Obviously Cindy-Lu is a special shining star of a girl, but I’m going to be honest here for a moment. The girl scares the shit out of me. I have this fear that one day she might grow up to be the friendly neighborhood serial killer.

Oh, who am I kidding? Friendly? Cindy-Lu? Not likely.

She’s a good girl and she’s usually pretty sweet. And, Lord knows, she’s beautiful beyond words, but that girl…well, let me give you a few examples.

Eeyore and Cindy-Lu were playing nicely together when I heard the following exchange:

Cindy-Lu: If you don’t say nice things to me and do things for me then I’m going to kill you.

Eeyore: I’m not going to do that.

Cindy-Lu: Fine then. You want a lollipop? *holds out her empty hand*

Eeyore: Sure! *reaches for her*

Cindy-Lu: *stabbing noises as she pretends to stab his hand*

The fact that she threatened to kill him if he didn’t say nice things to her was bad enough, but then she offered him candy to lure him closer so that she could stab him? Serial killer.

Later in the day, she had the following conversation with me:

Cindy-Lu: Mom, if you don’t let me sleep in your bed tonight I’m going to have a bad dream about you.

Me: Oh, no! I hope it’s not too scary, because you aren’t sleeping with me tonight!

Cindy-Lu: Okay then. I’m going to dream that you have tape over your mouth and all around your arms and legs so you can’t talk or move.

Me: *finding a weapon to sleep with, just in case*

Seriously. The girl scares me.

Today was Picture Day at the preschool and Cindy-Lu was so excited. She helped pick out her “dress up” clothes and only got pissy one time when I vetoed the Cinderella princess costume. She sat still and let me brush her hair and fix it all pretty and she promised to wipe her little snot nose before it was her turn to get her picture taken.

I picked her up after preschool prepared to hear all about the big moment and watch her model her “cheeeeese” smile for me, but instead she was brokenhearted.

“Everyone else got their berry own comb but me!”

I assured her that she probably had a comb in her book bag, but a quick search proved me wrong. She went on and on about how those other kids had a comb and she didn’t and it basically ruined her little sunshine filled day. I insisted that they must have just missed her and it was an accident, but she was still pretty upset about it.

I didn’t pass out a comb after I took this picture. I handed out candy. Bribery. It’s what all the best parents do.

At dinner we were talking about our day and I mentioned her pictures again and asked her to show me how she smiled.

“I don’t think I did a berry good job at pictures. I didn’t get my own comb.”

I excused myself from the table and snuck to the bathroom to grab one of her Daddy’s combs. I hid the comb under my shirt and snuck it out to the coat rack.  I stuck the comb in her coat pocket and went back to dinner.

After dinner I mentioned that maybe the teacher put her comb in her coat pocket. She took off to look for it and moments later I heard “A-ha!”

She came barreling into the living room full of giggles and showed me her “berry own comb.”

She held it up in front of her face and exclaimed, “What the heck do you do with this thing anyway?”

I’m a big fan of shopping. It’s fun, you get to bring home shiny things, you get exercise from all the walking around and toting heavy bags (heh), and it makes me happy. I’m a shopper.

Once, twice, sometimes even three times a year I go on a shopping trip with my mom and aunt. We head out of town, stay in a hotel and eat at yummy restaurants, and shop until our feet are so sore that we are all in tears. It’s fun!

Obviously, my daughter is destined for great shopping success, right?

Cindy-Lu never really cared one way or the other about it until recently. She got her ears pierced and now “the earring store” (Claire’s) is her favorite place in the world. She picks out earrings and hair pretties and Disney princess paraphernalia. She loves to go to Old Navy and browse their selection of tights (the girl loves to wear tights). The other day I took her in a Justice for Girls store just to look around (the sizes are all too big for her) and she walked in, looked around the room and breathed “Oh, Mommy! Isn’t this store lovely?”

She’s a shopper.

I really wasn’t too worried about it until this morning. You see, we’ve been getting a lot of toy catalogs in the mail recently and the kids both love to go through and circle the toys they want Santa to bring them. I was flipping through one of the catalogs this morning to see what the damage was and there I saw it. An ad featuring a woman standing in a pile of toys wearing gold high heels. Cindy-Lu didn’t circle a single toy on that ad. She circled the gold high heels.

