Today’s Piggy Lessons in Mommyhood

I’m terrible about toenail upkeep. I let my toenail paint get completely chipped in every direction before I sit down and paint them again. This morning was one of those mornings. So while Ali was eating her breakfast (I sometimes find that she eats better if I’m not sitting across from her, staring at her), I decided to remove my old toenail polish and start over.

She, of course, was much more fascinated with what I was doing than in eating. While I was vigorously scrubbing my toenails to get the old, pitiful polish off, she was using her powers of deduction to figure out what I was doing.

“Oh. . . Mommy Cleaning Piggies!!”

And when I finished, “Piggies all clean!!!”.

Then I pulled out the fingernail polish. Even more mesmerized. She watched as I painted, and told me how pretty they were when I finished.

After she finally finished eating her now cold breakfast, she started pointing to my toes and then her toes and saying, “Mommy’s piggies – Ali’s piggies???”

So, always being up for an adventure, I decided to give it a try.

I explained to her that she had to sit very still, and that she couldn’t touch them for a minute because they would be wet.

I secured the area with much floor coverage and had a roll of toilet paper standing by to wipe up any catastrophes.

Surprisingly, she followed my instructions to a T. She was completely absorbed in watching me paint her toes, and she kept reminding herself throughout the process, “no no touch – wet”.

Of course, she LOVED them. She couldn’t have been happier!

Here she is examining my artwork:
Telling me about her pretty piggies:
Daintily posing her feet:
And here’s our piggies together. Ugh. How is it that I can wear three times less sunscreen (15 spf as opposed to her 45 spf) and get three times less tanned than she does!?!? I guess she just got the best of both of our tanning genes: My Greek ones and Chris’ Callahan ones (have you NOTICED the pictures of Chris’ Dad and Aunt?!?!). Oh well.
After our piggies were appropriately painted, we went to the zoo and lunch with Ashley and AJ. The girls, of course, had a wonderful time as usual.

We were all four holding hands in a long row walking through the zoo, and Ali was practicing her “jumping” (she tries so hard to jump like AJ can, and she thinks she is – she’ll squeal “jump!!” and run fast or pick up one foot and then the other). She would say, “Ali Jump!” and jump, then “AJ Jump” and AJ would jump, then “Mommy Jump!” and I would jump, then “Ashley Jump!!” and Ashley would jump. She had a blast telling us all to jump and watching us jump at her command – and we didn’t even ask how high!!

After lunch, they kissed bye-bye for the first time, and Ali was so excited. She kept saying, “a kiss! a kiss!” over and over.

Here they are holding hands and watching the flamingoes:
After Ali’s afternoon nap, I needed to fix her pigtails, as pigtails rarely survive a nap without major damage. We were sitting in her chair as I was trying to fix them, and she’s pointing to her bible and saying Read bible! Read bible!” Being the overly task-oriented person that I am, I said “Hold on! Let me fix your pigtails! THEN we’ll read the bible.” Realizing how absurd that sounded, I muttered under my breath, “Because THAT’S where our priorities need to be. . .”

So to sum up, my Lessons in Mommyhood today included: it is easier to paint a toddler’s piggies than it is to put pigtails in their hair (especially when they are insisting on spiritual pursuits, of all things!!), and toddlers love it when you jump at their command!