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Sunday, September 19, 2010

34 going on 14

So I'm at the pool with Blue Eyes the other day.  This by itself is a pretty big treat - having one child with you when you're used to three is a cakewalk.  Plus, Blue Eyes can now touch bottom in the shallow end.  Sweeeeet.  Because I was not having to be hyper aware of multiple potential drowning victims, my mental filter was relaxed a couple of levels and I was able to digest excerpts of surrounding conversations.  


Mental filter, you ask?  Sometimes I really have it together and the kids are acting reasonably and I can simultaneously supervise/ parent my children and resemble a person with passable social skills.


More often, I'm desperately trying to suck less at the supervision/ parenting part and what's left over is a blubbering mess of incomprehension.  As a survival feature my brain is forced to tune out any and all sensory input and extraneous thought that does not pertain to keeping my children from being harmed while remaining sane.   Today I actually asked a friend if she could watch my kids for an hour on Monday.  When they're in school.  Seriously?  I mean, my brain is broken.

meter,scale
Degrees of Mental Filtration
But I digress.  


On one hand there's a couple of middle aged women sitting near me who were wafting words like "administration", "carpool", and "recipe".  That's truly all I could tell you because similar to what I learn via osmosis from Sportscenter on a continuous loop, all that sticks are the highlights because I'm utterly disinterested.


Meanwhile, a group of tweens in the pool are having their own conversation.  They're trying to figure out who sings that new hot pop song.  Is it Drake or Taio Cruz?  I'm dying to tell them it's absolutely Taio Cruz.  Duh...  Next they move onto the ubiquitous debate of Team Edward vs. Team Jacob and I'm practically popping out of my seat wanting to tell them of course I'm team Jacob because a) he's not cold and hard, b) Rob Pattinson is way over-rated, effeminate, scrawny and has bushy eyebrows, and c) Bella acts all weird and twitchy with Edward and acts like her normal self with Jacob.  Again, Duh....  


And it occurs to me.  My body and life may be 34, but my mind is stuck at 14!


I don't mean I'm still as stupid and naive as I was at 14.  You know, when you believe that life is like a fairy tale where everyone gets their happy ending, vampires are sexy, and all that baloney...  More accurately, I'm more interested in things that 14 year olds are supposed  to be interested in, and completely bored senseless with "adult" interests.  


Though, as I think about it, it goes beyond boredom.  Adult concerns generate adult stress and adult anxiety. Reading Twilight is an escape, while reading the news is depressing.  It is much more fun to dance in the kitchen to Taio Cruz than it is to sit around and wonder if mid-term elections will cause the current administration to change policy in an effort improve chances of re-election, and how that will affect us.  I mean, compare the ideas.  First thought- dancing in the kitchen- simple, fun visual.  Second thought- blah, blah, politics, blah- my brain starts considering endless variables, and consider outcomes, and so on and so forth.  All that thinking is work.  And I'm already brain tired. No, I'm brain exhausted.  


On one hand, being a stay at home parent and conversing only on a preschool level is enough to shrivel your grey matter.  I feel like the longer I'm not in school or working the more my intellectual abilities atrophy.  On the other hand, I feel like my mind is constantly stressed and overwhelmed.  I think it's partly sensory overload from the noise and the chaos that defines my days.  But it's more than that.  As a parent, particularly as the primary caretaker of the children, you can never let your guard down.  As you're asleep you're subconsciously listening for a cry in the night, dreading the coming rude awakening, and worrying that something scary could happen while you dared to doze off.   I didn't even know that you could do these things while you sleep until I was a parent.  The result is my mind is shot.  You know how if you leave your computer on too long without shutting down it starts to get really confused after awhile?  You call technical support and the first thing they tell you to do is to restart it?  I feel like my brain is like a computer that never ever gets shut down.  The power button was pulled off by a toddler.  If my mind was an actual computer it would end up at the DMV on the desk of a fat lady with body odor and a nasty attitude.  The intellectual atrophy combined with the complete inability to let your guard down is a one-two punch.  KO!


So forgive me if my interest starts to wane when the subject turns to politics.  I'm yearning for the days when the most stressful thing I had to work out was which ballad band had the hottest lead singer.   I think I need a vacation.

Sunday, September 12, 2010

Dear Dirty Mistress

To the dirty, selfish mistress that is controlling my husband....again...  


