A Jen Too Many

"More blue," said Oldest Girl Child, and her serious tone amused me so much that I poked my head around the corner to spy on her and Youngest Girl Child. They were busily coloring their finger and toenails with crayons, a new hobby as of last night.

Evidently OGC came across this idea at school and was delighted to show me, last night, all the pretty colors she could make her fingernails be. "And it doesn't wash off! You have to scratch it off!" she told me.

Today, both the girls have parti-colored nails, and every so often will scratch the color off one and recolor it to something new.

I rarely wear make-up, rarely wear jewelry, never wear nail polish, have two pairs of shoes (black pumps for dressing up and pink sneakers for dressing down), two skirts and one dress that I alternate wearing to church, several pairs of jeans, several niceish shirts that I wear with either jeans or skirts, and a hairstyle that I can pretty much ignore.

OGC wore a dress or skirt to school 8 out of the last 10 school days (I make her wear jeans on Wednesdays, which is gym day.) YGC would rather stay inside all day than have to take her dress-up costume off to put on jeans to go play outside. They color their nails, beg me to let them have play makeup*, and would live in princess costumes if I let them.

I always thought I was fairly girly, but my daughters have disabused me of this notion. Once again I am left with only the thought, "They look too much like us to have been switched at the hospital."
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*Play make-up, by my standards, is stuff that looks like make-up but is plastic and has no ability to actually color a little girl's face. If it actually leaves a mark on skin, it is not "play" anymore, it is real make-up. I refuse to buy that kind of play make-up, no matter how hard they beg.

Someday, my adult children will get together and laugh at me, the way my siblings and I laugh at our parents' foibles. "Remember how Mom used to panic if we were late getting home," one of us will say to another, " and then she'd call the police?"

"Do you remember how she never picked us up on time," will come the reply, "and we had to wait forever, sitting on the curb?"

"Oh, yeah. That's how I learned to always carry a book with me!"

My children will say to each other, "Do you remember how Mom always got lost coming out of the airport?"

"And then she'd panic, and yell at us to be quiet, when we weren't talking, and it would take her half an hour to find her way out of the bad part of the very large city we were in?"

"Yeah! Wasn't that hilarious? At least in retrospect?"

I drove The Boy Child to the airport today. He is visiting his mother for the next week. Getting there was no problem; it never is a problem. We have three major international airports near us, however, and not one of them uses the same road leaving the airport that you take going in. I get lost every time, no matter how careful I am. The worst experience was the time I wound up in rush hour traffic, which took us two hours to get out of - and the first landmark we recognized was the airport, which meant we still had to find our way out. It was very late by the time we got home.

Today, a three hour round trip took over five hours. Less than 10 minutes of that was spent actually dropping TBC off. About 45 minutes was spent on rest breaks for the little ones. The rest of the extra time I spent trying to get away from the airport.

I kept Oldest Girl Child home from school today* because she was complaining all yesterday evening that her throat hurt, then woke up with it still hurting. Also, she said her tummy hurt, although she swore she didn't have to throw up. So she had to come with us, which had me on edge the whole time, waiting for the vomiting to start.

Coming back, I started worrying about whether or not TBC remembered to take his ID with him. At first I comforted myself with the thought that if something went wrong, he was an adult and could take of himself. And then I comforted myself with the thought that if something went wrong he could call me and I could turn around and go rescue him. And then I realized I left my cell phone plugged into the charger at home. And then I just chewed my nails and tried to breathe slowly and calmly. Also to stop speeding up as I panicked.

All of which didn't help me keep my mind on the exit signs as I drove around (and in and out of) that airport's Big City. I refrained from pointing out the drawbridge when we drove over it (twice) since I didn't think I could panic and provide chirpy explanations at the same time. I narrowly avoided the toll road I didn't know was coming up until the big sign announcing "TOLL PLAZA AHEAD". And I managed to turn around every time without too much trouble, although I never did find the original road on which I'd gotten lost.

The last hour of the drive Youngest Girl Child upped the stakes by crying continuously that she was on the verge of throwing up. Every so often she'd make abortive retching noises into the plastic garbage bag I stuck in her lap. (I might have nudged the speedometer a bit at that point.)

I was so frazzled when I got home, that my husband suggested pizza instead of me cooking. Which was just hunky-dory with me.
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*Which led to much crying and sobbing.

