The Art of Multi-tasking by Lauren Reeves

Scene opens with Lauren walking down the hall wearing nothing but a shirt (bare bottom)...

L: Mom? Where's your floss?

M: *blink* Where are your pants?

L: Where is your floss?

M: Lauren! Why don't you have any pants on?

L: BECAUSE I WAS POOPING!

M: Allright then why do you need floss? *bracing myself for the answer*

L: BECAUSE I HAVE PORK CHOP STUCK IN MY TEETH. *exasperated*

So there you have it. My little multi-tasker...flossing and pooping at the same time - well, if she could've found the floss.

Today's Achievement

My Dearest Jennie is an excellent cake decorator and was contracted by me to bake an Angelina Ballerina cake for Lauren's 4th birthday in November. The cake was absolutely FLAWLESS and beyond my wildest expectations. In exchange for making the cake, Jennie asked if I would make a set of blank cards to give to her cousin as a Christmas gift.

It seems like I've been procrastinating on getting these cards completed, but in reality, I find if I let a card idea come to me in sort of a vision I am more inspired and motivated to work on the project. The inspiration started to appear over the weekend when I made one card using a gorgeous stamp set I love called "Pretty Peony" and then stamped a quote on top of the flower. I wanted to try to use various flowers on all the cards but wasn't sure how I was going to tie them all together so that the set wasn't just a hodge podge of random cards. The finally "tah-dah!" moment came yesterday when I found myself staring off into space trying to envision the cards...

What if I use the same flower stamp over and over and only change the color scheme and quote...?

Today I whipped out all ten of them. I'm in love. Whattya think?

What about Bach?

Lauren enters the room where I'm fixing her lunch...

L: Mom, Johann Sebastian Bob is a show.

M: Johann Sebastian Bach? Well, he was a composer. He wrote classical music.

L: No, Johann Sebastian BOB. Not BACH silly...

M: No, it's BACH.

L: *sigh* No Mom, it's BOB. Like BOB THE TOMATO.

Exit Lauren.

Conversations in a Car

There's really no back story to this entry, just a normal day with Lauren. She and I were in the car running errands. The following are three separate (yet somehow all strangely linked - you wait, you'll see the connections) conversations we had during our drive.

L: Mom, Mrs. Claus is Santa's Mommy.

M: No, she is his wife.

L: No. Mommy.

M: No Lauren, she is Santa's wife.

L: No MOM, she is his MOMMY.

I proceed to attempt to straighten out all the confusion by making comparisons.

M: Who is Granny?

L: Daddy's Momma.

M: Right! So is Granny Daddy's wife?

L: YES!

M: No! Granny isn't Daddy's wife. MOMMY is Daddy's wife. Am I Daddy's Mommy?

L: Your Daddy...

M: My Daddy what?

L: Your Daddy loves you...

M: *blink* *blink* Yes...yes...he does...

And that was the end of that conversation. It ended just as confusing as it began.

While she and I were at lunch together, we were taking turns telling each other stories. I was telling stories about a silly little boy named Finnegan and all the mischievious things he got into. Her stories seemed to always have monsters and scary things in them. We'll address that in some later post...

After lunch, she wanted to continue with the storytelling. Well, she wanted me to continue with my storytelling. She wanted me to tell a Christmas story. So I thought I would tell THE Christmas story. I'm describing Mary and Joseph and Gabriel and get to the part about the travel to Bethlehem... at this point, Lauren gets very excited and I'm excited because I know she's starting to recognize the story...

L: Bethlehem! That's like that boy...that boy!!!!

M: (I'm beaming. I'm so proud. It is like that boy. That boy Jesus...)

L: That boy...BUFFALO!!!

M: *completely flabbergasted* BUFFALO?

L: Yeah!!! Little Buffalo!!!!

All I could do was laugh. I laughed and I laughed and I laughed...

Third conversation...approximately 10-15 minutes later...as we were walking into the bank...

L: Mom, is Jesus real?

M: *pausing...thinking...* Well...yes...he lived a long time ago...

L: Where is he now?

M: He's in heaven. He's in heaven with God.

L: *nodding and understanding* OH! Jesus is God's wife I guess...

M: *puzzled* Nooo...(here we go again with the mixed up family relations) Jesus is God's son.

L: No...WIFE.

M: No Lauren, his SON.

