Good Friday my parents had a huge moving/contents sale. We spent the morning there claiming items for free and being cute for the customers.

Thank goodness for matching snack cups

Alice spent the morning climbing on and off this chair. She was right pissed when someone bought it!

Eric and his (big) girl

My parents' dog, Barney, and Spencer. They're both flexing for a sweet little terrier named Lu-Lu that showed up

We spent the afternoon at Eric’s Aunt Janice and Uncle Jim’s new condo in Etobicoke visiting with Eric’s Mom, too.

Jammy girls in the lobby

Saturday afternoon spring sprung in our backyard with the reappearance of the plastic wonderland, our porch swing, and sheets hung to dry

Decorating hard boiled eggs

Saturday night we went out for Indian food WITHOUT CHILDREN (the food tasted *that* much better without having to dish out butter chicken to the girls and catch flung food before it hit the floor), and had our babysitter, Shelby, stuff all our plastic eggs. Best $ spent ever.

The Easter Bunny got right lazy after egg 84745 needed to be hidden

Lucy is now a PRO at finding eggs. Next year the Easter Bunny has to be much more clever on where he hides them. Perhaps less wine should be involved, too?

But, oh, Doodies held her own. Although she kept finding eggs, opening them, then exclaiming over the chocolate while Lucy snatched up all the other eggs. Next year? I predict tackles, bitch slaps and hair pulling from this one...

Crocuses in our front garden

We had Easter dinner at my parents’ house — the last family meal, as my parents are moving in early May. We had a great afternoon playing outside and eating a ton of my Mom’s delicious food.

Lucy and Red Ball get pushed around in the Lucymobile by Grandpa

"Hellooooo!" says Nana

Teething Alice (she's getting those painful canines) gnawed/inhaled a popsicle in .09765 seconds

My sister has been here all weekend, and is spending today with the girls and I (both their daycares are closed).

Auntie Michele, Alice and Lucy after a beautiful walk and playground romp in the sunshine

What a wonderful, busy, exhausting four days. Hope yours were just as great!

Our bed is up against a window, and the soothing patter of rain woke me at 4:22 a.m. Within minutes, Alice was awake. Hungry, chilly, a squirming worm in Eric’s arms, anxious to burrow against my belly and nuzzle into my breast.

This happens often. Some unseen force nudges me out of open-mouthed slumber; a gentle hand on my shoulder, and I’m awake, listening, before there is a need to. It’s happened with both my girls, at all ages.

For a few seconds each time I open my eyes, when the mind is a blank canvas before life is instantly painted on, I forget. I feel like…me. Just Carly. My body, my interests, my own thoughts, with no one else to consider.

And then I blink, and this life seeps into my skin.

_____

Do you ever look around at the world you have created for yourself and wonder how it happened?

There are days when I feel like I’m out of my own body. Pregnancy, so visceral and consuming when you are living it, seems like eons ago — if it happened at all — yet here before my eyes are two beautiful and healthy little girls. That I helped create. That came out of me.

_____

“I just LOVE Mumma!”

Lucy, my sensitive, emotional soul, says this out of the blue frequently. My heart tightens, elongates, lodges in my throat each and every time. I can’t cry because it upsets her.

“Oh, Baby Goose. I love you, too.”

“Mumma, I’m not a baby.”

“I know you’re not, Lucy. But that is my name for you.”

“You tell me to, ‘Stop growin’, Lucy!’”

“I do. Stop it. Right now!”

“Mumma, I will go to school soon.”

“I know, Honey. Not for another whole year, but very soon.”

“I won’t need you when I go to school.”

I pause, wondering how to handle this — inane toddler conversations can spin wildly toward the significant in an instant.  Lucy is suddenly very interested in her school, which is down the street. We have explained that school is only for girls and boys to go to, and not Mummies and Daddies.

“Well, you might not need me when you’re at school, but I think I should still stick around.”

She throws her arms around my neck, and gives me a “seximo” kiss (rubbing noses together).

“Mumma,” she whispers into my ear. “I will always need you.”

_____

I don’t think you can regret your children.

Sure, you can yearn for the time before they catapulted into your life, changing every aspect of it forever. I wish, daily, for more hours in the day. I want to reach back into time and shake the old me who had endless stretches of emptiness in her lap. I want to sleep more, hating 6:15 a.m. when Lucy and Alice are simultaneously whining from their rooms and Eric and I poke each other under the warm sheets to try and force the other out.

But would I ever not have them, in order to secure these things? Never. Would I change anything about how they came to be? Never.

_____

In those late afternoon/early evening hours, when the TV is blaring, Spencer is barking at the wind, and Lucy is clinging to my knees, Alice is on my hip, and I’m stirring a pot with flushed cheeks, time stands still. So often I clock watch, counting the minutes until Eric comes home and I can disentangle myself.