Well, sweetheart, in all the furor this evening* I forgot to tell you about the conversation I had on the way home from preschool with Youngest Girl Child.

"Mommy," she started, "are you the boss of me?"

And, being the perspicacious, quick-witted mother that I am, I responded, "Huh?"

She repeated herself. "Are you the boss of me?"

The answer came to mind immediately. No, you are the boss of you. I figured, however, that beginning with that response was going to lead to trouble and questioning of parental authority down the line, so I started by asserting said authority.

"Well, I am your mommy, which means ..." I started to flounder a bit, the words to express the concept just not coming to mind. "That I, umm, have authority to tell you what to do." Yeah, that's good, Jennifer, I thought. Like she knows what the word 'authority' means.

I gave up. I try to be smart enough to know when I'm taking the wrong track.

"You are the boss of you," I told her. "Heavenly Father made it so that you are able to make decisions for yourself about what you are going to do." I shoved back the frantic impulse to qualify the statement by pointing out that it is a Very Good Idea to listen to your parents.

And then the discussion turned a corner I hadn't expected.

"So, I don't have to dress modestly," she decided.

Bwaaah! What?

"Uh, no, sweetie. That's one of those things that I have to use my authority as your mother on, and not let you do. You have to dress modestly."

"But Carly's parents let her dress immodestly."

Ohhh! That's what this is all about. I'd seen Carly's outfit when I picked YGC up. In spite of the coolth of the day, Carly had been wearing a halter, miniskirt, and strappy heeled sandals. Carly's mother had expressed to me that she was less than happy about the outfit, considering the weather, but that she had let Carly decide what to wear and this was it.

YGC was going on now about how beautiful Carly's outfit was. I replied that Carly and her parents were very nice people, but they didn't see the world the way we did. YGC responded that it was alright to wear costumes, and they weren't modest either.

"Well, yes," I admitted, regretting ever letting them accept those costumes (you know the ones I mean), "but, remember, you only get to wear your costumes inside. You're not allowed to wear them outside."

"Halloween costumes aren't modest and we wear them outside," she retorted. (Are we raising a lawyer here, darling?) "They don't have sleeves."

"Yes, they are modest." I wasn't going to let that one get past me. "I always make you dress modestly for Halloween. Remember we put a shirt under the costume?"

She conceded the point, and the discussion segued into upcoming Halloween preparations, the confirmation that she wants to be a princess this year** and people she wants to come to her birthday party.

Which left me wondering - who taught her the phrase "the boss of me"? Or is that just a childhood osmosis thing?

Also, I really, really need to ditch the old store-bought costumes and sew up a bunch of new fairy princess superhero dresses. With sleeves.
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*Putting groceries away, getting dinner ready, dealing with YGC's skyscraper temper tantrum, and Oldest Girl Child's teary fit.

**Gee, what a surprise. I never would have guessed.

Right. I keep forgetting about this. Need to post. Tamping that down into my brain. Hopefully, one of these days, it'll actually stay in.

We have our new heat pump installed! Although, while it's absolutely wonderful to have heat and air conditioning available at the flick of out programmable thermostat, both my husband and I commented on how nice it was to have all the windows open. I really enjoyed feeling the breeze. There's something special about fresh air. I need to remember that and not get too much into the habit again of just leaving everything closed.

I've been canning applesauce today. I bought a Roma strainer* a couple of years ago, which has made it possible to make so much applesauce in no time at all. I used it this spring for crushing my strawberries for jam, too. It worked very well, since all I had to do was rinse the berries and throw them in the hopper. No more picking the leaves off the top and going around with stained fingers for days! And with applesauce - no more peeling and coring! I wash the apples, quarter them, throw them in my turkey roaster and bake them in the oven until they're soft. Then I let them cool and run them through the strainer. The only hard part is heating the applesauce back up until it's hot enough to put in my canning jars.

I only got 7 quarts done today, but I should be able to get a lot more done in the next week or two. My goal is to have two or three dozen - 2-3 quarts/month. My family really, really loves applesauce. This won't be enough to keep them completely happy, but it should help out a lot.

Right now, though, I'm tired. I'm going to spend the rest of the evening doing nothing beyond amusing myself. Maybe I'll watch a Loki video.
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*If you happen to be in the market for a strainer, this is where I got mine from, and trust me, it's the best deal online. It's unbelievably cheap for what you're getting.