Looks Can Be Deceiving

I've wanted to put up a few pictures for awhile now but I don't know what to say about them because in the moment they were taken the girls look like they're having fun but that doesn't mean that moment lasted.  I don't want you to get the wrong impression and think that my children get along - or worse - that I'm trying to portray what a lovely, peaceful household we run.  Because most of the time it resembles the set from WWF Smackdown!  Not that I'd know anything about what that looks like.

So here are some pictures of Hadley and Harper from the past few days.  At least they were playing together nicely long enough for me to take the pictures. 

Harper has figured out how to keep herself on the little stools at this table so more and more the girls are coloring together at it.  Harper also like to stand on the stools which scares me but she is my wild child and has proved over and over that she needs to climb on anything every chance she gets.  Anyway, Tuesday morning the girls ate their breakfast together at the table.  Note that Harper has one sock on.

Later on that morning the girls played with clay together. 

Harper looks so ticked off that I would actually have the nerve to make her play with this stuff.

Hadley of course, is in deep concentration.  She was working on making "a guy."

Here's her finished product.  After I took this picture, she smashed him so those of you who were a little saddened by my caterpillar story can all rest assured that she wasn't too traumatized by the event.  (I guess it was harder on me then it was on her.)

On a different day, the girls got some books and read for a bit.  Harper just loves to sit on that couch.  We're having a problem, however, preventing her from standing on it and jumping.  Apparently the word "no" is the hardest word in the English language for our kids to hear or understand.

Hadlely's begun making up stories as she looks at the books.  It reminds me of what I used to do when I was a kid, only Hadley sings her stories.  Singing and making up stories was too much for my limited brain capacity.

The truth is, the girls enjoy each other's company.  Sure, I spend a rather large chunk of my day breaking up or preventing fights and that is more exhausting than I'd like to write about here, but Hadley and Harper do care about each other.  Harper usually wakes up before Hadley from her nap, and until Hadley comes into the living room Harper is asking for her. 

The funniest thing that Harper does is follow Hadley to the bathroom.  She'll walk over there and say, "Hi!" and then just stand there.  Hadley will ask her a question and Harper will say, "Sure!" or "No."  Then she'll wallk down the hallway, turn around, and go back to Hadley and start it all over again.  And they both love to chase each other and scream, "Peekaboo!"

A lot of their fighting comes from just figuring out how to live with one another.  They each have an idea of how to play with a toy, and when they want to both play with it things get messy. I'm sure all of this is normal and part of living together as a family.  And I can write about it rationally now when they're both sleeping and the house is wonderfully quiet.  An hour from now I'll sound a lot more like Rodney King.