I am not happy you are back in my life.  I'll never forget the first time you reared your head.  I was a newlywed and in the throes of married bliss when all the sudden you invade my marriage; you even have the audacity of invading my home.  My bed, no less.  My new husband went from a sweet, adoring, lovely man to a raging, psychotic freak.  To say that my new husband  was acting out of character would be a gross understatement.  The screaming, swearing, pacing and throwing of household objects was completely out of control.  I'm asking myself, "what have I gotten myself into?!?"  He was a newlywed, for crying out loud, and suddenly didn't even want to look at me.  I'm not kidding, I could have stood in front of him stark naked and he would more likely than not ask me to move out of the way.  I was suddenly starting to understand that I was not the sun of his solar system as I had so recently believed.  


You left for awhile, and there were others that caught his eye- true- but for the most part he returned to his role as dutiful husband.  Promises were made that he would not allow himself to be sucked in like that again.  "I swear I don't care about (her) at all anymore.  I'm over (her)"  he said.  We discussed his realization that he had made the heinous error of staking his happiness on short lived pleasure.  He even acknowledged that your relationship was painful more often than pleasurable.  He was like a junkie chasing the unattainable high.  He would become enthralled by you, obsessed by you, wanting to see you all the time and thinking about you non-stop when you were not available...and then you would inevitably bring him crashing down with disappointment.  


I was beginning to truly understand your power.  


You have never truly left.  There have been long stretches of time where there has been peace in my home, only for the tension to rise once again when you begin to draw near.  Every time it happens, I hope this time will be easier.  Perhaps with some maturity my husband will have finally learned to distance himself.  Every time, I am disappointed.  


I've made some effort to share him with you.  I've tried to become interested in you, to try to understand the appeal.  I thought, perhaps if I can see what draws my husband to you so strongly, I can share in that experience.  However, I've finally accepted that I am just really not very attracted to you.  Even if I'd like to, I just can't swing that way.  I've also noticed that you aren't very willing to share him. You really are a selfish, jealous, and possessive harpy.  


Who do you think you are, getting your hooks into MY husband that way?  Don't you care at all that he should really be spending that time with his children?  His family?  Oh, that's right, you've brainwashed him.  You've got him believing that the children should spend time with him AND you.  I can already see the writing on the wall.  He wants my children to love you too.  Are you kidding me?  Just leave their natural born mother out in the cold.  Soon I'll be the only one who see you for what you really are.  


You're like a Siren of Greek Mythology.  You want to lure men in with your beautiful appeal and then emotionally wreck them on your rocky shores.  You are a succubus.  You sell euphoria to these men, but can actually lead to a serious deterioration of their mental and, sometimes, physical health.  


Yes, I said "men" as in plural.  You are such a dirty trollup you've been with almost every man I know.  I know for sure you've done the same to my brother as well.  Seriously?  You must be the Supreme Slut of Whore Island.  You make them all love you, but you love none of them.  


You know, I'm not going to protect your identity.  The world should know who it is making all of these otherwise good men act like crazy mental patients.  Other girls with dreams of happy endings should know exactly what they are getting into.  You want everyone to think  you're as wholesome as apple pie, but I know the truth.  You're a big fat homewrecker.  I'm going to spread the word.    


College Football, you are such a bitch.  Give me my husband back!



Tuesday, August 24, 2010

The Terror Twins First Day of School

Silence.  Beautiful silence.  





si·lence

[sahy-luhns] noun, verb, -lenced,-lenc·ing, interjection
1. The complete lack of screaming, whining or crying for more than the thirty minutes one's brain needs to recover from chaos
2. The ability to hear oneself think, often followed by the sudden realization that one is capable of thinking of anything other than responding to the aforementioned screaming

I'm dropping the twins off today for their first day of school, having already dropped Blue Eyes off for his day, and all these moms are taking pictures and one is video taping their baby's first day of 2-day-2's.  (I mean, at what age is considered the official "first day of school" anyway? To me, this is more like Mother's Day Out twice per week)

Meanwhile, I just stopped at the curb for quick in-and-out action.  I didn't even bring a camera.  It didn't cross my mind to cry.  I'm a little ashamed.  

What I did do was skip, hop and jump back to my empty car to wile away the next four hours with no entourage.  I didn't do anything special.  I went to the gym, I went school supply shopping (yeah, yeah, they're a little late), I dropped into another store to look around on a whim.  And I enjoyed every minute of it.  Because I was alone.  

