Amy J. Bennett

When people ask for my most embarrassing moment, I usually can not think of one.  I get embarrassed at the drop of a hat.  My face, neck and chest all turn red, I laugh and then can’t look people in the eye.  It’s gotten better as I’ve gotten older, but I still have my moments.

But tonight.  Tonight I was embarrassed.  And maybe it was my most embarrassing moment to date.

Heather and the girls and I stopped at Harris Teeter on the way home from Mom’s to pick up a few things.  Lexi had a dirty diaper but we were just getting a few things and I had no wipes and no diapers.  She wasn’t bothered about it so neither was I. 

So we get to the check-out and it’s a young man checking us out.  I’m pretty sure he was around 17 or 18 or so.  The girls are back at the cart playing around the racecar cart we got and I’m standing at the card reader.  The guy looks up at me with his hand at his nose and says, "Ma’am, I don’t mean to be rude, but something REALLY stinks."  The look of shock registers on my face and he says, "I’m sorry, I just thought you might not know and you’d want to know."   The whole time he has his hand covering his nose.

Oh my gosh.

"Yes, yes, I know.  She went right before we got here…" 

I turned beet red.  Heather is looking at me from behind the cart mouthing, "What is going on?"

I literally can not look the guy in the face.  He hurriedly says, "Today you’ve saved .49.  Thanks have a great night."

I hightail it out of there.  I don’t wait on Heather, I don’t even put my bags in a buggy.  I just pick it all up and go.

There goes my Mommy of the Year award.  Again.

Today’s is Lexi’s third birthday and she says she’s fwee.  With Emma, I was excited for her to get a year older and even now, I’m excited she’ll be 5 in a few weeks.  But yesterday, I was holding on to my 2 year old.  There’s something about 3 that is decidedly not baby like.  She’s officially a preschooler and I have no more babies.

Part of me wants to shout yay!!  I’m done with babies.  But man, it went by so quickly.  My babies are already gone.  I have little girls now.

When I woke Lexi up this morning and told her it was her birthday, she hid her eyes under her arm like she was embarrassed.  And then Emma and S got here this morning and told her happy birthday and she started jumping up and down.

Mom called to tell her happy birthday and she said she was fwee and she wanted presents.  Nice.  Especially since I haven’t bought her any yet.  I was planning to do the whole shebang next weekend at Chuck E. Cheese’s but looks like we’re going to have to do a mini party today since she obviously "gets" that it’s her birthday.  And then it was Minnie’s birthday on Mickey Mouse Clubhouse this morning and that sort of sealed the deal.

At 3, Lexi is a hoot.  She is a big fan of her big sister and does really what Emma does.  Now Lexi can be in her own little world sometimes but pretty much, Emma and Lexi are attached at the hip.  I love that.  Lexi’s speech has really improved over the last year.  I think last year she was only saying a handful of words and now she says everything.  You can’t always understand her because she still switches up some letters but generally I don’t have to translate for her all the time.  She still says pour for four and pun for fun.  Things like that.  And when she tries to say things she knows she can’t say like bippity boppity boo, she just replaces it with some sort of intelligible phrase.

Lexi still can’t count very well.  She does 1, 2 and then skips to 6 and 4.  One time we were in the parking lot of Starbuck’s strapping her back in and she was able to count correctly to 6 or 7 with Heather.  There’s hope!  She sings along with the alphabet song now but can’t sing it herself that I know of.  For the longest time I’d try to sing it to her and she’d say Quit Singing!  She obviously doesn’t write any letters but I did get her to copy over an L last night.  She does know some of her shapes and definitely all her colors.  She has a great imagination and plays right alongside Emma. 

I think she’s skipping all her academics for her physical prowess.  She’s a very active girl. She can bend and twist and jump and summersault and all that with the best of them.  I keep saying I need to put her in gymnastics.  I think she’s just a tad young for it after seeing completely refusing to participate at S’s party where they tried to give dance lessons.

What else to say about my Lexi?  She’s completely girl and she’s got some tomboy in her too.  I think if she was around boys more, she’d be a complete tomboy.  That is except for her hair that’s down to her waist now.  Couldn’t mistake that for a boy.  She’s my gorgeous little indian girl with olive skin, long brown hair and big brown eyes.  She’s independent and she knows what she wants.  I love her to death and although I’m sure she’ll turn into a wonderful woman, for right now, I’m holding tight to my little fwee year old.