The Little Piano Boy (who needs a haircut!)

Because the month of December isn't busy enough, Carter's piano teacher decided to throw in an extra recital. If I sound Grinchy, forgive me, but Carter didn't bother to tell me about the recital until 3 DAYS BEFORE, so I had to wrangle up sitters for the little guys and cancel a few other Saturday plans, and I was a bit put out by the time we arrived to the recital.

All was forgiven when Carter stepped up to the 9-foot grand piano and played his Chopin piece. Okay, I know I'm a little biased, but... I had goosebumps. He works hard at the piano, and it was wonderful to see his hard work paying off. My dad ("Bampa") was visiting at the time, so Quinn, Taylor, my dad and I enjoyed the recital together.

And... sorry to go all "proud mama" on you, but if you're interested enough to see him playing, I posted it on YouTube under "Carter Bastian plays Fantasie Impromptu." hee hee- couldn't help myself!

Mistaken Identities: Taylorisms

Taylor, age 10, is a funny girl who seems to live entirely in her own little world. She is one of those "book smart" kids who isn't always aware of the real world going on around her. This lends itself to some interesting conversations:

Taylor: (out of the blue) "Isn't it amazing that Ozzy Osbourne was in 'Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat'?!? He did such a great job!"
ME: (chuckling) "Uh, yeah, that would be amazing. But, honey, that wasn't Ozzy Osbourne."
Taylor: (in her 'well-duh' voice) "It was totally Ozzy Osbourne. I looked at the end credits and everything. Hellooooo! He was the star of the show! He was Joseph!"
ME: (laughing) "Ozzy Osbourne was NOT Joseph in that play! You're talking about Donny Osmond..."
Taylor: (cutting me off) "That's what I said! Ozzy Osbourne. Anyways, I had no idea that he was such a fantastic actor. And singer!"
ME: (laughing) "Ozzy's something else, all right. And some people think he's a good singer, but he was definitely NOT in 'Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat.'"
Taylor: (sigh) "Go look it up, Mom. He's Joseph! And what's even more amazing is that he can sing and act when you consider that he's blind."
ME: "He's blind?!?"
Taylor: (heavy sigh) "Don't you ever look at magazines, Mom? He's always wearing his blind glasses. In real life, anyways. He is inspirational."
ME: "I don't even know what to tell you right now."
(ironically, Donny Osmond and Ozzy Osbourne were actually on the same television program this week- "Dancing With the Stars". How surreal to have the two of them together! I nearly dragged Taylor out of bed to witness the sources of her confusion, but decided against it. And, truthfully, Ozzy's glasses do make him look visually impaired.)


Taylor: "I am doing my history report on John F. Kennedy. He was such a great president."
ME: "Oh, that would be a neat report to write. I did a lot of research on him when I was in high school. It's so sad about how he died."
Taylor: "Yeah... that darn cancer."
ME: "Ummm, sweetie, JFK was assassinated."
Taylor: "I know. By cancer. Was it lung cancer?"
ME: "Um, no, it wasn't cancer at all. He was killed."
Taylor: "By cancer. I know. I wrote all about it in my report."
ME: "Oh, dear. Really? Did you write that in your report? Have you already turned it in? Cuz he didn't die of cancer, honey. He was shot."
Taylor: (gasping) "No way! That was Lincoln!"
ME: "Yes, Lincoln, too. But John F. Kennedy was also shot and killed."
Taylor: "I think you're wrong."
ME: "No, honey, really. JFK was shot! If you researched him, you must have read that."
Taylor: (pause) "Oh... yeah, now that I think about it, I remember. He WAS shot! But it wasn't that big of a deal. It didn't kill him. He survived it. And THEN he died of cancer."
ME: (completely stumped) "Honey, please don't make me pull up the Zapruder films. Seriously, he was shot. He lost most of the top of his head, and he didn't survive it. Where exactly are you getting your research materials from?"
Taylor: "Well now you're just being sick. I don't want to think about somebody's head being shot."
(heavy pause while both of us are confused beyond belief.)
Taylor: "Well, at least he had a good acting career. Not all presidents can say that."
ME: "Honey, did you maybe do your report on Ronald Reagan?"
Taylor: "Oh, yeah! That's who it was! Ronald Reagan. He was such a great president."
(and Taylor walks away, completely unfazed, while I'm left slightly traumatized by the entire conversation.)

