I was telling my mom about what I’d learned from all the comments on the little girl undershirt question, and I got this WAVE of love for all of you. Here we all are, in our own homes scattered literally ACROSS THE WORLD, and we can pool our knowledge about little girl undershirts so that one morning I am adrift on a sea of camibafflement and the next morning I know the whole scoop! Isn’t that NEAT?

Okay, fine, I know it’s only undershirts. But it’s what is UNDERNEATH the undershirts. …No, not little girls! SHARING and LOVE.

The subject of undershirts came up because I, um. Placed another order at The Children’s Place. I know, I know! But now it’s take an additional FIFTY percent off! (Plus the coupon code S1A48 for ANOTHER 15% off.) And that’s when I go back and buy more stuff! And I bought Elizabeth some underwear in case she ever deigns to potty-train. And that’s when I noticed the matching undershirts and got nervous.

Anyway, I bought that tiered chiffon skirt I liked so much last time. I was agitating and agitating about it not being available in Elizabeth’s size, and about how I was Never Going To Be Able To Buy It, and sad sad sad, and This Really Matters and so forth, and then I was like, “Why not buy it anyway?” So I did. They only had it in size 6-9 months, so I bought it in size 6-9 months along with a size 6-9 months matching eyelet-trimmed bodysuit and size 6-12 months matching maryjane tights, the whole outfit for less than $10.

(image from childrensplace.com)

(image from childrensplace.com)

(image from childrensplace.com)

Great gift, yes? Especially if SOMEBODY gives me a NIECE. Or if SOMEBODY ELSE says yes to a sixth baby and it’s a girl! Or if I ever find anyone else I love enough to give the outfit to. And if not, I will keep it in a box and take it out and look at it lovingly and play games where I choose my favorite stripe in the skirt, and my second favorite, and so on.

And I bought another outfit for Elizabeth. The outfit is not as wonderful as the tiered skirt outfit, but it has the advantage of being for a child who currently exists. I got her the green polo dress for $4.24 and the coordinating tights for $1.27.

(image from childrensplace.com)

(image from childrensplace.com)

And then I bought some dreadfully dull boy clothes: jeans and brown-striped shirts and some socks and YAAWWWWWNNNNN.

I am hoping those of you with daughters older than mine can help me out on this. What is the deal with the “cami” tops sold in the little girls’ underwear department? They’re like tank tops and they match the underwear. They’re undershirts, yes? And here is my main question: Do most little girls wear them? Or just SOME? Elizabeth still wears onesies now, but she’s in the largest size and I’ve been wondering what’s next, if anything. My older boys don’t wear undershirts, but do older GIRLS wear them?

I wrote an email to my in-laws, telling them about the latest things the kids have done and said. I mentioned how Elizabeth has three plastic dinosaurs she likes to take with her everywhere in her pink purse.

My mother-in-law wrote back that she’d tell me one thing: she’d rather have a granddaughter who liked dinosaurs than a grandson that liked pink purses. She added “Not that I wouldn’t love him anyway. I’m just saying.”

Let’s bypass the feelings that can form in such situations, where you start with “Are you saying that there is anything but Total Awesomeness involved in her love of dinosaurs?” and move rapidly from there to “And WHAT exactly would be SO WRONG with liking pink purses that you’d need to CLARIFY that you’d still love him?” and go straight from there to cartoon steam billowing from ears because of course you can’t SAY anything, since the person you’d be saying these things to would claim she was just kidding! Just making a light remark! My stars, she certainly didn’t mean to OFFEND you! Goodness!

Let’s instead focus on this question: am I now RELIEVED I chose not to include this photo of Edward in the most recent batch? Or am I wishing fervently I HAD?

He wanted to wear the genie dress-up outfit with his bunny ears, jeans, and baseball shirt. I wasn’t going to take a picture, but he insisted.

What I’m angry at:

• politics
• religion
• all of humankind

What set me off:

• a single letter to the editor in our local paper

I have a little task for you this weekend, if it’s something you feel like doing. I mean, it’s not like it’s HOMEWORK. You can be all, “Nah” if you want. But our AndreAnna and our Cass are starting a new cooking/recipes site called Chop. Stir. Mix., and they’re collecting recipes for it. EASY recipes, okay? Nobody wants to sit around clarifying and reducing all day. Or if they do, they are looking for information on some other site.

