Happy Birthday to Byron

Today is my husband's birthday. Yes, he's younger than me, by six months. He never fails to tell our children that he is younger than me - or as J&N like to say it - he is "smaller" than me. (Which is he is NOT, by the way.)

Two mornings ago, I asked the boys what they wanted to get Daddy for his birthday (I didn't plan ahead very well). Nathan ignored me but Jack said he wanted to get Daddy some blue boots, because blue is Daddy's favorite color. I confess that I didn't know blue was his favorite color, nor that he needed boots. But whatever. I found it charming and funny.

I called Byron on my way to work that morning and told him the story. He found it charming and funny as well. No, he didn't need any boots. Blue was okay, but he wasn't crazy about having a pair of boots in that color.

Then I repeated the tale to a friend of mine at work.

To my amazement and glee, she said, "I know where you can get him some blue boots." Apparently, at the tractor supply store, they sell this kind of thing all the time, things that city girls like me never see at Target. So she got me a pair of blue boots to give my husband tonight.

I'm writing this up now because I know there is about a 0.0009% chance that Byron will read my blog before I give him his birthday gifts tonight. And it's just too funny to wait. I CANNOT WAIT TO SEE HIS FACE WHEN HE OPENS HIS NEW BLUE BOOTS.

And believe me, he will wear them.

Morning Angst

It's very weird that most of my struggles with the boys are all related to getting ready in the morning. Now, I'm the first to admit that among my working mommy friends, I have it pretty good. We have two FANTASTIC and AMAZING babysitters who alternate days and come to our house each morning to take care of the boys. We are incredibly blessed to have them in our lives and equally thankful that our children have not scared them off after four years.

Now that Jack and Nathan are in preschool three mornings a week, the girls get our boys off to school on those days as well. So I try to do my part to not just get myself ready but to help the boys on their way as well. That means I ask them to get dressed and make their beds on school days. Also, if they want to play video games on non-school days, they have to get dressed and make their beds then as well.

Okay, so we do pretty good most days. I should clarify that I help with the bed-making. It would be freaking amazing if they could do it on their own, but let's be realistic. So I help them out. Also, I put out a pile of clothes for each boy - socks, underwear, shirt, pants. I don't mess with a chore chart, because, let's face it - I'm lazy. I tried to do the chore chart thing but I kept forgetting to make a new one each week, and it's just too much for me. So never mind.

The whole point of this long, rambling tale is that our boys are so different in their personalities. With twins, you have to be careful not to stereotype. You can't say - oh, this one is my troublemaker and this one is my angel. That would be horrible. Seriously. Don't do that. Why? Not only is it mean to your kids, but it will come back to haunt you - and swiftly.

So right now, Jack likes to cooperate a little more "quickly" shall we say, than Nathan. Jack likes video games. It's his favorite thing in the entire world. Nathan likes more to watch Jack play video games, at least in the morning. So when we do the whole get-dressed-make-your-bed-before-you-can-play-video-games thing, Nathan could really care less.

This morning, case in point. He sat around completely naked for an hour and fifteen minutes, telling me NO MOMMY! YOU MAKE MY BED!! I WILL NOT MAKE MY BED! YOU GET ME DRESSED! I CANNOT GET DRESSED!

Then Miss J arrived and was able to convince him to get dressed in approximately one minute.

That's when we noticed that his pants were about three inches too short. Ugh. And of course, when we tell him to take off his pants to exchange them for ones that fit, what do you think happened? Of course he would not do that. He loved those pants and only those would do.

Whatever. I just went to work. I did tell Miss J to make sure the preschool teacher knows we tried to get him to wear different pants. Boys. Sigh.

Wake Up Call

I had to get up early for work today (joy!) and of course, Jack woke up early as well (ruining my plans for a quiet escape before the children needed me). Once he was dressed and had made his bed, which are the required morning chores for my two four-year-olds, he was allowed to play video games. Yes, at 6:25am. Don't judge me - I need diversion so that I can put makeup on.

Jack was playing alone quite contentedly but kept asking me when Nathan was going to get up, so he could play video games too. I kept telling him that Nathan was asleep as it was VERY EARLY and maybe he should go back to bed also. Needless to say, he didn't agree.

