Ages and Stages

In May 2007, Sophie made me a cute craft at girl scouts. It is nothing more than half of a dessert sized paper plate colored in a nice mosaic of Crayola. There's a little curling ribbon centered at the bottom and "Happy Mother's Day from Your Biggest Fan is written in the middle. Cute little plastic craft butterflies are also glued to the fan because it just isn't a Daisy Troop craft unless something is glued to it.

I love this little craft and my only problem with it is that the glue holding the butterflies sometimes stops working and occasionally I find them on the kitchen floor.

One of the butterflies is black. It was the latest victim of glue failure a few weeks back and so I put it on the microwave cart, where all the stuff that needs attending lands. Popped off buttons, toys requiring new batteries, receipts that need holding on to somehow or other land there.

A few days after the black butterfly fell off the fan, we were rushing out somewhere with the kids. I can't remember where but trust me that it was the usual yelling at each other to let's just hurry up already, I went to finish the last of my water, which was in a glass on a table in the living room.

I tilted the glass back to guzzle the rest of it when I very suddenly saw something resembling a bug in the water.

Momentum being what it is, the bug made it's way into my mouth where I promptly spit the water out all over the living room floor.

You know that move in the Three Stooges when one of the stooges repeatedly slaps his forehead again and again? I did exactly that, but on my tongue, while also making spitting/gagging/blech-ing sounds and trying desperately to hold my shit together.

Then I saw it. A black plastic butterfly lying in the water I'd spit onto the floor. "Who put the black butterfly in mommy's water?" I demanded.

"I did!" said Harry. "Did you like it?"

Everyone had a good chuckle over that one. Ha Ha Ha! Harry made mommy think she almost swallowed a bug. What a corker!
I tell you this for my benefit more than yours. I need to be reminded of a time when Harry was merely mischievous because these past few days Harry has been....rather...how shall we put this? Difficult? That's putting it mildly.

Yesterday Harry started and ended the day in time outs. He's been hitting his sister, biting, pinching, pushing, tackling. Talking back. In short he's really testing his boundaries. And the patience of everyone in a five block radius.

He is most deft at getting his big sister to engage in warfare over the most trivial matters. Like whether we're eating pasta or macaroni. Is it raining or merely cloudy? Am I sure that Harry is drinking out of HIS Wall-E cup even though both cups are identical? Let's rumble over it, shall we?

I know it's not his fault. He's three and this is what three year olds do. But good lord this phase-and bickering-is killing me.

Today though is a new day! We woke up and greeted the day with new-found optimism that it is going to be a great one. A little rainy but still a new dawn. We're going to do something fun for dinner tonight since Dad has something to do after work...hooray for mom! We're going to go to the library and get more books and movies. Hooray for books! Yay for movies! Perhaps there will be ice cream? Hoo-freaking-ray for ice cream!

At 7:30 this morning I saw Harry take a swing at his sister, the fighting began and into the naughty corner he went. This is a most difficult age.