The Twin Powers

That is what Steve has taken to calling the twins lately.

Missy's sleep over went really well. She was away for 24 hours... and when I picked her up just in time for her orthodontist appointment she was clean wore out from playing table games with Peggy. She lay in the dentist chair half asleep. If they asked her a question she didn't even bother to answer.

They had trouble getting molds made of her teeth. Her mouth is so very tight and her lip has NO give whatsoever. The techs gave up and let the orthodontist do it himself. She can't WAIT for braces. I can. She still puts up a fight about brushing her teeth as it is.

We had an hour to run some errands without the babies. It was just her and I, so we headed to the mall to find some school clothes. She really woke up then and got busy asking for everything in every store. :-)  I had washed all her clothes and gone through all her drawers in the morning and decided that she had grown out of nearly everything. We were looking for simple, classic, no-fuss, no-muss kind of clothes (I was anyway, she wanted all things glitz and glam!) and we ended up at the Children's Place and bought school uniform style clothes.  You can't get more classic than that.

Next we found shoes with velcro latches for James. Tying his shoes is still an issue. He can do it, but they won't stay tied and he won't retie them without pressure. I had searched the town over for these!!!

For our last stop we visited Bath and Body Works. I told her she could pick out one lotion. OH MY! We investigated every smell in the place and then she set about filling her arms with bottles of lotion, perfume and shower gel. So typical! I reminded her that we had agreed on one small lotion and nothing had changed on my end of the agreement. Believe me,  fireworks were lighting up already. I simply said, "One lotion, or nothing." She threw out a few more arguments and I turned away to leave. She quickly glued on a fake smile and settled for ONE lotion.

Thus ended our mother, daughter outing and she was happy as a clam. It wasn't till this morning that she assumed her old tricks and she pushed me a little too hard. Steve had to take over and I walked away with my blood pressure pounding in my head. I was disturbed to find my whole body reacting so intensely to the stress. Really, what she was up to was nothing new or out of the ordinary.... and I came to realize that I am just plain exhausted. While it was nice having a little break and we had fun just the two of us shopping, James more than made up for the lack of her presence in the house.

James is in a lethargic funk. . . I'm starting to see a pattern; End of August, Christmas, and March. Some pretty big things have happened to him in his little life. The Christmas he was four years old was when he and his siblings were taken away from his bio mom by police in the night. March is when he moved in with us - it's also a time of season change around here. The end of August is a season change... I don't know what else could contribute. I just know he is really struggling to move his body around and be interested. Anything that hints of work is cause for a great trial.