And this, which… y’all.
My pre-K graduate.

I’m generally pretty good about staying stoic through these types of things. I don’t cry at every “oh my baby is growing up” milestone. But yeah. Catie’s teacher cried, and then I almost lost it.

(The way to cope with this, by the way, is to stealthily text your other single mom friend in the room about how skanky her ex-husband’s new girlfriend is. Especially when the new girlfriend is sitting less than 3 feet away from you, and OMG honey, it’s a bunch of freaking 5 year-olds in here, do you really need to wear a dress so low cut that we can almost see your areolas?)

(Moral of the story: keep it bitchy and you won’t cry in public. Yay feminism!)

I tried to explain the concept of graduation to Catie. I told her to think about all of the things she couldn’t do a year ago that she can do now – she knows how to write all of her letters in upper and lower case, she can count to 100 & do basic math, she knows more Spanish than I do, and she’s really good at coloring inside the lines. I told her that graduation is when we celebrate all of those things she’s learned, before she moves on to the next thing, which is kindergarten. She seemed to get that.

As for kindergarten, Catie is signed up for year-round schools here. For those of you not familiar with Wake county, that means the kids go to school for 9 weeks, then have 3 weeks off after each term. (It works out well for taking off-season vacations, and makes visitation issues with Dave easier.)

It also means that kindergarten starts two weeks from today. HOLY CRAP.

The good news is that Catie is so excited about kindergarten, she asks every day if it’s time to go yet. I love that she’s so psyched about it.

My nervousness, on the other hand, mainly revolves around preparation. I’m in a tizzy worrying about school supply lists, trying to figure out what to pack in her lunchbox, figuring out the logistics of getting her there on time and then getting Lucy to daycare, etc. It’s… a lot. I think I need some to-do lists.

Oh, one last thing about pre-K graduation? Each kid was given a little book full of artwork they’ve done throughout the year, some photos that the teachers snapped of them, and then they all had certificates saying they were Most [whatever]. Catie won Most Inquisitive. Which is no surprise to anyone who’s had to listen to her ask “Why?” a million times. Or anyone who was in the car with us last night when she out of the blue (the radio was off) started singing “I’m Sexy and I Know It,” and then asked what “sexy” means. (Try answering THAT one with the grandparents in the car! AWKWARD.)

So, yeah. My Catie is a pre-K graduate. Time is a-flyin’, I tell ya.

single parenting suckage

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Ok, here comes one of those confessional type blog posts that I don’t normally write.

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I’ve been on Lexapro since last year. If you were reading my blog when I was pregnant, I blamed most of my anxiety on the house break-in, but the vast majority of it was that my marriage was falling apart while I was pregnant.

I would go to my OB appointments and see all of these happy glowing pregnant ladies in the waiting room, and when they called me back to an exam room and asked how I was doing, I would cry. I felt awful because there was no sense of excitement or joy about my baby’s arrival. It felt like my due date was just going to kick off the countdown to the end of my marriage.

(And clearly I was right about that, since Dave and I split ten weeks after Lucy’s birth.)

So, yeah, I’ve been on an anti-depressant ever since then. I think for me, this whole depression/anxiety thing is situational and not physiological. There are occasional times when I feel like I probably don’t need it anymore, but since it’s not hurting anything, I’ve decided that I’m staying on it at least until my divorce is finalized.

Honestly, the idea of not taking it scares me, because I have no idea how I’d cope without it. Maybe I’d be fine, but god, what if I’m not?

And really, there’s only one unpleasant side effect of Lexapro: I can’t cry. Or, rarely, anyway. Sometimes it’s awful, because something will happen and I really want to cry, and I can’t. I get a lump in my throat and the stinging in my eyes, but it never breaks through. I’ll get a headache because I just can’t get that release to get it out of my system.

The closest thing I can think to compare it to (be warned, this is not G-rated) is the feeling like when you’re juuuuust about to have an orgasm and for some reason, you can’t get there. It’s frustrating, to say the least.

(Btw, I used this analogy to explain it to the guy I’m dating. His response was, “I understand that there are words coming out of your mouth, but they make no sense.” Typical dude, I’m thinking. He also said that if he had to choose between not being able to cry and not being able to have an orgasm, he’d be fine with never crying again. I’m guessing 99.9% of the males on earth would agree with him.)

So, it’s a bad side-effect, and an annoying one, but most of the time, I can live with it.