Elizabeth has been such a total CRAB PUFF recently. She’s always had an imperious streak, and that’s been amusing, but recently we are talking more about THIS action:

It starts with something relatively small. Perhaps she falls, or perhaps I criticize her tone of voice, or perhaps we’re out of applesauce. For whatever reason, she goes into a NUCLEAR CRAB. Nothing can stop it! Nothing! You can’t jolly her out of it. You can’t have her cry herself out of it. She wants to do one of two things:

1) Sit on your lap and be cuddled while she continues to sulk (and also drool, because when she’s in a Crab Fit she won’t swallow—WHY??).

2) Follow you from room to room, standing near you with her lip out so you know she’s still pissed off.

And do either of these things fix it? NO! All they do is reduce the volume of the attack.

She’s also giving us new sleep issues, getting out of her bed and banging on her door. What the heck? None of our other kids have done that. Rob, William, and Edward all acted as if the bed was a crib they couldn’t get out of without help. Elizabeth, though, has seen through the ruse. SHE is not physically bound by our words! Every night she falls asleep on the floor just inside her door.

Meanwhile, Edward is in a particular cute and pleasant stage, so Elizabeth suffers even more by comparison.

He came out of his room with a giraffe puppet on his hand, almost collapsing from laughter as he made the giraffe roar. Then he turned solicitous and said, worriedly, “That keer you, Mommy?” He’s been scared by loud sounds recently, so he is concerned I might have been overly startled by the roaring giraffe. And he’s saying “why” instead of “what,” so if I call him and he doesn’t hear me, he’ll say, “Why? Why, Mommy? You talk for me, Mommy?”

And on the other side of me: The Lip.

Is anyone else developing a little crush on Eric Case, whose picture is currently on the Blogger home page? Whooooo. Cute stuff. Hm, maybe people without Blogger don’t see it? I’d better steal his picture and put it here:

(image from blogger.com)

Speaking of adorable, your comments on yesterday’s Engaged to be Parentsed post have been SO GOOD! Elizabeth‘s “Oh! If I had known it was going to be YOU, I wouldn’t have worried” made me have to dab away tears on three separate occasions. Keep the comments coming: Erik and Anna haven’t cried uncle yet. Or rather AUNT! You get it? AUNT?

Also, I took down the post on what to do about the treat I signed up to bring to Rob’s class. I realized that using the name of my mother-in-law’s signature recipe on my secret blog was perhaps not my best idea ever. But I’m so, so glad I did, because you guys reminded me that there are no nuts allowed at school anyway! So I’m out of it! And now I just need to find those windmill cookies. And make Paul return the expensive ingredient to the store.

I had such a productive morning! I made three (3) batches of baby food (“carrot bean corn pea,” “broccoli plus half a bag of corn we’re never going to finish,” and “raspberry blackberry prune applesauce”), and I wiped Elizabeth’s nose one (1) zillion times. …Hm. Well, it FELT like a productive morning.

I’d like to devote today’s post to NAGGING.

My brother and my sister-in-law….. Wait. Let me give you their names so I don’t have to keep referring to them that way, and so you’re not thinking “Well, is this the woman married to her brother, or is this a sister of Paul’s?” but without me having to clarify by saying “my brother’s wife,” which, I don’t know, sounds a little funny. It reminds me of when my mother-in-law addresses my mail Mrs. Paul Thistle, like it’s to ANYONE married to Paul, it doesn’t really matter who it is.

AS I WAS SAYING, Erik and Anna are…”engaged to have a baby.” That is, they have decided to have one, but have not yet…”planted the tulip bulb,” if you follow me. There is still time to back away and actually plant actual tulips instead, and there are days I would fully support that decision and even chip in for the bulbs.

But here is what I am hoping we can discuss, since Erik and Anna read my blog, and since Erik has stopped answering my pleading, nagging, whining emails. Can we discuss how you felt before having children, and how you feel about those feelings now? Like, if you were scared before, but now think, “OH! If I’d known it was like this, I wouldn’t have been so nervous!” Or if you thought you didn’t really like children, but now you think “OMG I AM SO IN LUV W/THIS BABY!!1!”

(If you were confident before, but now think, “Actually, I should have gone with the tulips,” keep your pie-hole CLOSED. We are looking for NAGGING, not for UNBIASED SCIENTIFIC DATA COLLECTION.)

And can we also tell them to HURRY THE HECK UP and make Swistle an aunt? What are they WAITING for? Spring is HERE!

