Check out the essay Lila penned as part of a school-wide PTA arts competition in which entrants were asked to give their artistic take on the theme, “Beauty is…” Your girl chose this topic without prompting from her mother, and I can’t be more proud of what she wrote. (The picture is an illustration she whipped up for the essay.) *Dabs at eyes, pats heart, leaps for joy!* Check it out:

BEAUTY IS… ME!

By LILA

I love me because I am beautiful. I love everything on my body. I like my smile most of all. It is the prettiest thing in the whole world. I will not let anyone treat me the way I don’t want to be treated. Also I will not let anybody touch me in private places on my body. Also I would like to say I’m not just beautiful on the outside, I’m also beautiful on the inside. I’m smart, I’m good, I’m sweet, I’m helpful to others, and I’m strong.

And I’m happy to be me.

To read about how I’m trying to stop the cycle of low self-esteem in my brown babies, check out my latest offering at The Parenting Post by clicking HERE.

TO SEE THE FINAL TUESDAY SMACKDOWN CLEAN-UP, CLICK HERE.

So my friend Gretchen and I were commiserating the other day about how much alike our daughters Lila and Maggie are—they’re both super smart, super funny, super stubborn and bossy as all get-out—when we both discovered that our little giggle nuts are… hmm, a nice way to say this… SLOBS.

THE CULPRITS

No, seriously. Our girls are just gross on the highest levels. For sure, both Lila and Maggie’s rooms are so junky, Gretchen and I were actually considering stretching that yellow crime scene tape across their bedroom doors—you know, for the protection of children and small animals. Our girls drop toys/books/clothes/shoes/boxes/papers/art supplies/random small items wherever they were playing with them last, and no matter how much yelling/begging/threatening/bribing we do, neither of the girls practices the simple art of cleaning up behind herself. To be fair, both Gretchen and I think too few storage solutions + the fact that the girls are still too little to clean such a massive mess = recipe for this disaster:

EXHIBIT A (Lila’s Mess)

EXHIBIT B (Maggie’s Mess)

Note the freakish similarities. The horse stables. The guitars strewn about. The desktop mountains of clutter. The bald-headed babies.

It’s all just so very wrong.

Wrong, we tell you.

But summer vacation is over and our girls, newly minted second graders, are back in school.

Gretchen and I are going in.



To support one another, Gretchen and I decided to throw ourselves into what we’ve dubbed The Tuesday Smackdown. That’s right: We’re putting on our hazmat suits, getting out our oversized, heavy-duty trash bags, our rubber gloves and our mops and buckets, and we’re going to… gasp!… clean our girls’ rooms. Alas, the 7-year-olds can’t handle the gig. And we moms can’t take it anymore. So clean, we must.

THE BRAVE ONES

Our strategy? We’re going to be downright ruthless. Whatever isn’t an absolute essential/beloved toy/nailed down is going into trash bags—one headed for The Salvation Army, the other headed straight to the curb (made all the more easy by the fact that our daughters will be sitting in a classroom today, completely oblivious to the gangsta cleaning that’s about to take place).

Oh, believe me: It’s. About. To. Go. Down.

Want to see the results? Check back here around 4 p.m. for an update and pictures of their pig pens-turned-sweet little girl rooms.

*Makes sign of the cross.*

Pray for us.

The nurse insisted that her heartbeat was too slow and so to be sure that my soon-to-be-born little girl arrived in top form, I needed to lie on my right side. I had two IVs (one in the crook of my arm, the other on my knuckles), a belly monitor, a catheter, and an epidural taking up valuable real estate on my body, but girlfriend paid that absolutely no mind. Seventeen hours passed by. She wasn’t ready.

But when that baby decided it was time? Well, it was on. Not a minute after I convinced the nurse to let me lay on my left side “for just a little while,” she practically leaped out of my stomach—three pushes and she was in the hands of the baby catcher standing in for my ob-gyn, who hadn’t a chance to make her way from the scrub room to the maternity ward. You’re slow, you blow.

Lila Elisabeth Chiles works on her own time, and waits for no (wo)man.

That’s my baby—and today, she is seven years old.

Here’s what you should know about my Lila: She is incredibly smart. A leader, definitely not a follower. Hysterically funny. Impatient. Helpful. Messy. A total sugar monster. Beautiful. Girly. And a total tomgirl, too. Sweet. Strong-willed. Sporty. A bit of a rabble-rouser.

The love of my life.

Today, we’ll bake a cake—maybe vanilla with strawberry icing.

And we’ll sing “Happy Birthday” (the Stevie Wonder version, of course).

She’ll wear her orange dress and play secret agent, maybe with her best friend Maggie, and I’ll hug on her and kiss on her and love on her because today is her birthday.

Lila is lucky number seven.

A big girl.

But still my baby.

Until the dolphins fly and parrots swim the sea, I’ll love you always, sweet Lila.

Always.

Love,

Mommy