But others, I close my eyes and inhale. I try to burn the chaos to memory. I want to remember it all, this feeling of being needed every single moment.

Soon enough, like the past life I occasionally miss, this time will be over.

You know toddlers are all about control. As in, they are becoming so aware of the world, and how little control they have over it. So the things they CAN control (what they eat is a huge one) they hold on to with all their might.

Lucy has always had a bed time routine, from almost the time she came home from the hospital. She takes it very seriously. It’s her control thing.

She must turn her Dora nightlight on. We must read three books. She must turn her music on. My daughter whom I could NEVER get to sleep under blankets for the first 2.5 years of her life must have now three on top of her in a particular order. And minimum two “guys” (stuffed animals) must be on top of the covers.

How Eric and I exit the room is a series of ordered events, a change of which causes DEATH CON NUCLEAR MELTDOWN 589647. At the end of the day when we’re trying to get her calm for sleep and just want some no child time pleasejeebus, we pretty much do anything she asks (within reason, of course. And a certain man whose name rhymes with Derek, Aerik and Ferick is much more…accomodating than I).

This is how it’s come to be that Eric and I each night find ourselves…I can hardly admit it…dancing and snarfing before we are permitted to leave the room.

Snarfing is inhale-snorting like a pig. But it’s really reference to Spencer Dog, who makes this sneeze-snort noise that we invented the word snarf for.

Dancing, in this instance, involves some half-hearted hip wiggling and arm flailing like when you’re spinning a hula hoop.

Often we hold hands and dance-snarf, refusing to meet eyes because we know we’re going to lose it at the ridiculousness we’re engaging in: Oh, if my boss could see me now, Eric’s said.

Sometimes I’m still nursing Alice during Lucy bedtime, and I can always tell The Routine is almost over because Eric’s snorts reverberate down the stairs.

And so it is, the power of a 3-year-old.

It occurred to me last night, as I was lying in bed with snot sliding down my throat and embedding itself in my lungs for today’s knee-knocking cough, that I could probably take some medicine for this bitch of a bug.

Turns out I can. Thank goodness, because I sound like a fog horn, look like death and feel like a cotton plant is shoved up my nose and down my throat. The drugs only dull the symptoms, but at least I enjoy being a tad stoned while suffering.

Man, I hate being sick. And I’m a big fat whining baby about it, too.

I doubted my capacity to look after Alice today (Lucy was in daycare), but we made it through. It’s terribly difficult for me to just sit and relax, as there’s self-imposed pressure to do stuff around the house, and lots of work to do on this site and Durham Region Daycare (where we now have over 40 listings!). Thankfully Alice nursed a lot today, so it forced me to at least be still, even if my mind wasn’t.

Our lovely teenage sitter Shelby has been popping over here each afternoon Lucy’s in daycare, and staying with Alice while I go pick up her big sister. But of course this is the week she has late basketball and can’t be here. I had to put Alice’s carseat down twice, near frozen tears of tiredness and frustration and weakness dotting my face, while walking up the driveway. All the while irrationally cursing Shelby for being so…active and involved at school.

In a good/bad development, Alice discovered her hands the past few days. Which means she gets this hilarious, wide-eyed, smiley look on her face when she sees them, raises a fist slowly to her mouth and proceeds to goober all over it. She’s also smacking toys on the bouncy chair.

But shoving her hands in her mouth makes me worry when there’s so much Sick floating around our house. I hope she doesn’t catch the flu Lucy had, or this Cold Fest Jan./09 edition. That — especially the flu — could be just awful.

But there’s no sense worrying about what hasn’t happened yet, so I’m heading to bed hoping for an energy-giving, drug-induced good night’s sleep that will help me survive tomorrow with both girls. Eric reminded me that “Treehouse is your friend, if that’s what it takes to get through the day,” and I wholeheartedly agree. Lucy will be in her glory.

In other news, our washing machine broke. We think the drain is clogged, if the error code is correct. $10 says it’s filled with dog hair.

Speaking of dogs, this evening I accidentally kicked over Spencer’s very full food bucket, sending thousands of kibbles careening across our kitchen floor and under every appliance. Simultaneously, Alice started screeching from the couch, Spencer dive-bombed the pile in excitement, and Lucy decided to “help” clean it up while licking her hands in between. So here I am trying to calm Alice from across the room, hold back Spencer’s kibble snarfing, yell at Lucy to “Stop licking your hands already, that’s so disgusting!” while snot poured out my red nose on to the tiles.

I laugh at it now. And tomorrow has to be a better day.

He does this after every single meal.

And do we put the bib back on Lucy?

Yes. Yes we do.