"Mission Accomplished"

Madeleine on Emily, Emily on the floor - picture explained below

While I'm not the Commander in Chief, I don't have a large banner behind me, and I'm not on the USS Abraham Lincoln, I feel I can say with some confidence "Mission Accomplished". Ladies and Gentlemen, I think we're potty trained. That is not to say we never have accidents, but near as I can tell that will go on, occasionally, for years and I don't want to have to tell their 2nd grade teacher they're "almost" trained....so we are saying they are trained. In fact, we are the only two out of our classmates at "school" who are trained, so we are feeling very proud of the fact we are "big girls". Madeleine has developed the ability to palm an additional M&M when they get their reward, which she flashes at me as she pops it in her mouth...of course Emily then gets an extra one because we have to be fair...however, the "chocolate Ms" will disappear eventually and we will go on. The truly sad thing is I've managed to gain 2lbs since the arrival of an endless supply of M&Ms has entered the house; hindsight being what it is - I should have used Skittles. While Madeleine palms additional "Ms", Emily has learned to lie about production so she can get them; I guess she doesn't think too highly of my grasp of the obvious - just the beginning of many years of my children thinking I'm a moron.

This week the girls exhibited two behaviors that startled me in the fact they are in practice now, and not at least another year down the road, and that they clearly demonstrate the girls are girls, not babies. Truthfully, the whole "not babies anymore" issue really hit a little over a week ago when they officially turned two and a half - I turned around and there were these little people, who spend a lot of time telling me what to do, instead of our babies. The first behavior was when I told them they could not do something, in this case entirely strip the couch of all its cushions, and was informed "Daddy let do." with an air of authority. The second is when one girl wants to drive a car or airplane on the ground, or put the stuffed lion on the couch, and the second blocks her path with her feet, or puts her hand on the prized couch cushion. The driver/lion tamer (Emily) repeatedly states "cu me" (excuse me), while the roadblock (Madeleine) just smiles...mind you there are other flight paths and couch cushions, but what is the fun in that? I suppose this is some sort of karmic payback for my brother Paul and me fighting over who could look out which window in the car while on road trips, or going to the grocery store (road trips were better - you could block the view out of your window with your pillow - we didn't take our pillows to the grocery store, really cut down on the fun).

And now to explain the picture...this is how the girls hug each other good night. Sometimes, they will hug the way the rest of the world's population does, but the one on top of the other is their preferred method. On this particular day it is on the floor, but normally it is in their cribs (both have to have a turn on top AND on bottom and this has to happen in each crib - it is a lengthy process). Also, you may notice their jammies are on backward. This is because they can open zippers...one day last spring I had to make seven trips into their room during nap time (unusual, as normally they crash) and each time found them in various stages of disrobing. The second to last trip they were both happily, and proudly, buck-naked and had their diapers lying on the crib mattresses. The last trip in they were again naked, and drunk with power, but the diapers were thrown in the middle of the room. I was concerned for two reasons: 1. the whole situation was in no way conducive to sleeping 2. these are children who come absolutely unglued if they get the tiniest bit of mucous ("nose water") on their sheets if they have a cold - I didn't think they'd handle a puddle, or worse, with glee and I didn't want to clean that one up. So...in desperation I grabbed scissors, cut the feet off their jammies (which were nearly outgrown anyway), put socks on their feet, and zipped them up the back. Thankfully, the cribs are not close enough to each other for the girls to unzip one another. What really gets me is they will mess with zippers, but when they wear jammies that are just pants and shirts, nothing happens (I probably just jinxed myself).