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Wanda’s been drawing squiggles and scribbles for ages and then suddenly tonight she did something amazing. Out of the nowhere, she came up with this classic:

Dan: Wanda! What did you draw?
Wanda (coyly, studying her own handwork): Well… It’s not a kid…
Me: I like your picture Wanda. Can you tell me what it is?

She stared at the drawing, like she wasn’t sure. Then she got a huge grin on her boogey-encrusted face and said, “It’s a dancing motato!”

The next one was even a little happy.

I have to say that drawing circle people with arms sprouting out of their ears has got to be one of my favorite developmental milestones for my kids, right behind learning to not fill their pants with dookey and how to pump their own dang swing at the park.

I spent the evening with Wanda at the Urgent Care facility tonight. We’re really good at ear infections and eye infections and sinus infections and pretty much every infections.

Last night she was up several times crying and in pain, so we tried to manage it with Tylenol and fluids today. She has her well baby checkup on Monday so we were hoping she could make it through the weekend without seeing a doctor.

But by this afternoon, all around her eye was red and puffy and by the evening she was holding her face and bawling. So I rushed her to Urgent Care, hoping to score some validation and antibiotics. Did I mention that, as much as we hate them, we’re good at antibiotics too?

So the MA taking her vitals freaked out just a little when her heart rate was bouncing between 165 and 168 bpm. Concerned, he hurried from the room to get the doctor. This made me nervous. Forget about the fact that I have to be having a really intense workout to get my heart rate up that high (I know kids’ heart rates are supposed to be higher) but seeing the medical professional get worried stressed me out.

So they gave her a mega dose of Tylenol and waited. An hour later she was still at 155. Then we tried Ibuprofen and half an hour later she was still at 150. They said they’d give her half an hour, but if they couldn’t bring it down, they’d send us to Children’s Hospital for an IV. But 15 minutes later the fever subsided and her heart slowed and we got to head out to the pharmacy, where we found a couple of funny things to lighten our moods.

1. The directions on the antibiotics refer to Wanda as “Wanda” like it’s her “code name” or “nickname.”

2. The directions on the antibiotics tell us to measure 3.68 ML, using this syringe. Why round up to hundredths? I could surely measure accurately to the thousandths with this bad boy.

3. The instructions on the new thermometer say “The best place to measure temperature is the center of the heart, but this can be done only under a doctor’s supervision.”

Do you know a doctor who will supervise me while I jam a thermometer in my three-year-old’s heart? Me neither. It reminds me of the time my friend asked me to watch her daughter and left me with her EpiPen.

Friend : You know how to use an EpiPen?
Me: Yeah. I just jam it into her heart and press the button, right?
Friend: (Glares at me suspiciously and takes the EpiPen back)

So, she’s home and sleeping and soon so will I be. My favorite quote of the night was at one point when we’d been waiting for a while in the exam room and she said, “Mom. Mine eye still hurts. Is there any more doctors?” Yep. There is more doctors but hopefully we won’t have to see any of them for a while.

The Olympics came to Calgary in 1988. I was ten and at that point it was fully the most exciting thing to ever happen to me. Everything in my life became Olympic-themed. EVERYTHING. School. Gymnastics. My every waking thought. We all learned how to say “Welcome to Canada” in as many languages as possible. Somehow my sister ended up having lunch with Prince Albert of Monaco, a bobsledder, and also a prince.

We attended medals ceremonies and held flaming torches that were on fire and also had flames on top of them. I drew the rings over and over again.

I love the Olympics.

Shortly after Dan and I were married and he was still at BYU, the Olympics came to Salt Lake City. We didn’t have the money to attend any events but we did stand out a couple of blocks from our apartment and watch the torch run by and I did put on team Canada gear and walk around smiling at people and humming “We are the World” in my head. I shed a few tears and watched some smokin’ good hockey.

I love the Olympics.

So, this week, in an attempt to infuse my kids with Olympic spirit, we went a little crazy. I ordered cable to be installed for the first time in 7 years. We’ll probably only keep it through August.

