Toddler Talkings

The kids are saying some very cute things lately and I want to remember them before it's too late.  Despite our first blog's semi-disappearance (we all lost our blogs on Salon, including Julie Powell's blog--the one the book and movie Julie/Julia was based on), I frequently wrote about Conor's development.  The twins are getting short changed in this regard.  So, I may be writing some short entries over the next few decades (!) so I can say a bit more about what they are doing.

I'm just freakin' busy.  And although I have time to write a FB status update most days, I don't have enough time to do that with the blog.  (As my older son just CHING CHING CHING CHING ninja attacked me on the arm this very second, I don't always have the patience either)

So, here we go.

Bridget likes when I tickle her parmpits, but does not like it when she hurts her belbow. Truly, she loves to eat doodles with red sauce and a lot of parmesean cheese. When guests are over, and she, ahem, passes gas, they might expect her to excuse herself when they ask her "What do you say?"  Most people are surprised when she proudly shouts, "I TOOTED!"

We are pretty open with bodily functions around here.  Tonight, Dave said to Christopher as he changed him for bedtime, "Oh my goodness!  Where did all this pee pee come from in your diaper?!"

Christopher thought for only a moment before he stated the obvious, "From my penis."

Well, Poop

What an amazing weekend. There is something about the south in the spring that is prettier than any other season in any other part of the country I've lived in. All the flowering dogwoods and cherry treas, vibrant pink azaleas, and, um, flowering flowers are so pretty after the gray of winter. But what I think is even prettier is all the shades of green from the trees as they start to get leaves again. By the middle of summer, it's all one hot, oppressive shade of green. But now, it's all vibrant colors and 15 shades of green that make me so happy to move from winter to spring.

And we FINALLY have the house and the yard in a livable condition. When we moved back in November '09, the yard was completely destroyed from all the workers and their equipment. The vegetable garden had been mostly neglected and with less than 1 year old twins, we made the easy decision to neglect it again. Even the perennial got no attention besides mulch and superficial weeding.

Worse than all of that was that we didn't have a deck anymore on the back of the house and it wasn't clear where we should put our outdoor table and chairs to hang out and "enjoy" our backyard.

Who the hell am I kidding. There was not a lot of "enjoying" last year. What were we thinking having twins and remodeling the house at the same time? I don't know how we could have done it any other way but holy crap, that was a rough time.

IN ANY CASE, for the last month, we've been working in our yard. Dave put in cedar raised beds for the garden and just this weekend we finished putting up a gorgeous architectural bunny and rat proof fence (designed by Dave's DIY Home By Design--available for hire and/or babysitting services, inquire within). Pictures to follow; they are on the other computer.

It's been wonderful getting the yard to where I thought it should have been last year. Who knew, really, how much work a remodel is *after* the remodel!?

But even better--the TWINS! Are EASIER!! They PLAY!! With each other!!! With Conor!!! And even though a re-enactment of Bridget at any point during the day would include the words "Mommy. Mommy!! MOMMY!! MOMMMYYYY! MOMMY! Mommy. Mommy!! MOMMY!!" we can do things when they are awake and that is a freedom I am excited about.

Speaking of freedom, both twins have shown some interest in potty training. I think they are really young, but they want to sit on the potty. And we're happy to let them do it.

Yesterday, we thought, Hey!! It's warm out! Let's give them some freedom and let them run around without their diapers on and practice sitting on the potty. What's the worst that could happen?

What is the worst, indeed.

It was not more than 5 minutes before Bridget started running around the backyard with her diaper in hand. Fine. She wants to play with her undies; I wonder what the neighbors will think. At this point she still had her jumper on and I thought it would be good to take it off in case she peed and got her clothes wet. I ran after her and she ran to steps outside the garage.

I scooper her up. "What is that smell," I thought. "Did she toot?"

Ummmm, no.

I looked down at a poop on the stairs to the garage. Did the cat get outside?? Did some other apparently large cat poop on our steps?

There were olives. No cat I know eats olives. Bridget on the other hand. . .

YIKES! I yelled and made Dave come over and look because that's exactly the kind of wife and mother that I am.

I ran back inside to get some wipes to clean Bridget up and finally take off her jumper.

I see Patches wending his way towards the garage, curious at this new smell.

LEAVE IT!! LEAVE IT!!! Patches slinks away.

I clean up Bridget. And then I go to clean up the steps to the garage.

What the.....???? Where the.....??? PATCHES!??!!?! PATCHES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'd strongly suggest you don't let Patches kiss you any time soon. I'm just saying.

