Big Girls Don't Cry

DM is a student. MM is a SAHM. DM's schooling requires him to leave the Mouse House for 2 weeks at a time, 3 times during his senior year (which is now- see the counter to your right? You can click on the link and see exactly when he will be accepting his diploma. Can you tell we're a little bit excited?) He will be gone for the next 2 weeks, completing the second of the 3 externships, so the past 24 hours have been a scramble trying to get him packed- including a cooler's worth of food, clothes, all his gear, etc, etc, etc. Squeeze in church attendance and my weekly Sunday grocery shopping and it was a hectic day, to say the least.

BigM had a BM (haha) during "Quiet Time" so she of course had to tell us all about it and decided she needed to sit on the potty for 30 minutes afterwards. We're encouraging, but not pushing the potty thing so we let her sit with a few books while we scurried around the house like, well, mice. Needless to say, skipping naptime is not a positive thing for BigM. She was in a lovely mood: argumentative, sassy, grumpy... definitely not her normal sunny personality. I had about had it before DM even left at 3:30 and to compound it all, I had forgotten that the movie we rented on Friday was due back at noon today (I remembered at 5:37.) So I loaded up the mice so we wouldn't have an astronomical late fee and to check out a total chick flick (27 Dresses, if you're wondering which one) since I never get to do that. By the time we got home, BigM was just really showing her stuff so during dinner, I kept warning her that her antics were hurting MM's feelings and MM was going to cry... well, she pushed a little too hard and I couldn't hold back the tears.

I don't think she's ever seen a grown-up mouse cry. Her sweet (I can say that now, she's been in bed for 4 1/2 hours) little eyes filled up with tears too and she jumped out of her chair and ran over to me, just sobbing. I, of course, assured her that I loved her no matter what and that sometimes grown up mice get sad too (especially when little mice act like little monsters. I'm kidding! I didn't tell her that!) We both ended up giggling but that didn't stop her from "being a bad listener" a few more times before she finally crashed.

As angry as she makes me- and as frustrating as it can be wandering through the minefield of the "terrible twos," just the thought of her getting bigger makes me want to tear up all over again. I never want my mice to grow up!