The Elie & Booth Greatest Show on Earth

Every so often, and almost always at the dinner hour, the circus comes to my house.

By this time of the day hunger and fatigue set in quickly which heightens the thrill of the show. Lauren and Claire morph from their human selves into feisty lion cubs as they snarl and claw at my legs. Unlike many lion tamers before me, I won't put my head near their mouths.

C the juggler works fast with no less than 4 items on the go at a time. One hand flipping food in the frying pan while pouring glasses of milk. The other hand cutting veggies and tossing a salad all the while whipping plates onto the table. The legend goes that he grows a third arm for the act, but it's hard to tell because it's all a blur.

Once seated Claire morphs again, this time into elastibaby showing off her super flexibility with one leg swung up on the tray of her high chair. As a bonus feature and if the mood is right, she'll smear food on her toes before putting them in her mouth. The crowd goes wild every time.
 
In the other ring Lauren has become a nimble acrobat, balancing on her chair stretching across the table to reach the ketchup bottle.

Back to elastibaby who by this short time has already made her food disappear. She then pulls a Houdini by freeing herself from  her bib.

Lauren continues her act as by leaping from her chair to perform a pirouette or two. She then makes her way around the table to gives hugs and kisses to her adoring fans.

Come one, come all! There's always something spectacular to see and the show is guaranteed not to disappoint.

The not so funny giggles

I love it when my girls laugh. The sound brings joy to my heart. At 2 am, however... not so much.

At around half past midnight this morning Lauren woke up crying that her underwear was wet. Great. I quickly checked out the scene and concluded they were dry, but her sheets were damp. It was warm in the room so I suspect she just got really sweaty.

Claire was up at this point so I hauled both girls back to my room. Co-sleeping is the quickest way to get us all back to sleep. Usually.

C woke long enough to ask what was going on, and of course Lauren fell asleep again in seconds. Claire spent the next hour flip flopping around and I was wide awake with my nose centimetres from the wall. Sometimes 4 in a bed is too close for comfort.

Thinking she'd settle down if we snuggled together, I brought Claire back to the girls' room and tucked us both in to Lauren's bed, throwing a towel over the damp spots. By this time new clean sheets didn't really matter.

I lay as still as possible so Claire would get the hint and close her eyes. Fat chance. Instead she flopped around some more, perhaps in an attempt to get comfortable, but eventually gave it up to rummage through the dozen or so stuffed toys that Lauren has piled in her bed. No wonder she got so hot!

Moments later Claire started to giggle. Giggle! I opened my eyes just a sliver so she wouldn't notice that I was really awake, and saw that she was clutching Lauren's purple Monstaz, or Fuzzball as she calls it. This is a newish toy that she received from a friend for her birthday and currently holds the top spot of her favourite toys. According to Lauren's strict instructions, Claire is not allowed to touch Fuzzball for fear that she will chew it and make it all "yucky and wet". Fair enough.

So there we were, 2 in the morning, 4 hours from when the alarm was set to go off to start a brand new day. C and Lauren were in my bed enjoying sweet dreams, I was faking sleep in Lauren's sweaty bed and Claire was pleased as punch to finally be holding in her hands her sister's prized Fuzzball. Not such a funny situation for me, but to Claire, absolutely!

What am I?

A few months ago out of the blue Lauren asked, "What am I?"

"What do you mean?" I replied, as I wasn't sure what sort of answer she was expecting. Tall, short, hot, cold, Peter Pan, Cinderella, bunny rabbit, puppy dog. The answer could be anything depending on the circumstance or whatever game is being played.

"Well, Rachel* is Jewish, Max* is Ethiopian. What am I?"

"Oooh... right." I thought out  loud. I knew this question would come along one day and have yet to come up with a simple answer.

"Well, you were born in Canada like me and Daddy, so you're mostly Canadian. But... (then I took a deep breath) Grandma Mary is from Africa, Grandpa Philip was from England, Grandma Bernadette is from Haiti and Grandpa Fred was from Haiti and France, so you're from all over the world!"

I didn't even bother mentioning that Grandma Mary's mother was from Angola and her family was originally from Portugal. And Grandma Mary's paternal grandfather who was from England sailed to Bermuda and married a Bermudian and they both settled in Sierra Leone. And that Grandpa Philip had a wee bit o' Irish in him too.

What I got in return was a blank stare, followed by, "Oh." And then she went off to do something else somewhere else.

I'm not sure she processed anything at all of what I said. She's still working on sorting out that we live in Toronto, which is a city in Ontario, which is a province in Canada. Never mind having any concept of where in the world Haiti or England is.

I will never come up with a simple answer, but what I can do with Lauren is spend time looking at family photographs and maps and reading about all the different countries that our family tree has branched out to. Hopefully she will someday realize that what she is, is pretty lucky to have such a rich and diverse family history.



*Real people, but not their real names!

Now we are friends

I like being out and about with Lauren. She often has interesting encounters with the people we meet.

Last week we walked into the neighbourhood dollar store and were greeted by the woman behind the counter.

"Hello!" She said.

"Hello!" Lauren and I replied.

I was already off down the aisle looking for what I needed, but Lauren, who was trailing behind, got a follow up question.

"How are you?"

"I'm good... and you?" Lauren asked in return.

"I'm good, thank you."

A few moments later I had what I needed so we made our way back to the counter to pay for it. In that short time Lauren must have determined that the woman was friendly and receptive because she held up her cupped hands.

"Ooohh, what do you have there?" The woman asked.

"A snail I found!" There's a particular spot along our route home from school where snails like to gather on a rainy day. On this day Lauren picked one up to bring home.

"Wow, that's a nice one! I think I have a little bag that you can carry it in."

She then took Lauren's snail and put it in a tiny baggy. A grin from ear to ear grew on Lauren's face .

"What's your name?" Asked the woman.

"Lauren."

"I am Suraiya." She held out her hand for Lauren to shake. "Now we are friends."

Baby girl walking

Claire is walking!

She has been taking two and three steps at a time only every once in a while, for a few weeks now, but this weekend she was stepping further along and much more frequently.

The steps are slow and steady, but she's definitely gaining momentum.  

Miseria per dentem crepitus -or- misery caused by tooth explosion -or- teething sucks

Poor Claire. For the past week or so she has been experiencing what I call miseria per dentem crepitus,  or misery caused by tooth explosion. Yes, teething has been so bad I thought the experience deserved Latin recognition.

She handled the front teeth pretty well, but now the molars are pushing up (top and bottom) and there have been tears. Lots of them. And clinginess and not much sleep. The worst night so far was Friday. After hours of her flopping around restlessly in my bed I handed her over to C at 3am so I could get some sleep. What he was doing still awake, who knows, but apparently she stayed up and fussed with him for another two and a half hours before crashing finally. C caught up on his sleep after that.

We're trying a few different relief methods to ease the pain, but they only work for so long. Wait it out seems to be the only thing left to do. Hopefully the worst is over and the wait won't be much longer.

Never-ending laundry

There are three baskets of clean laundry on the floor of my bedroom. Sometimes there are two baskets, sometimes one.

We used to be on top of the chore of folding and putting stuff away, but we've been slipping. Now some stuff gets pulled from the basket onto the bed. Some folding happens, but mostly not, then hours later gets put back in the basket and onto the floor.

The priority these days is for the clothing to be clean. What happens to it afterwards and where it ends up isn't much of a concern anymore.

We'll get back on track again, one day.