Once in a Blue Moon

It's been a while since I posted, and I don't know where to start, so let's just dive in, shall we?   Off We Go   We were off for a week in the tremendous, incredibly gorgeous, pictures-don't-do-it-justice Maui at the end of June. Highlights of the trip: Cily's first two teeth made their appearance (and continue to torture her and by extension, the rest of us, but that's a different story), Viva jumped off a boat and went snorkeling in the open ocean with sea turtles and schools of fish, I caught up on my sleep and read a whole book, and Sweet Dub took 800 million pictures, none of which I have managed to upload yet. Oh, and rainbows. Scads of them, because it was periodically rainy while we were there. You know, rainbows have become kind of cliché, but when you actually see one arcing across a pale gray sky, flanked by silhouetted palm trees and a gentle drizzle as the sun struggles through, it's kind of mystical.   And We're Back   Other highlights: since our return, Cily has said her first word ("Da-da," of course) and has begun self-feeding*, and Viva has started camp, which she love love loves. Have I mentioned that she loves it? The camp director stopped me during drop-off on the second day to tell me what an amazing athlete she is and how she is really competitive. I fully concur on both points. In fact, we have frequent conversations with Viva about the importance of good sportsmanship, with mixed results. She hates to lose, at pretty much anything. The likelihood of her flying into a rage is inextricably linked to her level of fatigue. She seems to handle losing better (say, at a game of Crazy Eights) when she is well-rested and fresh, and she actually makes it sound sincere when she says, "Good game," followed by, "Let's play again," so she can try and beat you.   Bad Mama Blah   Oh, Viva. She is at a phase when things are difficult and sometimes I have to force myself to list her good qualities so I don't flip out and strangle her. She is a wonderful child – so bright and so sweet and so loving – and yet there are times when she just throws all that to hell and chooses the side of Darkness. We are the meanest parents ever: Sweet Dub because he won't just let her win every game they play, and me because – well, I have many failings, but currently the biggest one is that I won't buy her sugary cereal. It is So Unfair that her cousins get to eat it Every Day and she has to eat things like Gorilla Munch or Honey Nut Cheerios (that is the sweetest I will go) or God forbid, regular Cheerios.   I am a horrible person, and yet Viva wants to be with me all the time. It is kind of exhausting, God love her.   Inhale, exhale, be patient. I do love her so.   Grease is the Word   Something about vacation made my skin break out. Was it the "Faces" sunblock? Was it the daily free greasy bacon and eggs at the Ohana Bar and Grill? Who knows, but I am having horrible flashbacks to adolescence, and now I have all kinds of '80s music skimming through my head. At the moment, this is taking the form of Billy Idol dancing with himself. Let's sink another drink, 'cause it'll give me time to thi-hink… Does anyone remember Pernox? My grandmother swore by it back in the day and insisted I scrub my face raw.   In hindsight, the benefit of having somewhat oily/combination skin is that at 40, I am not wrinkly and I'm not obsessed with Botox. Do you care? No, probably not, and thus ends one of the most self-absorbed ruminations ever.   * The self-feeding is a post in and of itself, and lands with a solid thump in the land of Over-thinking It Mommy Blogging, so I don't know if I want to go there. Long story short: Cily can't abide anyone coming at her with a spoon. With my fantastic expertise in all Internetly things, I did an exhaustive, three-entire-minutes search and discovered Baby Led Weaning. Huzzah! And all was well in the Kingdom of Blah. Baby feeds herself table food, eats what she wants, as much as she wants, and the jars of organic baby food languish on the shelf. And they all lived happily ever after.