Clara: Mom, can I have 10 books in my bed?

Me: Sure, Clara. (I hand her three books. I should have known better.)

Clara: MOM, this is THREE BOOKS. I said TEN BOOKS.

… and then I handed her seven more books and realized that naptime might never happen.

We were on a family bike ride and the girls were in our new bike trailer. Isabelle was screaming at the top of her lungs (because she was way overtired), Clara was yelling at her for screaming, and Tim and I were both losing our minds.

Tim: Clara, let’s sing a song instead. Maybe Twinkle, Twinkle?

Clara: (singing) Hit her, bite her, wake her up and make her cry. Hit her, bite her, wake her up and make her cry!

Isabelle: (shrieking)

Tim: NEVER MIND. NO MORE SINGING!

And at that point I rode away from my family as fast as I could.

Tim was putting Isabelle to sleep, Clara was reading in her room, and I was reading in the family room. Then I realized the house was a little too quiet, so I went into Clara’s room and saw she wasn’t there. I went into my bathroom and…

Me: CLARA! What happened?!

Clara (naked and covered from head to toe in foundation, blush, mascara, eye shadow, eyeliner, with her hair matted with Tim’s hair gel): Mommy, I’m practicing being a grown-up!

Me: OK, great job practicing. Next time please ask me if you want to use my make-up. Now stand right here so I can get a picture before you take a bath… (#priorities.)

And then today I took Clara into her room for approximately 8 seconds to give her a lecture about calming her body down and not pushing her sister over. Of course, while I was in there with Clara, Isabelle climbed up on our ottoman, grabbed my mug of coffee, and flung it all over the pile of clean laundry and the couch. The only dialogue for that event was me yelling “NOOOOOOOO!”

Parenting is exhausting.

* Linking up with Kristen and Gretch!