After reading my depressing post from the 10th, I thought I should attempt to lighten my mood. It didn’t happen after staying up all night with feverish-OMG-it-was-like-consoling-a-ball-of-fire Kelly. It didn’t happen as our pediatrician said, “Yep…it’s Hand, Foot & Mouth alright. Hope you didn’t have any plans this weekend.” It didn’t happen after the girls allowed me a 45 minute “nap” after staying up all night. But like all storms, this too did pass.

Kelly finally gave into utter exhaustion and slept for 4 hours. Sara and I decided if we were stuck in the house on a beautiful day, we were going to kick the play into high gear. After gluing everything in the house and running out of glue, we pulled out the BIG GUNS: The Glitter Glue. Yeah baby, I have 5 colors. I suggested a dance party, but Sara put up her hand and insisted I would first need a “hairtut”. I don’t think my own “beauty operator” (because quoting my Grandma makes me smile) spends as much time on my hair as Miss Sara did today. The best wasn’t the pretend cutting and drying, or even the fact that her brushing is a full contact sport; the best was her head bobbing to the Beastie Boys while she brushed. “Watcha you want, watchoo want, watchoo want….”

I took pictures of the result. You have no idea the effort she put into making sure my headband stayed “right dere”.

We then had a Billy Idol dance off. Whenever she asks for “Dance Music”, she wants to hear only one of two songs: “Dancing with Myself” or “Atomic Dog”. I am a horrible mother. Although, when my dance folder in iTunes switched to Bloodhound Gang, I turned it off. Even I have my limits. I’m not sure who said, “Watch THIS!” more times during the fancy dancin’…me or Sara. To top it off, as we finished our last moonwalk in our socks on the kitchen floor, I taught Sara how to wheelbarrow. I couldn’t believe she had the strength to walk with her arms while I held her legs, but by golly, Kings to the Master. We then held a a short gymnastic class, and crashed out on the couch watching every Mickey Mouse video available on YouTube, in foreign languages. Donald Duck is HILARIOUS in Spanish, I promise. Not so much in Italian. I mean really, who knew?

I won’t say Kelly missed out on all the fun. She did today because she felt downright cruddy. But Tuesday she won the paint contest. I thought we might paint for fun, but the girls decided it would be better to see who could get the most paint on them. It was almost a 3-way tie. I don’t want to talk about my carpet right now.

99.99999% of the time I’m the Mommy. The brush your teeth, eat your vegetables, who pooped, who pooped again, who put the baby’s socks in the Bisquick container?!….Mommy. But once in a wild blue moon, I get to feel like a super cool Aunt. OR MAYBE a super cool MOMMY. Wow, is that possible? I’m too rookie to know at this point!

P.S. To my college roomies: that 8-kid mural contest I hosted in the basement? Every single marker streak came off the walls. Warm water + Mr. Clean and one rag…it took less than 10 minutes. Washable Crayola has come a LONG way.