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And then I have days like yesterday.

My weekend started off ok. I had a baby-sitter planned for Saturday night, but my date got canceled (emergency came up with his ex-wife and he had to take his kids; it happens, not a big deal). Catie was so excited about the baby-sitter coming over that I decided not to cancel, and instead, I went to the movies by myself.

(I finally saw the Hunger Games. I haven’t read the books, but I was curious about it. And I liked the movie, although I thought a lot of it was extremely disturbing. But I guess that’s the point.)

Sunday morning, when we woke up, Catie asked if we could go get pancakes. It’s rare that she asks me for something that I can say “yes” to, but that sounded do-able. We got dressed and went to IHOP.

While we were sitting at IHOP, Catie just very matter-of-factly blurted out, “Mommy, you love Lucy more than me.”

*RECORD SCRATCH*

WHAT?

I said, “Sweetie, that’s not true. Why would you think that?”

She said, “Well, Lucy’s cuter than me.”

I told her that was absolutely not true, that they were both beautiful and that I loved them both.

It bothered me, and I repeated it to her again later. Just sort of, “Hey, remember when you said that? Y’all are both my girls, and you are both beautiful, and I love you both the same.” She seemed to accept it, but man, that whole thing rattled me.

Really, if I look at it from a 5 year-old’s perspective? I get why she thinks that. I am constantly fussing at Catie to be gentle with the baby, share her toys with the baby, stop being mean to the baby, yadda yadda. But I don’t ever yell at Lucy, because, you know… she’s a baby.

And Lucy gets a lot more of my attention, because, again: she’s a baby. Catie is five and doesn’t need me to constantly watch her every move to make sure she doesn’t shove a choking hazard in her mouth or go tumbling down the stairs.

I don’t know how to fix that. It just is what it is.

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Sunday afternoon, we hung out at my parents’ house for a while. Then I took the kids to the playground, and we came home to do the whole dinner/bath/bedtime thing.

Oh! Big milestone here! During all of that, Lucy took 4 steps on her own. Left, right, left, right, then she fell on her tush. She was so proud of herself, and afterward, she kept standing up on her own with this look on her face, like, “Hey, look at this new trick I learned!” So far, I think 4 steps is her record, but she took 1 or 2 steps a lot last night.

And of course, it’s been 4 1/2 years since the last time I dealt with this, so I forgot how every new developmental milestone totally screws up their sleep schedules.

So bedtime rolls around, and Lucy is nowhere near sleepy. I let her stay up a little later than usual, hoping that she’d burn herself out and eventually go to bed easily.

That didn’t happen. What happened is that I let her stay up just a little too long, and she freaking lost it. She was so past the point of exhaustion, she didn’t know what to do with herself. So she screamed. And screamed.

I tried everything to comfort her. For an hour. Finally I gave up and put her in her crib and figured she’d eventually settle herself down to sleep.

She didn’t.

[Aside: Somewhere during the screaming, I got a, “Hey, how’s your evening going?” text from The Guy.
I texted back: “Teenagers should be forced to come to my house right now as an on-site demo of why they need to use birth control.”
Him: “Oooh, that good, huh?”]

After listening to Lucy scream for another half-hour (so, 90 minutes of screaming total), I called my mom. Both of my parents came over.

Catie was still awake, because it’s impossible to put her to bed while Lucy is up (plus, how could I expect her to sleep with ALL OF THE SCREAMING in the house?). So my parents showed up, and my mom put Catie to bed, while my dad paced Lucy around the house until she fell asleep.

(And yes, I had tried that exact pacing trick myself, and it had not worked for me. But my dad is the only person that Lucy wants right now.)

I took a shower while my parents put my kids to bed, then I came downstairs, sat on the couch, and burst into tears.

So, apparently when things are bad enough, even the Lexapro can’t hold the tears back.

I just felt like the most epic failure of a single parent. My 5 year-old thinks that I don’t love her, and I can’t even comfort my own baby to sleep.

I don’t know if I have made it through an entire weekend, ever, without calling in backup to some extent, and it’s usually my parents. I feel like I dump my kids on them all the time, and even though I know that’s not really true, and hell, they moved up here for the express purpose of helping me with the kids, it still feels shitty.

So many people tell me that they admire how I’m handling being a single mom, or that I kick ass at this, or whatever, and I just don’t see it. My ex-husband moved 3,000 miles away. What choice did I have in the matter except to deal with it? It’s not admirable, it’s just basic survival. I feel like I’m half-assing it at best, and on days like yesterday, I’m white-knuckling it until bedtime.

