After a busy night of swimming lessons, piano lessons, late dinner, even later bath, we agreed to have some quiet family time before bed, rather than watching a repeat episode of Shake It Up. This suited me fine as I was too tired to adequately dance alongside the cast of Shake It Up Chicago and certainly didn’t want to be the one to botch a well rehearsed routine.
The girls shuffled from one activity to the next. They started with Barbie and would hand her to me whenever they couldn’t squeeze her into another doll’s outfit which for some reason, gave me great satisfaction when dear, old Barbie simply couldn’t suck in her almost non-existent waist enough to roll on Hannah Montana’s pants. It’s a scary world when manufacturers start pumping out dolls with smaller measurements and lower self esteem than Barbie.
We moved onto some homework activities I had disguised as fun, family word searches but when I started asking them to circle adjectives and underline verbs, my cover was blown and they stormed away from the table, furious our family fun night had such a sinister undertone and they were being used as pawns.
As is often the case when the girls find themselves with our undivided attention, at least one of our conversations ends with a series of questions surrounding Greg’s former life as a pirate and at what age will we allow them to open the old treasure chest to scope out the treasures. If by treasures, they mean my old crafts from elementary school and if by treasure chest, they mean the old trunk our neighbours growing up were throwing away and we snagged it to be used as a funky coffee table in our first apartment then yes, I guess you could say “Ahoy Matey!”
We rounded out the evening with a couple of stories on Chloe’s rocking chair and the last one ended with a sweet conversation between a mouse and a mole telling each other, “I love you just the way you are.”
With that sweet sentiment, not unlike a made-for-t.v. movie, one in which we would not have been able to watch on t.v. free night—ironic? I whispered to Chloe as I placed her in her crib, “I love you just the way you are.”
She whispered back, “I love Justin Bieber.”
Long pause.
Me: Anything else?
Chloe still whispering: Forever.