Last spring. Taylor was in her school production of "The Wizard of Oz", proudly playing the great Oz himself. This performance coincided with a Broadway production of "Wicked" here in Jacksonville, and we were lucky enough to get tickets through her school's drama club. Carter, who was already familiar with the play came with Taylor and I. On the drive over, he put the Wicked CD in for us all to hear. About 5 songs into it, Taylor pipes up from the backseat: "Oh my gosh! I can't believe it! This Wicked play is a total rip-off of The Wizard of Oz! Are you kidding me? They like totally copycatted the whole thing. They even use the name Glinda, like in our play. Unbelievable! Talk about a lack of creativity!"

And so you can see why so many times we are left speechless (and utterly baffled) by our Taylor girl! There's never a dull moment with her around!

Overheard: Waiting for the Locusts

Now that Tanner is in kindergarten, he is very etiquette-conscious. A few weeks ago, he burped at the table and said, "Oh, part-of-me! That was very rude." We gave him a curious look, so he elaborated, "Now that I'm a big kid, I don't say 'excuse me' anymore, I say 'part of me.'"

All manners aside, it's been a week of various maladies at our home: Carter had strep throat, Tanner had pneumonia, and Quinn threw his back out while reaching for a file in his office chair. (What is he? 90?!?) Sydney has taken it upon herself to nurse the sick in our home, which sometimes gets interesting. I left her in the room for a moment and returned to find Tanner, burning up with fever, wrapped in a bedsheet, towel, and fluffy boa:



Later that day, Riley was sitting in the hallway, crying because I wouldn't let her watch SpongeBob Squarepants. Ever the maternal one, Sydney was concerned about her poor wailing sister, so she ran off and returned with a bottle of Johnson & Johnson's Baby Shampoo. "Look, Riley, this is the stuff for no more tears... that means no more sadness. Dump it on your head!"

And, after the SpongeBob debacle, I continued my reign of terror by only allowing Bailey to have one packet of Scooby Doo fruit snacks. She begged and pleaded for a second, but I held my ground, so she stomped her little feet and dramatically threw herself onto the couch. Between crying jags, she looked up at me and wailed, "You're ruining my whole darn life!"

Later that night, while tucking her in, she was back to her affectionate self. I couldn't help but ask, "So, am I still ruining your whole darn life?" She got a sheepish grin and said, "Oh... just kiddin' bout that."


Wow, the power I wield to be able to ruin entire darn lives by merely withholding fruit snacks and SpongeBob. To my poor, emotionally-damaged children, I have but one thing to say: part of me!

3 Little Ballerinas

After 3 long weeks of the girls asking me EVERY day, "Is today our ballet day?", the long-awaited moment arrived. The girls had their first ballet lesson yesterday and it was quite possibly the cutest thing I have ever seen! They loved every minute of it and have been running around on their "tippy tippy toes" and doing "plee-ay-sees" ever since. And they keep asking me to do "ballet hair" for them again.

Wednesdays can't come soon enough for any of us! Special thanks to Shauna, who has the patience of a saint and is doing lessons at the church out of the goodness of her heart!

HAPPY Meal?!?

Most people don't believe me when I say I can feed my entire family dinner at McDonald's for under $10. For those who doubt, here's the run-down: plain hamburger for me ($.89), fries and a side salad for Quinn ($2), a double and a McChicken for Carter ($2), ditto for Taylor ($2), and 2 double cheeseburgers for the little four ($2. The trick here is pulling the double cheeseburger apart- one burger and one bun on each side- and folding it up like a taco. The cheese helps stick it together, and... voila! Two "taco burgers!") Round this out with 8 small ice waters (free), and you have a van full of happy campers and a McDonald's store that officially hates you.

I used to to feel bad for ripping McDonald's off with my frugal (Okay, cheap) ways, but my McDonald's experience today completely absolved all guilt.

