Geniuses of the Week

The award-winning genius moves of the week:


Another Injury Pertaining to Fish

The very same day that Julia got hit in the head with a plastic shark, Madeleine herself had an injury related to plastic and fish.  During swim team practice, the coach taped up results from last week's meets on the window between the parent viewing area and the pool deck.  I watched Madeleine and a teammate kneeling on a bench looking over the results in between swim sets.  And because Madeleine is known to somehow WIPE OUT ON EVERYTHING, she managed to tip herself over and face-plant into one of the plastic fish bowls on the windowsill.  She had a cut under her chin and a sore arm but thankfully was able to recover after a few tears and get back into the water.

I mean, seriously, who would have thought that of all the animals in the world this one would be indirectly responsible for Madeleine getting hurt??:

Julia Takes The World's Longest Shower

After last night's swim meet, the girls both took showers.  They were explicitly told to go quickly, as it was already past their usual bedtime.  Unfortunately, Julia had a brain lapse that caused her shower to go on unnecessarily long.

JULIA: (shouting from the shower) DADDY!  DADDY!
AUNTIE SHANNON: (entering the bathroom) Honey, Daddy's helping Madeleine.  What's wrong?
JULIA: There wasn't any BAR SOAP, so I used Mommy's soap (pointing to my liquid body wash)
AUNTIE SHANNON: Okay.
JULIA: But by accident I put it in my HAIR.  And now I used it all up and there's none of THAT soap left for my body!

Auntie Shannon got Julia a new bar of soap, but apparently washing soap out of her hair was time-consuming enough that Madeleine was done showering and ready for bed before Julia had even gotten to the actual real shampoo.

ETHAN: (going downstairs to check on Julia) Julia, I told you that you need to be quick, and you're taking the LONGEST.  SHOWER.  EVER.
JULIA: I'm sorry but I put SOAP in my hair so I have to wash it out!!

Ethan had no sympathy.  And I guess he isn't required to, since he's been known to accidentally put soap in his hair as well, and he didn't make a big epic deal out of it.



My Children Apparently Have No Table Manners

I literally had to say this at lunch today.

ME: Julia!  Get your feet off of Madeleine's shoulder.  Girls.  Listen.  You *don't* sit at a table eating a meal with your leg across the table and your BARE FEET touching somebody's arm and cheek.  Come on.

Meanwhile, I also had to ask Julia not to continually open and close the lid of my non-dairy creamer while she talked to me, tell Madeleine she shouldn't be drinking out of an overused moldy straw, and ask Julia to please take my thank-you card from a student off her face.  For reasons unknown to anyone, she had the card open with it pressed up against her face, talking to me while smooshing the card all over her lips and cheeks.

I feel like I live in a house of animals.