In Which the Zoo is Now Underwhelming

April has been really jealous of Kimmy's fun zoo trip last week. "I wish I could stay at the zoo," she moped, shuffling around the house dejectedly.
"Me, too," I agreed.

Every time we told someone about the polar bear leaping at Kimmy, April piped up, "Tell them about how surprised I was when the mustard bottle made that noise!"

So you can imagine how jazzed she was about her kindergarten class taking a field trip to the zoo today. She wrote a list of things she needed to bring or do ("go to school with Kimmy" and "bring a lunch") and she packed her lunch last night so she'd be all ready. This morning before school she was so nervous and excited that she could hardly eat breakfast.

This afternoon when I picked her up after the field trip she showed me her zoo map and told me all about being in a group with the two Kaitlins and talking on the bus.  In the car on the way home I asked her which animals she saw, expecting a long detailed list, but apparently she'd already told me all the pertinent facts.

"Smelly ones," she said bluntly.

So now April remembers that we've been to the zoo, "Like, ten times."

Two Hours Later:
I just asked April what her favorite part of the zoo trip was.
"All it was, was giraffes," she said dismissively.

Spring Break is Hard on Everyone, Especially Their Butts

I was down in the basement sorting laundry when suddenly my mommy-senses tingled. Somewhere my children were fighting. I raced up to the TV room, where the girls were yelling and crying and hitting each other with their Wii remotes.

"Kimmy bited my butt!!" sobbed April, clutching the wounded cheek.

"What the?! KIMMY!" I yelled. "You BIT her BUTT??"

Flustered, Kimmy reverted to her standard defense. "It was a accident!" she insisted.

"No, it wasn't!!" cried April, falling to the floor in devastation. I pried her hand away long enough to check her butt--a little red, no blood. No need for medical intervention. I turned my full attention on Kimmy.

Like a desperate cornered animal, Kimmy went on the offensive. "She made me do it!!"

"What?!" I was incredulous. "Unless she sat on your mouth and mashed your jaws together with her hands, there is NO WAY she made you bite her butt!!"

"She just made me mad," she finished lamely.

"That's it!! You are GROUNDED from all electronics for two days!" Furious, I delivered the verdict and separated the girls.

The next day, Kimmy was subdued by the knowledge that she was still in the electronics-free doghouse, and spent quite a bit of time up in her room, quietly playing legos. Late in the afternoon, I needed to run out for a quick errand and left the girls home. They hate shopping, especially when there's so much nothing to be done. If you're going to judge me, don't let it be for that. Please.

When I came back about twenty minutes later, I was met at the kitchen door by both girls eagerly clutching Wii remotes.

"I forgived Kimmy and Kimmy forgived me and we really wanted to play together on the Wii so we are playing together on the Wii," explained April in her usual thorough fashion. Kimmy and April looked up at me hopefully.

I wanted to be upset, to insist that Kimmy was still grounded, I really did.  But if they've found a way to forgive each other and play together, who am I to get in the way? Isn't that what I was trying to foster in the first place? Isn't it my job as a parent to raise two children who don't let a little butt-biting get in the way of their friendship? And so I let them keep playing.

On the Interconnectedness of Cleaning and Sleeping

Last night I had a wild time out on the town which consisted of sitting in a basement family room chatting with friends about books while eating chips and salsa. It was deeply satisfying in that quiet way that reminds me that I'm an adult, and also boring. Definitely not the main character in a movie or sitcom.  When I got home it was late, the house was dark, and the family was asleep. Before going to bed myself I went around to check on the kids, you know, to make sure they were breathing and hadn't adopted any wild animals while I was gone. I've suspected for a while that the girls are letting squirrels nest in their hair, just to make life extra hard in the morning when they're getting ready for school.  I try to brush their hair and they cry and carry on like their hearts are broken, like their best friends are now homeless. I haven't actually caught the girls in the act of housing squirrels, but it's only a matter of time before one of those furry beasts leaves behind evidence more damning than matted and tangled hair, say, gnawed acorns or shredded bark.

I found both girls asleep on the floor of their rooms. I almost stepped on Kimmy, but realized at the last minute that the rug was breathing.  She was curled up in her sleeping bag in the middle of the floor.  April had made a very cozy-looking blanket nest next to her bed. She was gently lit by the glow of her five nightlights, so the chances of my stepping on her were considerably lower than the chances of my being blinded.

Why weren't they sleeping in their beds? Because the floor was clean, don't ya know.

I made them clean their rooms that day so I could vacuum up the rainbow loom bands and dead ladybugs and clementine peels. It was an exhausting ordeal to get the girls to clean. I had to yell up the stairs at them like ten times to get them to actually finish picking up, because they've got the attention span of a goldfish or a housefly. Finally after an hour I put down my book and rolled off the couch and started up the stairs with the vacuum cleaner.

"Your floors had better be clean by the time I'm done with the hallway because I promise you I will vacuum anything I find!!" I called up in the melodious and dulcet tones of a nightingale, or possibly a car alarm. Either one, really. And amazingly, the girls were ready for me. The floors were clear of everything but stuffed animal guts, snips of paper, and the aforementioned expired bugs, snack remnants, and crafting debris. I finished vacuuming upstairs just in time for dinner, and I took off afterwards for my book club meeting.

At bedtime their dad sent them to their rooms, where they learned a very important lesson. When you "pick up" by moving all your toys from the floor to the bed, stuff that belongs on the bed (i.e.; your body) has to go on the floor.

Bonus Fact: The girls independently arrived at both of these lazy solutions: putting everything on the bed, and then sleeping on the floor lest they be obligated to actually put things where they belong.