Picked

The daffodils are gone. Not past season gone, but picked, all two dozen blooms now filling several vases on our dining table. At least I got pictures of the flower-lined sidewalk up to our house last week when I did our yearly house walk-through. (I took pictures on the day we took possession of the house, all the rooms empty and the Monkeys dancing through the rooms. I try to do this again each year, noting the changes.)

The violets are next.

Pink is Pretty

Monkey1 wanted to paint this afternoon. Out of the shed she hauled the remaining cans of "Sleeping Beauty Pink" and "Enchanted Evening" from last spring's painting of her room PINK. She lined up all the wood scraps from last summer's shed door construction project. Monkey2 tried to figure out how to open the paint cans.

So I told the Monkeys to get into their painting dresses while I spread out a drop cloth, found some paint brushes, and levered the paint cans open with a screwdriver.

They happily painted all the scraps, and no I don't have pictures because I did not dare run in the house and grab my camera while they were using real paint. As it turned out, the painting abruptly ended when Monkey2, with a flourishing backhand, accidently gave her sister a mouthful of paint.

However, before that incident, when all the wood scraps were painted and the Monkeys were asking for something else to paint, I cast my eyes around the yard and shed for something safe or acceptable to transform with a coat of PINK paint. I settled on the trash can. Not the green can used for the weekly trash pick-up, which as far as I know is considered city property therefore altering it might be considered vandalism, but our 45-gallon can that we use for any yard work that overflows the green can. We put it out for trash collection maybe once or twice a year.

Monkey1 was busy storytelling the painting of the pink trash can while thickly slathering on the "Sleeping Beauty Pink", and Monkey2 energetically scrubbed with her brush, only thinly covering the original black plastic color of the can with pink.

Monkey1 asked if the neighbors would like our pink trash can.

I borrowed from a comment by one of my husband's co-workers: "Oh, the neighbors will know this trash can belongs to the house with the girl parade."

Thrashing Threes

Today I learned that my just-turned 3-year-old can scream nonstop for 30 minutes.

The nearly 5-year-old hid in the basement until it was over.

As with my first-born, I think age 3 is heaps worse than "the terrible twos."

In the morning...

What worked with the first child doesn't work with the second. And so I keep doing a load of wet laundry at 2 a.m. Fortunately just before this started, a fellow mom and blogger introduced me to this prayer:

"Lord help me get a good night's rest. If that is impossible, please make me cheerful in the morning."

Birthday Blur

Monkey2, my husband, and I have back-to-back birthdays including St. Patrick's Day. This year marked a few changes in routine.

Birthday 1: Monkey1 helped her sister completely dress for the day, removing the diaper and putting her in underpants. The next evening, as usual, I did a load of diaper laundry; there were very few diapers. Five days later, I have done lots of laundry loads of mop-up towels and rags, but no more diapers. Monkey2 is three.

Birthday 2: Husband took off from work. He said that some co-workers wanted to take him an Irish pub for lunch, on St. Patrick's Day, and in no way did he want to do such a thing. Twelve years ago, when we first knew each other and he was in graduate school, he liked going out on St. Patrick's Day because he regarded it as a mega-birthday party.

Birthday 3: Me. No snow storm in sight. Just over three and a half decades ago, the night before I was born there was a big snow storm. That was in the Berkshires of Massachusetts. I've lived in Vermont, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Long Island of New York, Maryland, and Virginia, and I've always gotten a snow storm, or at least a little snow. The year I turned 25, I got two storms! Digging out from that, my landlord laughingly asked me if the snow was my fault. I gleefully confessed that it was; it was my birthday storm. He was astonished. Turns out, we were born on the same day, though years apart, and he had never particularly noticed the regularity of a snow storm in close proximity to his birthday. But this year, nothing. There were the two big storms of early February, and all kinds of baby stories with those, so perhaps it is time to pass the tradition, and the hope and wonder and excitement, of a birthday storm to another generation.

* * *

On Saturday, at swimming lessons, our favorite summer lifeguard said something about a crazy birthday week, and I recalled that her son had been born the same day as my Monkey2.

One of her co-workers replied saying, "Happy anniversary!"

"Anniversary?" she said, "No, birthday."

"No, Happy Anniversary!"

"I don't get it."

"Your son's birthday is your anniversary of becoming a mother."

And she smiled.

Birthday Order

When my first born arrived in the month of April, as a spring baby I considered her a beginning of the year baby.

When she started preschool, with birthdays and summer half-birthdays being celebrated since September, I learned that April is not the beginning of the year. April is the end of the year.

Adding to her impatience for her birthday, now her younger sister has a birthday first, in March.

Frog & Seahorse

"I want to swim with Daddy!" Monkey1 howled.

I decided to ignore this, fortunately, because moments later she said, "Oh, I swim by myself!"

"With your goggles," I added encouragingly.

"With my pink goggles," she corrected me.

Second week of Frog class -- she calls herself a Mermaid in a class of Frogs -- and Monkey1 displayed so much readiness for independent swimming that my head spun. She grinned almost the whole time, floated unsupported for several seconds, and when the instructor gave everyone flotation barbells, Monkey1 went zipping off towards the other end of the pool. The instructor had said, "Go that way," and she did. The instructor had to swim after her and drag her back by the foot to keep the class somewhat together.

Meanwhile, this week Monkey2 moved up into the Seahorse class spot vacated by her sister. She's still with a parent, and while she was initially confused by the lack of nursery rhymes and a rubber duck to hold, once given the flotation barbells, she smiled splits. Her version of kicking right now resembles bicycle pedaling, which interestingly propelled her backwards. She was really excited to be in the water without being held. Remember, this is the Monkey that jumped in the city pool last summer and had to be rescued by the lifeguard. She got away from me before I could get her life jacket on. It may happen again.

Suddenly I have a glimpse of the future, when swimming lessons does not mean Mom and Dad getting in the water, it means Mom and Dad just watching from the upper deck. How they grow.