As Cleatus said when I showed him the ad, “We are so screwed.”

If you ask Cindy-Lu who her best friend is you’ll get one of two answers. It’s either Bubba (also known as Eeyore, her big brother) or it’s Nephew (my nephew, her cousin…and no, she doesn’t actually call him Nephew, but I need a blog name for him and there it is).

Lately Cindy-Lu and Nephew haven’t been getting along that great. She’s about six months older than him and has always enjoyed being older and able to boss him around. As Nephew gets older, he doesn’t take as much shit from her as he used to and he doesn’t seem to like playing hairdresser or dress up anymore either. Cindy-Lu is struggling with this a bit and lately she hasn’t been exactly loving towards him.

The other night at a family dinner with the in-laws (and not just the “regular” in-laws, but extended in-law family as well) my dear, sweet, darling daughter said a prayer before we began eating.

“Dear Jesus, Thank you for Cinderella. And thank you for my family except for Nephew. Amen.”

Aw. What a sweetheart.

Nephew, who is the most affectionate and tender-hearted little boy ever, piped up with a “Hey! That’s not very nice!”

Kids. As much as they annoy me, they sure do crack me up.

(Also, yes, I know I need to slowly step away from the photoshop, because I take it a bit far, but I loooove the look of these overly processed pictures and there is nothing you can say to make me change my mind. So there. I vow to go a little easier on the processing in the future. Maybe.)

Before bed tonight I scooped Cindy-Lu up into the chair with me where she lay across my lap and jabbered at me. She was so adorable and I couldn’t keep my hands or kisses off of her.

I kissed her cheeks and nose while I marveled over how beautiful she was. I grabbed her hand in mine and played with her fingers and tickled the palm of her hand. I scooped her feet into my hands and bit at her delicious little girl toes. And, finally, I pet her shiny, brown hair.

“You have such pretty hair, Cindy-Lu,” I said to her.

“Oh. There beens a booger in it, but I tooked it out.”

Ah, yes. How lovely.

You all think my husband is cute, right? I mean, look at him! Those eyes! Did you know that sometimes they are blue and sometimes they are green? Hot, right?

But you don’t know him like I do. I mean, he’s not just a pretty face. There is SO MUCH more to him than that.

Drawing courtesy of Cindy-Lu.
(It probably goes without saying, but this picture is drawn to scale. Obviously.)

My, my. What a nice large belly button he has. And those scrawny little legs are so sexy. His heart is nice, of course, but we all know it’s his wiener that I love best.

UPDATED: Why are you all looking at the thing over his LIP? Who cares about his mouth! It’s the dick we are focusing on! But, to keep you all happy, I asked Cindy-Lu what that was and she said it was his extra nose. Meh. Whatever. At least she got the male anatomy part drawn correctly.

Last night we ate dinner pretty late and by the time we were finished it was dark out. Eeyore wanted to go back over to the neighbor kid’s house to play, so I told him to go ahead, but be careful in the dark.

He looked out the door and said it was so dark he couldn’t see ANYTHING. I walked to the door with him and told him that I would stand at the door and watch him while he walked across the street.

“Uh, Mom? How will that help?”

“Well, I dunno. Why are you worried about the dark? Are you scared?”

“…Yeah…”

“Well, then, it will help because I’ll be watching at the door and if I see anything scary chasing you then I can yell for you to run faster!”

At that point my husband intervened and got the boy a flashlight. I’ve never heard of a flashlight that shouted at you to run faster if it saw scary monsters though, so I think my plan was more helpful.

I’m quite certain that the fact that I am sitting here happily blogging on a night when my husband is out motorboating some random girl just goes to show how far we’ve come in our marriage. There was a time when I wouldn’t have stood for such things.

But tonight? I am content to sit on my couch and blog while my husband heads downtown to possibly contract a disease or two from some dirty stripper.

(He didn’t just bid me farewell and head off to the local strip club. He’s at a bachelor party. I’m not THAT cool of a wife.)