I try not to use the f-word on my blog, but really? I fucking hate it. There are two of them and only one of me, I feel like I will never be able to be “enough” for both of them. I keep hoping it will get easier when they get older, but I also know that just presents a whole different set of issues, and I’m not prepared for any of it.

It sucks, basically, is what I’m saying.

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I tweeted about it last night, and I got a lot of awesome responses because I have a fantastic online support system, and I cannot even begin to express how grateful I am for that. Really, you guys rock.

The Guy offered to come over and rub my feet, which was very sweet, but he lives a half-hour away, and no way was I staying awake that long.

I thought, oh, you know, it’ll all be better tomorrow after I get some sleep.

Then Lucy woke up 3 times last night.

Sigh.

I wish I had some cute, funny way to tie this up, but I don’t. I’m exhausted and I feel like hell.

I know it’ll be ok eventually. I know this. But for now, I’m bracing myself for another half-assed day at this whole single parenting thing.

learn from my mistakes, people

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So, yesterday. Oh man, where do I start?

(Be warned, this is a long story.)

Yesterday started off as a good day. Got the girls off to daycare with no problem, I was able to squeeze in a run during my lunch break, I was really productive with work, etc. All good stuff.

Then it started to go south.

I was supposed to pick Catie up from daycare early to go on a tour of her new kindergarten. She doesn’t start for a couple of months, but she’s been a little anxious about the idea of kindergarten, so I figured that maybe checking the place out would ease some of her worries.

I had a work conference call come up, which I absolutely could not miss, and of course it conflicted with the time of the kindergarten tour.

I called my mom in a panic. She said not to worry, she’d pick Catie up early and they’d go to the local garden center together, to distract her.

(Side note: Catie is currently obsessed with helping my mom with her flower beds. They work in the yard together all the time. It’s completely adorable. Maybe the green thumb gene skips a generation, because lord knows I don’t have it.)

I was stuck working until late, but my parents had both kids and said they’d feed them dinner, so I was fine. (Hooray for grandparents!)

I wrapped up work around 6:30 pm and headed over to their house. As soon as I pulled up in their driveway, I burst out laughing, because this was in my mom’s front flower bed:

The bane of my existence

Without even asking, I knew it meant that Catie saw the lawn flamingo at the garden center and begged my mom for it, and she caved.

I went inside still laughing, and my mom said, “Oh no, that’s Catie’s flamingo. She’s taking it home with her. She wants to put it in your yard.”

Umm, are you kidding me? Have you SEEN my house? I basically live in a pastel blue Easter egg.

See, look:

Apparently the landlord is a big UNC fan. I don’t know.

I mean, I don’t particularly care because it’s a rental and it suits my purposes, but let’s be honest. I live in the eyesore of my neighborhood. And now I’m going to make it even tackier by putting a pink flamingo in the yard? HELL NO.

Then Catie starts in, “But I named him Mango and I LOVE him! He HAS to come home with us!”

I must admit, Mango is kind of an awesome name for a flamingo, even though it makes me think of Chris Kattan.

Yep. Perfect name for a flamingo. You win, Catie.

We compromised and decided that the flamingo could live in the backyard, where it’s kind of woodsy and he wouldn’t offend all of the neighbors.

So, I load up the girls and head home. Lucy was starting to get a little fussy, and my parents had mentioned that she hadn’t eaten much, so I plopped her in her high chair and put a snack on the tray for her.

Then I went into the backyard to set up Mango the Flamingo’s new home.

Catie saw me and said, “Wait, Mommy, I want to come with you!”

She came running behind me, and pulled the back door closed behind her. I didn’t realize it because I always use the deadbolt locks on my doors, but somehow the doorknob lock had gotten turned, so when Catie closed the door? She locked us out of the house.

And Lucy was still inside. So was my cell phone.

Once Catie realized we were locked out, she burst into tears. I told her to calm down and I ran next door. My neighbors weren’t home.

I knew I needed to run, and I knew that a sobbing and hysterical five year-old was only going to slow me down. I told Catie to stay right there in the driveway and not move. I sprinted (like, I have never run that fast in flip-flops in my life) across the street. Those neighbors weren’t home either. Dammit.

