dinner with the terrible twos

So we came back Sunday from a week in castroville. I was ready to leave on Friday, and Hyphen wanted me to come home on tuesday, but my mom said my sister was coming in for the weekend just to see us. (please note: when I asked Audrey why she was coming, she said "because mom told me to.") So my sister gets to castroville with her adorable girls. Turns out, they only look adorable. They are actually somewhat demonic, as they just turned two years old.

Here is what it is like to eat dinner with the terrible twos:

1. sit down to eat and everyone is somewhat cranky because it is dinner and mom is stressed like company's coming even though it is just us.

2. Sam won't stay in the chair. Get in the chair Sam. get in the chair. Sam, get back in the chair. Sam, you can't get out until you eat some food. Etc. Meanwhile, Lilly is calmly eating her food, Annabelle is whining about having lettuce on her plate and Tallulah has abandoned her high chair for my lap.

3. Sam finally decides to eat something. But now, Lilly has finished eating, gotten out of her chair, and is waiting by the back door to go inside (we decided outside was the way to go for hosing off purposes).

4. When no one lets her in, Lilly decides to get naked and run around the yard.

5. Audrey corrals her.

6. My mom gets her interested in something and Audrey gets to eat her first bite of dinner.

7. Annabelle finishes her meal and gets on the swing and the twos go over to play with her/fight over the swing, despite the fact they have hardly eaten and, at this point, Audrey could give two shits.

The whole time all of this was happening Tallulah was stuffing her face with fish, which made for a rather pungent diaper the next morning.

Then it was time to load up the whole crew into the tub. Audrey was in charge of the bath, as she is somewhat of a control freak and is scared that I will let the kids drown. So I go outside to start cleaning up and see my mom and dad, sitting amidst the carnage, each drinking a beer. Were they basking in the glow of having all their children and grandchildren under one roof? Not exactly. The expressions on their faces said it all--when in the hell are these people going to leave?