Peas and Thank You

Guessing Game

I’ve always been a hands-on mom.  The girls have only ever had three babysitters in their whole lives and one of those gave birth to me.  When the girls were babies, I would constantly be down on the floor playing with them even before they could really play anything other than “let’s see how long this clean outfit lasts before I puke, pee or poop all over it.”  The answer is always “less than five minutes.”  I wore holes in my jeans I was on my knees so much.  It got to a point where the babysitter who gave birth to me said, “Sarah, the girls have got to learn to entertain themselves a little bit.”

Man, have they ever learned.

It’s beautiful, because on days where I am being pulled in a million different directions, making five different lists of things to pack instead of actually packing, opening a bag of tortilla chips and calling it “dinner” for our friends coming over, and starting to lay out clothes for the girls for each day I will be gone and each of their activities in between (if Teacher Annie catches Gigi in anything but a pink leotard there will be hell to pay!), I don’t just park the girls in front of the TV.  Instead, they really do entertain themselves.

Most of the time I can figure out what they are playing.  A jump rope tied to a comb with a hand on the hip means Gigi is playing Beyoncé again.  It’s even easier to tell when she puts on the single sparkly glove and flips her hand back and forth like she did yesterday.  If Lulu is hiding behind the couch cushion, that means she is in her “flying car.”  Or else she is hiding so she can go Number Two in privacy.

Sometimes it’s not so obvious, though.  Like the scene I discovered this morning.

Clue #1:

Dining room chairs lined in a row.

No idea.

Clue #2:

A rock in a basket.

This started to tip things off for me, because it’s not really a rock.  We have had this baby for almost a year.  Who holds on to a rock for a year?!  We do.  Especially when I found this rock on the beach in Kona when Lulu was having a fit because she didn’t want to leave after playing in the ocean all day.  I called it a turtle egg.  It is a treasure.  Did you catch the part about it being egg?

Clue #3:

Horses…or livestock, if you will.

Being fed apples,

and mixed nuts.

Clue #4:

Gigi placing a penguin on the egg?

This penguin was borrowed from Noah’s Ark.  I’ll have you know the female penguin was left on board, so that $3.99 we spent to rent March of the Penguins paid off.

Clue #5:

Lulu’s choice of accessories.

Yeehaw.

You guessed it, they were playing “farm.”  Maybe a penguin farm during Mardi Gras, but a farm nonetheless.

I was pretty excited when “Ma” started sweeping the floor.

Gigi asked Lulu what her favorite part of playing farm was.  Lulu said, “Feeding the animals.”  She has a thing for nuts, I guess.

Gigi said, “You know my favorite part?”

“Spending time with you.”

I need to go play “farm” now.