Finally, I heard a terrific shout from Jack and found him approximately one inch away from Nathan's sleeping face, yelling, "Nathan! NATHAN!!! WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO WAKE UP???!!!"

That woke Nathan up. He was luckily not screaming himself, having been awoken in such a fashion, but was instead rather groggy. And still not ready to play video games, much to Jack's disappointment.

Poetry

Last night, N and J were talking goofy in their room and I was listening at the door. Among the snatches of nonsense, I heard N say: "I swallowed a car, so my heart could drive somewhere else."

The Sweetest Sound

Last night, I had just shut off my book-reading nightlight when I heard the pitter-patter of little feet from the other bedroom. I held my breath, waiting. Then the feet passed our room, went to the bathroom, and went potty all by themselves. Then, THEN (and this is where it gets wonderful) those feet went back to their own room and got back into bed and went to sleep.

Ahhhh. Here's to a good night's sleep for once...

The DVR Has Ruined Them

You know mister, when I was your age, there was no pausing-of-live-tv-watch-any-show-we-wanted-to-at-any-time-of-day. No, when I was your age, if we missed Sesame Street, we just had to live with it.

And this On Demand stuff. On Demand is a nice way for the cable company to market a service, but it's not how you need to ask Mommy for stuff. A little more please and thank you and a little less on demand would be nice around here.

Sigh.

Personality Test for Preschoolers

Good morning! Time to rise and greet the day. To help you get started, here's a little quiz to help you decide what kind of day it will turn out to be.

Mommy asks you to "get dressed and make your bed." You:
A. Comply. Mother is a wise and wondrous being who is trying to help you become a productive member of society at some point in your lifetime.
B. Ignore her. Oswald has those kickin' songs performed by Fred Savage. You don't even know who he is or that he won our hearts in The Wonder Years, but he was apparently born to be an octopus.
C. Cry. Putting on clothes and making beds is out of the realm of the reasonable. How dare she order you about like that! Punishment must be swift and without mercy.

Mom says it's time to eat breakfast. You decide to:
A. Choose a healthy and appropriate food source for your first meal of the day, such as toast, cereal or waffles, washed down with a cold glass of milk.
B. Ignore her. Despite claiming repeatedly to be hungry at bedtime the previous night, that darn Noggin is just too intoxicating to ignore. Maybe that'll teach Mommy to let you watch TV just so she can selfishly get herself into the shower.
C. Agree to eat, but only if the table fare is fruit snacks and Ritz crackers.

You still haven't gotten dressed. Mommy is about to leave for work and insists you GET DRESSED NOW. What do you do?
A. Get dressed in the clothes Mother has graciously selected for you, without complaint. You do love blue, and she remembered that. Isn't she sweet?
B. Hastily choose clothing items of your own. Last year's soccer shorts with an undershirt when it's 31 degrees outside works just fine. For kicks, insist on wearing your Curious George slippers just to watch her head explode.
C. Stand firm. Go to school wearing your pajamas. Who's going to notice? That'll learn that woman who's always telling you what to do.

If your answers are mostly A's, congratulations. You are well on your way to restored video game privileges.

If your answers are mostly B's, your apathy is showing up a little early. Too much TV perhaps? We all know Mom is to blame for that one.

If your answers are mostly C's, you may have issues with authority. Independence is nice, but it's usually best when accompanied by some earning power. Since you have none as of yet, it might be good if you helped around the house a little more.

I'm Afraid of the Night

I have a new post up over on How Do You Do It? on sleep advice, and it got me thinking about sleep and how I'm not getting any lately. Here's why.

I generally start out in my own bed, with my husband, as most married couples do. I go to bed after all three of the boys are already asleep, around 11:30 p.m. Then I read for another 20 minutes or so. Then I fall asleep. And that's when it begins.

Around 2 a.m., one of the boys will scare me awake by staring at me. (Just staring. Like a serial killer. It creeps me out.) He finally climbs in on my side of the bed, where I wrap my arms around him because I don't want him to roll out and die - and I can't put him in the middle of the bed because then he'll kick daddy in the you-know-whats.