Soccer

So yes, we remain busy around here. With an active and exciting life. (The irony in that statement will become apparent later on) Why, just Friday night, both babies (ok, they are toddlers now), both toddlers had one mighty explosive puke each and the dog ate our dinner right off the table.

And we have recently decided to take a 3 to 6 month hiatus from eating out at restaurants. Bridget absolutely cannot sit in her chair when we are out any more. She *has* to go around to every table and wave "Hi!" to the people sitting there. Yes, she is adorable and yes everyone melts when she arrives at their table. But it's getting too much and we're afraid her light-of-1000 suns cuteness will wear out for others sooner than it will for us.

Christopher continues to blow us away. Apparently, he has become the leader in his daycare class. He picks up whatever the other children drop and give it to them. When they are playing in the sandbox, he hugs every child in there. And when they come back in from the playground, he leads all the children over to the sink to wash their hands.

I have to be honest with you: it's overwhelming enough to fall in love with one child every day. My head and heart are going to explode falling in love with 3 children day in and day out. That part between Conor and the twins--the 8 miscarriages---that part sucked. But this part is extra-special sweet.

So, umm, soccer! Yeah.

Conor has started playing soccer and it is really a lot of fun. First, at 99.9th percentile height, it is relatively easy to pick him out on the field. Second, Conor has perfected an advanced move to psych the opposing team out while he plays: skipping. Perhaps you saw that at the world cup this year? No? Really? Additionally, Conor has an innate enthusiasm about life (from me) and very long arms (from Dave). Let's just say, that while he is skipping, his arms are also wildly swinging about in happiness for playing the game. He is noticeable.

He is also not aggressive out there. He is not a ball-hog and keeps a fair distance from the action as if he has been told to play defense. (He has not) So during the first game, when out of nowhere he ran through the crowd and with a sliding-on-the-ground kick kept the opponent's ball from scoring, we were a wee bit surprised. So was he, we noticed, as he stayed in that position for a few beats replaying his defensive move in his head and looking towards us, grinning, to see if we noticed. Yes. Yes we did, we cheered to him.

He has since, in the last two games, scored a couple of goals and is gaining some confidence. He seems to really enjoy it and the nights after practice or a game, he goes to bed quite easily. Yay! Easy bedtimes are a cause for celebration around here.

We also enjoy getting to see other kids and experience the range of normal. Our favorite story thus far involves a sweet boy on the first night of practice. Let me preface this by saying that Conor's old teacher told us that 6 years old is a preview for puberty. If that's true, we are screwed. I never thought that 10% of the utterances I made to my son would be some variation of "keep your hands off your penis." We are MUCH more discreet than that and we don't want to introduce any shame to a natural act, but there are only so many times one can say such a thing before one wants to shout "STOP DOING THAT!" (which we never have)

So back to soccer practice. Perhaps you can guess where I am going with this.

Dave was standing near the boy's nanny as called him over in the middle of practice. She told him they needed a code word that she could shout out to him during practice so that he would stop "touching his pants."

The boy thought very deeply for minute. Then he suggested to her "How about: Let go of the tiger tail?"

I will wait for you to stop laughing. And I will brag on both my husband and the nanny that neither of them laughed (out loud) at that child. Indeed, the nanny just matter of factly said to the boy, "How about: Tiger tail."

Tiger tail, indeed. Dave and I have routinely been shouting Tiger Tail to each other around the house and for no reason mentioned previously except that it makes us laugh really hard.

I continue to blog that it's crazy around here. You should continue to think that. Sometimes, it still shocks me that we have twins. That we have 3 children! And that we're only at the beginning of this crazy ride. Ah, well. It's crazy but it's our brand of crazy and so far it's still pretty good.

Hello There

So there's busy. And there's working mother of 10 month old twins and a 5 year old and a working husband. Hello!

I'm not leaving this blog. But I may be on leave this semester from it. By the time we get the babies to sleep and the place somewhat cleaned up, I just want to sit down with a glass of wine and watch TV. Even if that does happen, I usually only get 30 minutes to 1 hour of free time. And the often brain work required to do that is more than I have left.

And I don't really feel bad about that. I feel bad about a boatload of other things. But not about neglecting this too much. Except, I do feel bad about not documenting the twins' babyhood as well as I did Conor's. I know that happens moving from the first to subsequent children, but I still feel guilty.

Especially when I have such news to report as Bridget nearly walking and Christopher clearly saying "Daddy" (no Da Da) to Dave. Christopher has also started playing advanced Peek-a-boo with whatever linen he can find. And I just checked the previous blog entry and I did not mention that Bridge started to cruise about a month ago and can now stand up momentarily on her own. Christopher has just started creeping, in comparison, but he's still pretty darn proud of it.