Magoo has been sitting like this for two days, watching the coverage.

We had a torch-lighting ceremony, where we passed the flame around and lit this amazing beeswax “torch.”

Then we ate a traditional British pub dinner, as one would find in London Town, complete with Yorkshire puddings.

We decorated the house with flags.

Laylee put together a mini Olympics with events like Cartwheeling, Throwing of Stuffed Dogs, Long Jump Off the Hearth,
Weight Lifting (Dan and I slaughtered the kids at this!) and Hill Racing.

Each of us represented a country whose language we speak, China, France, Canada, Mini-Canada, and the United States.

We made T-shirts with puff paint,

and finished the night with an Olympic cake. This is a lemon/blueberry marble cake I found on Pinterest. It was delish!

Until the games are over, our highly flammable, flameless flame will keep the spirit of the games alive.

Everybody seems caught up in the magic. My favorite comment so far comes from Magoo who watched the US women’s gymnastics team vault and said, “I could totally do that… except for all the spinning stuff they do in the air.” Couldn’t we all, Magoo? Couldn’t we all? And I could win So You Think You Can Dance, except for all the choreography and the rhythm and stuff.

As a kid, when I pictured being a mom, I pictured it pretty much exactly the way it was tonight. My baby was sleeping sweetly, while Magoo, Laylee and I put a puzzle together and sang along to The Sound of Music at the top of our lungs. Swedish Fish were available in a secret mom-only stash and my hot husband was in the kitchen cleaning the dishes.

Laylee is all kinds of good at warbling like the reverend mother and when Magoo belts out Sixteen Going on Seventeen, my heart does a sort of burbling flip flop. He really is innocent as a rose. According to J. K. Rowling, he is also a Hufflepuff which surprises absolutely no one. Magoo puts the Fflepuff in Hufflepuff.

When I pictured being a mom, I did not picture spending hours of my life devoted to an ongoing battle with all the bodily fluids and their many orifices of dispersal.

In a single day last month, I changed three sets of pee-soaked sheets, cleaned urine out of the carpet and a mattress, and scrubbed up the fallout of a vomit explosion that blasted from the couch, ALL across my folded laundry and along about twelve feet of carpet, magically stopping just before it reached the bathroom tile.

That day was a little extreme but if I did a sit-up for every cup of bodily ick I’ve touched in the last nine years, you’d be able to wash clothes on my abs.

We were at the swimming pool on Friday and when I picked 2-year-old Wanda up off the patio, she said, “YAY! Now you can pee on mine lap!”

She also says things like, “I wanna carry you!” when she’s tired of walking, so I put two and two together and asked, “Are you peeing on me right now?” as the “water” ran down my leg.

“Ye-ah!” she chirped, “It’s the TRUTH!”

It is the truth. Motherhood is not all puzzles and badly-sung show tunes. Sometimes it’s urine. Lots and lots of urine. But luckily, it’s also about secret stashes of Swedish Fish. Here’s to hoping no one walks around in his sleep tonight, spraying the world down with his man hose and then curling up shivering in the puddle he’s created.

Today I thought seriously about calling up some of my film friends and asking them to follow me and Wanda around the house several hours per day. I need to capture her like Pooh needs to capture a Heffalump. I want every moment of her life, every morsel of her speech recorded so that when my little friend leaves me and heads to kindergarten, I can sit alone in my bathrobe reliving the glory days.

She is my buddy, my nearly constant companion and I can’t get enough of her.

Wanda goes limp and swings with no hands, her head thrown back, her arms dangling to the side. She must have her mouth open when she swings. This is called “flops.”

She likes to play outside in the rain, splashing in puddles and showering in the rain spout.

When we were at Dan’s band concert this week, Wanda was dressed like this:

A stranger came up and said, “Oh my! You’re a pretty princess.”

Wanda replied, “Yeah! I’m like a ninja!”