One thing I found impossible to imagine when I had a toddler and a newborn and was melting with despair because I wanted more children but didn’t see how I could POSSIBLY manage more when I was ALREADY at MAX CAPACITY for this crap—-one thing I found impossible to imagine, as I say, was that the toddler and newborn would be OLDER than the new siblings. I was imagining adding MORE OF THE SAME, daycare-style.

This morning I was already up to HERE with Henry’s angry fussing and it was only 7:45 in the morning. I was mashing him a banana and I wasn’t even engaging with him anymore because I was discouraged and also kind of crabby with him for being crabby so much recently.

And then Rob came in and said to Henry, “Oh! Are you SAD? Oh, no! Why?” Then he said to me, “Have you seen an ORANGE BALL around here?” I said I didn’t think so. He elaborated, showing me the ball’s approximate size and describing more accurately the shade of orange (“bright”). I again said I didn’t think so, and asked (a little impatiently, if truth must be told, but I don’t see why we need the WHOLE truth) why we were looking for this ball. He said, “It’s Henry’s FAVORITE.” I suggested it might be in the playroom and he went rocketing off, coming back with the ball. “HERE you go, Henry! Here’s your BALL! Your FAVORITE ball!”

Then Elizabeth came in, and because we once told her to go sing the ABC song to a crying Henry, she thinks that’s what she should do EVERY time, so she launched into a vigorous rendition, really DELIVERING that song, ballpark-style.

Then Rob said, “Oh, no WONDER! Your NOSE is running!” and went rocketing off again to get a kleenex, which he used to wipe Henry’s nose.

Then William came bouncing in to tell me that Edward was getting into trouble in the living room, and on his way out he offered Henry a bite of his cereal.

Hm. Reading this over, I see a story of CHAOS, not of happy and helpful sibling relationships. You will have to trust me: this is a reassuring story about happy and helpful sibling relationships.

Today at bedtime, Elizabeth thought she’d see what happened if she said “no.” Then she thought she’d see what happened if she said “No, I not ready!” Then she thought she’d see what happened if she added “No, YOU do it!”

And so I dealt with her for awhile, first the Training Session and then the Aftermath Snuggles. Then I discovered that while I’d been busy, one of our cats had hopped up onto the kitchen counter, eaten a big chunk of toppings off the leftover pizza, then hopped up ONTO THE TABLE and yorked it up there.

So how’s your weekend going?

I buy a lot of Elizabeth’s clothes at The Children’s Place. It fits Elizabeth well; most of it is made for play (the skirts are stretchy, and have attached shorts); and they use the same colors throughout so if you buy a dark pink shirt and a dark pink patterned skirt and dark pink socks, the dark pinks will all match—and it will be the same dark pink as in the shirt with a multicolored pink/blue/yellow/green flower on it. Mix-and-match = teh awesome.

ANYWAY. I like to wait until they have their “take an additional 30% off sale prices” end-of-season sales, and then I like to have a coupon, too. Which is why I keep my eye on pretty, pretty Mir, who has the scoop on coupons and free shipping deals: right now you get another 15% off if you use Mir’s code.

Sale-waiting is always a gamble, and right now I’m wondering Why oh why didn’t I buy this tiered skirt when I had the chance? I was too cheap to spend $9 (I wanted to wait for the additional 15%-off coupon), and now I bitterly, bitterly regret it! Now they only have it in 18 months and smaller. HEART SADNESS.

(this and all following images in this post are from childrensplace.com)

Well, into each life a little rain must fall.

Instead I bought these cute ruffle flare jeans, two pairs each of “pink” (they’re blue denim, but with a pinkish tint) and grey, $4.75 a pair baby!

And these cute hair bows in green and in pink for $.88 per pair! Not that Elizabeth will let me put them in her hair! But at least I can BUY them!

And some $3-ish shirts such as these from the baby girls section, for her to wear this year:

And a bunch of $3.50ish shirts such as these from the big girls section, for her to wear next year (she’s tall, so she’s currently in the biggest shirt size in the baby girl sizes):

And finally—OMG could you DIE?—I bought her this smocked daisy dress for $7.73:

So I’m happy, and of course I’m already second-guessing: Should I have gotten the daisy dress in yellow instead? or in black? or in pink AND in yellow? Or should I have bought the gingham dress instead? Should I have bought more of those jeans in larger sizes? Should I have bought the yoga pants, even though she does not do yoga per se?

Well, nothing says there can’t be a little rematch later on. If you buy anything, tell me what you get: I’m highly susceptible to your influence, and I think it’s fun to match.