up up up up
It’s been a while since I blogged about The Girls And Their Awesome, which is odd and lame of me, because Their Awesome is Very.
Julia is experimenting with language. “I missed Daddy,” she said the other night, in an emo moment, clearly meaning the present tense. It’s a direct search-and-replace from what I always say when I see her after work: “Julia! I missed you!” Other idioms of hers are translations from the Spanish. “I want much milk!” she says. “Mucher and mucher!” Jeremy pointed out that this was a literal rendition of “mas” and “mucho.”
My relationship with Claire is a little stormy at the moment, Claire’s experiments being in the area of defiance. “No!” said Julia to me last night during one heated exchange: “no shout at my sister!” She’s right, of course. She’s also extremely well-mannered. If I photically sneeze, she and I will volley: “Bless you.” “Thank you.” “You’re welcome.” “I love you.” “I love you too, mommy.”
Ah, Claire, my volatile, stubborn, brilliant, fabulous rock star. She and I butt heads continually. I would take a bullet for her in a heartbeat and I believe she’d make an excellent president, but does she have to be SO IMMATURE? The other night she went into full meltdown because I had given her ice cream in a blue bowl, AT HER REQUEST, and ignored her followup request to disregard the earlier request, take the orange bowl away from Julia and give it to her, Claire. She went to bed without ice cream, rather than back down! I HAVE NEVER WITNESSED SUCH SELF-DEFEATING FOOLISHNESS except, of course, obviously, my own.
Did I mention brilliant? May I brag? No? I will anyway. She had a catch-up piano lesson one Friday, in which she learned a new melody; by her regular lesson on Sunday, 36 hours later, she was playing the duet with Renee. She lazily corrects my awful Spanish and instructs me in Important Facts. (Actually Julia has picked up this habit as well: last night I made the obviously unfounded claim that we live on planet Earth. Julia pointed out that we live in our house, while planet Earth is in space, and can only be reached by going UP UP UP UP.)
God, they crack me up. Claire picked up Arthur and the Comet Crisis at the library. There’s a passage in it in which a computer notes that the comet will destroy the earth, and adds: “Have a nice day!” Claire thought this was beyond hilarious, and has been reading it to anyone who will stand still long enough to hear it. She has inherited my bleak sense of humour and taste for apocalyptic science fiction! Good times, good times.
When the alarm goes off before sunrise every morning, groan, they jump into the big bed with me and the cat and I hug them as tight as I can, looking down at their dear heads, one strawberry-blonde bob, one puff of white silk. My daughters, my daughters, my daughters; I never dreamed I could possibly love anyone so much. Mucher and mucher.