Why here he is, creeping up on poor Patches instead of being in bed. Another difference in first vs. later children is that if one isn't ready for bed, I don't sit in the bedroom rocking for an hour until he goes to sleep. I'm sure we've doomed him or Bridget to a lifetime of horrible sleeping, but that's just too damn bad. I can't sit up there that long any more. And I don't believe it anyway.

As for the thousands of conversations I have in my head on this blog, the latest is what a witch I was on Easter! Yes! I won the award for worst mother of the year on Easter morning...BEFORE church! When we walked in and saw our friends, they kindly said "Happy Easter!" My blaring eyes, wild hair and frothing gave away my true meaning when I said "HAPPY EASTER TO YOU TOO!"

I'll simply provide the 15 minute highlight of dressing the twins in their very expensive outfits and then us all losing it. These highlights include: figuring out that their sailor outfits were not navy blue, but were black. Dressing infants! In black! For Easter!!

Then Christopher's button came off before I could even put his outfit on!! Did I mention EXPENSIVE? (And I don't mean "target" expensive)

Then we went down for pictures---one button gone be damned! I was going to take some pictures. Conor is running around the house in corduroys despite the hot weather. I sent him to change his clothes and he came back with a decent outfit and a tobaggon on his head he wouldn't take off. Fine.

"Sit down with the twins to get your picture taken."

"No."

"Sit!"

"NO!!!"

"Fine!!! Then years from now when you look back and don't see yourself in these pictures I'll tell you that you refused to do it!!!!!" <--the peak of my bad motherness.

Seven bad pictures later, another button fell off of Christopher's EXPENSIVE BLACK EASTER OUTFIT. It only had 4 buttons! And 2 fell off in 10 minutes.

I believe that I was enraged at this point. All those images in my head of beautiful Easter pictures of my children in their matching Easter outfits (none black, by the way) as we go to church to have everyone oooh and aaaaaw of their cuteness is completely blown. I am so angry. So mad at the everybody. So achingly frustrated. And we're going to Church. On EASTER.

It got better. But it didn't start off that well. And now I've made my confession to you.

Time to relax. After I get Christopher back to bed and actually to sleep.

Quirks

The twins have grown out of that blank infant stage and have started to become distinct babies. They still really dig each other, holding hands while they nurse and touching each others' faces first thing in the morning. But they are quite different as far as their personalities go.

Christopher is just like Conor was. He laughs easily and, apparently, when I sneeze, tickle him, or throw him in the air, I am the funniest mother that ever lived. And like Conor, he is not all that interested in movement. Like Conor, when you are a fat baby with a ginormo head, it's hard to actually propel yourself around with your arms and legs. Unlike Conor, Christopher has decided to just lie on the floor and kick his legs like he's trying to swim across our hardwood floors. The good news is that he has advanced from last month when he would kick his legs for a few minutes and then put his head down and sob. Now, he'll kick and perhaps even spin around a bit before he puts his head down to rest a bit and try it again. It's really the only time he gets upset. When I say he's a happy child, I mean that 95% of the time, he's amusing himself with his toys and then looking up at whoever is around, cocking his head to one side and laughing. It's hard not to run over and grab him and kiss him when he does this, so I don't even try to resist.

Bridget, on the other hand....

Well, Bridget makes you work for her smiles. They are absolutely worth the effort because her whole face will light up, but she's not giving them out for free and never giving them to strangers (who usually make her scream). And quite unlike Christopher, the child is very, very mobile. She's not crawling yet (THANK GOD(DESS)), but she's creeping her way all over the house. The child is tiny, yet she's cover a space that is proportionately enormous just to see what is there.

She was trying to eat the mirror in our bedroom and so I put her way on the other side of the room to keep her safe. She made a beeline back to the mirror, stopping only for a minute to chew on an extension cord along the way. (A box of new baby proofing supplies arrived today, in case you were wondering) And because she is still drooling so much, we can tell where she has been crawling. Much like a giant slug, she leaves a trail of spit in her wake.

And just today, she started to growl when she crawls. She is still the queen of raspberries and feels free to use them to make comments about everything. But now, she's growling. She's not angry; she's just playing with her voice. But it's a bit disconcerting seeing this extra tiny baby crawling across the floor with a trail of slime behind her while she growls.

Speaking of disconcerting, Conor has started to really blossom into his own person. His own quite quirky person. (He is our child, you know) The latest was his proud declaration that he did not want to poop at school. While Dave agrees that he would not poop at their school, either, Conor when on to share how he will "move his poop back up inside" so he won't poop at school.