A few hours later, the second boy will come in, and may even begin throwing a fit when he sees his coveted spot next to me is already taken by another boy. (No, he can't go sleep by daddy, because of the aforementioned kicking and because daddy is not soft and cuddly like mommy, i.e. I have soft boobs). So I maneuver myself out of my own bed, from under the first sleeping boy, and take the second boy back to his room so that he and I can sleep in his tiny little twin bed.

If I'm lucky, that's where my husband wakes me up when he goes to work, so I can get back into my own bed in time to hear my alarm.

If I'm not lucky, the first boy awakes again at some point to find I'm not there and comes looking for me. I'm very popular. He finds me in bed with the second boy, again wakes me by staring, at which point I get into the first boy's bed with him, leaving the second boy asleep in his own bed.

Have you been counting? That's three beds for me so far. I'm doing more bed-hopping than a sorority girl at a liberal arts college.

Or if I'm lazy (which I would be by 4 a.m., right?), I'll just bring the first boy into bed with me and the second boy. That's one adult and two half-sized human children IN ONE TWIN BED.

I look forward to the day when, like my own 50-something mother, I will be able to survive on four hours of sleep each night. Until then, you can find me napping in my car over lunch.

 

And the Competition Begins

J: Mommy, I love you all the way to Saturn.

N: Well, Mommy, I love you all the way to St. Louis. That's a really long way.

New Blog

I am very excited to announce that I'm now a contributing writer on a new parenting blog called How Do You Do It? It's all about parenting twins (or more!).

And if you are interested, my first post is here: http://howdoyoudoit.wordpress.com/author/craftylissa/.

Please share it with your friends!

You Never Can Tell

I will never let my children eat fruit snacks.

For breakfast.

Okay, they have to at least get dressed by themselves without nagging, and then I'll give them a fruit snack.

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I will never let my children watch TV before they turn two years old.

One year old.

Maybe just Baby Einstein videos. (I have to take a shower at some point!)

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I will never serve my children anything but healthy, balanced meal options, including a vegetable, a carb and a protein at each meal.

A dinner of fruit and carbs is kind of balanced, right?

I think Goldfish do have some protein....

But...

It's true, I'm a girl. And maybe I don't really understand these things. But are butts really that funny? And what about the stuff that comes out of that vicinity? Is that really so funny either?

Two four-year-olds and one thirty-two-year-old think so. All three are male.

I need my own bathroom. Or maybe my own wing.

Once Upon A Time...

...there was a Mommy who missed her two little boys. It was the middle of summer. The boys were home playing blissfully in the summer heat, splashing in pools and running through sprinklers. Mommy was stuck at work, doing a job she hated. So she made a bold move. She snuck out of work a little early (who would notice?) and drove home as fast as she could (within reason) to see her two little boys.

The first wrinkle of the story - the boys were not happy to see her. They wanted Mommy to go away and instead, for their wonderful babysitter Miss J to stay and play with them forever and ever. Mommy was disheartened, but she also knew their emotions were fickle and in a few minutes, they would forget all about Miss J and love Mommy again. Or so she told herself.

To get them to stop crying, Mommy suggested that they go see a movie! The movie was playing at the dollar theater (although it was really the $2 theater), and the boys agreed, and they all drove there as fast as they could (again, within reason), because the movie was going to be starting any minute. Mommy and her boys ran into the theater only to encounter the second wrinkle: a sign that read "CASH ONLY." Mommy never has cash. Never. So back to the minivan, drive to the ATM, get cash, back to the theater, again the running inside, paying the surly teenager, then a stop at the snack bar for stale popcorn and two lemonades that would not fit in the cup holders of the seats and finally they were seated.

Mommy tried not to notice the mildew smell of the theater. (It was an old theater.) And the fact that the seats felt damp. (Why was that? she tried not to think about it.)

Then came the final wrinkle. Boy #1: "Mommy, I have to go potty!" (Luckily, they were the only ones in the entire theater.) While Mommy was trying to get Boy #2 to put his shoes back on, fumbling in the dark, trying not to touch the gross floor, taking WAY too long, Boy #1 speaks up again: "Uh oh Mommy!"

