Games and More

Mixed in among the bags of hand-me-down clothes the girls recently received were a slew of toys and board games.  I managed to sneak some of the toys into a box for donations when Ethan last went to the Town Transfer Station, but the girls definitely got their claws on a few special items.  One of the games is a "Pretty Pretty Princess Cinderella" board game, the object of which is to be the first to collect all six items of jewelry.  The girls prefer the items more for dress-up than for actually following the rules of the game, so they tend to ignore the instructions and simply adorn themselves with necklaces, bracelets, rings, and what not.  However, there seems to be yet another reason why Julia isn't even bothering with the instructions.

JULIA: Mom?  For some reason they think they can just use MADE-UP WORDS in this Cinderella game instead of REAL words.  Like, they made a word that's spelled "b-i-j-o-u-x" and that doesn't even spell anything REAL:

Now, this is just a shot in the dark here, but the instructions might spell real words if Julia chose to flip them over and read the side that's written in English rather than French.

Madeleine showed her own stunning powers of deduction yesterday when, after an emergency run to the bathroom, she wound up having to work extra hard on a particularly constipated bowel movement.

MADELEINE: (shouting from behind the closed bathroom door) Mama?  Sometimes when I'm doing a big, big, hard poop, it HURTS my BUM.
ME: (shouting back) Oh, honey, I'm sorry.  I know how awful that feels.

In fact, it was such a big, big hard poop that Madeleine's hurting bum got a little bloody. 

MADELEINE: But Mama!  What's that RED stuff in my poop?
ME: It's just a little blood from your bum, honey.
JULIA: (alarmed) Why is Madeleine's bum all bloody?
ME: She just had to push out a big hard poop so sometimes that can make your skin bleed.  It's not a lot of blood or anything.
MADELEINE: (thoughtful) Mama?  I guess I must have my PERIOD.

I'm telling you, these kids are logistical geniuses!

In other news, we Rowes had a great time visiting our friends Nate and Anja and their dad Thad yesterday afternoon.  The kids had a blast playing together, and we all got to enjoy a delicious home-cooked dinner, courtesy of Thad.  Julia and Madeleine were desperate to keep playing after dinner, despite the fact that it was already bedtime and we still had a 30-minute drive home, as well as baths, to do. 

Madeleine was bathed quickly and easily once we got home, but Julia was a whole different story.  After she had emerged from the shower, I began combing her hair, only to discover her head was filled with what looked to be black coffee grounds.  I couldn't help but have a momentary sensation of panic, as Julia's school nurse recently sent out a bulletin stating there had been 3 confirmed cases of lice since school started.  I ordered Julia back into the tub and began rinsing her hair to get the black grounds out.

ME: Julia, what on earth happened?  It looks like you have DIRT in your hair.
JULIA: Oh, I think it's from when Nate poured the sand over my head!

Wait.  Back up.  I was not aware of the sand pouring.  I do, however, remember that Nate and Julia had been playing with a set of weights and one split open, leaving black grains of sand (or something sand-like) all over the place.  Apparently Julia had forgotten to let me know that her hair was one of those places.

ME: Why did Nate do that?
JULIA: (wailing, with teary eyes) I don't know!  Because he likes the WILD PLAY!

I must point out that Julia seems to enjoy the "wild play" as well, seeing as I am currently sporting a bloody, busted lip as a consequence of Julia leaping - with WAY too much vigor - at me in Thad's backyard.  But bringing that up was not going to be helpful for our black sand problem, so I just continued my wetting and scrubbing attempts as she cried about just wanting to go to bed.

Ethan came down and took over the de-sanding process, and between our joint efforts we were able to remove most of the black grit. 

Just a wee, little unexpected issue delaying an already late bedtime even further...

At any rate, I was pleased to note the absence of any leftover sand this morning as I pulled Julia's hair into a ponytail, which was her requested hair-do, as she had, of course, selected her Hermione Granger sweater/sweatpants set to wear to school today.

Harry Potter.  The obsession that lives on (and on, and on...)