There was joy in pursuing the isles of Target taking all the time in the world that I wanted to compare blunt-tip child's scissors.  I was able to meander down extra isles because I felt like it.  My internal scream-o-meter was turned off.  What is my scream-o-meter?  It's like a countdown clock that runs on maternal instinct- an approximation of the amount of time I have to finish the current task before the terror twins start screaming and fighting and necessitate my leaving the store/ restaurant/ public place as quickly as possibly.  



Photobucket
When time runs out, all hell breaks loose


I got to walk into the YMCA without worrying about my children running in front of cars in the parking lot, or spending an excessive amount of time trying to herd them to the childcare room as they dart all over the place.  For once I got to skip the routine battle about how the lollipops were for when we're leaving, not now. There was also joy in the simple act of running on the treadmill without worrying whether the child development worker would be coming up the stairs looking for me before I've finished my workout.  "Sorry to interrupt you, but Guns has stripped naked and we can't get him to put  his clothes back on." (That happened a couple of weeks ago) Though, I'd be lying if I didn't admit that some small large part of me didn't think that I was breaking some unwritten rule about not using my precious alone time torturing myself on a treadmill.   


Then, the coup de grace, I got to take a shower without any toddlers climbing in.  


Don't get me wrong, I'm not judging the mom with the video camera.  First of all, I'm impressed with her ability to locate her camera and a tape, charge the camera and remember to get it out the door with her.  That right there is a feat that I would not be able to accomplish without difficulty.  In fact, I'm a little jealous.  Maybe if I weren't so darn overwhelmed so often, I'd enjoy videotaping more or something.  Maybe she has those mythical children I've heard of that are compliant little angels.  The kind that started their life sleeping in their carrier no matter where they were and matured to the kind of three year old who enjoys doing what Mommy says, the first time she says it.


Or at least that's what I choose to believe to excuse my non-filmingness.  


In my defense, as we near the terror twin's third birthday, I have to look back and acknowledge that it's been a rough three years.   I got pregnant 9 days after Macho Man returned from a year long tour in Iraq.  That was not exactly the plan.   Don't get me wrong, we wanted more children, but Blue Eyes was only 18 months old, and we didn't even get to slide into new routine before the next big adventure was coming up.  It was a rough pregnancy.  I had early onset "pregnancy Induced hypertension" that evolved into pre-ecclampsia and pre-term labor.  Let me tell you, hospital bed rest is not even a fraction as relaxing as it sounds.  Not to mention I was miserably uncomfortable 24/7.  Next comes the NICU for two weeks and pumping and making bottles in addition to spending weeks and months teaching the wee ones to nurse.  They each woke up every three hours.  Not three hours from the time they fell asleep, but three hours from the time they woke up last.  By the time I tried to nurse, warmed and fed a bottle, burped, got them back to sleep and pumped I had about an hour to sleep if they were on the same schedule that night.  


I continued to battle with severe feeding issues with Lil' Bit until she's about a year old.  She turned out to have "hypotonia" from what is fortunately, in retrospect, a minor birth defect.  You may have heard of it as "floppy baby".  She couldn't hold her head up until she was five months old.  Her suck was weak and ineffective for a long time.  Frankly, the only thing between Lil' Bit and a feeding tube was her ex-pediatric dietitian mother's dogged determination.  She also needed physical therapy until she finally walked at 19 months.  What a beautiful day that was!  Guns on the other hand was a great little eater, but had wretched colic.  Just like his older brother.  If you've had a child with colic, you know how awful that is- the incessant screaming with no relief.  It's just soul-sucking.  Gun's colic always peaked between 1-3 am.  


Needless to say, there was not a lot of sleeping going on.  There's a reason they use sleep-deprivation as a torture tactic.  It is more debilitating than you can imagine, until you're chronically sleep deprived yourself.  Let's not forget that I was dealing with my second go-round with post partum depression, and Macho Man was dealing with is own post-war issues.  


Meanwhile, Blue Eye's first indications of his Austistic Spectrum Disorder began to rear it's head.  It began with repetitive behavior.  He preferred to flip his cars over and spin the wheels ad nauseum.  He wasn't interacting with other children and would flip when he was required to transition activities before he was ready.  Mommy and Me class was a nightmare.  Heck, with the sensory issues that come with ASD, brushing his teeth was a nightmare.  


