Holiday Fun

Yesterday the girls and I went to the Eiteljorg Museum, here in town, to see their Jingle Rails exhibit.  The Eiteljorg is a Native American and Western .. something museum, and this exhibit is super cool.  It's 1200 feet of train track and they go up over head and from Indianapolis to .. the West (I should work in Marketing, ha!) so you see renderings of Indianapolis, downtown, the State Fairgrounds, and then, like, pueblos in Arizona, and New Mexico.  I will make a link so in case anyone wanted more information about it, they could get some actual information and not the bumbling that I am doing here.  Here.  Anyway, it is super cool and of course the girls had little to no appreciation for it.  I took Veronica to the Eiteljorg last year and she remembered the super fun stuff downstairs at the museum where you can go in a stagecoach, get dressed up like a cowboy, shop in a Chinese shop, etc., so we whipped through the Jingle Rails so we could go down there and it was fun.

The day before yesterday I took them to the Children's Museum, which was fun but hard, like every other damned thing.  Felicity's skirt fell off her as she walked into the museum, so I had to buy her some too-large and too-expensive pants, and she didn't want me to ride with her on the Carousel, but you *have* to ride with your three year old, so I had to stand two horses behind her, with some other family, who thought I was crazy.

People are nuts.  Here it is, the Christmas season, and I am smack dab in the middle of the Friendly Hoosier State and I swear to God, not one person looked me in the eye yesterday.  I would have loved to have shared that Felicity wanted me to stay back, I thought it was funny, but nobody would make eye contact with me!  I didn't want to be their best friend (GOD KNOWS) but I just wanted to speak to someone, what the hell?  After we got off the Carousel, Felicity was eating all this fake food at the fake ice cream shop, and this mom and I commiserated about how gross that was and how dumb it is to do, but I think that is the only person I talked to all day.

Anyway, we have been trying to have Christmas Break Fun but it's challenging because everyone keeps getting sick.  Felicity was sick early last week and she has actually been okay ever since but God knows how long she will stay that way, because since she's been sick, and missed her last two damned days of preschool before her two week break, Maria was sick, Veronica was sick, Anthony was sick, then Maria was sick AGAIN and Veronica woke up sick this morning, so who the hell knows what will happen.  So far, so good, with Felicity.

She is still impossible to take anywhere.  I mean, I have to take her everywhere because she wants to go but she still, like, refuses to leave her damned shoes on.  Yesterday I was talking to my friend Adam when we were at the Eiteljorg, I had placed myself so I could see all three girls, and I looked over in the shop they have set up, where they sell like dry goods and also Chinese slipper and there on the shelf were Felicity's shoes, ha!  Right now she is standing in front of me, mad and crying, because she has one arm out of her nightgown but she still wants to wear her nightgown.  Or something.  She is infuriating, she never seems to know what the hell she wants but she is very serious about it, whatever it is.  But she's so cute and when she was sick, no matter how she felt, when I said "how are you feeling?", she'd say "bettah".  I hope she has a Merry Christmas and I hope that 2015 is her best year yet.  For all of our sakes, ha!

Almost Christmas

A few weeks ago, when the girls had off from school the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, I took them all three bowling with another friend of mine and her charge, who is 12, and a friend of hers who brought his two kids, who were like eight and six.  We all had a really good time, Felicity "bowled", where you put the ball up on a ramp, for most of the first game (we played two) and then she got really over it, but she spent the rest of the time looking at this Christmas tree that was set up in the bowling alley.  She was so intrigued by it, she just kept walking around and around it, she was so into it.  I wondered aloud what she was doing and my friend Jill pointed out that she probably didn't really remember the tree from last year, which is true!  Lord, it is so complicated, I feel like every day I'm going to lose my mind with this kid and she will never remember it!  She probably won't even remember standing there looking at the tree for so long, but she is clearly really happy in the moment, so is that good?  Does that matter?  I do not even know.

We are home now, on Friday afternoon.  She and I went to ballet this morning, after a two week break.  A two week break, I found out this morning, was way too long, no one could even remember what to do in the recital and Felicity especially wanted nothing to do with it.  She was upset that I was there, it got her all messed up and she ended up barely doing anything but whatever.  She is only three, it's no big deal.  Then we went to Chic Fil A and met Jill and her nephew Max, who is just her age, a few months older, but he is completely potty trained, which is a whole nother thing for us.

She refuses and I mean refuses to potty train.  This week she has started to - well, say she's naked, which she is a lot, she will have to go, I will SEE her realize she has to go and she storms over to me and says I NEED A DIAPER!  I say, you don't need a diaper, you need to sit on the potty, let's sit on the potty and Go!, come on, it will be great!  And she freaks out and screams and cries and eventually I'm afraid she's going to lose her mind so I put a diaper on it and she fills it right up with pee.  It is beyond infuriating.  I am so, so sick of telling people what to do with their waste and having them DISAGREE with me!  I'm 46!, I want to tell her, I know what you should be doing!  Mike says that it will get better, he says she is doing all the steps except, you know, actually going on the potty, and he's right but ugh.  As I said, infuriating.

She likes to stick her fingers in my mouth and count my teeth.  She likes to make shapes with her hands and make me guess what they are.  Today I guess "rectangle" and she told me with a withering stare, "no!  oval!".  Right now she can't find a drumstick and she wants one so I have to go but that's your update.  She is fine.  Adorable.  Infuriating.  Won't remember a bit of it.