Charlyn’s Web

I know that many of you thought this was a nice, clean, wholesome site, but my next item may call our family friendliness into question.

After a recent grueling day at the office, I was mentally exhausted, nursing a headache, and “hearing” unpleasant things from some rather tight muscles in my shoulders. My family and I had just enjoyed a delightful meal prepared by a particularly lovely and capable chef, who just coincidently happens to be the official webmistress of this web site.

Before pushing back from the table, KJ generously offered to rub my aching back. I thought this sounded like a splendid idea, and proceeded to remove my shirt and stretch my tired carcass out on the floor, belly down, eager to feel the tension oozing away from my body.

Pixie climbed on, and began “rubbing” my back and neck.

Somewhat.

Kinda.

If you use your imagination.

A bit.

Ok, the word “rubbing” might be a stretch. Poking might be more accurate. Actually, she doesn’t do half bad at massaging tired backs sometimes, but this wasn’t one of those times. She was distracted, preoccupied, or perhaps just feeling more like the otter she is.

I felt her arranging a silk ribbon around one of my ears, fluffing it all up “just so.” She paused for a moment, then said something that I really didn’t pay much attention to. I was trying not to fight my body’s desire to lose consciousness, despite the abundance of child noises surrounding me, the ribbon tickling my face, the “rubbing,” and everything else going on. I must say, sometimes I am quite successful in succumbing to a power nap even in the midst of a chaotic environment. So, I wasn’t processing whatever was being said; that might mean that I would have to actually utilize valuable mental resources to distinguish noise and random words from attempts to make genuine conversation.

But there it was again. She repeated herself, and I had no choice but to hear it this time, for the phrase contained my name. She was talking to her brother.

“Papa’s being X-rated!”

Huh? *click!* *whir!* I’m being… what? At this point I verbalized nothing, but my mind was trying to get a handle on what my ears had apparently heard.

I guess the boy wasn’t paying sufficient attention either, for I felt Pix cup her hands on my back, and say, “See? Papa’s being X-rated!”

I’m being what?

“X-rated. So we can see what’s wrong with your shoulder!”

Pause… Ahhh! You’re wanting to see the bones inside my body?

She nods and smiles.

I smile back. I had no idea how pornographic our family massage parlor really was.

I thought I would show you what my Mom looks like since she doesn’t post pictures of herself very often. See? She has long hair, mainly because she hasn’t gone to get it cut for a long, long time. Her nails are all grown out. I have nails, they need to be trimmed.

She wears dangley ear rings on her ears. See them? I want to be able to wear them too.

She has lots of teeth too.

The sun is shining! See all the letters I wrote?

Sorry about the foot being torn off- it was an accident.

Bye!

Pixie

P.S. Mom says I can’t show you the picture I drew of Papa. She used big words. Something about it being correct. Then comes the really big word- anatomically. I don’t know what that means.

Let’s all sing here-“One of these things doesn’t belong here, one of these things just doesn’t belong.” One of these children is not dressed appropriately; she made her own choices on what to wear.

Hint: it was 80 degrees.

This winter when there was snow on the ground Little Miss Pixie decided to wear skirts… everyday. When she went outside she would bundle up in her jacket, scarf, hat and gloves and then fight me tooth and nail to put on thin leggings or tights.

Now, when it’s warm, she is wearing jeans and long sleeve shirts. She has other choices in her closet. I bought some cute skort (skirt with shorts sewn in) outfits when she was along with me. She helped me pick them out- now they are not pink but she said she’d wear them. There was not any tan to be seen. One set has not adorned her body and the other was worn once. We picked out some cute sandals for her, she tried them on, she said they were fine and now it’s a fight to get her to wear them. She would rather wear too small, dirty old ones. The sandals are even white and PINK for goodness sakes!

Do you sense a bit of frustration in my typing? Ah well, I’ve told her I am not buying anything more for her because she tells me she will wear it and then doesn’t. That will last until this winter when she’ll need jeans that aren’t expecting a flood.

And to think- she’s only 5. What will the teenage years be like?

Lord help us.

We tend to weigh and measure the kids a lot. Why? They keep growing! And growing, and growing….

At the age of two, most children slow down in the growth department- not our crew. So I like to keep track of it all- I’m like that. Give me buttons to push and charts to keep and I am a happy camper.

So… because I know you all are dying of curiosity, here are the most current stats:

The Boy- 56 1/4″  (4′ 8 1/4″), 71 pounds. This puts him in over the 97th percentile in height. He is in the 90th percentile in weight.

Pixie- 46″ (3′ 10″) and 43 pounds. She is on the 90th percentile line for height and 50th for weight. And you wonder why I have troubles finding clothes that fit her!

Sunshine- 43″ (3′ 7″) and 41.4 pounds. She is in the 95th in height and 87th for weight.

I went back to the height predictor at WebMD to see if it said anything new. Since Sunshine was now 4, I wondered if it would change anything.

It assures me that The Boy will still be 6’5″.

Pixie will still be the shrimp of the children at 5’9″.

Sunshine is heading for 5’10”.

I will be the leaning post for all of them, I’m afraid.

I asked Sunshine what she wanted for her birthday (yes, this was BEFORE it happened!).

“A tractor and a shirt!” was her immediate response.

What color of shirt?

“Green!”

Green. Great.

I guess it’s better than orange.

I did buy her both items. The tractor was green too. (my apologies to a certain family I know who prefers implements of a different color.) She was thrilled with it.

Yes, she is wearing a green shirt. But not the one I bought her for her birthday. She hasn’t lowered herself to wear that one yet. It has green stripes but no fun tractors or Sesame Street characters on it- so it’s not hardly worth mentioning. I should have ventured into the boys department to find something more suitable. She is happily examining her tractor set here. This was after she kissed it.