She gets slightly distracted and announces that Christmas is Jesus' birthday. I'm excited because I think we're back on track. She tells me that Ms. Carrie taught them that at school.

M: Did you tell Ms. Carrie we have a birthday cake on Christmas morning for Jesus' birthday?!

L: Noooo...

M: Yeah! Remember? We have a birthday cake for Jesus and we eat it Christmas morning!

L: Mom. Why do we have cake? Jesus won't BE there. *exasperated*

Ahhhh yes. THESE are the conversations we have. Conversations that provoke deep thought and lots of confusion. Welcome to my world.

Mom! Do you know how pigs eat?

I'm sitting here enjoying a quiet moment to myself when Lauren comes bursting into the room shouting, "MOM! DO YOU KNOW HOW PIGS EAT?"

Oh this oughta be good...

M: How do pigs eat?

L: Their momma lays sideways...and the babies eat...they chew on these little circles on the momma...

M: (oh DEAR, I had no idea she was talking about how BABY pigs eat or else I never would have asked!) They are drinking milk.

L: *blank stare* Oh, like cows?

M: Uh...yeah. Those "circles" are their boobies.

L: *blink* (as she glances at my boobs) Yeah, well, that's how the pigs eat their breakfast. It doesn't hurt the Momma...at all...

And she gallops out of the room.

I'm sure this one will swish around in her brain for a bit and float back up at the most inopportune time.

Sometimes it just doesn't make sense

I'm working on cards this morning sitting at my desk and Lauren decided to join me. She came in the room with some paper and her box of crafting supplies. She requested I play a particular playlist on my iPod and I thought we were all settled down to craft...

I was wrong...

I pressed play on the iPod and the moment the first song started playing Lauren jumped up...

L: OH! I better go get the umbrella!!

M: *puzzled look* What for?

L: *exasperated sigh* So I can sit on the quilt with the Barney puzzle!

M: *blink blink*

Sometimes things in my world just don't make sense.

Mommy's Little Hercules...errrr...Helper...

Oh little girls are such a joy. Really, they are! However, sometimes my child exhibits some "boy" traits that catch me off guard and sometimes even delight me.

Lauren and I popped into the grocery store this morning to buy one thing. A gallon of milk. We trek to the back of the store to get the milk and Lauren insists on carrying it to the front of the store. I tell her that it's extremely heavy and would probably be pretty tricky. I should mention here that in our family, we try not to say the word "hard" but use "tricky" instead. She says, "I can do it Mom!" I throw caution to the wind and hand the uber heavy gallon of milk over to her. She takes the milk with a loud grunt and tries to get a good grip on it while shifting it around between her wee hands. I suddenly have a Mom Memory of another mom friend telling a tale of "...one time he threw a gallon of milk out of the grocery cart and it busted and spewed milk everywhere..." My MOM ALARM starts sounding, "WARNING! WARNING! POTENTIAL MILK CATASTROPHE! TAKE THE MILK BACK! FOR GOD'S SAKE WHAT ARE YOU THINKING?" So I gently take the milk back and we head to the front of the store to pay.

All the way up to the front of the store, Lauren is telling me how strong she is and that carrying the milk for me would be no problem.

We pay. We proceed to bag up the milk (self-checkout of course!) and start to leave the store. Lauren again insists she can carry the milk. I double bag it and say, "OK, give it a try..."

She struggles. She grunts. She's determined. The self-checkout attendant smiles and stifles her laughter as Lauren goes struggling towards the door.

Lauren tries sliding the loops of the plastic grocery bag up over her wrist. We've all tried this. It results in immediate sensation loss to your hand. She figures this out quickly and tries holding the loops with both hands but the milk is clunking into her thighs and knees. She stops and tries heaving the bag up onto her shoulder, like a purse. Again, immediate sensation loss to not just her hand this time, but her entire arm.

While I'm watching all this and trying to coax her across the parking lot, I keep saying, "Hey, do you need some help? Why don't you let Mom carry it the rest of the way...?" To which she keeps saying, in a winded voice, "No...Mom...*grunt*...I'm strong...*grunt*...I can do it...*grunt*"

And sure enough, she did. She IS strong.

Thanks to the nice camera on my new phone I was able to capture this Herculean moment.



She's saying through labored breathing, "Mom...I think I see the car..." as if it's miles away, when in reality it was only two more cars down from where she was standing.

Taking a little breathing break. But almost there!

Final HEAVE! HO! into the car.