The bachelor party is actually the least of my worries, because you all know what comes after the bachelor party, right? The wedding. I don’t like weddings. They are BORING and sometimes they make me CRY and crying is DUMB. I’m not planning to cry at this wedding since I really don’t even know the people, which means that I am in for some BORING with a side of “MOM, CAN WE GO HOME NOW? IS THE WEDDING OVER YET? WHY DO YOU KEEP TELLING ME TO QUIET DOWN? WHAT DO YOU MEAN I AM EMBARRASSING YOU? I’M HUNGRY. YOU WANNA PLAY I-SPY? HEY! LET’S GO FIND A COOKIE!”

Cleatus is an usher, so I’m pretty well screwed in the “Here! You take your daughter and SHUT HER UP!” department.  I’m going to be taking care of my two children all alone. Two of them against one of me.

And, apparently, this is a Catholic wedding which means it will go on for HOURS and HOURS and HOURS and only when I have actually sacrificed my own children in the name of the Virgin Mary will the wedding end. At least, I think that’s how Catholic weddings work. There are bloody children involved, yes?

Either way, that is what I’m going to use as my defense after my children act up one too many times and I completely lose my shit.

My son has apparently decided that he no longer likes french fries. Repeat: HE NO LONGER LIKES FRENCH FRIES.  How do things like that happen? You just wake up one day and decide that greasy, salty, deep fried  potatoes are not DELICIOUS? I’ve always been a little worried that he didn’t like macaroni and cheese (PASTA! AND CHEESE! What is not to like?), but now? Now I’m just plain scared. Is he even HUMAN?

Does another child even exist that does not like french fries? I didn’t even realize this was a possibility. Perhaps I received a defect? Do I get a refund? Is he still under warranty? WHAT DO YOU MEAN, I JUST HAVE TO DEAL WITH IT?

So my husband finally broke. He is now the proud owner of a stray kitty. Poor guy, he hates cats. For eight looooong years I’ve been asking for a kitten. And for eight looooong years he’s been saying no. That all changed on Thursday night. I called him at work to tell him about the kitten my cousin found on the side of the road. I told him that I knew it was a bad time to get a kitty (since we’re planning on trying to sell our house in the next couple of weeks), but that THIS WAS FATE and THIS POOR LITTLE BABY WAS GOING TO DIE and DID HE WANT TO BE RESPONSIBLE FOR THAT? DID HE?

Obviously, he didn’t. Also, I think the fake tears I injected in the middle of the conversation helped somewhat. I can pretty much get whatever I want if I just cry about it. And luckily I can cry on demand. But, lets be honest here, you would have done the same thing.

Don’t feel too sorry for him. I’ve caught him playing with her a couple times now. He acts all tough and manly, but it’s a facade. He just likes to think he’s a cold-hearted bastard who doesn’t care about sweet little animals. I’ll bet he lets Lily lick his face when I’m not watching.

The kids seem to really enjoy playing with her, except…well…I hate to say it, but I think that Cindy-Lu might be insane. Like, REALLY insane or something. You know how the crazy murderers start out hurting small animals? Yes, well. Cindy-Lu will be gently playing with Lily and then all of a sudden she’ll look at me and say “Can I pull her tail?” or “Can I knock her down?” or “Can I poke her in the eye?” I’ve started hiding all the kitchen knives. And locking my bedroom door at night.

Is this normal? Do all children go through a violent phase? She has also been threatening her brother and her cousin. If they do something to piss her off she says “If you don’t stop doing dat, I will hit you in da face!” or “If you do dat again I will kick your head!” She’s never actually followed through on her threats, but one of these days I’m afraid one of them is gonna get an ass kickin’.

I can’t help but notice that this didn’t start until I started threatening to spank her (and following through a couple of times). WHAT HAVE I DONE TO MY BABY? I’ve turned her into a serial killer, that’s what. So, obviously, I’ve switched back to time outs. I might have to physically hold her in the chair for the three minutes she gets time out, but damn it, that girl gets time out!

And since I’m jumping from topic to topic anyway, I might as well add that Eeyore is still as sweet as pie. And handsome too.

Now I think I’ll go bake some brownies. I’m hungry, yo.