Settling In

Here is a sampling of my recent facebook updates (sorry to all my friends on facebook who have already read these)...

Alice...

"almost did a face-plant when stepping into the shower this morning. Apparently on one of her stealth missions, Elaine had coated the entire surface of the tub with conditioner."

"just walked into the kitchen and saw skinned and dismembered bananas everywhere. Again, courtesy of Elaine. Time to make banana bread."

"was alarmed to see the sign of Red John, the serial killer from "The Mentalist," on the window in the girls' bedroom. Upon closer examination however, it appears as though Elaine just discovered some alternative uses for lip gloss."

"just found Elaine, who supposedly went to bed an hour and a half ago, in the kitchen, eating Doritos and drinking Diet Dr. Pepper."

"is wondering who could have discovered my super-secret stash of sour cherries and eaten them ALL? Could it possibly be the same person who found my super-secret stash of Christmas Hershey kisses and chocolate Easter eggs?"

Because my basic life view is to find the funny side of most things, this is great. After reading one of the many updates, a friend commented, "We want an Elaine mischief blog!" so I directed him here. I also said, "You know, I've got this great idea for a series of children's books. I'm thinking of casting Elaine as a monkey and starting each book with, 'There once was a little monkey named Elaine who was very curious.' I'm planning to do the book jackets in bright yellow and use primary colors throughout, whaddya think?"

This was doubly witty to this person and me (in my humble opinion) because we both used to work for the company that published those other, more famous, monkey books.

While it's all funny, I do have to say it's kind of exhausting and sometimes discouraging to live with the female Curious George as we now call her. We have to watch her almost all the time, and chaos trails in her wake.

It has really escalated lately too, and I was clueless as to why until I said to my mom the other day, "We're kind of at our wits' end with Elaine this week. I mean, ever since Lucy got out of school her behavior has just defied reason."

Ohhhhhhhh.

I guess it took awhile for that lightbulb moment. I think the frequent rain and having to stay indoors a lot of the time hasn't helped either. So, these past few nice days we've had, I've gotten both girls over to the park as much as possible. Yesterday we went twice. It seems to be helping, and Elaine seems to be getting used to having Lucy around all the time again now.

We've also been heading to the library at least once a week to stock up on new books, audiobooks, and DVDs. The girls have discovered Shirley Temple (the actress, not just the doll they kept putting in jail last summer), and watching her movies helps us along on the rainy days (like today). We're going to start up our cooking school again soon too.

So, we slowly adjusting to summer and its different rhythm. And if anyone has new and inventive ideas on how to occupy 3 1/2-year olds, I'll take 'em.

You gotta stay one step ahead of Curious George.