eternally chaotic

We had a great time this past weekend spending some time cooling off at the Duluth Town Center Fountain.  The Sun was blisteringly hot and the air might as well have been dripping water, but the water coming from the fountain was refreshing and cool.  We grabbed some Chick-Fil-A along the way, ate on the curb, and headed in.  Once they all got used to the water they had a great time.  Isaac didn’t need any warming up and was racing in circles as fast as he could swallow his chicken and fries.  Piper was on his tail but needed her hand held for the first few minutes – that was until she got wet and started play.  Violet needed a bit more prodding and she wasn’t having anything to do with me taking her through.  Carol grabbed them all took them on a few laps to get them all good and soaked – that’s all it took to get Violet all revved up as well.

Jacob received a remote controlled car for Christmas this past year.  One that can drive over nearly anything, spin in circles, do wheelies, and glow in the dark.  Piper loves this car.  She has only just started learning how to drive it with any control, but half the fun is figuring that part out.  Her and Violet both took the car for a turn around the house.  I followed them around with the camera while they had a blast.  One turn for Piper and one for Violet.  About a week after this we saw the same car on Woot and decided to get one for Piper as an extra gift for her upcoming birthday.

Two Jamaican Brides and One Curly Headed Princess — 45 Min of tortured fingers
Three Times My Little Pony — Russian roulette with a fairy wand
Hungry Hungry Hippo Marathon — One Mommy with a Migraine
Barbie Bath Tub Party — Barbie needs a maid
Pedicures All Around — Toenails on ground
Snacks at 10:30pm — Energy before bed
Tucked into Bed — Tiredness still forthcoming
Hugs all around — and around and around and around…..

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Our household is down to one vehicle following an accident in the Xterra.  Thankfully nobody was severely injured.  Carol took the brunt of the impact with the airbag, seat belt and steering wheel.  Jacob and Violet had seat belt burns and indentations but where otherwise unhurt – well maybe emotionally scarred a bit. Jacob was shaken up a bit as was Violet but neither had any significant injuries that weren’t healed within a day or two.  Whenever we mention the truck now it is funny to listen to Violet tell us that it is broken – “truck go boom boom daddy, truck goes boom!!!”

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It has been raining for the past week in Atlanta.  Literally.  Mainly just on and off sprinkling followed by a short downpour followed by mugginess, wash, rinse, repeat.  Over the weekend however heavy rain came down continuously causing flooding in most of the area.  We woke up this morning to hear about school and road closures around the whole Atlanta area.  Gwinnett County schools of course were only on delay which later changed to a closure as well.  The flooding has been pretty severe closing surface streets and interstate junctions like “Spaghetti Junction” causing significant traffic problems all around town.  The news said a few schools were flooded as well but we didn’t hear about any in our area that were affected other than just being shutdown – likely due to transportation issues more so than flooding.

Looks like the kids will get to stay home and play for another day.  Isaac was concerned though that school was “closed forever”…oddly that upset him (maybe we should check his temperature).  I don’t think we will hear the same complaint from Jacob he has been at home sick for the past few days missing much of school last week and was non to excited to go back today.  Piper still gets to go to pre-school which stays open regardless and Violet is already at school when she wakes up.

Amused and a little reminiscent, I found Violet eating with Uno tonight.  She came running into the kitchen with a mouth full of something and after a few minutes of scraping mush out of her mouth I was not sure what it was.  I chastised her and sent her on to play.  A few minutes later I heard her in the dinning room screaming “mine, mine, mine…”.  Upon investigation I could only laugh as I watched her push Uno out of the way so she could get access to his kibble.  She already had another mouth full and proceeded to fill each hand – once stocked for the road she took off toward her playroom.  Curious to see what she would do I just watched.  I figured that she would chew it up a bit and spit it out, much like she does everything else.  Surprizingly, she finished what she had in her mouth as well as both hands and likely would have went back for more had I not convinced her dinner was ready.

The girls are just at that age range, and Violet is still pretty young, that they are still a bit like oil and water.  It is becoming more frequent but still somewhat rare that they will play or relax together.  After we came in from the snow on Sunday the girls both grabbed books and jumped into the recliner.  After a few minutes of watching them battle for position they settled into reading their books.  Violet would watch Piper like a hawk trying to figure out not only what she was doing but being sure to mimic each and everything.  I was able to get a few pictures before they noticed me and started being hams.