Tanner was at kindergarten (sigh) so I "only" had the triplets while running afternoon errands. It occurred to me that it would be much easier to throw lunch at them in their carseats than it would be to go home, laden with groceries, and put something together. As we pulled into the drive through, I made my first mistake: I actually looked at the Happy Meal menu instead of jumping straight to my more familiar friend, the Value Menu.

Hmm... I thought. I only have three kids with me today. It would be such a treat for them to actually have french fries and (gasp!) a soda.

And then I saw the featured girl toy: a miniature American Girl doll! It was as if I was 4 again myself- I was mesmerized by those perfect little dolls!

So I rationalized: getting an entire meal plus a drink plus an American Girl doll for $2.59 was a bargain! I excitedly ordered 3 little girl Happy Meals and was sure that this purchase would bring us a car ride of happiness.

Wrong!

Until today, my youngest children have been blissfully unaware that Happy Meals even exist. They probably don't even know that McDonald's serves french fries! They were simply thrilled to receive their meager little taco-burgers and ice waters. Boy, did I open Pandora's box!

When I handed the neatly-packaged meals to each girl, their eyes went round and large. They cautiously peered inside and their little mouths dropped. They couldn't pull everything out fast enough! Fries were flying, sodas jostling, and cheeseburgers falling to the floor. Food was entirely forgotten when they saw the toy inside. They were in sheer heaven! For like a minute. Until they opened the wrapping and saw that their "toy" was a book. A very small American Girl book with a teeny little American Girl doll sticker inside.

And then they realized that their books were all different, and that Riley got the American Girl with black hair when she has blond hair and that's not fair, but Sydney's American Girl had red hair so she didn't know who she should trade it with, and Bailey's American Girl was African American. And then they all wanted Addy, the African American girl, because her dress was yellow and she had stickers with quilts on it and she was "prettierest."

So I took their "toys" and told them they could have them after they ate their food. Five minutes of screaming later, they dug into their french fries and noticed that somebody had more fries in her bag than they did, and then there was more crying and counting of fries. So I pulled over and dumped out all the fries and redistributed them. And there was momentary food-induced peace until Bailey tasted her soda and yelled, "It's Sprite! I hate Sprite! I wanted cocoa!" (?) And then everybody wanted cocoa. And they all freaked out that they had "two breads" on their burger, and threw the top bun on the ground with disdain and made a ketchup-mustard-mess of folding their burger into taco formation.

By the time I got home, we were ALL crying and food was everywhere but in my childrens' stomachs.

All this "happiness" for a dollar more than I usually spend to feed our clan of eight! I think we were much happier before we explored this brave new world of fast-food options. Lesson learned: we'll unapologetically stick with our taco-shaped burgers and ice water, thank you very much.

Things I Never Thought I Would Say As a Mom (but, sadly, have):

1. "Sorry guys, but I already told you: You can't have lollipops until you finish your PopTarts."

2. "No! We do not flush somebody else's pee pee! Everybody gets to flush their own pee. It is a family rule."
lll

3. "Carter, you HAVE to stop practicing that piano! You've been on that thing for like 3 hours... go outside and play already!"


4. "Taylor, I love it when you get creative, but for the rest of the day, you may not make anything that involves paper or scissors or glue or yarn or stickers or paint or crayons or markers. They are now off-limits."

5. "Hey, guys! No using the remote control as a weapon! And same goes for the telephone. We do NOT hit each other with technology!"
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6. (at the dinner table) "Okay, we've had our fun but it's time to stop talking like pirates, okay? No more 'aaaaarghing' and calling each other 'mateys' and 'wenches', okay? No more pirate talk!"

7. (while playing pretend) "No, it's okay, guys. You can ALL be Quasimoto. Anybody who wants to can pretend they're Quasimoto. Nobody HAS to be Esmerelda."

