This week, our small, testosterone heavy family was turned upside down by the arrival of...
GIRLS!!!!!
As a thank you gift to my friends Lynn and Darren for hosting my 50th birthday party in their home, we took their two precious daughters, Julianna, 7, and Isabella, 4 for three days. In the past 7 years, Lynn and Darren have been away from the girls exactly...NEVER. Not ever. And when I suggested the idea to Lynn, she jumped at it so fast it made my head spin!
Lynn booked them two nights in Vegas, baby - Celebrity Spa Suite at the Luxor. Lynn, despite her nice church choir girl exterior, is in fact, a poker-crazy gambling fiend. And I say that with great love. But the woman loves her poker. So with dreams of poker tournaments, all-you-can-eat buffets, spa packages and NO CHILDREN, they dropped the girls off at our house on Monday morning, and hit the road.
Now you have to understand that Julianna and Isabella have always been the closest thing to sisters that Jude has. They've known each other all of their lives. Lynn and I joke that they will always be each others backup prom dates. To Jude, they are the perfect girls, because they basically seem to be totally happy just following Jude around watching him do stuff. Which is basically what we did for the entire time. Julianna actually begged to be allowed to just sit and watch Jude play video games - clearly she's his perfect woman.
Julianna is the smarty-pants, sort of the Hermione of the group. She's extremely smart, and likes to tell you all the things she knows. She seems to think Jude can do no wrong. She's always saying things like "Oh my goodness, Jude, you're HILARIOUS!" or "Oh my goodness, Jude, you're SO good at that!" She has many theories about the way things work, many of which are...iffy. But no matter how much Jude would call her on these theories, she never backed down.
FADE IN:
Jude, Julianna and Isabella are squished together into the backseat of the Prius. Isabella's carseat takes up most of the room, much to Jude's annoyance. Gretchen is at the wheel.They are driving by Silver Lake.
JULIANNA
It's a VERY large lake.
JUDE
No it's not.
JULIANNA
Yes it is. It's VERY large.
JUDE
I've seen WAY bigger lakes than this.
JULIANNA
It's large. It's maybe even a pond.
JUDE
(huh?)
A pond is smaller than a lake.
JULIANNA
No it's not. A pond's very large.
JUDE
No it's not.
JULIANNA
Yes it is.
JUDE
No it's not.
JULIANNA
Yes it is.
The bickering continued until Jude screames "MOM!"
FADE OUT.
Isabella, the little one, is possibly, the cutest little child on the planet Earth. She is always busy, always smiling, always sees the sunny side, and has the cutest little teeny cutey-patootey voice. She's practically, a cartoon character. But she is also...an instigator. She has a funny sense of humor, and loves to make trouble. She teases Jude constantly, and totally knows how to get his goat.
FADE IN:
Jude, Julianna and Isabella are squished together in the backseat of the Prius. Jude is once again, crushed by Isabella's carseat. Gretchen drives.
JUDE
(to Isabella)
Dude! Can't you lean the other way? You're squishing me.
ISABELLA
Okay.
(beat, impish smile)
Dude.
JUDE
You're still squishing me. And don't call me dude.
ISABELLA
Sorry.
(beat)
Dude.
JUDE
Mom! Isabella keeps calling me dude!
GRETCHEN
Well, you keep calling her dude.
JUDE
Yeah, but I can call her dude. It's my catchphrase.
GRETCHEN
Your catchphrase?
JUDE
Yeah. My catchphrase. It's what I say. You know, like..."dude".
JULIANNA
Yeah. It's his catchphrase.
ISABELLA
Okay.
(beat)
Dude.
JUDE
Stop calling me dude!
JULIANNA
Isabella! Stop calling Jude dude! He doesn't like it. It's his catchphrase.
ISABELLA
Okay.
They drive on in peaceful silence for a while.
ISABELLA
Dude.
FADE OUT.
FADE IN:
Jude, Julianna and Isabella are squished together in the backseat of the Prius. Isabella is singing.
ISABELLA
(singing)
This old man, he played one, he played knick-knack nanna
panna thumb...
JUDE
(rolling his eyes)
That's not how it goes.
JULIANNA
That's NOT how it goes Isabella.
JUDE
That doesn't even make sense!
JULIANNA
It doesn't even make sense! It goes like this
(singing) This old man, he played one,
he played knick-knack on his thumb.
JUDE
Yeah. That makes a LOT more sense.
ISABELLA
(smiling, undaunted, singing)
With a knick-knack paddy-whack give the dog a bone,
This old man came rolling home.
JUDE
That's just weird. Why would an old man go rolling home?
JULIANNA
It's just weird!
Isabella continues singing, ignoring her critics.
FADE OUT.
Both of these girls are truly, genuinely lovely children. And I'm not just saying that because their parents will read this. They are smart and kind and good listeners and easy-going and well-mannered and sweet, sweet, sweet. So if I was going to suddenly add two extra children to our family, these are the two to add. And despite the fact that they tortured Jude, he really LOVED having them around. And bless their hearts, they endured being dragged around by me to all of our activities - Jude's swim practice, Jude's tennis lesson, my auditions, and on Wednesday, a THREE hour wardrobe fitting for a Walmart commercial I booked (sneaked that in on you, didn't I?). For three hours they sat there playing, as good as gold, while I tried on endless clothes from Walmart. Nobody there could believe how good they were.
