Life With Ladies

Instead of waxing poetic about my glorious Mothers Day (it was glorious, mmkay? just about perfect in every way. the end.) I’m just going to go ahead and list out the things I want to remember most of all about my girls just as they are right now. Mostly all for me, but I’m glad you’re here.

Maëlle

2yrs

1. Most words which end in a vowel she changes to end, inexplicably, in a T. examples: More= Mote. Done= Dunt. Bella= Dellat.
2. When counting, she almost always skips the number 10.
3. When singing, on the last note, she lifts her face to the sky and shakes her head back & forth.
4. Rarely, extremely rarely does she miss an opportunity for a please or a thank you.
5. Milk= juice. And, naturally…juice= milk. And she says it “maok” and “dyoose”.
6. She’s the only one of the Ladies to sleep with her butt in the air. Adorable doesn’t begin to describe it.
7. A $4 thrift store find for Christmas is still one of her most beloved toys. I found a Leap Frog fridge farm at Value Village and homegirl plays it every morning while she dances around Dexter in the kitchen, and every night while she avoids eating dinner. She prefers certain songs over others, and will hit the button until she finds the song she likes.
8. She will repeat things one bajillion times until you give her the answer she wants. She doesn’t really get more angry the longer she has to ask, she just steels herself and keeps repeating. It’s obnoxious, but you gotta admire the perseverance.
9. The most likely first words out of her mouth in the morning are “I hab a dyoos?” or “I hab a sammich?”
10. Bar none, cutest thing ever: she will touch her pointer finger to her lips and say “hmmm” and then poke it into the sky and shout “I know!” and then say nothing. I die of the cute, every time.

Annika 

1. 

   4yrs

   She points with her middle finger. Ahem.

2. Hands down she has the best laugh out of all my kids. It is this belly laugh that seems to rumble up from deep in her stomach, and kind of lilts off her tongue as if she was trying not to make it come out. We are most often lulled into laughter with her, in spite of any circumstance.
3. She has the best printing for sure. Given that Bella is a lefty, but Annika is a naturally more enthusiastic writer. She draws her letter Ks with a fancy tail & I don’t know who taught her to do it.
4. Mother= Mudder. But don’t you laugh at her, she will cut you. She also regularly messes up tomato vs potato. Topato. lulz
5. It makes my blood boil, but I’m assuring my head this will come in very handy when she’s older: Girlfriend does not give even one shit if you are angry, she will carry on inside of her head and pay you no mind. It’s less “defiance” than outright “ignorance”. I’m not championing this behaviour, it frustrates us to no end, it’s just an observation unique to Annika.
6. She wears a skirt with tights every day of the week. Footed or footless tights, she doesn’t care. The worst punishment (high fives to Daddy for this brilliant move!) for her is to take away all skirts, dresses and tights. Devastation.
7. I would trust Annika to do my nails for any function, unironically.
8. If we don’t unplug her TV (yes, judge away, she has a TV and DVD player in her room. whatever.) she has been known to turn her shows back on after the timer goes off. I’ve caught her up at 12am once. O_O
9. We call her Noodle. She loves spaghetti too, funny enough. She takes forEVER to eat dinner, except for noodles. Heh.

 Isabella

1. 

   6yrs

   She will cry at the drop of a hat. I’m not kidding you…she would cry if a hat dropped. She is the most emotional creature I have ever laid eyes on. But, she is endearingly aware of this and will often stalk off to be alone for 10 minutes and come back 100% of the time with a smile on her face and an unprompted apology.

2. More and more often she will drop a french word and ask me what it means in english. Umm…
3. She can’t smile nicely for the camera. Ever. You have to get her to laugh or you get side-eye-lost-lips-crazy-face.
4. She will always choose white milk over chocolate. It’s bizarre.
5. Bella has the most incredible fashion sense. By which I mean she looks completely ridiculous in the most awesome way at least 90% of the time. The fact that she doesn’t notice or doesn’t care makes me love her all the more.
6. The other day she said this to me: “Mom, I like it when you talk to me like I’m your friend sometimes. It makes me happy.” …and then I cried and died.
7. Ever the oldest sister, she rarely gets upset when we ask her to help with the younger girls. She’s an incredible help to us, and I don’t think we tell her that nearly enough.
8. She will belt out tunes (largely off-key) at the top of her teeny lungs with no embarrassment whatsoever. She one time asked us to bring her to a Canada’s Got Talent audition and I was too afraid of hurting her poor, precious feelers to drive 4 hours to Toronto. Mom fail.
9. One time she let me curl her perfect, perfect hair into the most incredible waves (it’s too thick & awesome for me to curl. barf.) and I gushed and gushed over how I wanted to have her hair and how much I loved it…she made me put it into a braid. Huh.
10. We call her Beans. She dislikes beans.

I mostly just love them.

I entirely just love them.

I think we’re perfect for each other.

I’m trying every.damn.day to do their childhoods justice.

To let them be, while guiding them to BE.

I wanted a Mothers Day 2012 picture.

A perfect one.

I got it.

This is what Mothering looks like to me.

Keep them close, let them shine.

I think I’m shining too…can’t you tell?

Thanks, Ladies. Not just for making me a Mom, but for making me your Mom. I think we’re doing a bang-up job here and I’m flattered you’re letting me be me. I’ll try to follow your lead, ok?

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