So I ran to the house next to them. It’s a very nice older lady who lives there who has tried to sell me Avon stuff a couple of times. I was like, “Uh, hi, I live across the street? And my 5 year-old locked us out of the house? And my baby is inside? CAN I PLEASE USE YOUR PHONE?!!”

She let me in and handed me her phone. I called my parents and sort of shrieked out enough key words that my mom understood. (Something like: “LOCKED OUT LUCY INSIDE NEED EXTRA KEY COME NOW!!”)

I thanked my neighbor profusely and went back to my house. Catie and I sat on the front steps. And thank God my parents live so close by and were able to come quickly, because this was probably the longest five minutes of my life. Catie was crying and saying, “I’m so sorry, Mommy! Poor Lucy!!”

I tried to calm her down by telling her that it was ok, it was an accident, and Lucy was ok, she was safe in her high chair, so she wasn’t going to get hurt, and she’d be ok for a few minutes until Pop-Pop could come unlock the door for us.

Meanwhile I could hear Lucy inside, screaming her head off because she realized pretty quickly that nobody was around. That damn near ripped my heart out.

I felt like I was on the verge of a panic attack during all of this, but I also knew that I had to keep it together. What other choice did I have?

My dad pulled up in the driveway a few minutes later and threw me his keys. I ran to the door and rushed inside to get Lucy. She was so distraught, she wanted absolutely nothing to do with me, she only wanted my dad. (She’s in a very Pop-Pop-obsessed phase right now.)

Unfortunately, my dad had only come to unlock the door and still had to go back home. As soon as he handed Lucy back to me, she started screaming all over again.

He left, and I said, “Ok, you know what? BATHTIME.”

Catie, Lucy, and I headed upstairs, walked into the bathroom, I flicked on a lightswitch… and a fuse blew and all of the upstairs lights went out.

Son of a bitch.

Back down the stairs. I set Lucy down on the playroom floor, which made her SCREAM like I was cutting off an appendage. I told Catie, “Just hug and kiss your sister for just a minute!”

I ran to the garage and flipped the circuit breaker to get the lights back on, then started the whole bathtime process all over again.

Lucy never calmed down during any of this. She basically spent the entire evening looking sort of like some variation of this.

Seriously. It was a bad night.

Finally, I got them bathed, PJed, and back downstairs. Catie scampered off to call Dave on her iPad to tell him all about the evening’s dramatics, while I fixed Howlin’ Baby Lucy a bottle.

She was asleep after about two gulps on the bottle. Poor thing had screamed herself hoarse and was completely exhausted. I didn’t hear a peep from her until 8:30 this morning.

Later, I got Catie to bed, took a Klonopin, and watched the finale of Dancing with the Stars.

Moral of the story?

Get one of those “hide-a-key” things and keep a spare key outside of your house because MY GOD.

I’m going to the hardware store today. Never doing this again.

six things for Friday afternoon

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Ok, I have to get that picture of Alice Cooper off the top of my blog.

So! Moving on! Here’s a bunch of random kid stuff.

1. Words of wisdom from my 5 year-old: “In China, they eat their food with Chapsticks.”

There is a very important vowel distinction that needs to be made there.

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2. She also informed me, after watching perhaps one too many episodes of Dinosaur Train, that she is an omnivore.

“That means that I eat both meat AND vegetables.”

Why, yes. Yes it does. Slow down, kiddo. You’re getting too smart. Kindergarten doesn’t even start for another 2 months.

(Related: holy crap, she starts kindergarten in 2 months!!)

I can almost never get a picture of Catie smiling for the camera. Victory!
(No reason for this picture except I can never get one of her smiling at the camera.)

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3. Speaking of my kids growing up too fast, this just started happening.

So, this is happening. Holy Moses.

That right there is an 11 month-old baby, walking. And yeah, ok, she needs to use her little push car for support and balance, but still. WALKING. I am so completely not prepared for this.

And look how pleased she is with herself!

Did ya see me walking with the car, mama? Did ya?

KNOCK IT OFF, LUCY!!

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4. Maybe because of the almost-walking milestone, or teething, or maybe it’s just a standard-issue sleep regression, but Lucy’s sleeping habits lately have been horrific. A couple of nights ago, she was awake every hour from when she went to bed (at 8:30 p.m.) until 3 a.m. And you know, I don’t get to take a day off work just because I’m tired, so that was awful.

