Other than the typical stresses associated with moving and owning two homes, life has been mostly grand. The girls love the new house, per Pumpkin, who has declared that it doesn't "stink like the other house". Despite her love of the new digs, she refuses to sleep at night in her own room and has taken up residence on the floor next to my bed instead. It sounds awful to relegate your child to the floor, but I thought if I made sleeping in my room unappealing maybe she would opt back into her nice comfy princess bed. I got out-hustled on that one. First, I told her she had to sleep on the floor. No problem. Then I told her no pacis in my room. She literally tossed them over her shoulder without a second glance. Next I told her no cartoons on my television. Not a peep of disagreement.
First I had to ask myself who this child was - no cartoons, no pacis, sleeping on the floor? I was frustrated that her beautiful new room was untouched and started to envision her in fifteen years still curled up in the fetal position on a blanket on the floor. Then I took a deep breath. I reminded myself this was just another phase that she would grow out of and that I would be lucky if she would sleep in my room when she was fifteen. In that reminder I also realized there is likely nobody in this world who loves me more and wants to be with me every second of her life like Pum. This child literally and figuratively tossed aside everything just to be with me. How could I say no to that? The frustration quickly melted away.
Meanwhile, our little Buggy Boo had no problem adjusting to the new place. As long as she gets fed, she'll sleep anywhere. At the ripe old age of 7 1/2-months Ms. Bug has decided to boycott baby food. If she can't eat what we're eating, she ain't happy. With her one tiny snaggle tooth that just arrived last week, she has devoured chicken fajitas, shrimp alfredo, spaghetti and meatballs, and prosciutto and eggs, just to a name a few.
Along with that one little tooth popping out of her bottom gum, Bug has also started to inchworm her way across a room. It's not quite a crawl, but she puts her eye on whatever the prize is (typically it is whatever toy Pumpkin is playing with at the moment) and within seconds she has inched her body across the room to it. Pumpkin, on the other hand, I feel, is reconsidering the joys of sisterhood since her activities these days seem to mostly consist of moving her toys inch-by-inch to further them from Bug's sticky grasp.
As if all of this wasn't enough to keep a mama on her toes, Pumpkin started "summer school" today. I guess it's more appropriately "summer camp," but Pumpkin doesn't understand camp and she likes school so we'll just be clear that it isn't because she had trouble pedaling and it isn't "there's-no-way-I-will-ever-graduate-and-I-will-have-to-work-at-McDonalds-the-rest-of-my-life-and-hope-to-make-store-manager-one-day-summer-school." In any event, I'm sure it's all good fun for Pum, but it brought along with it a whole new level of mama-stress that I just wasn't ready for - the bagged lunch. That's right folks, since school is technically out they are not providing Pumpkin with a balanced, nutritious hot lunch that looks just like everyone elses. Instead, mama had to pack a lunch and snack. Sounds easy enough, right? Wrong. I've been stressing about the bag lunch almost as much as the two mortgages.
At first it didn't seem like that big of a deal. I would just buy three different lunchables a week and call it done. She loves lunchables, they are already put together, yadda yadda yadda. Well, Thursday night rolls around and wouldn't you know I was up reading all the mama-blogs and ran across one, the gist of which was "I'm such a bad, lazy mama come the end of the school year I even send lunchables for lunch - ha, ha, isn't that hilarious!" Wait - what?!? Lunchables are a BAD mama thing? Mamas joke about sending lunchables? Dammit. Pumpkin (and, by association, I) could not be the laughing stock of the lunchtable. Now what?
June Cleaver and all the other television moms make it look so easy - throw an apple in a brown bag and toussle their hair on the way out the door. Wrong. Then there's Pinterest where the moms make bananas and kiwis look like palm trees with an orange slice sunset. I can hardly cut a kiwi without it looking like a pulverized puddle of jelly so, wrong again. I needed balance, nutrition and not to mention it needed to be as appetizing and appealing as whatever the other three years old are eating. What are those mamas sending anyway? PBJ? Chateaubriand?
Add to this equation the fact that, unlike her sissy-poo, Pum is picky and inconsistent with her eating, at best, unless its "ronis" or hot dogs (both of which are expressly prohibited by the requirement that the food we send not need to be cooked). And at three years old she can't exactly understand the concept of "what do you want to eat for lunch tomorrow" (as you will see below) - I'm lucky if she'll tell me what she wants in the moment. I googled, I racked my brain, what was I going to send?
So Sunday night rolls around and I get out her adorable owl lunch box and decide to explain this process to Pum so she can help. She was THRILLED! She grabs her lunch box and goes through the pantry and fridge like its supermarket sweep. "I need salad and I need water and I need juice box and I need hot dogs and I need ronis and I need ______ (fill in the blank with whatever food item she laid eyes on)." Whoa, whoa, whoa. I tried to explain the game one more time in a different way and we started thinking about just what she could eat at school for lunch. She grabbed a box of raisins from the pantry and said "but mama this isn't enough for all my friends." All I could do was laugh.
Eventually we got her there this morning with a lunch. Who knows if she'll eat it? Maybe she'll swap it out for a filet mignon or a lunchable. I'll have to ask her tonight as she dozes off on the floor. And God knows if she has leftovers, Bug will be glad to help her out with that - if only she can get to them.
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