What started out, or so I assumed, as a just another cold Sunday changed with some excitement from Piper, yelling about the sky falling from the playroom.  “Daddy, It’s snowing!!! It’s snow daddy!!!  Come hear, come hear”.  I don’t know what I thought she might be seeing but snow certainly was not on the list.  It has been cold and rainy, and later I heard that snow was forecast, but it so rarely snows here that it never crossed my mind that it actually was – silly three-year-old – what does she know.

Turns out she knows precisely what snow looks like falling from the sky.  This wasn’t just small flakes dusting the ground either.  It was the huge puffy wet snow falling everywhere.  At the point Piper noticed it had likely been snowing for a while as the ground, bushes and vehicles were covered with an inch or so.

Quickly we got dressed to suffer the cold and wet to come and rushed out to play.  Violet had been in snow before but not at an age she would remember.  She certainly had fun just running around and looking at the snow fall from the sky.  Piper enjoyed it as well but was quite obviously cold.  We played for a good while before I was able to get some pictures and we headed back inside for hot cocoa and chocolate milk.

You have to love shots.  I guess it is a good thing that kids, well at least young ones, don’t have the concept of what needles are.  They do learn quickly though that the syringe is the bringer of pain and doom.  Too bad as well that the dispenser for a shot looks needlessly similar to those suspension syringes that come with most liquid medicine for kids.  Coincidence…Sure.

Violet checked out and was given the stamp of good health, despite a raspy cough and runny nose, by the docs for her eighteen month checkup.  She was a good sport during the typical wait, having an ink pen and a few magazines kept her fully entertained – a wait without incident is worth so much more than worrying about whether the next parent or patient can read the six month old copy of “Parenting”.

It has been confirmed again that Violet will be tall, of average weight, with a properly portioned head.  Measuring in on the same curve as previous samples she is at 80% in height and 42% in weight with a circular noggin at 30%.  Although the way she squirms on the tape and scales I think there needs to be a standard deviation in there somewhere – or at minimum some margin of error at +/-5%.

Once the typical poking and prodding subsided I learned that V is quite the talker compared to others of the same age.  Certainly this came as no shock to those that rear her as we see her continuously make up for the conversation that her elder sister squelches.  After the pleasantries though came the needles and three sticks in the leg.  Admittedly we tricked her a bit.  I laid across her midsection securing her waist and arms all the while cooing and talking to her while the nurse prepped the needles out of site with full access to her legs.  Smiles abounded and maybe a giggle until her face erupted in that “daddy what the hell – you were just smiling and now my leg is on bloody fire” look and tears began to leak from her eyes before the entirety of her breath made it all the way into her lungs.  By the time she cried the shots were done and the tears lasted only as long as it took her to get distracted with her new bandages.

A friend of mine asked me recently if I regretted having two girls or secretly wished that we had both girls and boys.  I have certainly been asked this before, in particular around the time before we knew, or announced, that our second baby was going to be a girl as well.  I don’t really know how to answer the question though.  If I look at the girls and try to think of what would be different were there a boy in the mix, I struggle to find an answer.

Piper and Violet are certainly girls, well Piper is for certain and Violet is just rough and tough and mean – perhaps she is a boy in disguise.  I rarely think of them as such though.  Doing so would only place false limits on what they should or should not do because of their gender.  We play rough, inside and outside, we climb everything, crawl in the grass, get muddy, work in the garage, they get tickled and tackled, they wrestle with me and lately each other, they assault the dog until he takes interest at which point they turn tail lest they be licked.  Now granted that many of these things they might do in the likeness of Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White or Belle, they do them nonetheless being girls.

Perhaps the differences at this age are too insignificant and as they get a bit older and are around more girls and boys and start seeing classic roles played out, even in grade school, their attitude and mine might change – I certainly hope that isn’t the case.  I look back and think of the things my dad and I used to do when I was a kid such as work on the car, take care of the yard and house, play football, go fishing, etc…and I can only be excited for the time when I can do the same with the girls.  If I try to think about those experiences to come and how they might be different were one of them a boy I draw a blank, would I bond differently with a him, would I have different expectations, would I push him harder for success, in all case I think not.

Another topic to this conversation typically revolves around carrying on the family name.  I think that such is important but don’t believe that only the men can carry on the name or the traits that make up a family.  In particular as times change and the line between men and women in society blurs I foresee plenty of opportunity for the girls to strengthen their family name as well as make names for themselves.  Their are plenty of examples where men take the woman’s name, a hyphenation occurs, or each party in the relationship keeps their own name.