Me: Addie, what are you doing?
Addie: Huh?
Me: What are you doing?
Addie: Nothing.
Me: What was that sound I just heard?
Addie: What sound?
Me: That spraying sound. What was that?
Addie: Nothing.
We stare at one another for a moment; me raising my eyebrows and waiting, she with her hands on her hips.
Addie: I'm not even sure it was me.
Minutes by which we missed the drop off time at the doggie hotel: 8
Hours our departure was delayed because we missed the morning drop off time at the doggie hotel: 2.5
Phone calls to alternative doggie hotels: 5
Booked solid alternative doggie hotels: 5
Storms driven through on our way to the beach: 3
Times my husband thought we should turn the van around and cancel the trip: 937
Times my husband suggested we turn the van around and cancel the trip: 1
Relatives sharing our suite in Maine: 2 + (we) 4 = 6
Square footage of our suite in Maine: 85
Cost per night: $260.00
Beloved stuffed animal forgotten at home: 1
Tears shed over forgotten animal: 793
Rounds of musical beds the girls played the first night: 3
Time Addison woke up on Saturday morning: 5:26
Time we were on the beach Saturday morning: 6:15
Bottles of sunscreen applied: 3.5
Noses that burned anyway: 1
Sandcastles built: 4
Trenches dug: 1
Hearts drawn in the sand: 17
Pounds of sand in swimsuits: eleventy million
Waves body surfed, boogie boarded, jumped over, crashed into, or otherwise causing high-pitched squeals of laughter: infinite
Books packed and transported back and forth between beach and motel: 3
Chapters read: .5
Pairs of shoes ruined: 1
Phone calls to check on very pregnant sister: 4
Cell phones dropped in parking lot: 2
Cell phones dropped in ocean: 1
Purses/handbags/totes purchased: 6
Times Brother-in-law whined about getting ice-cream: 44
Times we got ice-cream: 2
Wedding party photos Addison accidentally crashed: 1
Lighthouses visited: 4
Stones skipped: 3 dozen
DD iced coffees consumed on trip home: 2
Storms driven through on the way home: 1
Bikers flipping us the bird: 1
Reason for gesture: unknown. Seriously, we'd love to know.
Piles of laundry waiting to be done: 5
Perfect weekend at the beach: 1
Harper: Mom, can we go swimming?
Me: Did you clean your room?
Harper: Yes.
Me: Did you clean it to my standards? Or to your standards?
Harper: Yours.
Me: Really?
Harper: Really, Mom. Can we please just go swimming now?
Me: You do realize, don't you, Sweet Child of Mine, that I don't consider shoving everything under your bed "up to standard".
Harper: Umm...I'll be right back!
I've changed the paint color for our dining room remodel three times. For those keeping score, that is no fewer than eight (factoring in primer etc...) coats of paint on the new walls. My husband has been very patient with me, but I sense he is thisclose to bringing home wallpaper sample books, so I am determined this latest color will be a winner.
I went with the first color based on how I thought it would blend with the planned new color for the living room. The paint was on the wall for a bit over a month, and I liked it well enough, it grew on me, but I didn't love it, and I worried that it didn't truly work with our furniture. Then, while visiting my sister, I realized that her dining room is painted the exact color I had originally envisioned, and still loved, so I brought her paint chip home and showed it to my husband. He preferred the color already on our walls (probably because it was already on our walls), but agreed to repaint if I was sure. I was.
Long, long (trust me, it's long, involving several trips to big-home-improvement-store to tweak the color that even they admitted did NOT match the paint chip) story shortened: that perfect paint color? my dream paint? is beyond horrid on our walls. Beyond. It must be the lighting which is not great in the room. At any rate, now we are going with a new, very similar, much more dramatic (in an attempt to compensate) shade. Pray for me.
I know there are much more important, pressing, issues in the world, but please, I really hate wallpaper.
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Can I just say, for the record, that my sister is, bar none, the most adorable pregnant woman on the planet. I can not keep my hands off her perfect belly. Here at Chez Pigtails we've taken to calling the baby BC (baby cousin) and it is so sweet to hear the girls talk about their long awaited new cousin that I am hoping my sister and brother-in-law name their little bundle something that will allow BC to continue. My suggestions: Bridget Claire or Benjamin Charles. Naturally, those are just jumping off points, the proud parents should feel free to name their own child anything they choose---so long as they choose a name with BC as initials. It would be helpful is all I'm saying.
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Speaking of children's names, I'm changing mine.
I've struggled with the real names/pseudonym controversy since the beginning of this blog and have always, without fail, landed on the pseudonym side of the fence. I'm not clever enough to come up with cute, meaningful nick names for the girls. I tend to read way too much into those, and end up complicating the matter even further than it already feels, so I have settled for the Miss First Initial option, but I have never felt truly happy with the Miss First Initial option, and frankly, the whole topic is crazy in the making for me. I can't take it any longer, I need a change. Therefore, after many stressful hours of consideration, a couple of guilt dripping therapy sessions, and a few margaritas, I am changing my children's names (my children's beautiful, lovingly chosen, names *sob*) and I am okay with it; we will all recover.
I mean, hey, Maggie did it! And, if the truly fab.u.lous. Maggie (seriously, how cool is Maggie?) can do it, so can I, dammit!
I thought of several great new names for my girls. Because I am such an obsessive freak, I took it nearly as seriously as I did the first time we named them---my husband? not so much. The first time we named our kids he was involved, he had opinions, he liked names and vetoed others. This time? he was all, just call them what you want to call them, what's the big deal? Yeah, thanks for the help, hon.--- but then I realized something important about myself: I am far too lazy to go back through all the achieves and change their names. I don't like it, but I'll own it. Far. Too. Lazy. For convenience sake, and to minimize confusion, their initials must remain consistent.
And so:
Hear ye, hear ye! By the powers vested in me by the state of my mind, and by virtue of my 73 days and 22 hours of labor with these two precious beings, I now pronounce them to be Harper and Addison. Or Addie. Probably more Addie. You may kiss your monitors.
He cleans the shower.
Every home should have two cats. Apparently, we are partial to the tiger variety.
Miss A is brushing my hair and explaining to me that her favorite fish are called Ariellas, but they aren't mermaids and they are not in movies or on television. They have tan bodies and red fins unless they are girls, then they are white or purple if it is Wednesday. They live in the lakes of North Carolina and Japan, but not in Connecticut. You can only see them on vacation, and they wear green scarves in order to stay healthy in the cold water. They are very friendly, but some can be mean and really energetic. They like to swim. When they are babies they have to decide if they want to grow a half an inch or if they want to stay thislittletiny.
Also, she (Miss A) has a loose tooth. (No, she doesn't, but she is hoping.)
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Right this minute, life is good. Life is very good.
Both from Miss A.
Scene the first: Last night in the car, listening to the radio, I decided to be silly and take it up a few octaves.
Mommy! You can sing Oprah?!!
Scene the second: This afternoon, at the dog groomers. Fenway, a normally rather scruffy looking dog, received his much shorter summer cut which, unfortunately, makes it simple to determine that he is, indeed, a male dog.
Hey, Fenway has an udder!
We spent last week in North Carolina. Despite my mother's frantic hand wringing every time I allowed my girls to step off the deck and onto the tick-laden ground to play with the puppy, a ball, or, believe it or not, each other, we didn't encounter a single tick our entire vacation.
We've been home four days. I just pulled a tick off Miss A.