At some point, I decided that I just couldn’t take it anymore and I left her to cry it out in her crib. It was after midnight, and I hadn’t had a chance to take a shower because she’d been awake so much. I figured that in the 10 minutes it takes me to shower, surely she’d give up and fall asleep, right?

She was still screaming when I got out of the shower. I gave up and walked into her room. The smell hit me before I even turned on a light, and I knew (even in the dark) that she’d puked. And yep, I was right, she’d screamed so much that she made herself barf. Fabulous.

Because, you know, cleaning up a puke-soaked sobbing baby and changing crib sheets is TOTALLY what you want to do at 1 a.m.

(Plus side? Catie slept through all of it. Small favors and all that.)

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5. Last night, I had a really hard time getting Lucy to sleep (again) and she was up until almost 10 p.m. But, once she was out, she actually slept all night. So, I guess we could call that an improvement? Maybe we turned a corner? Fingers crossed.

I have to say I find both of my kids to be way cuter and more endearing after they let me get a full night’s sleep.

Even if this morning, Lucy did crawl over to me to give me a kiss, and she Alicia Silverstone’d me with a mouth full of chewed-up Cheez-Its.

Kids are disgusting creatures, man.

(And yes, I used Alicia Silverstone’s name as a verb. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, google it. And prepare to be grossed out.)

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6. One baby milestone that I fully endorse?

This self-feeding thing is my favorite. She's all, "It's cool, mama. I got this."
“It’s cool, mama. I got this.”

Self-feeding FTW! This has got to be my most favorite thing ever.

Yeah, alright, I guess I’ll keep her around. For now.

Random Sunday stuff

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Lucy made a joke! We were playing upstairs in my room, and I tossed her onto my bed (which she loves).

She crawled up to my pillow, lay her head down, then looked at me, waved and said, “Ni-ni, bye-bye.” Then she cracked up laughing at herself.

I mean, ok, she’s only 11(!) months old, so it’s pretty amateur humor. And I don’t even think it’s the first time she’s done something like that, it was just the first time I noticed it. Like, whoa, she’s this whole little person instead of just a blobby baby.

And I know that it’s kind of a minor development, really. But, y’all! Baby made a joke! I’m so proud.

Lucy playing on my bed before church.

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Speaking of 11 months old: holy Moses, Lucy is going to be one year old next month. I just… I can’t even.

We aren’t really doing a big thing for her birthday. We’ll do a family thing, and I’ll probably bring cupcakes for the staff at daycare. But, you know, she’s one. She isn’t going to remember if there was a party for the occasion or not.

I, on the other hand, feel as though I deserve a party for surviving this first year. Because this has been undoubtedly one of the most difficult years of my life – which of course is not Lucy’s fault, just circumstances, but still.

To that end, the lovely Greis will be coming here that weekend, and I believe the equally lovely Dawn will also be in town then, and I am planning on a girls’ night out of epic proportions. (If you’re local and around the first weekend in June? Let me know!)

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Yesterday I took Catie to get a haircut from my hairstylist. Her first real, grown-up, non-Supercuts haircut. She was so excited.

Catie's getting a grown-up girl haircut. She's psyched.

She was even more excited about the fact that there was a bakery two doors down from the hair salon, so we stopped by there for a cupcake after her haircut.

Enjoying a post-haircut cupcake. That's how we roll.

That’s just how we roll.

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Another random Catie aside – I know that she picks up on everything from me. Really, I do know this. So you’d think I’d be more careful about what I let her overhear, right? Well, I recently found one area where I’ve been failing at that.

Lucy loves to follow me into the kitchen and pull stuff out of the lower cabinets while I’m busy. There’s nothing dangerous that she can access, so I don’t worry about it too much.

Anyway, Catie came into the kitchen and asked why there were sponges (like, unused, still-in-cellophane kitchen sponges) on the floor. I said, “Oh, Lucy must have pulled them out of the cabinet.”

Catie gave this big heavy sigh, and said, “Ahh, dammit.”

Which is basically exactly what I say when I’m annoyed about one of the kids making a big mess. So, pretty much no question as to where she learned that. Big ol’ guilty finger is pointing right at me.

I knew that making a big stink about it would be the exact wrong thing to do, so I just kind of mildly said, “You know, sweetie, that’s a grown-up word that Mommy really shouldn’t say, so I don’t want to hear you say it either, ok?” She said ok, but now I’m waiting for that phone call from daycare.

Oh well, it could’ve been worse, right? At least it wasn’t an F-bomb.