This morning I woke up startled- I felt someone’s presence-I felt something on me, next to me…

I opened my eyes and aghhh, there was a pair of enormous eyes in my face.  

I woke up to an inquisitive little girl, holding a magnifying glass over my face and peering intently.

“What are you doing Gia!” I exclaimed.

“Oh, I’m just checking for red marks on your face,” she nonchalantly said.

“What! why?” I was laughing now.

“Oh because if you have red dots on your face, you need to buy this P stuff ( Proactiv), I was watching this on TV and I was seeing if you looked liked this lady with all of these red things on her face,” she stated.

 “Hmmmm, let me see, Mom, can you turn your face a little?” she asked.

“Ok, sure Gia, let me know what you see,” I said.

 “Oh Mom, no dots, but I do see some lines.”

Well, there you have it- the update on Mom’s skin, just a few wrinkles.

Then I am coming out of the shower and A makes a beeline for my boobs- grabbing at them, saying, “Boobies, boobies, Mommy’s boobies,” and then starts saying, “What’s that Mommy?, Mommy’s but, Mommy’s but, and starts pointing out various freckles, What’s that Mommy? What’s that Mommy? (A tends to repeat everything she says at least three times… “Are you sad mommy, are you sad mommy, are you sad mommy?”

Before you start thinking, oh my – What is going over there, Is this mom ok? We have this series of little books called What are you feeling? It’s pretty cute actually because G likes to read A these books.

Four year old reading genius I tell ya! Nah, she just looks at the pictures and makes up the words- kind of a no brainer, really. Look at this page, it really says, I feel hungry and G reads it, “I feel like I see a floating piece of cheese in my head.” 

But A has been really taken with the I feel sad book.

In fact, she asks everybody, including random people at the grocery store, “Are you sad?” I think she and I are going to set up a booth in the mall…

No insurance, low income, not a problem! Discounted therapy here…My child will look deep into people’s eyes and ask “Are you sad?”

We’ll let people get the weight off their shoulder and tells us their woes…   

The truth is I think she’s just so excited to be talking these days that she likes to hear herself say words and phrases multiple times.

Later that day, I heard my own voice coming from underneath a blanket on the couch, accompanied with lots of giggling.

What on Earth? Oh right, she’s been recording me again! I don’t know what G finds interesting about watching me do nothing, the videos of me are pretty mundane- it’s just shots of me with my face looking very worried- I always seem to have this forehead wrinkled, tense look going on- in fact, I can’t tell you the number of staff members at various stores like the grocery store, CVS, and Target…coming up to me and saying, “Everything OK, Can I help you find something?” or “You look lost, can I help you?” and probably the most embarrassing of all is “Well, if you and your kids aren’t pure birth control for me than I don’t what is!” 

Nonetheless, G will watch recordings of me for hours, cracking up, and then hit play again, laughing even louder –  this is getting ridiculous! Between this morning’s face inspection, naked accosting right out of the shower, and being recorded all day, I feel like I am just one life size doll for these girls to play with.     

Damn, why can’t I be the Hulk, and scare them away!