Oh, and speaking of rough times, I'm not even going to go into our moves (yes, plural, like 4 in three years) and another 8 month separation forced by Macho Man's job. 



I feel like things are finally starting to get easier.  We've lived in the same place for over a year.  We've made some good friends.  We're getting Blue Eye's ASD thing under control, finally.  Lil' Bit is about to outgrow therapy she's doing so well.  It's not so hard to go places, the five of us.  (Three on one is still a different deal...)  It's even fun.  Our problems are finally starting to be normal people problems, like how the terror twins fight all the time.  Sucks, but it's typical.  Typical is great.  


"Your twins are fighting like maniacs!"
"I know, isn't it great?"




So, excuse me if I drop my kids off at school and do cartwheels to the car.  It's not that I don't love my beautiful, sweet, adorable children.  Their giggles and kisses are the highlight of my life. The last three years have been completely worth it.  It's just that I've been looking forward to this moment since 2007, at four in the morning, promising myself that someday it will be easier. Chanting: "you can make it", "it will get better", "take it one day at a time and someday they'll be three and five".  I knew that things could be worse; that things can always be tragic- but at the time, that was less consolation than it should have been.  


I'll film their first day of Kindergarten.  I promise.  And you know, I'm not going to feel too bad about enjoying every moment I have of peaceful serenity this school year.  I've earned them.  And you know, three and five kinda rocks so far.

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Disturbing 'cause it's true....

Macho Man comes home from work, and surveys the scene....

"This place is like Disneyland for Pedophiles."


Except minus the loin cloth diaper


It's true, my house is the pediatric equivalent of a nude beach.  My children are determined to be naked as much of the time as possible.  They find clothes to be, at best, completely unnecessary, at worst, a major inconvenience.  They will walk out of sight for 2.3 seconds and return stark naked.  I've thought of several possible rational explanations, but I'm still puzzling over the idea.  Here's what I've come up with:


1.  Maybe they're legitimately hot.  We spend a fortune on central air, but since our home is about as energy efficient as a Hummer on NOS we have to keep it pretty warm if we want a prayer of keeping groceries in the budget.  But yet, nudity seems to be a year-round phenomenon.  


2.  Economy of motion?  After all, every time they go to the bathroom it does require taking off the clothes, putting them back on.  Not so difficult for me, but then, I don't have the fine motor skills of a 2 year old.  Maybe they're just trying to save time and effort.  However, this hypothesis doesn't explain why they strip in the kitchen, or in the backyard, or anywhere else nowhere remotely near a potty.  


3.  Inherited exhibitionism?  There is a rather notorious story of Macho Man's mother entertaining guests, only to be joined by a Mini Macho Man in boots and a cowboy hat.  ONLY boots and a cowboy hat.  He was reportedly rather proud of himself.  I picture that scene at the beginning of 'Forgetting Sarah Marshall', but I think it's because I know him as an adult and have some difficulty imagining a young, innocent, Mini Macho Man.  You know, I may be onto something here- we already know he's passed down other strange traits.  He's also been known to hang brain in a bar after a couple of drinks.  No, you really don't want to know what that means- don't think about it too long.   


All I know is that I spend my entire day saying "where is your underwear?", "why have you not put on underwear yet?", "haven't I asked you 3,000 times to go get your underwear?".  Because, sadly, I'm happy if they even have that much on.  Underwear is such a battle, I don't have the energy to attempt full outfits unless there is an imminent departure planned.    


I'm convinced this tendency towards nudity is carried on the y chromosome.  Why else would the preoccupation with nakedness commonly persist into adulthood with boys, yet girls seem to grow out of it once female hormones begin to rise.  


This begs the question, on an evolutionary level, what was the advantage of preferring nudity?   Were the males less likely to be taken down by a saber-toothed tiger if there were no loin skin  trailing behind them in the wind to grab?  Is this kind of like the lesson we learned from The Incredibles; that superheros with capes were prone to tragic wardrobe malfunctions?  


Tsk. Tsk.  Rookie mistake.  





Were Neanderthal women into meat gazing? They only wanted to mate with the guys who could prove they had nothing to be shy about?  Maybe just the really trollup-y ones, I'll hazard to guess.  You know, the ones that evolved into those girls that hang out in country bars with their muffin tops hanging over their Rockies, or Ke$ha.  Not to mention, all that brain would get awfully dirty hanging out all the time....



