MyThreeDaughters

In a report earlier today, about “speed art,” the editor cited two drawings as examples and claimed that one was from each girl. It seems, actually, that one was drawn by a nearly six-year-old and one was drawn by a three-year old but they were drawn by the same girl. One had just been archived incorrectly (put on a stack somewhere) and I thought Sadie had drawn it. Like I said, there are approximately 500 drawings in the house, about 70 of which were done today.
Here is one of Sadie’s drawings.

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This morning, as with many mornings, the two older girls and I were downstairs first. I thought I caught a break when Sadie asked for some pens and paper and said she wanted to draw.
(fool: Oh great, she wants to draw, that ought to keep her busy for a while…)
Then I forgot: These girls can fire off “art” at machine-gun like rates.
“Hey Daddy, can you tear out this drawing for me.”
Sure sweetheart.
Grind coffee…
“Hey Daddy, I can’t find a purple pen.”
Oh yeah, here’s a purple pen, and hey sweetie, rip rip rip rip rip rip, here’s PLENTY more paper for when you finish that one.
Dump coffee into the filter, put water in the coff…
“Hey Daddy, I’m done drawing, can you hang my drawings up. I need some tape.”
Let’s just say they were professionals, and let’s just say they were paid five bucks a drawing…I’d be heading for retirement right now.

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Remember that episode of the Brady Bunch when Peter gets busted by Mr. Brady for something, and Peter tries to get out of it by saying he was following his Dad’s “exact words?” So then Mr. Brady tells Peter, OK, we’ll use “exact words,” and sticks Peter with his own, exact words numerous times until Peter cries “uncle”?
Well, I never said anything about exact words, but I got thrusted and parried by Elizabeth, the three-year-old, with my own words this afternoon.
The scene: Fontaine and Elizabeth in the living room, playing their usual pre-dinner game of Grab, Push and Squeal. (My Dad used to refer to this as playing “grab-ass,” which I never understood and now think is just about the exact word.) So I have to come into the living room and play Dad:
“Fontaine, Elizabeth, I don’t want to come in here again and see you jumping on that couch!”
Elizabeth: “Hey Daddy, you don’t have to see it.”
me: “Elizabeth, you know that’s not what I meant…”
Three-year-old: “Daddy, you can just go in the kitchen, and don’t look in here.”

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Aiming to protect the identity of the innocent (my girls), I’ve decided to use their middle names in these little blurbs. I’m not sure what I’m protecting them from, since this blog has yet to have its first reader…maybe it’s identity theft, or maybe freaky people. Anyway, introducing the cast of this production: Fontaine, the kindergartener, who recently announced to us that she was ditching her actual first name and using her middle in school (sometimes referred to as Boisterous Red, for her hair); Elizabeth, three and a half or so, sandy blonde hair, has not yet announced a name change; and Rose, the 10-month old, another red head.
Fontaine’s the type who….hey, wait a minute, I’m not doing that. Even though I don’t have readers, those rascals might find this site someday.
They’d use an ammo they could, I am sure, to jack me up for a car or clothes. Probably, in Elizabeth’s case, half a dozen or so dresses from Hanna Anderson.

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I was away from Friday until Sunday, and wow, what a greeting when I got home. The baby was napping, but the two older girls came flying at me from back in the kitchen, yelling “Daddy, Daddy, Daddy” and “Daddy’s home! Daddy’s home!” Then, amid the excitement and chaos, something the three-year-old was saying rose above the clatter: “Where’re the donuts?! Where’re the donuts?! Where’re the donuts?!”
Oh, the donuts.
I had been up in Lancaster, Pa., and had been at an auction, run mostly by Amish people, and at one of the food stands they were selling the best cream-filled donuts I ever had. The best donuts I ever had, so I brought back half a dozen. Apparently, word of the donuts’ 330 mile drive back from Pennsylvania preceded them and me.
Once the donuts were presented, my wife tried saying we were saving them for tomorrow morning. But Boisterous Red, the kindergartener, was onto us:
“Don’t worry,” she told her sister, “they’re just teasing.”
And I guess we were…we’re softer than a couple of cream-filled donuts.

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We got home from a little Sunday drive this afternoon, and the girls immediately commenced their favorite activity: Jumping on the couch. Mind you, the, um, boisterous red head and the sweet as pie blue-eyed second child long ago thought outside of the box and discovered that the couch didn’t have to be in one piece to be jumped on. This afternoon, they took the cushions off what was our once-swank sage colored velvet Pottery Barn couch, took the cushion off our Pottery Barn chair — and made a ramp with them onto the brown chair. Boisterous Red then ran up the ramp, and leapt from the chair onto the cushions on the floor. (Once, when I was in about second grade, I split my head open all the way to the skull bone performing a similar “move,” but for some reason my wife and I allowed this to continue…a happy Boisterous Red is worth some risk.)
Now, these couch cushions have seen better days. When Red was a baby and nursing, she spit up like a gusher for about eight months. My wife nursed her on the velvet Pottery Barn couch. That thing was shelled worse than Dresden in ’44. You can only flip a cushion once. We could use a new couch. So if Pottery Barn wants to step up and donate one to MyThreeDaughters.com headquarters…Something like, oh, Italian leather would likely wipe off in a jiffy, and I’ve already mentioned your store four times. Come on, folks, advertising rates are cheap right now, but that’s only because we don’t have any readers.

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This blog was birthed a week ago, when I was at my hairdresser (Excuse me for a second: yeah, I’m a guy and I have a “hairdresser,” but it’s good I’m sensitive like that because I’m also the father of three girls)…anyway, my hairdresser Pat and her customer thought my stories about the girls were funny.
I thought they were something else. The word “funny” was pretty low on the list.
I was telling them about how much energy the girls have, and how they use it indoors and Pat said, maybe you ought to get a trampoline to let them wear themselves out.
I said, “We have one. It came from Pottery Barn, crushed velvet.”

So I’ll report in, to absolutely NO ONE, on this blog about my girls, about kids and what the world’s throwing at them, and my view on being a parent, a Dad. Hope you enjoy.

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