Still working on it...

I put up a post yesterday about Lucy's misunderstanding of the common phrase She who smelled it, dealt it, but what I didn't put up was the long, drawn-out conversation we had wherein I tried to explain her mistake.

Somewhere along the way, it occurred to me that Lucy was forming the impression that any talk about smell whatsoever really just means that somebody passed gas and is trying to hide it.  So I started to backtrack, and then found myself getting tripped up, and by the end of our 15 minute long exegesis of She who Smelled it, Dealt It I knew that Lucy still had no idea what the phrase really means.

So today I was sitting at the computer when Lucy came up to me wearing a shimmery costume.  She ran her hands over the silky material and then asked me if I knew why she was doing so.

"Does the fabric feel nice on your hands?" I asked.
"No, Mom," she said, exasperated.  "I'm feeling my dress."
 I still couldn't tell what she was getting at.
"Mom," she said, slowly and very patiently, "I'm doing this because she who felt it, dealt it."

I give up.  I just give up.

Straight from the source

I went down to the basement to check on Lucy after putting Ruth down for her nap, and as I got to the bottom of the steps it became pretty clear that the air there had recently been polluted.

"Can you smell that stinky?" Lucy asked me.  I nodded.
"Do you know who did it?" she asked.
"Well, Lucy," I said, "You're the only one down here."
She shrugged her shoulders, as though that was not the answer she was looking for.
"Also I knew it must be me," she said, "because...you know, 'She who felt it, dealt it.' "

One of the major benefits of having the older girls in school....

....is that the non sequiturs of Miss Lucy are easier to catch.

WARNING!  The second story in this post is pretty explicit.  I've actually put some thought into ways to clean it up, but there is no other way to convey the horror of that moment but to come out and say it.

1- Daddy's Girl

Not five minutes after the girls left on the bus this morning, Lucy sat down next to Ruth and I on the living room floor and said:

"So, Mommy, did you have to fight all the other girls so you could marry Daddy?"

"Fight the other girls?" I asked, not quite following.

"Yes," she said, "all the other girls wouldn't want to marry that other guy*, so did you fight them?"

I thought about it for a second, then answered,"Yes.  I had to fight all the other girls, and I won."

2- Thank God there were no men at the park!

Later that same morning, we were at the park when Lucy started digging through my diaper bag.
"Hey!" she yelled out, "You have jingle bells in here!"

I was blithely chatting with another mother and nodded in her general direction, not really paying attention, but she persisted.  "Try this!" she exclaimed, trying to get the attention of another little girl, "I can't get it to jingle."

I glanced at her, and then did an exact replica of a cartoon double-take.  I'm pretty sure my eyes literally bugged out of my head.  What Lucy was holding, what she had just unwrapped and taken out of my bag, what she was swinging wildly around and trying to give to other children was....a tampon.


3- Correct assessment of the situation

As we drove home, Lucy noticed a hitch-hiker on the side of the road.  "Is that a policeman?" she asked me, "Or just some random guy?"

* I don't know who "that other guy" is, but I'd be curious to meet him.

Horror upon horror upon horror

Remember when a certain member of this family did this awful thing?  And then remember when she did this other awful thing?  Remember, too, this weird episode?

Why is Lucy so feral?  We ask ourselves this all the time.  I don't know the answer.

Things have been on the upswing since she was potty-trained a year ago, and although I still haven't replaced the hall bathroom rug (she sometimes over-shoots her mark if you get my drift, something I was not formerly aware was even possible with girls) I was starting to think that it might soon be safe.  However...

Actually, let me back up.

I sometimes buy Nutella for the girls to have with their morning toast or bagels.  They love it, but it can get messy.  I can only take cleaning up so many chocolaty messes, so it isn't a regular pantry item.  When we do have it, though, I can count on finding chocolate handprints on the doors, streaks around the bathroom sink (where they go to wash their hands after breakfast), all over the counters, the table, the chairs....You name it.

Okay, so back to Miss Lucy.  Can you see where this is headed?

I noticed brown marks all over the shower curtain one morning, and since it was a Nutella day I made the obvious assumption.  I took the curtain down and washed it, and for a few weeks all was well.  Then more marks appeared.  It was another Nutella day, so this time I was lazier (knowing that we had a good three days left until the Nutella jar ran out) and didn't bother taking it down for a while.

Then it happened again.  Only this time, there was no Nutella in the house.  I had a moment of doubt, but then I told myself - the girls had chocolate muffins today, surely it was just melted chocolate chips! It was a busy day so I didn't take the curtain down until the next morning.

That very  morning, with the still-damp shower curtain hanging, it happened again.  This time, though, the door was not closed and I was within viewing range.

I am sure you can guess what I witnessed.    I would really rather not spell out what I saw, if that's alright.  I am surprised that my eyes weren't actually seared blind by the sight.  Let's just put it this way, for those who don't have kids, or for those who have managed to raise their kids with civility:  the shower curtain is right beside the toilet.  Directly opposite the toilet paper roll, easily accessed by anyone sitting on the throne looking for alternatives.

I have heard of this thing happening before, but before it was always somebody else's kid.  I cannot believe that I made it through four girls only to get hammered like this with the fifth.  And I cannot believe that I ever thought a white shower curtain was a good idea.  Although, it does bleach well.  That's actually a pretty major plus, all things considered.

It all comes down to this:  this thought that I have so often, mostly in a joyful way, but sometimes...not so much:  I cannot believe that this is my life.

Seriously.  I cannot believe it.

I guess this was bound to happen one of these days...