Neanderthal skull before forensic reconstruction

After.  The mouth seemed to form the words "I heart naked brain"

All I really know for sure is that a naked kid just ran by.  

Sunday, August 8, 2010

Man, the kids are on a tear today

Holy Moly my kids are on a tear today.  I'm worn out.  Of course Macho Man is working.  

Lil' Bit has this nasty habit of joyfully pulling the keys off my laptop keyboard.  As far as I can tell it's a compulsion.  Kind of like if you or I were standing next to peeling paint we might have to resist the urge to pull it off.  Sometimes I get lucky and can pop them back on.  Other times one of the 12 important micro pieces are gone with the wind.   I currently am missing the letter 'K'.  At the time, I thought, no big deal- how much do I use the letter K anyway?  Let me tell you, enough to be annoyed when you don't have one.  I k (grr) know that she does this, and I take precautions, but she slipped past me for about 2 seconds while I was yelling at correcting the boys for something.  

Some of Lil' Bit's best work


Blue Eyes is just hyper as all get-out.  He also has decided that he's an alien now, and instead of addressing me as "Mommy" now addresses me as "the human".  Such as, "Guns, go get your own milk ($#!) from the human".  Again, something that has turned out to be more annoying than expected.  

But Guns takes the cake (#$@%!!), as usual.  First, he comes to me with wet hair.  Just the top of his head, and I'm thinking how did he swing that?  Exhibit A:


Blue Eyes cleared it up for me when I asked him what happened.  "He put his head in the toilet!" as he's convulsing in laughter.  So immediately I begin the walk of dread.  Let me explain.  I have three children under five using that bathroom.  And they're not so great at flushing.  In fact, the whole bathroom is disgusting all the time.  I would actually prefer an industrial bathroom with tile walls and a drain in the floor so I could just splash some bleach around and then hose it down.  But, really, I'm convinced that the only thing that could truly get it completely clean is an atomic bomb pulled out of cold war storage.  

What I'd like to do to my second bathroom


Sure enough, you guessed it- Guns had clearly been playing in the toilet (he had left a few bath toys in there) and the water was a dark yellow.  


Bath time.  


Soon I put them down for a nap, and I get a little work done before deciding to take a little cat nap myself.  Trust me, I knew this was a risky proposition, but I was exhausted.  About 45 minutes later I'm woken to: "Excuse me, human?  Gunner has gotten poop all over."  
Exhibit B:


My bedroom door.  Passive aggressive much?  


Guns, in fact, has gotten poop all over.  He evidently woke up from his nap with a full diaper and decided to do a little impromptu poo art.  In addition to the door, it was on the floor, on the nearby laundry hamper, etc, etc.

Bath time again.  Also, let me just say, it is not fun scrubbing dried poo off of a door and a wall.  It it amazingly resilient.  

As I'm taking the miracle eraser to the poo wall, I'm wondering about how much poo I must eat and drink, breathe and wear every day.  It must be everywhere.  I mean, the kids poop all over their clothes, and then I wash them in the washing machine- then later wash everything else in the washing machine.  Sanitary cycle or no, I'm pretty sure we're all wearing poo germs.   It's not like they sell antibacterial laundry soap.


Worse, I learned in a food science class in college that the FDA has regulations for the maximum amount of human feces, animal hair, bug pieces, etc. that is allowed in foods packaged for consumption in the United States.  So- think about it- that means that our government's foremost experts in food safety had to concede that all of those things are already routinely in our food, and had to settle for setting maximum allowable limits.  Grossed out yet?  Well, what ever the limit is for human feces, I suspect that we have far surpassed it in our home.  

If I really stop and think it through, it's inevitable.  Yes, I scrubbed the devil out of the poo I could see, but did I really get every last poo molecule and live bacteria?  Somehow I doubt it.  Not to mention, Guns probably touched all kinds of things after his art project that I can't see.  No amount of lysol wipes is going to get all that.  Not to mention the surfaces, like my leather couches, that I can't nuke.  The dogs and all of us are walking around on the floor.  Heck, the dogs are walking in the house from the backyard, so there's probably dog poo all over the place, too.  We're touching these surfaces that I can't locate and then climbing into our beds, touching our silverware and toothbrushes.  The kids drop food on the floor, then pick it up and eat it all the time.  And today's poo painting isn't an isolated issue for me- it's practically a national pastime at our house..  I clean poo all the time.  Therefore, I eat poo.  I drink poo.  So do my kids- every day.  I'm probably pickled with poo germs.  And bad news, if you have a potty training toddler, or a kid that doesn't wash their hands that great, or pets, there's a good chance you do too.  Sorry to point it out.  Now that I think about it, I wish our whole house had a drain in the middle of the floor.  





