Creations of All Kinds

I returned home from work today to find that both girls had exciting announcements.

MADELEINE: (brightly) So, Mom, I peed in my UNDERWEAR!

JULIA: Mom!  I have a surprise to show you!  Looooook!  Guess what it is!  Guess!   You have to guess!  What do you think it iiiiiis?

The object in question looked like this:

I had no idea what it was.  A headless giraffe standing next to his neck?

JULIA: Guess, Mama!  Guess what it is?
ME: Ummmmm.  A giraffe?

Boy, did I *heartily* disappoint my poor, exuberantly eager daughter.  It was definitely not a giraffe.  It was a totem pole, which is part of her Native American landscape that she constructed:

It's okay, because I had a chance to make up for my initial dunce-hood, but MAN was Julia going to make me work for it.

JULIA: So, Mom, what's your FAVORITE part of my landscape?
ME: Uh... the building in the middle.
JULIA: But WHY?
ME: Because... I just think it looks really cool.
JULIA: Well, WHAT do you think looks cool about it?
ME: Uhhh....I just think the shape and the way it's constructed is cool looking.
JULIA: And what's your SECOND favorite part?
ME: Umm...the totem pole.
JULIA: And what do you like about the totem pole?
ME: I really like all the faces on it.
JULIA: Mom.  Don't you know that that's what totem poles are SUPPOSED to look like?
ME: I do, but I particularly like the faces you drew on your pole.
JULIA: Well, what do you like about them?
ME: I just like their design.
JULIA: And what's your THIRD favorite part?
ME: Um, I'm really not sure.
JULIA: Okay.  Try to think of everything on the landscape.  What's your THIRD favorite?

I picked the purple bird.  BUT: just so you're clear, it's not a real bird.  It's a sculpted bird attached to the pole.  Julia was very adamant that we understand that after Madeleine wandered in to ackmire Julia's picture.

JULIA: Madeleine, do you know what I'm making?
MADELEINE: Um...a BIRD.
JULIA: Noooo!  That's a TOTEM POLE. 
MADELEINE: Ooooh.  Is that a PRINCESS?
JULIA: Noooo!  This is a Native American LANDSCAPE. These are FACES on the totem pole.  It's not a princess. Besides, Madeleine.  (challenging) Does that look like our house?  Does it look like the kind of house we live in?
MADELEINE: No.
JULIA: Right.  Because it's a NATIVE AMERICAN landscape.

God, Madeleine.  What are you, a dope?  Come one, get with the Native American program here.

Madeleine, following in her big sister's example, decided to delve into some artwork herself.

MADELEINE: Julia, look what I made! 
JULIA: Ooooh.
MADELEINE: It's a CENTAPOINT!
JULIA: A centipede?
MADELEINE: No, a centaPOINT.
JULIA: Oh.  What's a centapoint?
MADELEINE: It's a thing like what I just MADE.  That's what a centapoint is.
JULIA: That doesn't give me much INFORMATION.
MADELEINE: (frustrated with her marker) The centapoint's name is NOT SHOWING UP!

A centapoint.  (May I remind you of the fact that my children have a propensity towards phallic drawings?)

Julia was not able to complete her Native American landscape before it was time for her shower, much to her great disappointment.  However, once she was in the shower, she cheerily moved onto another subject.  As I stood stir-frying vegetables over the stove, Julia had an urgent topic to discuss with me from behind the shower curtain.

JULIA: (from the shower) MOM!  COME HERE!
ME: (running in from cooking) What is it?
JULIA: Mom, is this OPERA? (launching into a made-up song in a voice thick with vibrato)
ME: Uh, yeah, it kind of sounds like opera.

I then ran back to the stove to continue stir-frying while Julia belted out her made-up songs with gusto.  It wasn't long before she was hollering to me again, but between the roaring sound of the shower and the snapping and crackling of the stir-fry, it was kind of hard to have a conversation.

JULIA: Mom!  COME HERE!
ME: Uh - I can't, honey.  I'm cooking!
JULIA: WHAAAAT?
ME: I CAAAAAN'T!  I'll just listen from in here!
JULIA: WHAAAAAT?
ME: WHAT DO YOU NEED?
JULIA: Okay, listen and see if you can figure out the RHYMING WORDS!  (Launching into a faux opera song whose words were indecipherable due to the aforementioned background noise.)  Okay.  Mom.  So what two rhyming words did you hear?

I was, once again, an utter failure at passing my daughter's challenge question.

Once the dinner had finished and I was towelling Julia off in the shower, she told me, full of glee, about her fun shower game.  "Mom?  I had to just play 'Julia's an OPERA SINGER' in the shower.  Did you hear me clapping my hands and BOWING?  And I was, like, saying 'thank you, thank you' and reaching out like people were GIVING me things!"

I think it's fair to say that Julia just loves to sing in the shower.

And speaking of singing, Madeleine insisted on writing out every letter of the alphabet on a blank piece of paper this afternoon, so that she could then point along and sing her "ABCs":

Despite the top to bottom and not always linear order, she managed to go along through the song just fine -- that is, until the final letters.  Since she had completely freaked out over what she deemed to be a failed attempt at writing a "V," she had me take over writing the rest of the alphabet from there on out.  Suddenly, a HUGE flaw in Mommy's alphabet-writing skills became apparent to her.

MADELEINE: Mom!  Y - N - Z!  You forgot N!  Mom!  Can you make it?
ME: We already did N.
MADELEINE: (starting to lose it) No!  We DIDN'T!  We need END Z!
ME: You mean "Y and Z?"  "And" is not a letter.  It's just the word "and."  The next letter after "Y" is "Z."

Madeleine just couldn't handle that.

So we compromised:

My kids are not high-maintenance.