Monday, January 9, 2012

Happy Birthday, Girls!

So the day finally arrived. The girls are two and four! Not only does this means that they are older, which happened WAY too fast, but it also means that I'm an old fart. And that my parents are even OLDER farts. How did we all get so full of hot air?!

Before I begin, let me provide you with the lyrics of a song that Morgan made up and sings all of the time:

The moon comes up,
The sun goes down,
And Nightmare Moon lives in the moon,
And Princess lives in the sun

Her hands alternate up and down and she repeats it quite often.

Here's Avery's song that she made up:

Ehhhhh ahhhhhh bibbity booo booo lalalalaaaaaaaaa.......Hey!!!!!! There's lights!
fooooowoooooallalaalaa booo boo moooooo mooooo.....Where's cows???

I interject with this because it's all that I heard on my way home from the airport after dropping off my parents!

But now for a few pics from the Bday party, in no particular order!


Cute little animals that wag their tails when you push their buttons. Daddy, being familiar with pushing people's buttons, got this for them!





Next is the winner of the night! Daddy picked out this AWESOME art easel for them! It is magnetic white board on one side and chalkboard on the other. It provides TONS of fun for hours!







And then, because great things come in three's, please note the awesome glow stick lights, wands, necklaces, and balloon strings hanging from up above (they filled the ceiling!).
Daddy's ideas!
And no, I am not under duress as I write this!









And now for some fun with Paul and Hayden! Hayden and his parents, Paul and Corrie, live just a few houses away from us, which is quite convenient when you don't want to worry about driving (and, because they have a kegerator!) Anyway, last summer, Morgan got a bunch of princess lip glosses from Target, and wouldn't 'cha know it? Hayden LOVED them. And ah, yes, those of you who know Dan know that this was an open invitation to humiliate Paul's already fragile ego. I'm sure you can imagine the snarky comments, thinly disguised, of course! But here we are a few months later observing similar behavior...from them both! (Not that there's anything wrong with that!)




So, I guess we've settled that one!

Here are some more pics from the party. Morgan loved one of Grammy's presents...but it was to Avery! Oh well, like Avery has a clue!


Barbie's head (freaky) and hair extensions. Now this is a funny one. There's something weird and twisted about giving your child a beautiful head on a platter. Either Godfather or Hannibal-esque.



But here you'll see my now 4 year old acting strangely. I'll give you three guesses...



1. Passed out after too much Tequila?


Nope.


2. Sneaking up on a bunch of balloons like the Crocodile Hunter?


Nope.


3. Examining the nooks and crannies in the floor like it was an English muffin?


Nope.


The real scenario: Morgan runs like a madwoman, pretends to fall to the ground, sprawls herself out on the floor in the exact same position every single time, tongue out, right leg kicking, saying, "ahhhhhhhh." We say, "Oh my gosh! What happened to Morgan! She looks like a chalk outline!" She hysterically jumps up, runs a few step, and repeats the process. I have no idea where she got this, but she really does hang her tongue out the side of her mouth and squinch her eyes shut. It's kind of creepy. Maybe that's what they call "dark humor." I just call it weird.

But then again, Morgan is faking it. Avery actually kills her babies.


Although at first glance that last picture looks adorable - cute little polka dot pj's, little mut in mouth, fuzzy hair that refuses to grow, baby in lap getting love and affection...please notice the second baby - the one with its head grotesquely twisted 180 degrees and facing the corner like The Blair Witch Project 2.0!

So let's shift gears and go to the aftermath of the party. The next day. Especially because Avery has on an awesome outfit and my mom got some great video (I have to get that from her and post it...)of her telling everyone what was on her clothes!

Putting socks on Pop-Pop


Identifying the penguin


and the other penguin on her pants


In same outfit playing with Pop-Pop






Freakish Barbie head


And the little puppy that she loves. Don't tell Avery!



But let's not kid ourselves...this day wasn't just about the kids! It was about friends, too! Especially the kind that come up behind you and freak you out, cause a sense of fight or flight that is oh so rare in normal relationships, but pretty much par for the course around this place! Notice both the fight (Jacci) and flight (Krysta) instincts in motion!



But at the end of the day, we sure did have a great time!

Final thoughts? I have absolutely no idea where this time went. Not just the last four years, but the last twenty. Yes, twenty. Let's break this down. I graduated from high school 20 years ago. I got married 11 years ago. We moved to WI four years ago. My oldest daughter is in preschool. My youngest forms complete sentences like, "I like this ice cream," and "Morgan, can I have a french fry, please?" Zoom. Gone. Passing quickly. All of the time. I just finished reading my AP seniors' essays about Slaughterhouse Five, and for those of you who don't know, time is a significant motif throughout. In fact, Billy, the main character, is "spastic in time," jumping unintentionally through moments in his life. Thanks to the Tralfamadorians, an alien race who abduct him just before his daughter's wedding, he learns from their infinite wisdom of the universe that there is no free will. That only on earth is there any talk of free will and that time is not a string of pearls, each moment following linearly from one moment to the next. Rather, time exists in the past, the present, and the future. That all things have always happened and always will. So even though it's one of their own little plunger-shaped-with-a-hand-on-top--and-single-green-eye-in-it selves that wind up pushing a button that blows up the entire universe, they recognize and inform Billy that this naughty Tralfamadorian has always pushed, and will always push that button. According to them, the moment is structured that way. They instead choose (ironically) to see their lives as a whole, focusing only on the beautiful and lovely moments. Yes, they have wars, but they just CHOOSE to focus on the good stuff...unlike humans who can only see through the equivalent of a PVC pipe duct taped to their eyes, and our heads permanently facing forward as we it on a railroad car zooming from beginning to end through our lives. We cannot see outside of that stupid pipe, no matter how hard we try. Thus, we only see a little tiny piece of the entire panoramic view of life at a time. The little plunger things see all time, all moments, all happiness, all beautiful. I envy that part of it. Peace.

This, my friends, is what I'm getting at. It's my girls' birthdays. Life flies by. I do not have the gift of being "spastic in time," able to visit all of the moments in my life, and I might not be able to see the future, but I do have the ability to CHOOSE (sorry little dudes) the moments in which I want to relish. I choose to hold onto the sweet ones. The ones filled with love.

"Linger longer in love and laughter" - me

Peace out, homies.




1 comment:

  1. The pictures of your family enjoying the love is so nice. I especially enjoyed the writing a the end, the tie in to Slaughterhouse. Time is a convention. I've spoken with this so often with people, most of the time with the other person titling their head at me, no doubt wondering when exactly I lost my mind. Still, I maintain time is an artificial construct. There is only this one, ever stretching moment, the now. It reminds me of the Flaming Lips song, All We Have is Now. Good stuff.

    ReplyDelete