Adventures In Cantaloupe

So it's been a few days since I've posted. Been super tired and have had to scrape my eyeballs off of the computer screen from looking at and applying to all the stupid freaking @#$!!! wonderful opportunities in the employment ads. Seriously. Too much scraping of the corneas. So I haven't much felt like writing or doing anything other than sleeping. And haven't been much successful at that. Whooo. So anyway...

I do have several fun little tidbits from the last couple of days, though, which are begging to be shared.

KayKay has lost yet another tooth at school. I think part of the lesson plans there involve "How To Remove Loose Teeth From The Heads of Your First-Graders," or something, because this is the second tooth she's managed to have pried out of her head while at school in as many weeks. This time it was one of the top front teeth, though, so she's already mispronouncing dozens of things. It's adorable. She has another extremely loose tooth as well, which when it comes out, will earn her the nickname of "Snaggle-Tooth," although she doesn't know it yet. As it is her smile looks sort of like a badly carved jack-o-lantern... Although I won't tell her that. We'll just leave it at Snaggle Tooth. Ah, how I love creating such fond memories for my children.

She's also planning on being in the "Top Five" of the upcoming First Grade spelling bee for her school. I wouldn't be surprised if she does it, either, because she knows all of the words for her grade, and half of the ones for the Second Grade spellers as well. We shall see. The mispronunciation was in full swing this afternoon while she was "practifing" her words. Hee. So cute. That makes it all the more fun to listen to. Apparently UNUSUAL is an UNUSUALLY hard word to spell, as well... And somehow it has a Y in it, too. She and I both caught the giggles trying to get her to spell it right without using the cheat-sheet. And, I think I'll forever refer to the word "quarrel" as "ca-WOW" from here on out. Except, maybe, in interviews. Assuming I actually get that far.

The Ladybug has been up to her own brand of mischief the last couple of days as well, and has managed to come up with two post-worthy gems in as many days. She has, however, also been incredibly snooty and has gotten two spankings in nearly as many days, which is highly unusual for her.

Sunday afternoon the Daddy and I laid down the law about the girls' bedroom. It looked like the aftermath of Hiroshima in there. So after nap time was done, I immediately banished them to their room to clean it. Which, in Little Ladybug's mind, means that her sister does all the cleaning while she jumps on the bed or does some other equally as forbidden thing, giggling all the time until I come back upstairs in a huff, at which point she pretends that she's been helping KayKay all along. Unfortunately, I was elbows deep in another cleaning project and couldn't stand over her the way I usually do to make certain that she actually HELPS. So after several threats from me, the Daddy got involved. He had some work to do, but took the time to step in. I was pleasantly surprised and thoroughly relieved, because he took over and left me to focus on the war zone that was our dining room floor. Mmmmmm. You really don't want to know.

Well, the Daddy ended up having to give the Ladybug her "final warning" (again, not the norm for her) and sent her back upstairs. A few minutes later, after listening to some (unknown to me) conversation between KayKay and Ladybug, he called upstairs and said, "Ladybug, sing the clean-up song while you clean."

Now, let me clarify something here - Ladybug knows the clean-up song, but I have been very lax in my teaching of the clean-up song of late, and have been more interested in the room actually being, you know, CLEAN, than the song that goes along with it (think along the lines of a Gestapo drill-sergeant). So it was with boundless amusement that we listened to her version of the clean-up song floating down the stairs...

It started out with "Clean-up SONG, clean-up SONG, clean, clean, clean-up SOOONG." And then when her sister started singing the actual song, she remembered the tune, and it very quickly spiraled into this:

"Clean-up, clean-up!
Everybody wear your HAIR!
Clean-up, clean-up!
Everybody's under-WEAR!"

Yep. That's my girl.

So now we get to the cantaloupe. Not the ones that have anything to do with this blog's title, mind you, but still. I knew they would come in handy. (I'm so tired my brain's a few bricks short of a full load right now, if you know what I mean. So forgive the bizarre chattiness...)

Anyway. So the Ladybug has this thing where she's been calling the occasional marshmallow's we give as treats "cantaloupes." It makes no sense, I know. She knows what cantaloupes are. And she knows that marshmallows are called "marshmallows." But she's insisted on calling them cantaloupes for a couple of weeks now. However, I can never seem to catch her in the act of saying this, it's always the Daddy who is with her when she says this and, of course, he corrects her. In fact, I didn't even know she was calling them that until he told me about it one night a few weeks ago. Since then, I have heard her say it to him, and heard her correct him, but it's never been with me... Until last night.

When we first started potty-training Little Ladybug, anytime she had a poo-related potty experience, we rewarded her with some small treat, like one or two gummy bears or a marshmallow or two. We've since weaned her off of this, but once in a while when she goes, she wants a treat. So last night she got up out of bed, very tiredly (I think she was almost asleep when the urge hit) and did her business, and then asked for some "cantaloupes" from the Daddy. He passed the word on to me, and I went to get them. He'd already settled back in downstairs when I took the marshmallows up to our tired girl. When I got up there, she said, "I want TWO cantaloupes." So I looked at her, and said (while thinking to myself, "AHA!"), "Well look at that, Ladybug, I have TWO CANTALOUPES for you right here." And held them out to her in my hand. She then looked me full in the face and in all seriousness said,

"Those AREN'T CANTALOUPES, Mommy, those are MARSHMALLOWS."

I don't think I've heard the Daddy laugh that hard in years.

*Sigh*