Another busy day here in FL. This morning, I had intended to take the girls for a nice long walk on one of the paths here, but we ended up instead going with some of the other kids and babysitters on a tour of the waterfalls on the property. It was pretty fun… until M accidentally slid into the edge of a lake and got her sneakers and pants wet. She does not do well with wet clothes. I had a change of pants with me, so she wore the new pants and went barefoot for the rest of the tour. (Good thing it happened toward the end). Then we had lunch, where M spilled a glass of pink lemonade all over the new pants and her shirt. Needless to say, that set her over the edge and we went home soon thereafter.

During nap, I got some time off (long walk, gym, sitting in the sun, dozing, talking to Buppie and Sarah), and then I met back up with the girls for another late afternoon of swimming and hot tub (and another game of Opposites). Then we met up with Daddy again for dinner. It’s 9:25 and the girls are finally down… and I am beat.

Today, after swimming, A threw her floatie ring back into the pool for no reason. We had already dried off, so I asked her how we were going to get it back out. She said she’d swim back in and get it, but I pointed out that she needed her floatie ring to do that. M then got back in the cold water with her floatie ring and got A’s ring. A and I were very impressed, and from then on A decided she wanted to be M. M said she’d be A. This lasted for about 10 minutes, at which point A said, "Well, maybe I like being A," and M said, "Yeah, and I like being M," and they went back to being themselves. Until, of course, they each chose a Nutcracker alter ego’s identity to assume – M became Stephanie and A was Clara, and I had to call them those respective names.

Lots of this kind of behavior going on:

M taps A with her foot.

A: "Mommy, M hit me with her foot! I don’t like that!"

M: "Well, I didn’t mean to."

A: "M, you’re mean!"

M: "Mommy, A said that I am mean. I am NOT mean!"

A: "She’s mean, Mommy!’

…and on and on and on. This has been happening a lot today. I find that it gets worse when we are hanging around the house waiting to leave, etc. So my solution is basically to ignore it and then try to distract them with a change of scenery or a new activity. It is very tiresome, though. I spend a lot of time saying things like, "M, if you think that those two words rhyme, then why are you worrying about what A says? If she says they don’t rhyme and you know they do, then just ignore her."

Sigh.

They remain, however, the two cutest girls in existence and I tell them that constantly. I think they are bored with hearing it.

Tomorrow we leave for Amelia Island, which is an island just north of here that’s supposed to be beautiful. And right now, I think I will fall asleep…