Mothering 101: Follow Your Nose

One day, I seemed to be on top of things. (ha!) The house was semi-clean, Emmy was playing quietly in her room, and I was peacefully feeding Sophie. I even had cookies baking in the oven. As I was enjoying the moment, I started to notice the smell of laundry detergent in the air. "Hmm. . . I thought, someone must be doing their laundry" (we live right next to the laundry room). I continued rocking with Sophie, when I realized that Emmy had been playing quietly for a long time . . . things were eerily quiet.

As I walked into her bedroom, her whole body jerked--she knew she was caught. She was sitting amidst clouds of laundry detergent, "cleaning" it with a square of toilet paper. It was quite a mess and cleaning it was made more arduous by Emmy's noble attempts to help out. When we were finally finished, I noticed another smell: the cookies! I rushed to take them out of the oven, but I was too late. They were burnt to a crisp.

What an afternoon. I sat down to take a breather, when I was confronted by yet another smell: sweet little Sophie needed a major diaper change. Yuck. Two kids in diapers makes the chore of diaper changing pretty routine, but still, not pleasant.

Too much laundry soap, burnt chocolate chip cookies, and poopy diapers made up the greater part of my afternoon, but you know, I'll take 'em - because everything is made worth it when I get to breathe in the soft, clean scent of Emmy's shiny hair, and inhale Sophie's sweet, milky breath.

The Saga of the Matching Dresses

The moment I found out I was having another girl, I immediately began dreaming about two little girls in matching dresses. So when my mom sent Sophie an adorable dress for Christmas this year, I immediately ran to the store to buy Emmy a matching one.

Of course, my next step was to try to capture their cuteness on camera, which proved to be a much more difficult task than I originally thought. The first Sunday they wore their dresses proved to be impossible. This was one of Sophie's first outings to church and we had to cancel the photo shoot so that we could get there reasonably late. After church was a disaster, with Emmy throwing her scheduled 4:00 pm tantrum.

I decided that Sunday wasn't going to be a good day for picture-taking, so I called up the local Picture People and set up an appointment for professionals to take over. Picture day arrived and I packed up the car with dresses, accessories, bribes, and the two girls. My friend, Heather, and her perfect child, Abby, came with us for moral support. We explained the whole process to Emmy, assuring her that once the pictures were taken, she would get a sucker and a ride on the horsie. All seemed to be fine. The girls were darling, Sophie smiling, and Emmy with her strawberry-blonde locks neatly curled under. (I'd even gotten her to let me curl her hair!) Emmy seemed to be in good spirits as she asked me when the "man" would come to take her picture. Suddenly, though, the "man" did come, and right when he set up the black backdrop, Emmy let out a bloodcurdling scream of terror. She could not be calmed and she clung to me as if her life depended on it. I gave up. Heather escorted Emmy from the room and we took pictures of Sophie sans sister. Heather summed up the experience pretty well when she said, "That was hard."

So today I decided to try again. I knew I would probably fail, but I had to give it one more shot. Before church, Sophie fell asleep and we had to bring her in her pjs. So we decided to try for after church, in hopes that Emmy would postpone or give up altogether on her 4:00 tantrum. The stars aligned, just barely. Here are my two little girls in their matching dresses:

Emmy is very happy to have her picture taken

Sophie is thrilled as well

Awww

Don't be deceived by these smiling faces . . .