Yeah. That's one of those things that you learn about a family member that you care about and still think, "Dude, that's weird." But we shall judge not his poopitude. We've talked to him and his teachers that if he needs to go he should go. But he prefers to poop here in the bathroom he prefers to poop in (versus the other bathroom downstairs). Folks I PROMISE you, we did not put any pressure on potty training.

And then, his teacher overheard him explaining to his classmate about having a new sister "One of the good things about having a baby sister is that your parents love you more because you can be more useful." Dave and I were a bit saddened by that. Does he think we only love him b/c he's useful? No, but still! When we asked him about it, he told us that he told his classmate the good thing about having a baby brother and sister is that you can go to your room and shut the door when they start crying.

I have to be honest with you. Of all the things we would have imagined Conor to say about being a big brother, being loved more because we put him to work and the ability to get away from their crying would have not be on our top 20, even top 30, things we would have expected him to say.

So there. He's not us. Conor is his own little funky, loving, slightly bizarre and completely lovable person. He's really separating and keeping secrets and having his own opinions. And it's really nice. Quirky. But nice.

You Kiss Your Mommy With That Mouth?

Parent #1: "Be sure and wipe your booty when you're done."

((pause))

P#1 to P#2: "You know, when I was in high school, I never expected I'd say a sentence like that."

((Laughs from both parents))

((pause))

P#2: "What are you doing in there?"

Child: "Kissing the toilet."

P#2: "Don't kiss the toilet!!"

((pause))

P#2 to P#1: "Now that's a sentence I never expected to say."

Snippets

I can barely put a sentence together, much less a paragraph or a whole post. But that doesn't mean I'm not thinking of things I want to share here. I may have to do snippet posts for a while. You know, a while being that length of time when I can pee whenever I like and not when I have to sneak it into a free moment in my day.

On Sunday during breakfast, Conor said "Patches!! Stop licking me!! I'm not a lollipop for dogs!!" Dave and I were overly impressed with our son's creativity. A dog lollipop. That totally fits with Patches' behavior lately.

Speaking of Patches, he continues to pass judgment on us as parents and the twins as puppies. Lately, he's been indicating that one of the twins' crying is excessive and perhaps that puppy is defective. At times, I agree.

I never thought I'd be the type of person who would want to dress her twins alike, but I totally do! The problem is finding matching clothes for boys and girls, especially when one is tiny and one is ginormous.

And surprisingly, I can already fit back into my prepregnancy clothes. I know my belly is much bigger now than it was last year. It's still distended from the twins. Dave suggested that perhaps my butt was not as big this year. Ummm, thanks?

We're in cry-o-rama here at the mother thing household. It's not nearly as much fun as it sounds. The only thing is that I know from this being our second time around that it's not going to last forever. I really, really, really hope it's not going to last forever and I'll be able to get out of the house and start living again.

Should I admit this?

"Oh! That would have been such a good picture if only Bridget had kept her eyes open. Or maybe that was Christopher. I can't tell. Whatever."

Things I'm Surprised to Say

"Son, don't touch with your penis at the breakfast table."

"But it's itchy."

"Hmmmmm, it might be time to wash those pajamas."

And today....

"No, I'm not going to be able to grade this afternoon because I have to take my son to the doctor to get a pebble out of his ear."

Those Kind of Peoples

Conor:  Mommy!  Mommy!  What are we?  

Mommy:  What, honey?

Conor:  What kind of peoples are we?  We're what kind of peoples?

Mommy (recalling a conversation they had earlier running out the front door to the big tree swing):  Oh, yes.  We're Southern.  We're Southern people, Conor.

Conor:  That's right.   Daddy!  Daddy!! Mommy and I are Southern people!  And we don't wear shoes!!

Clean and Green

I'm finishing up day 11 on the Quantum Wellness cleanse. So far, I've lost about 4 lbs. I'm not tired. I'm not depriving myself of anything. And I'm certainly not hungry. What I miss thus far is coffee. I can do without the nightly wine, although, Wine is Good. But when I smell that coffee in the morning, I crave it. That is the first and perhaps the only thing I know I'm going to add back to my daily eating immediately.

And I haven't been perfect. On Thursday, at an Indian buffet, I'm pretty sure I ate something with butter in it. And then Sunday morning, I had grits with some soy cheese with casein in it. (You'd be shocked how full that made me feel afterwards, and not in a good way). And on Sunday night, I had a Boca burger, which I'll bet is not completely in the cleanse and a squash dish with some cheese in it. I ate it because I was a guest at someone's house and I am simply not the kind of person who will make my host/ess feel bad about what s/he has cooked by not eating it.

