Breakfast Conversation

Caroline: Can you be nothing when you grow up?

Me: I guess you could but you might be kind of bored.

Caroline: But you're nothing except for a mom.

Me: Sigh...

Katherine: No Mom, what are you going to be when you grow up, like Daddy.

Me: Sigh...


Katherine: I am going to be a fireman when I grow up.

Me: Oh, a firefighter. Great!

Katherine: Yes, a fireman.

Me: Sigh...


Caroline: I think you should go back to work.

Me: Sigh...

Alone

While Caroline is sleeping much better than she has the past two and half weeks, she is still needing me some at night and then... last week, Katherine decided to get in on the act. She had a fever last Thursday night and has been up multiple times a night after that. Needless to say, I am feeling pretty tired.

I now have flabbergasted to add to tired, however, when people ask how I am feeling. Over dinner at Rob's parents last night someone asked Katherine why she was waking up so much at night. She looked at all of us like we were fools and said, "Because I'm alone." Duh.

Sasha and Malia

While this was the week that Barack Obama became our president, Sasha and Malia have stolen the show in our house. The girls love Barack, don't get me wrong. Whenever they see him on tv or in the papers they shout out, "Barack Obama" and sing a little song we made up about him ages ago. Katherine has even added a little dance to the routine but...

No one holds a candle to the two girls. I am not exaggerating when I say that Caroline must have asked 25 times a day, "What do you think Sasha and Malia are doing now?" She was fascinated that they watched a movie the night of the inauguration. She wondered who came up with the idea and if their parents were ok with the fact that they were watching a movie on a school night. Then she wondered if the girls would go to school on Wednesday because they had such a busy day on Tuesday. She decided they would because they had already missed one day of school this week. She poured over the pages of the newspaper Wednesday morning and kept returning again and again to the picture of Sasha giving her dad a big thumbs up after his speech. She folded the paper so that only that picture showed and carried it around for awhile. She has asked again and again where the girls got the pretty outfits they wore to the inauguration. Last night she asked if we could go to the White House instead of Disney World this spring.

This is what having a young family in the White House can do. I knew if would be exciting and inspirational for Barack to win. I knew that it would be fun to have little children in the White House. I have never known that in my life. What I didn't realize before this week was how important Sasha and Malia would be to our girls. They will be real role models for them. I am so proud that, at this moment, Caroline could not identify Hannah Montana but she would know Sasha and Malia in a instant. How wonderful that the real rock stars in our house are the President's girls.

Dear Barack

Caroline wrote a letter to Barack Obama yesterday in Sunday School. It took her ages. She was the last child to leave the room. She put lots and lots of thought into the words of wisdom or questions she would share with our soon to be president.

Here is what she wrote:

Dear Barack,
We have a dog named Jenny. She is silly.
Love,
Caroline

That should give him enough to work with... at least for the first 100 days.

Sleep Deprivation Induced Silence

I realized that there are actually people out there who check my blog every so often who may not know how tired I am. I have not run out of things to say, only the energy with which to write them. For the past seven nights, Caroline has been going through one of her toughest sleep stretches ever. For those of who have followed our sleep struggles, you will know that that is saying something. For those of you who don't know about our sleep struggles, consider yourself lucky!

Anyway... I hope to be back to more regular writing soon. Cross your fingers for us!

May It Be So

This morning Caroline ran upstairs to go to the bathroom and of course, Katherine followed. A little bit later I walked upstairs wondering why all was so quiet. They had the door closed so I could only imagine Caroline sitting on the toilet with Katherine fully clothed perched on her little potty. This is the only way Katherine will sit on the potty these days but that's a whole different post.

I was about to open the door when I heard them talking. Their topic was death. Caroline told Katherine that she wouldn't die for a very long time, "When we're really, really old. When we're great grandmas and we're only kids. And then your soul goes to heaven." "And we go to heaven. Not to space."

She then said, "Before we die, Great Grandma and Great Grandpa and regular Grandma and regular Grandpa and Mimi and Mommy and Daddy will all die. I can picture Katherine's expression because Caroline's next comment was "You'll be so old then that you can take care of your self."

Caroline then said, "If we do end up dying when we are kids we can still go to school in heaven. We'll just have different teachers."

Then suddenly, Caroline's mood shifted and she said, "Don't think about it now. I'll tell you when you can think about it. It's not for a long time."

I decided to go into the bathroom at this point as I wasn't sure I could deal with where the conversation would go next.

As if she knew I was there the whole time, Caroline said, "That whole talking thing started because I was telling Katherine how she never met your grandma. I did. I was a tiny, tiny baby. Not a peanut baby. Just a tiny one."

Ok then.

Christmas Post- A week late...

As I was tidying up the house I discovered why it is so important to write things down. I always promise myself that I will keep a journal, blog everyday etc, etc, etc... Fortunately, I do, at least, write things down on scraps of paper and leave them all over the house.

On Christmas morning, the girls were saying things that I just knew needed to be remembered. I jotted things down as fast as I could on the back of the note that Santa left as thanks for his cookies and milk. Below are the words of the girls on Christmas morning.

Katherine: On opening her first present, "Look! A box!"

Caroline: "I even wanted this book!"

Caroline: "Look what I have? What do you have?"

Caroline: " Do you want to open this? It's from me."
Katherine: "That's very nice."

Caroline: "Do you want to open more presents?"
Katherine: While playing with her pretend ice cream set, "Not until I'm done with my ice cream?"

Caroline: "Is there anything else for me?"
Caroline: "Is there anything else for me?"
Caroline: "Is there anything else for me?"

Last year, the girls opened presents so fast and frantically that I'm sure they were sweating when they were done. I wasn't able to write thank you notes because packages were opened so fast and in such a frenzy that I was unable to keep track of what came from who. This year, the girls opened, looked, played, talked and then opened again.

It was a very merry Christmas.

And of course, because it took me a week to write this post, I will end my Christmas post by saying,

Happy New Year!