I have tons of stuff to update everyone on:
*how Chris' car died a sudden and violent death, de-railing our plans to buy a mega van
*how  Lucy gave herself a very unique haircut
*how I met up with my cousin and her husband and unthinkingly had them meet me at a place that was...ah, maybe a little too Baltimore 
*how our riding mower burst into flames (and how we met our local firefighters)
*the five million field trips, parties and concerts the girls have graced us with
*how we ran away from our troubles for one glorious week of relaxing and kayaking on the Outer Banks
*the end of my 18 year love affair with a pair of Birkenstocks, when they finally surrendered the ghost on the way to a Mumford and Sons concert.

Lots of stuff to talk about, and lots of videos and pictures to share (once I upload them.)  Right now, though, this is the story I am going to tell:

Today, Lucy stuck a cherry pit up her nose.

There was a moment when it was looking very, very bad.  Ruth had just woken up from a little nap on our blanket, the final tug-of-war between the school teams had just begun, and Lucy was crying frantically, frantically while the side of her nose bulged with a cherry pit that I could not see and was afraid to even try to extract.

It had taken a few minutes to even figure out what was going on;  peace and happiness were reigning one moment, and the next was chaos and Lucy began to scream that "this hurts!  This hurts!"  At first I thought she had been stung by a bee, but as I tried to calm her enough to ascertain the damage, it became clear that someone was really wrong - something unusual.  Finally, through heaving sobs, Lucy told me that there was a "cherry seed" in her nose.  And then I saw it - the bulge at the very top of her nasal passage, right by her eye.  I lifted her head back to see if I could see it in her nostril - no.  I gave a thought to my childhood friend Shannon, and tried to remember if it took actual surgery to remove carpet from her nose, or just a doctor's visit....A friend helpfully rushed to my aid and took charge of Ruth so that I could grab Lucy and run for the school nurse.

As we were nearing the door thankfully, miraculously, Lucy breathed down through her nose in such a way that the pit simply dropped right out and onto her hand.  She was still shaken, and for some reason began to cry again when I threw the #$*@ thing away, but I could handle that.  We made our way back to our blanket, and poor dazed Ruth, and spent what remained of the afternoon in a relief that was so palpable we no longer felt the heat.

She is doing just fine now, and even ate more cherries.  We've discussed heavily the need to keep the pits away from our noses and although the topic of cherries and nurses is likely to turn Lucy surly, I think we're all none the worse for wear.  What I find funny, after all that, is the fact that I did not see it coming.  I mean, who am I to think that I can breeze through six kids without a something-up-the-nose incident?  I do, at least, have enough sense to be grateful that it wasn't a worst-case-scenario-up-the-nose-incident.  Now that it is over, too, I can look forward to having one more bullet in the arsenal for when Lucy starts bringing boys around.  The boys you want sticking around are the ones who can stomach the thought of their beloved with a cherry pit stuck up her nose.

Overheard

Katie to Lucy, "Don't pick your nose!"

Lucy to Katie, "I'm not picking, I'm just cleaning it out."

disturbing. disgusting. weird.

We've finally found potty-training nirvana.

Lucy hasn't had an accident in almost a week! She is using the bathroom for everything and hardly ever needs reminders to go. She is also using the big potty (hooray!) and doing all the clean up (both her bottom and her hands) on her own.

Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful!

The only thing is.......... she names her poop. Late last week, as she was cleaning herself off, Lucy looked into the potty and declared to me, "That one looks like Bob!"

"Who is Bob?" I asked.

She pointed to a specific hunk of poop. "That is Bob," she said.

A few days later, as I was toweling her off after her bath, she noticed a piece of construction paper that had been left on the floor, and was covered with wet splotches.

"That one looks just like Bob!" she declared.

"Who is Bob?" I asked again, really curious.

"My poopie," she said.

Today, as she was cleaning up after using the potty, Lucy glanced into the bowl before flushing it. "That one is not Bob," she said.

I have no idea where this is coming from. At first I thought - maybe Bob the Tomato? But, ah, the specimen she specifically said was not Bob was the only one that looked even vaguely tomato-ish. Bob the Builder? We really don't watch that show, though. ( Handy Manny has totally left Bob the B in the dust.) My father's name is Bob....but I'm pretty sure Lucy doesn't even know that.

It is an absolute mystery. A really gross mystery. But intriguing nonetheless. (Maybe that's just me, though.)

Another mystery, another potential horror

Does anybody remember the time somebody puked in my bathroom and nobody would fess up to it? You can relive it here, if you wish.

Thank the laptop gods that I still can't upload photos, because we had another mystery last night and this one was of horrific proportions.

A very suspicious brown smear appeared directly in front of the toilet last night. There was also a partial brown handprint on the wall by the light switch.

Disgust, horror, and wild accusations ensued. Everyone was questioned, everyone claimed complete and utter innocence. Just about everyone also had their own suspicions about who it might be; it was kind of like playing "Clue," actually, except that the "weapon" was biological.

The investigation reached the following conclusions:

1 - The hand print actually appeared the previous evening, and is most likely attributable to the chocolate mint souffle we had for St. Patty's Day.
2 - Nobody used the upstairs bathroom yesterday. Not no body, not no how. The various people who were all seen either entering or exiting the bathroom were in there for reasons other than using the facilities. They'd like to see anybody try to prove any different.
3- The girls spent a lot of time outdoors yesterday, and parts of the yard are still very muddy. Thus, although no one admits to being anywhere near the toilet, if somebody had, the smear could have come from muddy shoes.
4- No matter what it was or who did it, it needed to be removed and there was only one person qualified to get the job done.

As I scrubbed the floor, wondering if I should be grateful for having a cold and being unable to smell or if I should be frustrated at my inablitity to use that sense to determine if I was cleaning up mud or....something much worse, Beth stood near the door watching me.

"When I see you doing things like this," she said to me, "it makes me think that maybe I don't want to ever be a mother."

You and me both, kiddo. You and me both.