So, honestly, when today I felt more tired than I have since Day 3 of the cleanse. I wonder if milk makes me tired?

In other news, we are really trying to be green around here. We are cutting back water consumption as much as we can. Indeed, the highlight of our dinner party the other night was deciding that we could and probably should flush all the toilets before out guests arrived. It felt very extravagant!

You, of course, know the "poem"? Maybe not? Well, here goes:

If it's yellow,
Let it mellow.
If it's brown,
Flush it down.

Brilliant.

And we also bought a clothes line this weekend. The neighbors who don't like Patches' barking are going to love that!!! What was stunning was that it took 30 minutes to dry our sheets outside and just under an hour for Dave's shirts to be completely, crunchily dry. The air conditioner and the dryer are the two worst polluters in your house. We've really tried not to use our a/c this summer rejoicing in our attic fan and our new windows. And now we're going to start drying our clothes outside.

Although Dave is happy on our electric bill this month, it's not about the money. We've all been living too long with the attitude that if we can afford it, we can use it. That's not right. We need to take care of everything---air, water, animals, earth---so that everyone can have equal, healthy access to it. Otherwise, no one is going to get any of it.

Off of soap box. I'm trying to use this cleanse to be mindful of my place in this world and my impact on it. Just let me know before you come over and we'll be sure to flush all the toilets. That's how much of a giver we are.

Monkey Daddy

"You know, I don't have a lot of upper body strength myself."

"Me either."

"But you have those long monkey arms."

"Yeah!," demonstrating, "And they give me leverage!"

This and That

I know that, according to the rules of good blogging, I'm supposed to have a point when I post, a shining insight into life as a mother thing. One, do not assume this is a "good" blog. And two, I shine not.

Instead, I kill rats. HA! 4 and a half rats dead. Two died right off the bat, umm, right off the trap. We found a half eaten rat carcass after our trip back to West VA. Gross, I know, but happily dead. We killed another this week. Dave noted it was fat. I noted she was pregnant. I felt bad about that until I saw a rat dive into our potato bed, and then my sentiment was to kill more the rats before they get their rat cooties on my potatoes.

Scarlett has been sick lately. I told Dave that if she "passed", I wanted a kitten for my birthday. However, last night he mentioned that he thought a pellet rifle would be useful, too. I seriously thought about it. How about a kitten and a pellet gun? That says a lot about the kind of southern woman I am.

*****************************************

The other night, Conor and I were snuggling before bed. He looked up and saw his Thomas the Tank catalog in one of his new bed's cubby holes! He loves to read the catalog as he goes to sleep and I think starting a habit of reading in bed before the age of 4 is pretty darn good.

"Do you want to read it?" I ask.

"No," he insists. "I want to snuggle with you."

He puts his hands on either side of my face and gives me a kiss.

(((pause)))

He looks deep into my eyes and then he begins pushing my face away. "You can go now."

Ok. Thanks! I won't let the door hit me on the way out!

*************************************

Steve and Barry's. Steve and Barry's? Folks, do you know about Steve and Barry's? God bless America, people. Do you KNOW about Steve and Barry's?

I surely didn't until yesterday. The NY Times recently featured Steve and Barry's as having some of the best quality cheap clothes in the US. Their goal is to have Old Navy, Gap and (sometimes) Banana Republic quality clothes FOR LESS THAN $10 EACH! Their shirts are definitely Old Navy quality. But their pants are NICE. And I bought a fitted Bitten dress for $8.98 yesterday. And it fits well. And the Bitten pants I bought fit well and they are pretty!!

I bought Mossimo shorts from Target last weekend for $16 and an Isaach Mizrhai sweater for $24 and neither of those have the quality material or construction as the Bitten clothes I bought.

Seriously. Everything in the store was $8.98. And it fit. And it looked pretty on me.

Wow. Dead rats and new clothes. What a great week this has been.

Running Around Outside

(((Brrrringgg. Brrrrring)))

"Hello?"

"Anita? This is your neighbor, C***."

"Hey! How are you doing?!"

"Fine. I just thought you'd want to know that Patches is running around in your backyard with something that looks like shorts."

Pause.

"Are you sure it's shorts and not underwear?"

"I'm just saying it looks like shorts."

"Thanks!"

Conversations You Don't Have

"You know, things are still a little tweaked. And the weirdest thing is that I can poop on demand."

"Poor Demand."