They want a cat. Or a dog or a bat or a snail or a crab. They just want something to love. And given how baby hungry I’ve been since my sister gave birth to a little piece of heaven earlier this week, I was feeling just vulnerable enough to oblige. A little.

We shopped all day today. The shopping was for shoes. Shoes were what we shopped for. Hours. Hours and hours were spent in the pursuit of proper footwear and when we were done, we were Done. And then, out of the blue, a PetCo rose up in front of us and before I realized what was happening, we had turned into the mini-zoo parking lot and were headed inside, “just to look.”

We passed the kittens and slimy things and made our way to the fish, which are also slimy but you don’t pet them so their sliminess is inconsequential. I asked what kind of fish we could put in a bowl with no filter and was told Betta fish were the only option.

We’ve had Betta fish before and I swore we’d never do it again but a pet Betta is better than a rat and thusly we left the store with one fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish, and a bucket load of supplies.

On the way home, Laylee and Magoo cradled their little fishy tubs on their laps, thinking up names, staring at them through the plastic and giggling randomly.

“I can’t wait to get him home and spend some time with him!” Magoo cooed.

We got home and set up their little habitats in spare flower vases I had in a cupboard above the fridge, a testament to Dan’s talent for bringing me flowers spontaneously on days when he doesn’t even know that I need them the most.

After fussing over the new family members for several minutes, Laylee and Magoo moved on with their lives and Wanda took over caring for the fishies. She stood with her mouth almost to the water, yelling out with Darla-like zeal, “HELLO FISH! HI FISHIE! I LOVE OO FISHIE! HIIIIII FISH!”

The fish gave no response.

“Do we touch the fish?” I asked her, remembering this picture taken of Magoo last time we gave these pets a try.

“No. We don’t touch FISHIES!” she laughed.

Good. We were on the same page.

As we gathered the family for bedtime scripture reading and prayers, Wanda got a little too close to Magoo’s fish landscape. The vase toppled. I screamed. Wanda grabbed the vase with both hands, bobbing it back and forth uncontrollably trying to right it as water spilled everywhere and everyone, everyone in the house began screaming.

Never in my memory has there been a more cacophonous, horror-filled round of agonized screams tearing through the fabric of our home. Wailing, sobbing, screeching psychobots degenerated into total hysteria as I ran to grab the vase from Wanda before the precious fish met his maker with a side-trip down the cavernous crevices of our living room couch.

Wanda, tossing the fish bowl back and forth between her hands, her head thrown back wailing like a banshee, Laylee, staring in horror, her eyes running over with tears, her face vibrating like she’d stuck her hand in a light socket, shrieking involuntarily, me yelling, “NOOOOOO!” and Magoo sob-yelling in a crumpled heap on the floor, already having given up all hope of survival.

When I righted the falling vase, the fish still swimming happily, I breathed a sigh of relief. My screaming had stopped but I was the only one. They just went on like that, as though frozen in time. Wanda dropped to the floor, exhausted, remorseful and more than a little terrified by the reaction she had caused. Her cries became ever more pain-filled and unstable.

Laylee grew more hysterical, her fear mingling with rage as she moved to protect her fish bowl with her body. “Wanda can never, n-n-n-EVER COME ANYWHERE NEAR MY FI-HI-HI-HISH!” Her body wracked with sobs, she periodically gasped, “Never.”

Magoo seemed unable to comprehend that VeilTail had survived. He would not stand up, writhing on the floor as though in mourning-inspired throws of agony. As we tried to comfort them, it was all Dan and I could do not to laugh hysterically. Maybe we should have let loose. There is no possible way they would have heard us anyway.

After several minutes, Laylee and Wanda’s screeching subsided and we sent Laylee and Magoo up to brush their teeth. For fully five minutes, Magoo sobbed. We’d convinced him that the fish was alive but I guess everything just felt too real now, this brush with death making him feel his own mortality too keenly. Everything. Everything. Could be gone in the blink of an eye.