Yes, Boy #1 peed all over the floor (and himself). And Mommy hadn't brought the diaper bag either, as the boys had been potty-trained for months without accidents. After trying to clean up the best one can with paper towels, Mommy graciously let Boy #1 sit on her lap (on top of a layer of paper towels) for the remainder of the movie.

And that was the last time they ever went to the dollar theater.

Cordelia's Revenge

The boys are in a transitional stage. And by transitional stage, I mean that they are literally trying to drive us insane. The mood swings are worse than a 13-year old girl (and I would know). The whining is insurmountable. The fits are uncontrollable. We are nearly at our wit's end.

And then there's the full-body-go-limp, I'm-too-depressed-to-even-react wilt. That's where they melt onto the floor without even a whimper, and you are left with just their apathy as punishment.

My friend S gave me the perfect word to describe their behavior - they are mopey.

I forgot about that word - what an awesomely perfect word to describe what they are doing to us that drives us the MOST CRAZY. I can almost deal with the screaming fits, the broken-hearted-howls-when-the-Wii-is-turned-off. But the moping, good lord, it's the perfect punishment for me.

I was always certain that I would have three daughters. I'm not sure where it came from (possibly King Lear?). When we found out we were having twin boys instead, it came as a shock (of course) and as an immense relief. I was a terror for my parents, especially in the teen years, if you know what I mean (and I know you know what I mean). Boys, by contrast to girls, seem to be a lot less complicated.

So having two four-year-olds who are mopey - it's God's perfect brilliant plan. I'll be missing out on the teen girl terror years and am instead being punished NOW by apathy. Their little limp bodies, defeated on the floor - no Wii, no fruit snacks, no MORE FREAKING GOLDFISH (yes, we are harsh parents) - are my sweet little albatrosses for now.

Can I look forward to clear skies soon? Time will tell.

Christmas

Christmas has come and gone. It was great. Back to work today after a week and half off. So hard to go back. So hard to write complete sentences.

True to form, the boys got sick just in time for the holidays. They spent their time alternating between manic energy and bottomless crashes. I think between the two of them, they ate two goldfish and four pistachio nuts with a glass of orange juice over a three day period.

A Christmas Story

N: Mommy, how old will Baby Jesus be on his next birthday?

J: (scoffing) N, Jesus is dead! He's like a million years old!

Me: (stunned silence)

N: Oh.

J: But I think he comes back at the end of the story.

N: I think when he comes back he'll be two.

Pure Genius

I'm sure I've mentioned several hundreds of times that my boys are geniuses (don't worry, I'm sure yours are too).

After all, they learned to ride their bikes without training wheels two months ago. Riding bikes. No training wheels. They're FOUR, people. (Or did I forget to say that? Maybe it was my defense mechanism kicking in - my dreams are now filled with terrible bike accidents just waiting to happen. A bike accident is the reason their father is deaf in one ear.)

But now the genius is really coming out. They can write their names. It's the most amazing thing I've ever seen. I'm sure you'll agree:





Yes, those are letters.

Don't scoff. It's a start.

Recap of This Week

N: What are you doing, mommy?

Me: I'm putting on my moisturizer.

N: Oh. I guess I'll wait here while you put on your washer-dryer.

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N: Hey mommy, my favorite part of that song was when he goes "Whoo-whoo-whoo."

J: Yeah, but MY favorite part of that song was the whole song.

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Me: What did you do at school today guys?

J: Nothing.

Me: Nothing? Really? You just sat there and stared at the wall?

J: Yes. Nothing. We didn't jump in the foam pit.

N: And we didn't do anything fun. We didn't color either.

Doing the Unthinkable

While watching the boys kick each other under a shared blanket this morning, each struggling to hog the whole of it for himself, I caught myself ACTUALLY SAYING THESE WORDS:

"You know, boys, Santa Claus is watching you right now to see if you're being a good brother. He only brings toys to kids who are good co-operators."

The last of my self-respect is officially gone.

Addition

J: Mommy, how long do I have to go to school?

Me: Well, people normally go to school until they're about 18.

J: Oh.

Me: How old are you now?

J: 4.

Me: So how long do you still have until you're 18?

J: 44?