Okay, so in my defense: A) They were eating whole-grain poptarts for a quick breakfast-on- the-go when the bank lady announced that she was sending through some lollipops for the kids. B) Never thought I'd have a family rule about flushing somebody else's pee, let alone make ridiculous comments to enforce the rule, but I potty-trained all four at the same time and they were very territorial about flushing. C) Carter plays the piano nonstop and, until we moved the piano from the family room to the office, it was very loud. D) I'm not one to stifle creativity, but Taylor's incessant projects can get very messy. You can only pick tiny yarn snips and pieces of tape out of the carpet so many times in one day... E) When the triplets were 2, it was like WWF at our house. Following one split lip too many, we actually had a list of "contraban" items. F) After watching Pirates of the Carribean with the big kids and having a pirate birthday party for Tanner, the pirate talk had been going on for hours and was driving this particular wench crazy. Aaaargh! G) For some reason, my little kids were obsessed with Hunchback of NotreDame, and Riley was in love with Quasimoto. Which meant that they ALL wanted to be him, and they walked around with their backs hunched and their faces squinched up, and tried to make somebody else be Esmerelda. Go figure!

But still...

Bailey

It looks like Bailey has made it her mission in life to slowly unravel what little is left of my sanity. She is a mischevious little imp, full of sheer will and determination. I am no match for her, really.

kkkkkkk

We wonder if she has a Napoleon Complex. She has always three or four inches shorter than her triplet sisters. One night she asked me, "When am I going to get biggest, since I'm the big sister?" Ironically, she has convinced everybody that she is indeed the oldest sister, despite her lack of stature. (And despite the fact that she was actually Baby C- the last one out!) What she lacks in height, she makes up for in attitude. Or as one of Quinn's coworkers put it, she has a "high will-to-mass ratio."

She is a force of nature, and I wonder sometimes what makes this little one tick. She is like a cat: independent, affectionate only when she wants to be, and completely unpredictable. We never know what's going to make her pounce!

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Bailey refuses to wear anything but dresses. She accessorizes to the hilt with any headband/necklace/hair scrunchie she can find. She drags her mini tea seat with her everywhere she goes, and she is convinced that she is a princess. Her favorite game to play is "pretend" where I am the mean stepmother and she gazes longingly at a photo of Quinn and I (her "real parents who are very dead.") She could play that game for HOURS, and has even worked up a tear or two as she wishes that her "real mom and dad" hadn't been "zapped by Ursula the Sea Witch."

This morning I left my glass of water on the coffee table. As I walked back in the room, I was directly behind Bailey and, not seeing me, I watched her lean over my glass of water and peer inside. I was about to intervene (I hate it when my kids drink out of my glass), but instead watched in amazement as Bailey deliberately spit in my glass. A lot of spit. Then she peered inside, grinning. As she walked away she spotted me and smiled. "Bailey!" I said, incredulously. "Did you just spit in my water?!?" "No," she said, sweet as can be. "But I just saw you do it!" She shrugged. "I didn't SPIT in it," she explained. "I was giving you floaties. I always give you floaties."

lllll

To think how many, many times I have left a glass of water within her reach . . .

lllll

Lucky for her, she's pretty darn cute. A friend from church insists he could never discipline her because she's so adorable. I told him that it's her primary survival mechanism. She can turn on the charm when she needs. She loves to say in her prayers: "Thank you that Mommy is beautiful" and then she cracks open one eye to peer at me and make sure that this had the desired effect of making me smile. It always does.

lllll

She was helping put a bandaid on Riley the other day and I said, "Wow, you're good at this, Bailey. Maybe someday you'll grow up and be a doctor!" "No," she said. "I want to grow up to be a Mommy, just like you." My heart started to melt, then she continued, "Cuz then I can wear your lipstick and you'll have to let me wear all your Mommy clothes and I'll have a real purse and a cella phone."

lllll

And to balance out any compliments she doles out in her prayers, she always manages to get in a few digs to my self-esteem. Last week when I came home from jogging, she ran up and gave me a big hug. "I love you, Mommy... even when you're all sweaty and ugly."

lllll

Beneath all her bluster and bravado, however, our mini-dictator isn't as tough as she thinks. She still sucks her thumb (though she hides it under her blankie). She is still the only one afraid to swim without floaties (the inflatable arm things, not the spit). She is scared of Sid "the mean kid" from Toy Story and refuses to open her eyes if he's on screen. She's terrified of thunder.

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Somewhere beneath the mischief and bossiness lies a tender little heart... if only she'd let us catch a glimpse of it more often!