And now they’re asleep, their piteous wails no more than a ghostly echo, ringing in my ears as I watch the two fish swim frighteningly close to the tops of their bowls. Is that one floating? For the love of all that’s holy, breathe man, breathe! They must not perish tonight. Not on my watch.

I do not believe our world can endure the riotous lamentations that will be heard in the land if they don’t make it. Sleep sweet, little fish.

Wanda’s been spending a lot of time in the joint lately. Our personal joint is a spot in the hall outside the bathroom door. There is no worse place on earth than the time out spot. Placing her in it is practically child abuse.

Her emotions are just so raw and untamed and we aggrevate them by doing things like letting Magoo eat a lollipop he got for Valentine’s Day, asking Wanda to stop throwing wooden blocks in the house, and letting other people celebrate birthdays.

Here are a few classic shots from Laylee’s birthday earlier this year.

Wanda helps open the presents.

Eventually Laylee has to unwrap her gifts like this:

Notice how I’m more interested in documenting the drama than stopping it? Best mom ever.

Eventually she ran to the piano for a meltdown. Maybe she was going to write a song about it, which was apparently named, “WHERE’S WANDA’S PRESS-ENTS? I WANT WANDA’S PAH-TY TIME!”

The tragedy is highlighted by her smiling face in the photo behind her. I love this shot with a great wicked-stepmother kind of love.

So to help her comply with our unreasonable demands, I’ve started the time-honored tradition of counting her down to obedience.

“Wanda. You need to bring me that permanent maker and that chainsaw.”

“No.”

“Wanda. One. Two…”

The other day, about halfway through the fiftieth round of counting that day, she yelled, “Mamma, NO! Stop THREEING!”

I will. I will totally stop threeing as soon as baby girl stops twoing with such unyielding persistence.

I hope Magoo never learns that it’s possible to sell his organs for money… or candy.

Lately his main revenue stream comes from the secretive but highly lucrative tooth market. He yanks one out, processes it, makes it available for purchase and he finds no shortage of fairy buyers, willing to supply him with income in exchange for the goods.

The money is used for three things.

1. Counting – Magoo stacks and counts his money like Scrooge McDuck
2. Planting choking hazard landmines – Where will Wanda be most likely to find this quarter so I can cry when she gets her hands on it?
3. Buying Candy
4. Attempting to buy useless junk from the machines at the front of the grocery store.

Recently while I was checking out at Safeway, he plugged “twenty-five cents” into a machine full of plastic bubbles containing rubber thumbtacks or something equally life-changing. Pennies, a dime, a couple of nickles. They all slid down into the recesses of the machine and when he turned the knob… NOTHING HAPPENED.

I explained to him that it only takes quarters and, oh the weeping and wailing that then ensued. Cruel is his existence.

On the way home from the store, he told me that it was the worst day of his life.

“Is today Tuesday?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Then I hate all Tuesdays. Tuesdays are the worst days of my life.”

And he meant it too. Bitterly.

His solution to the problem of his impoverishment – “I need to lose more teeth. If I push really hard, I bet I could make more of them come out.”

I’m sure he could. But should he? If he yanks out all his teeth, with what will he eat all this candy he plans on buying?

That kid would sell his right frontal lobe for a ring pop if he could find a physician willing to perform the lobotomy. I pray he never does.

“That’s right! It’s true! Education needs revenue!”

This is what I heard my 6-year-old chanting as he brushed his teeth for bed tonight. Although it would have been funnier to hear one of the more saucy, constitutionally-based, vocabularically rich chants from the rally today, ala “AMPLE PROVISION – PARAMOUNT DUTY”, this one still made me laugh just a little. [Read More at the Mom Congress Blog.]

Here are a few pictures of our adventure:

My friend Emily had knee surgery today so we wanted to do something nice for her. My efforts involved lasagna and spinach salad. Laylee’s efforts were more on point. She offered to come and read to her since she can’t do sports for a while and created this highly topical card: