The Girls Are Back In School Today, Do Daa, Do Daa...

This is me doing a happy, happy dance.

Whoops. This is me closing the blinds.

This is me resuming my happy, happy dance.

Don't get me wrong, I love my children dearly, but there's only so much petty squabbling one can take. And the Tucson summers are so hot, it's not like I can shove them out the door to go play. They'll die. Then I'll feel guilty. Which is why I love our school district's decision to have a year-round school year. So whilst all of you are still dealing with your whiny, bickering children, mine are being dealt with by yet-to-be-proven-competent teachers! HA!

I'm sorry. I apologize. I'm sure your kids aren't "whiny" or "bickering" and that my girls' teachers are perfectly competent. I guess I'm just giddy with all the silence around here.

Sometimes It's Just Too Easy

Last night at dinner the girls engaged in a game of "Can You Read My Mind?"

Kyra: "OK, Kailey. Guess what I'm thinking."

Kailey: "I'm stupid?"

Game. Over.

Should've Known Better

If I would operate under the premise that my wife knows what the hell she's doing, my life would be a lot easier and less of frustration at times. But I don't, so I blog.

Yesterday afternoon, I turned off the TV. The girls were home from school and had spent about an hour unwinding in front of the boob tube when I decided to be proactive and initiate a little daddy-daughters time. I went to the "game closet", which is actually a free-for-all junk closet where we happen to keep all of our board games, to see what we could play together. As I scanned the stacks of games, my eyes fell on a small tin box that I've never seen, or noticed, before. It was a Cranium card game called Matching Madness. I browsed the directions and it looked like it could be fun, so I took it out to the girls to see what they thought. Their faces brightened as I asked them if they had played the game before. "Yeah, we played it with Mommy. It's REALLY FUN."

Cool! Looks like we have a winner, I thought as we settled in on the floor for a game. Kyra gave me the rundown of the rules of the game as I shuffled the deck of cards, only her version of the rules were COMPLETELY different than the rules I recently read. Being the law and rule-abiding citizen I am, I reinstructed the girls on the rules of the game. Matching Madness was designed to be a fast-paced card game where the first person to play their card is the winner. The way the girls played the game with their Mommy took the fast pace, the very competition, out of the game. Mommy is not an idiot. Daddy is. Mommy understands that the girls don't compete well with one another. Daddy also understands this, but chooses to ignore that little tidbit of information.

So the game begins. Kyra, being the youngest and slowest on the draw, is getting slaughtered and is NOT having fun. I kept trying to encourage her not to give up and reminded her this was a GAME and that we were trying to have FUN. I then threw a bunch of hands so that Kyra could win. She won a couple of hands but was still in full pout mode when we came to a hand where Kailey had run out of a color that was in play. "I don't have any yellow!" she cried and then fled from the room, bawling her head off.

FOR THE LOVE OF MIKE WE'RE DOING THIS TO HAVE FRICKITY-FRICK-FRACK DADDY-DAUGHTERS TIME SO GET YOUR WHINEY BUTTS BACK IN HERE STOP YOUR POUTING AND CRYING AND LET'S PLAY THIS STUPID STINKING GAME AND HAVE SOME ZIPPIDY-DO-DA FUN!!

Thankfully, I was able to contain that little outburst to confines of my head (a slightly altered version to what was actually going on there), and I coaxed Kailey back into the room and promised them that we would scrap our current game, the way the game SHOULD be played, and play it Mommy's way. But the damage been done, and Matching Madness was a goner, going up in flames. So to make it up to them I agreed to play my favorite game in the whole wide world, Hide-n-Seek.

Incidentally, Cranium no longer makes Matching Madness. It's not listed on their website, it's not available in any online toy stores that I could find, and the only link I could find for it was on eBay (did you notice?)...for $3. Shocker. Stupid, piece of crap game. I'd much rather place the blame on the game and not on the fact that I overlooked the temperament of my girls and the ferocity of their sibling rivalry. Truth is, we need to place Cranium's Matching Madness back on the shelf of the "game closet" and let it gather dust there until the girls are emotionally mature enough to handle losing to one another. Because I just can't bring myself to play it Mommy's way.

Is Summer Vacation Over Yet?

If I have to tell the girls, "Keep your hands OFF one another," one more time this early summer vacation, I'm going to have a complete mental breakdown. And I've had them at home alone for a grand total of one and one-half days. I will admit that I'm partially to blame because I've spent much of that time outside doing "man-stuff". My father-in-law and I have been constructing a new patio on the back corner of the house, and the girls were initially excited about the "man-stuff" activity. They expressed their desire to "help", so we put them to work. But apparently shoveling dirt and sand and mixing cement aren't their cups of tea because they lasted a grand total of about five minutes before retiring to the relative comfort of the boob tube.

Even the miracle of modern TV is not powerful enough to overcome the curse of summertime boredom, so the girls resorted to the next best thing: picking on each other. So there I was, literally breaking my back mixing and shoveling cement in an attempt to beautify the very home in which they live, when I heard a series of blood-curdling screams. I dropped my shovel and trudged to the door to find the fruit of my loins locked in a struggle on the family room floor. "WHAT IS GOING ON IN HERE!" I bellowed as I threw open the door.

My inquiry was met with a flurry of incomprehensive accusation. "I WAS TRYING TO...KYRA WAS TOUCHING...SHE PULLED ME...AND SHE WON'T LET...I TOLD HER TO STOP...KAILEY NEVER LETS ME..."

Since I (1.) was dripping with sweat, (2.) didn't really want to know what was happening, and (3.) didn't care, I dispersed them with a unilateral "Go to your rooms and think about what you've done", then returned to my work. One of the girls would poke her head out the back door twenty minutes later, ask if they could come out of their rooms, and the whole process repeated itself several times until we wrapped up our patio work for the day, around noon.

Now before you lablel me as the suckiest father alive, you need to know the touching and picking continued even when I devoted my full attention to the girls. We played "talent show audition" where I pulled out my guitars and microphone, and the girls took turns at the mic as they created songs to tunes I played. Kyra liked acoustic guitar tunes. Kailey wanted to rock to electric guitar tunes. Both picked on the other to the point where one sat in time out while the other took their turn at the mic.

And I curse the day we ever bought the "Madagascar" edition of Sorry instead of the regular, colored pawn edition. Each pawn is a character from the movie "Madagascar", and we can never get through the pawn selection phase without a major meltdown. When we finally got to the game, I had to draw a line in the carpeting between the girls and threaten them with their immanent loss of life should they cross that line.

I finally took them to the park in the 100 degree heat to let them burn off some energy and hopefully take out some of their aggression on the monkey bars. It seemed to work, but I now know I've got my work cut out for me. I need to do a little planning for the rest of our summer days together or I'm going to lose my mind. Only 35 days until school starts again, but who's counting?

Giving Equal Time

Kyra walked in as I was putting the finishing touches on my last blog and asked me what I was doing. "Writing a story," I told her and she hopped up into my lap and asked me to read it to her. I did, and every time I read Kailey's name, Kyra slumped a little further down in my lap.

"You always write about Kailey," she pouted. I told her that she was in the story and that she needed to be patient. I finished reading my blog entry and she was still in a huff. "You only wrote my name ONE TIME." Oh dear Lord in heaven, help me.

So my entry today is merely an attempt to level the playing field and restore harmony in my humble abode...I almost wrote that with a straight face, as if there was EVER harmony in my home!

This year, Kyra will be dressing up as Princess Leia minus the wig (she apparently doesn't like wigs), and in the spirit of giving my girls equal blog-time, here is a funny Kyra Halloween story:

A couple of mornings ago, Kyra wandered into our bedroom in the wee hours of the morning and shook Diane awake. Both of us were fast asleep and totally out of it. In fact, I was so out of it that I never heard this exchange take place. This is Diane's recollection. So Kyra shook Diane awake, "Mommy, Mommy...when is Halloween." Like it's frickin' Christmas or something. Diane, aroused from a deep sleep, thought Kyra was asking about Disney World and groggily replied, "It's over, Sweetie."

"WE MISSED IT! NOOOOOO..." Kyra wailed and ran from our room bawling. Diane had to chase after her and console her. How I didn't hear all of this commotion, I do not know. But I'm glad.

As long as I'm giving equal time, I may as well share the costume I picked out for Diane that she vehemently declined to wear:

I still can't win.