Wednesday, September 30, 2009

RIP Wang and Chang


Looking back at my childhood, it's a wonder sometimes how my sisters and I turned out so normal (relatively speaking, of course). Carrie and I especially were quite odd. When most little girls our age were playing princess and teacher, we made witches' potions in the backyard. We would fill our turtle sandbox with water, mud, leaves, pinecones, and whatever else we could find, and pretend we were evil witches, and the strange backyard concoction was our potion.

We would also pretend that we were from another country when in public. I remember several occasions where we donned cheesy British accents in the grocery store, and faked being fluent in sign language in the post office. Lovers of attention much?

We loved Disney movies, and on more than one occasion made promises to each other to watch a certain movie (such as Beauty and the Beast and The Swan Princess) every single day. Our mom started hiding our VHS's after a few months. We loved the movie Fantasia so much that we used to play it. We would each pick a character (the yellow fairy, or the pretty blue centaur girl) and then dance and flit around just like they did. We would do this for the entire 2 hour movie. Except the dinosaur part, boring!

We were also quite maniacle. Well, to be honest, I was maniacle. Carrie just went along with my evil ideas. We used to torment our older sisters, Daisy and Jeannine by getting into their makeup while they were at school, so our mom put a little lock on the outside of their door. But that led to more shenanigans when we realized that we could lock them in their room. We knew that Daisy had allergies, so when we were angry with her, we gathered dandelions and pollen from the backyard and stuffed her pillowcase (I know, I know, really mean).

And now, the piece de resistance. This may be one of the weirdest things we have ever done.
Our dad built us a little clubhouse out of spare wood, and we decorated the inside with crayons. Instead of drawing flowers and butterflies like any other normal little girls, we decided to use all the red crayons to draw a blood stain on the wall. We then filled a pillowcase with stuffed animals and invited the neighborhood kids to come over. We sat them on the pillowcase (makeshift couch) and told them the chilling story of Wang and Chang, the siamese twins. One day, Wang woke up and foung Chang, his other half, dead. He soon died as well from the shock and terror. We then informed the kids that they were siting not on a couch, as they had assumed, but Wang and Chang's body. And then we showed them the blood on the wall. Needless to say, they weren't allowed to play with us anymore. We didn't care, we liked each other better anyway.



Monday, September 21, 2009

Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem

The last week has been a rough one for us. For some reason, Portia has stopped sleeping like she normally does. She has been waking up more than usual at night, and she is suddenly unable to take naps. Brandon and I have been trying to tag-team it at night, so that we can get some sleep, but wrestling was never one of either of our strong points. We are both still exhausted. Plus, she has been really fussy, which isn't normal. Portia is never fussy (as long as she's been fed), she is generally a really jolly little tub of chubs. I was starting to get worried a few days ago, when the previous night I was up until 3:30 am, and Brandon until 5:30, trying to get Portia to sleep. I started trying to think of things that could be causing this strange behavior. I considered baby insomnia (pretty sure that's not real), and Oh no! Horrified gasp! This can't be the early signs of swine flu, can it?!? Hurry, grab the baby thermometer and check for a curly pink tail! I was stumped. What is making my baby so irritable? And while we're at it, what is making her drool like Niagra Falls, and stuff everything she can get her chubbly little fists on into her mouth? She's biting more than Sunny Baudelaire!
Wait a minute. Drooling, chewing, not sleeping, and fussing. 1+1+1+1=TEETHING!
She hasn't broken the gums just yet, but I'm sure that we will have some pearly whites soon!

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

baby photoshoot
















One of my friends is an aspiring photographer and took some pictures of Portia. These are my favorites.