eternally chaotic

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.

It has been a while since I have posted on Princess Hell.  For good reason as well.  Much has been being sorted out and there have been a lot of changes to the family and household in the past months.  The princesses now have two castles to call home.  They also have two princes that are slowly becoming siblings – or at best, gallant knights to defend against Decepticons, Cobra Commander or flights of angry dragons.  All this following a divorce of Missy and myself.

I recently sent out a letter to various family and friends both telling of the divorce and introducing some new family members.  Below is that same message to all of you that weren’t on the mailing list. (more…)

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.

It has been about a week and a half since Violet lost her plug.  I did manage to find it, literally in plain site, but she has not since seen it.  Just in case of some unforeseen emergency need, I put it in our junk drawer – and with exception to one fussy night at dinner – with Whitley and Riley nonetheless – have I even thought of using it.

Enough time has passed now that I doubt we will need it again.  She has taken to chewing on her fingers but she hasn’t learned enough times yet that it hurts to bite them.  In her own adorable way she will munch down oh-so-hard on one or more of those obviously tasty tiny fingers, gasp as she realizes that “something” caused them to hurt and run over to us all the time holding out her fingers asking for a kiss on them.

I am glad the plug is gone and moreso that it went without much notice or attention.  Good riddance!!!

Amazingly this week in artwork produced very little from either home or school.  We typically get a dozen pieces between the girls and many others they create or color at home throughout the week.  Violet ended up with nothing, well nothing that didn’t get reduced to scrap as a part of the process.  Piper has the following two.  The first if from school – she loves the Care Bears.  The second was done at Whitley’s house during a visit on Saturday morning with both Whitley and Ansley.

We knew this day would come.  I certainly wasn’t hoping for it, or that it would come at all, but we knew that it would come.  Somewhere in Princess Hell there is a small white pacifier, scratched and dirty, with angry imprints of very small, but sharp, well practiced teeth, and it is lonely.  Sometime between getting home from school and going to bed, Violet has “misplaced” her plug.

More so than Piper who stopped using her pacifier at about fifteen months and barely noticed when it was gone, Violet is addicted to hers.  She has lovingly named it “Mine” and ferociously protects it from harm, or from abduction via Piper who thinks it is a great game to take “Mine” and get Violet to chase her.

It has been fun though to watch the difference between how the two of them needed their pacifiers.  Piper was more attached to her small brown bear, Nana, than she was the plug.  Certainly she used it but when the time came to take it away we were prepared for the worst, in particular at bed time, but were surprised that she fussed minimally for it.  A few minutes of cuddling and some time with Nana lulled her back to sleep.  I am expecting an epic struggle with Violet.  I was able to get her to sleep tonight without it which is a promising start.  However, I can already here the echos of her walking from room to room in the morning…Mine!! Mine!! Mine!!…followed by toe curling screams when she cannot find it and all daddy has to offer are hugs.

I actually thought about going to get a replacement but decided to make the stand and banish it completely.  No I just have to find it and dispose of it properly before she does and the cycle starts again.