But I'm telling you...one child VS three children? HUGE difference. Good Lord. How do you people do it? All of you with three children, HOW? And girls? Egad. They never stop talking. Ever. And they want you to paint their nails and stuff. And they change clothes all the time. They're very particular and careful about their clothes. I'm so used to Jude just putting on the first thing he sees in his drawer. On the first night, Isabella told me she hadn't brought a nightgown to wear to bed. So I got her one of Jude's t-shirts to wear. It looked so outrageously cute on her I couldn't stand it. The second night, she asked if she could wear one of Jude's pajama tops. Again...TOO cute. Then on the last night, she suddenly comes in wearing pajamas. "Where did you get those, Isabella? I thought you had forgotten your pajamas." "I was saving them for the last night." HAH!
And the hair! Oh dear God, the hair! Both of these girls have a LOT of long, super curly hair. Every night after their bath, I had to slather their hair with detangler, brush out all the rats nests, blow it dry, then pull it all back into a tight braid. I don't know how Lynn does this every night.
On the last night they spent the night, Jimmy came in and crawled into bed.
"You know" he said "I was walking through the house earlier, and they were all running around in their little pajamas, laughing. And I suddenly thought, just for a second...that it would be nice to..." And he stopped.
"To have a house full of kids." I finished.
"Yeah." He leaned back in bed, wistful. "But I only thought it for a second."
Yeah. It was really cool to have all these sweet little kids running around. Hard. But cool. If only we had been a little more blessed.
But maybe we'll get more chances to enjoy a full house.
FADE IN:
A sleepy Jude, Julianna and Isabella are squished together in the back of the Prius. They are driving back home after the THREE hour wardrobe fitting. An exhausted Gretchen drives.
JULIANNA
Gretchen?
GRETCHEN
Yes, Julianna.
JULIANNA
Jude's my best friend.
JUDE
(surprised)
I am?
JULIANNA
Yes. I've known you since I was just only a couple of days old!
And now that we've had our very first sleepover with Jude, next
time, my Mom and Dad can go away to HAWAII. For a whole week.
They would like that. And we can stay with you. If they go to Hawaii,
my Mom will need to bring a life jacket. Because she doesn't know
how to swim. And they have volcanos in Hawaii. Lots of volcanos. And
sometimes the volcanos erupt. And if one erupted, my Mom might get
washed into the ocean, so she'd need the life jacket...
JUDE
(interupting Julianna's monologue)
If they come for a week, we're gonna need a bigger car.
FADE OUT.
Yes, adding another 1, 2, or 3 children to any mix is great for the short haul. But it becomes really hard work. I was a total advocate of family compound living. My parents lived close and the in-laws closer (even though I took care of them more than the other way around). Grocery shopping without kids took half as long.
Posted by: Michele | 07/22/2011 at 03:45 AM
I smiled my entire way through this post. All three kids are adorable. I love Julianna's smile.
Dude.
Posted by: Erica@Pines Lake Redhead | 07/22/2011 at 05:34 AM
What Erica said.
The look on Jude's face eating his hamburger is priceless.
Posted by: Jan | 07/22/2011 at 06:32 AM
BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHA!!!!!
They never stop talking. Not ever. Not for a minute. And they want to be with me ALL THE TIME. Which is sweet, and I'll miss it when they hate me as teenagers. But the talking. All the Talking. I don't even know where they get it.
Ahem.
Happy to see it's girls everywhere, though, and not just mine.
Glad to see you survived - I'll have to start watching Walmart commercials now.
Posted by: Sarah at themommylogues | 07/22/2011 at 07:28 AM
Girls. Never. Shut. Up. That is why I generally know every single detail about what happened at school each day. Useful?
Posted by: Rachel | 07/22/2011 at 09:57 AM
Love these stories. Love being away from my girls for a moment.
However, in Julianna's defense about Silver Lake being big... two weeks ago, after picking Isabella up from school, we walked the entire circumference (2.3 miles). All three of us. The girls spent the majority of the hour it took us to do this talking about how big the lake was. How far we had walked. How close were we to the car. It was agony, but a good workout. So, I think Julianna was pulling on her recent memory of walking completely around that lake as a measure of its size.
BTW, I'm already ready for another trip to Vegas. Good thing the grandparents are coming in for a 3 week stay at the beginning of August. Hehe!
Posted by: Lynn @ Curly Girl's Music World | 07/22/2011 at 09:12 PM
I'm smiling ear to ear, especially that last comment from the inimitable Jude.
And any time you want a houseful of kids, you can have one or two or three of mine. Just say the word.
Posted by: Elizabeth | 07/22/2011 at 10:53 PM
Heh! How cute. And how wonderful of you to keep them for three days.
Did I say congrats on the Wal-Mart commercial? You must tell us when it's going to start airing. The boys are SO excited to see Mom's Friend On TV.
Posted by: Aimee | 07/22/2011 at 11:22 PM
OMHeavens if that is not cute. I love how Jude is only concerned about not being squished in the car. So when's the WalMart commercial coming out?
Posted by: Mommylisa | 07/23/2011 at 04:07 AM
Do keep us posted on the commercial--that is so great you got it!
LOVE the photo of Jude in the backseat flanked by the girls.
Those conversations you've captured are a hoot!
Posted by: Michele R. | 07/23/2011 at 05:42 PM