Did I stutter or did your ears flap?

Sophie might be going down for her nap. I'm afraid she's about to give it up, which will be tricky for me. As I've mentioned before, that short reprieve in the afternoon is always so welcome. My sweet step-son, Janzen is here for the weekend. He'll be turning 11 on Monday, so we're having a little party for him tomorrow. His clever aunt Katy is creating a Jaba the Hut cake for him. She's going to use one of those princess-cake molds, so the cake will actually be Jaba's body. She's even purchased a little Princess Leah doll to chain to him, and is going to try to fill his insides with pudding or something so that he oozes when cut into. I can't imagine a cooler cake for an 11 year old boy.

He and Soph and I went and bought party stuff this morning--balloons, streamers, and the like. Of course, Sophie can't imagine why we're not busting in to the party stuff NOW. In her mind, if you have a bag full of party hats, why not wear them?

Being two must be really frustrating. I mean, you know what you want to do. You can pretty much figure out how to make it happen, but some kill-joy big-person keeps getting in the way. Sophie can open the fridge and take out the pickles. She'd like to sit in the middle of the kitchen table with them, dump them out, splash around in pickle juice for a while, and take a bite out of each one. And she's capable of making this happen--but mean old mommy just plucks her up and says NO. She can walk on her own in the grocery store, and scale the shelves, and pull all the shit down that her little heart desires; but that old stick-in-the-mud mommy makes her ride in the cart. In her mind, painting windows with lipstick and dumping baby powder all over the couch an licking cool whip directly from the container are totally feasible. The only thing getting in the way is me. She must think I'm some bitch.

I find myself using phrases my parents used the whole time I was growing up. "Did I stutter or did your ears flap? Shit in one hand and want in the other and see which gets full faster. Because I said so! You're crusin' for a brusin'." Every time I say something like that, I cringe and tell myself I'm never going to say anything like that again, and then when she tries to pick up one of the neighbor's mangy ass cats, after I just told her not to, I bellow, "Are your ears painted on?"

Today's best thing about being a mom:
Balloons are pretty fun to play with--even if you're almost 30.

Today's worst thing about being a mom:
At the risk being completely cliche, I have to say turning into your parents. (If you're reading this Dad or Mom, you did a great job, still do. I could just live without "Don't make me come over there!" and "Once is funny, twice is silly, three times is a spanking.")