It’s interesting to see how two little girls can be so different. Here is an example:

This could be titled “There is always one who doesn’t cooperate”. Here we are about to go to dinner at a friend’s house. Notice Pixie all color coordinated down to her “hair thing”. Then her sister’s fashion ensemble. The sensible shoes, green shirt with a tractor on it. She didn’t forget the accessories- the apparently fascinating necklace.

I just love watching their personalities bloom!

My Little, ever so Helpful, Pixie has decided to bring me my coffee in the mornings.

This started when her Father would pour me a cuppa (a little Australian for you) and bring it to my lazy bum me while I was still in bed. Little Miss Helpful would carry the mug in the last little bit to me. She was so pleased with herself.

Then there came the fateful morning when her Father had already gone off to work and she was up before me (unfortunately not a rare occurrence- she gets up early- yeah, that’s it!). She carefully poured cream into the mug and poured the coffee out of the thermos carafe where The Col. had left it for me. Her beaming face as she brought it into me was something to see.

Not that I was totally happy with the situation. We told her we didn’t want her to pour hot coffee out of the carafe on the coffeemaker. It’s pretty high up and we were afraid she’d be more likely to drop or spill it and burn herself. But she seemed to manage the other carafe well, and it usually didn’t have much in it.

Then I noticed a disturbing trend. Now, I like my coffee with milk or cream in it. Not like some of the members of my family where there are equal amounts of each but a dab will do- especially when it’s the cream. But I started to get coffee in the mornings that was getting a bit heavy on the cream. And cold too. I’d take a few sips, then put it down and when I got out to the kitchen, I’d add more coffee and heat it up. And then add more coffee and heat it up…. repeat. One day I was trying to tell her how to use the microwave because she said the coffee was cold. I know, not a smart idea to try to tell someone who doesn’t read or recognize most numbers how to operate the microwave. All I can say in my defense is that I hadn’t had my morning coffee. Finally I just told her to push the one button, knowing that the microwave would run for one minute. I figured that would be too long but I didn’t realize that the mug had only about a third of a cup of liquid in it. Scorching!

This morning I heard The Col. tell Miss Helpful that she should wait for me to get up to help her. Hmmm? I got up to find my mug on the table- half, HALF full of cream. I was sure glad that her Dad stopped her! That’s a little too much even for me!

We were in Walmart (That Eeeeeviiiil place) looking at the clearance racks a few weeks ago when Pixie spotted a hat. It had princesses on it. It was fairly spendy. Normally, being the cheap frugal person that I am, I would have said “No!”. But… she put it on.

And I caved.

I was sitting on Pixie’s bed, talking to the girls before they went to bed when Pixie said:

“I want to sleep with Papa!”

You do? And where would I sleep?

She giggled, Otters often giggle, and said “You could sleep there too!”

How kind.

“I’d sleep in the middle, between you and Papa.”

Ah, that clears that up.

TG pops into the conversation “I want to sleep with Papa too!”

I must be chopped liver.

Where would you sleep?

“On the……(uses her hands to make a circle motion as she struggles to find the right words)…..falling off side!”

Thin straps on a dress.

Known to the rest of us as “spaghetti” straps. But, you know, all those Italian foods sound the same.

*******************

We went to clothes shopping the other day. Mainly because I wanted to figure out what sizes Pixie and The Boy were in. We went to one of our two options in town- whoopie! Aren’t we the shopping metropolis? Makes you want to run right over here and shop with us, doesn’t it?

The Boy has worn holes in all his jeans knees so some jeans were in order for him. I made him try some on- and he actually cooperated and did it! I was so pleased, and relieved. He found a pair that worked. At home, his Papa asked how many pairs we bought. I said “one”. He looked at me a bit funny until I explained that it was almost summer (I use the term “almost” because I am wondering if warm weather will ever come to stay) when he wears shorts all the time and if I bought more than one then he will have out grown them before the fall and probably hardly worn them. So we will revisit jeans this fall.

Pixie doesn’t have much to wear. We don’t have any “hand me downs” for her. I had bought a few items off the sales rack over the winter but not enough. And not any dresses or skirts. Staples in that girl’s wardrobe. I had looked on-line to see what I could find but was having a very hard time deciding what size. She is tall for her age and thin. Very thin. I grabbed a dress that had “pizza straps” and went to the dressing room with her to see what it looked like. I was horrified when she got it on. The arm holes reached down to her waist, the little triangles covered strategic parts of her chest but left a LOT exposed. This just would not do! As she looked in the mirror she declared that she liked it! Of course, she would- it was pink. I was thinking there is no way! when I noticed that the “pizza straps” were adjustable. Whew! It’s also nice because maybe she can wear it for a longer period of time too.

We looked at skirts. Sigh. The ones that fit her around the waist are size 4/5 and are way too short. The 6’s are too big around the waist and practically fall off of her. Either way, she’s flashing people. Although, there are scooters out there that have a short built in under the skirt. But still, having all that leg sticking out from the bottom…. I asked a friend if she would be willing to sew lace or something on the bottom of the 4/5s and she said yes. She said she could also take in an inch on the sides of the 6’s pretty easy too. I wonder how hard that would be with the shorts in there too? I had thought that maybe TG would wear them after Pixie but if they are taken in, I don’t know if she will be able to do that. But, at the moment, TG is rebelling against wearing dresses- there is a ton of dresses hanging in her closet and she refuses to wear them. But she is very happy to wear the tan pants.

Grown up.

Usage: “Papa can do what ever he wants because he’s a dolt!”