Spider cakes and doggy eyeballs

Sunday morning, I woke up in a foul mood. That's how I described it to Rich. "I'm in a really foul mood right now." (Yes, I am still talking about this past weekend.) I think I was just exhausted and thinking about everything that needed to be done was a bit overwhelming. I had piles of laundry to take care of, no presents had been wrapped, there were presents that still needed to be purchased, we needed groceries, etc., etc.

The girls were awake before 7:00 but Rich and I had already planned to take turns napping. What we usually do is have Rich sleep first because once he's up and about, he's up for day. I, on the other hand, can sleep at any given time. Anywhere. Rich, bless his heart, told me to go bed (I had spent part of the night downstairs with two munchkins) and he would nap after me.

Although I could have slept for another eight hours, I slept for two and then got up. It was around 10:30-11:00 at that point and I really just wanted to stay home and get stuff done or go by myself to do some shopping. Going by myself to shop is RARE unless the girls are asleep and by then, I'm tired. Rich mentioned killing two birds with one stone - going to Jordan's Furniture so that the girls could see the Enchanted Village (and possibly Santa) and we could purchase full size mattresses for their big girl beds.

This wasn't exactly how I wanted to spend the rest of my Sunday but I gave in. I think Rich believes that we are going to experience some type of Christmas miracle and the girls will magically sleep in their comfy real beds all night. I'm too pessimistic these days to believe that.

So off we went to Jordan's Furniture.

Here's where I have to mention how scary Allie can be sometimes. She is amazing at listening to adult conversations and picking up on stuff. Sometimes she twists it up but she has surprised me on more than one occasion. On the ride home from a function months ago, Rich and I were casually discussing the food. We never came out and said that the food was good or bad - we were mainly discussing how they had appetizers out but then took them away and the oddity of how the food was served. Allie obviously picked up on a bad vibe so when Grammy asked her how her lunch was, Allie responded with, "I had pizza. I liked it but Mommy and Daddy said that the food was gross."

And on the drive to and from Florida, we had a bit of trouble finding small containers of chocolate milk. That's all the girls want to drink nowadays, by the way. Chocolate milk and water. They do like juice boxes occasionally. We had stopped for gas and Grammy ran into the little express mart place to check for chocolate milk. All they had was Yoo-hoo. The adults had a quick conversation, which was basically me saying, "It's just sugar, isn't it? I think it's fine for this one time. I'm sure they'll drink it." The next day, when someone mentioned chocolate milk, Allie looked at me and said, "I like that sugar drink."

Okay, so long story short, as we were walking into Jordan's Furniture we passed several people with bakery boxes. I had read on their website that they were offering blueberry muffins just like the ones from Jordan Marsh. Rich and I had a brief discussion regarding the marketing of the blueberry muffins as walked by the stand selling them.

When you are trying to pick out mattresses, furniture, clothing, etc. while watching three three year olds, you tend to just make quick decisions. We told a salesperson what we were looking for and she directed us to the four most popular mattresses. After determing that they were not the more expensive mattresses, we tested them out and quickly decided which was the most comfortable.

"Do you need those delivered?"

"Yes."

"Would you like the protective mattress covers?"

"Does it protect against pee accidents?"

"Yes, it does."

"We'll take three, please"

A thousand dollars and some change later, the girls have big girl beds. Well, mattresses. We still need to attach the headboards and footboards from their cribs to the mattress frames. And get sheets.

As Rich was finalizing the mattress purchase, Allie started in with her "Oh, I'm so hungry." This would not be a problem if my children would stop demand feeding. They are three years old and they still demand feed. Drives me insane sometimes but because they are so small, we have to let them eat when they say they are hungry. Now, this doesn't mean that I jump up and get food for them. If it isn't time for a scheduled meal, I wait until they ask a few times and access what else they have eaten before I give in.

So here's Allie. "Oh, I'm so hungry. Do they have food here?" We are in a furniture store. How would she know that there is food here? Because she is processing the information from the blueberry muffin conversation. So I told her that they had broccoli sandwiches and tuna melts. No, she didn't want either of these. "Do they have anything else."

"I think they have spider cake."

{Thinking. Thinking} "I'll have some spider cake."

"Really? You want the spider cake? There are spiders on the cake, you know."

"Are the spiders moving?"

"Yes, the spiders are running all over the cake."

"Oh. Do they have anything else."

"I think they have doggy eyeballs. They mix them up in a salad."

{Walks away thinking. More thinking.}

"Are the doggy eyeballs any good?"

Is it mean of me to have these conversations with my children? I don't like being so serious all the time. And don't fret, Rich went and purchased two of the million dollar blueberry muffins, which tasted like a blueberry muffin from anywhere, while we waited in line for the Enchanted Village.

The line for entrance to the Enchanted Village was a bit long but it moved at a decent clip and the girls were fairly well behaved so it wasn't too much of a hassle. Unfortunately, the ceilings are warehouse tall and the lights were dim so I couldn't really take pictures. I did get this sweet one of Allie and Anna holding hands. The huge blow up walking Santa was scaring them.



So let's talk about Allie's latest pose for photographs. She loves to squeeze her eyes shut. She doesn't run off or hide her face. She just sits or stands there with her eyes squeezed shut. She's been doing this for awhile but has only pulled it twice, I think, with me. I don't know if that's because I'm Mommy or because I take a lot of candid or fun pictures. Grammy will argue that it's because I'm Mommy.

You should have seen poor Grammy and her holiday card photo shoot. She had all of her little granddaughters together and there's Allie with her eyes squeezed shut in almost all of the pictures. I actually think that it is kind of funny. Oh, I just remembered that I have an example of her doing the eye squeeze that belongs in another post that I haven't had time to post.

So the point of this story is that before you enter the Enchanted Village, they take your picture against a green screen and then try to sell you a holiday picture of your family/group. We lined up to take the photo and the guy coordinating it said, "Oh, wait. She has her eyes closed," to the girl with the camera. I laughed and laughed. Allie was at it again.

The girls seemed to have enjoyed the Enchanted Village. I know that last year they were a bit frightened. Not this year.

There were only four families in line to see Santa so I asked the girls if they wanted to tell Santa what they wanted for Christmas. Allie said, "Yes." After her fear of Santa the day before, Rich and I both raised our eyebrows at that. The line wasn't too long so we decided to see what would happen.

She did go talk to Santa but I had to go with her. Well, she didn't really talk to Santa but answered his questions. And Santa told her that she needs to sleep in her own bed. Not someone else's bed. Let's just say that even Santa telling her hasn't really worked.

In case you are wondering, Anna and Emily absolutely refused to go near Santa.