I think I'll be skipping dinner tonight.  Hope you've already eaten...

Friday, July 30, 2010

"Stand By Me" Moment

My dietitian post reminded me of a beautiful moment.  (By beautiful I really mean revolting.)


A little background:  Macho Man has always had this hilarious gag reflex.  If he sees something gross, or even thinks about something really gross he'll start retching.  I don't mean gross like blood and gore- he can handle that.  He's Macho Man.  I'm talking about poop and boogers.  He can't handle it.  He'll tell you that he won't lose his cool with a gun in his face, but if he was flying a plane you could hijack him with a big green booger on your finger.  For years I thought it was fake.  It must be some sort of attention seeking behavior.  I was still not entirely convinced even when he tried to change his first real poopy diaper and ended up with his head in the kitchen sink losing his lunch.  I'm thinking: what an elaborate ruse to avoid diaper duty, but if he's determined enough to actually heave his guts up, I'll just change the farking things myself and hold it over his head to get him to do other stuff.  (Isn't it bad that I think that way?  Oh whatever, you know you do too.)

The day I finally believed him that he couldn't help it was the day that this happened.  


I had decided that Blue Eyes was going to learn to eat vegetables whether he liked it or not.  I put a kernel of corn into his mouth and held it in with a hand over his mouth.  I mean, come on, corn isn't even a real vegetable.  My method sounds brutal, but I was gentle- and I was giving him lots of encouragement... "It's not so bad- taste it!  It's the same thing as popcorn.  You like popcorn...."  He's crying immediately and begging to spit it out but I was convinced if I could just get past the first bite he'd realize it wasn't so bad.  


Then he starts vomiting.  Vomits 2-3 times on the floor. 


Guns and Lil' Bit are sitting at the table with us.  Gunner watches for a second then starts gagging and vomiting....vomits 3-4 times all over the floor.  But worse, he's trying to escape the scene and runs over the carpet as he continues to vomit.  


Next thing I know Macho Man comes in to see what's going on, and he starts gagging and vomiting in the kitchen sink.  


Lil' Bit and I are just looking at each other in disbelief and I think to myself:  Oh my.  It's legit.  And it's farking inherited.


I don't have to tell you who was cleaning up all that vomit by their lonesome.  I won't be trying that again.  


But I couldn't miss the similarity to a particular scene from the classic movie "Stand By Me"



Wednesday, July 28, 2010

I am Robot

Me:  So, Blue Eyes says to me today, 'I am a robot and this is my control button' as he points to his penis.


Macho Man:  He doesn't even know how right he is.




Highlight of the Day



So, I registered the twins for Preschool today.  It was iffy for a long time whether they'd be able to go to school, so it was a big day for me.  Mostly I'm excited that they'll have the opportunity to go to preschool.  With the problems that Blue Eyes has had with school, anything that helps the twins get a leg up is fabulous.  But also...the idea of having all three kids in school twice a week (even for just a few hours) makes me want to do a happy dance!!!!





Frankly, I'm surprised they let us enroll without suddenly remembering that they were full after all.  I had all three kids with me, and the twins were strapped into the double stroller.  The entire time I was talking to the director Guns was throwing an angry screaming fit.  He was  furious with the world.  He had woken up in the morning on the wrong side of the bed and was punishing everyone in earshot for it.  After quite awhile of getting no response from me as I desperately tried to have a semi-normal conversation with the director, the little fart did the one thing he knew would get my attention.  He grabbed Lil' Bit's arm and bit the crap out of it.  So hard that it left a bit mark where you could count his teeth.  Right in front of the preschool director. And now I had two hysterical children with me.


I'm pretty sure she was mentally penciling in our first meeting to discuss Guns' "aggressive behavior".  The follow up will cover how he told his teacher that he would "DESTROY HER!", I'm sure.


After 15 more minutes of both the twins screaming at the top of their lungs I had hurried through the paperwork and escaped.  We finally get home and about two minutes after I finally got them settled down and in bed for a nap, realized I had left my stroller in the preschool parking lot.


Of course.


Macho Man's comment:  "Well, at least there wasn't a child in it."


This time...

Sunday, July 25, 2010

Top Ten Things the Terror Twins Fought Over Today

We had a full and fabulous day at the beach today, and although I'm sure it will be a glorious memory someday in hindsight, let me give you a little insight into the play by play.  Here's a top ten list of the biggest fights of the day between the terror twins.  Just this summer they have adopted the lovely habit of scrapping over EVERYTHING.  I don't mean, whiney-ness, or tattling to Mommy- I mean full on, screaming slap fights followed by mutual melt-downs.  


10.  A filthy seagull feather no doubt crawling with bird mites
9.    Who gets to sit in Mommy's lap (this is all the time, so why should the beach be different?  Just because there's something else to do??)
8.  A hole that someone else had dug
7.  The ownership of Daddy; "NO!  MY DADDY!"
6.  Immediately following, who gets to shove Daddy's head underwater and try to drown him
5.  The handle of a broken sand shovel
4.  The light green bucket- because the purple one, dark green one and blue ones are all   completely unacceptable
3.  A slimy piece of deli meat coated in sand
2.  A dead jellyfish
1.  Nothing.  Absolutely nothing at all except a general objection that the other exists


But, they sure are cuties.  
Guns playing with his boat in a tide pool


Lil' Bit looking for shells



Saturday, July 24, 2010

You ARE Supermom, I can prove it.

Is anyone out there feeling like a failure as a parent?  Maybe you were tired from your date night last night where you had a couple of cocktails so you threw on cartoons, slopped some oj in sippy cups and dropped a handful of dry cereal on the coffee table?  Oh, right that was me.  Well, here's a little clip I watch from time to time to make me feel like I'm doing a rocking AWESOME job taking care of my kids.  


Ok, yeah, I had to find my encouragement in a third world country.  Don't judge.  





My favorite part is that at one point he looks like he's trying to push a cig on the smaller boy.  "Come on man, all the cool 2 yr olds are doing it...."  My kids are WAY safer on playdates, no matter how many toys they throw at your kid's head.  

Friday, July 23, 2010

"I will destroy you!"

Well, as I promised, it's today's dose of our children humiliating us in public.  I apologize to my Facebook friends, they already know the punchline.


Recently our family joined a new church.  We went through the three week class and were to be introduced to the church on Sunday.  Macho Man was out of town when the class was initiated, so we had to do it on our own two weeks later.


We had been encouraged to bring the kids up so that the church could 'meet' the whole family.  My first thought was "NO WAY", but my inherent and misguided optimism wore me down.  I realized it had been a mistake as soon as the service started and the REST of the sanctuary quieted down.  We used every trick in the book to keep the kids relatively entertained for the 15 minutes or so until we were up.  They were not quiet, but they stayed in the pew- and hey- we take our successes where we find them.  FINALLY it's our turn, we're thinking it's downhill from here.


But we take the hymnal away from Lil' Bit as we leave the pew and she starts to whimper.  Blue Eyes doesn't want us to take the iPhone away- he's busy blasting aliens.  Guns is lying in wait.


By the time the pastor starts asking us all the swear-in questions with his microphone, Lil' Bit is screaming "Give me my book baaaaaack!!!!!!!" repeatedly and trying to arch her way out of my grasp.


Macho Man is holding Guns when suddenly he scrunches up his face and points.  He's seen the associate pastor in his robes holding some sort of ceremonial gold-cross-on-a-pole thingy.  Well, in his limited 2 years of experience he assumes it must be a bad guy with some sort of weapon and shrieks:


"I WILL DESTROY YOU!!"


When the pastor doesn't respond Guns puts him in his place again.  You know, in case he didn't get the message the first time.


"I WILL DESTROY YOU!!!"


By this time the congregation is a mixture of half laughing (have kids) and half shocked (didn't have kids).  Macho Man and I were mortified.  Especially Macho Man, as you can imagine.

"Dumber" living up to her name

First thing this morning I have to clean Guns up after he woke up with an icky #2 in his pull up.  I get him all wiped up and send him to go get a pair of underpants while I start serving up breakfast.  


Next thing I hear (Guns giggling) "She's licking my bottom!"


Sure enough, instead of getting underwear, Guns is standing in front of the tv and Dumber is licking his butt like a kid with a popsicle on a hot summer day.  


*Gag*





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