The car radio

I used to keep up with politics, news, and other current events.  And then about five and a half years ago, I switched from listening to NPR in the car to listening to Mozart, because I was quite sure Kate's brain would turn to mush if I didn't.

Although the Mozart CD ended up in the bottom of the pile years ago, we still always end up listening to the music the kids want to hear.  Lately in the car, it's been a Jack Johnson CD.  When it's her turn Kate shouts out, "Can you please put on one?" the number of the track she wants, and when it's Anna's turn, she shouts out, "Put on 'Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh,' please," what she calls the song she likes.  

I've pretty much given up on staying abreast of the news, but I have been craving a little down time to listen to talk radio when I drive.  I actually solved the problem.  I bought a game of travel bingo for Kate and Anna.  We played a practice round at the kitchen table this morning while the twins napped.  I pretended to drive, mentioning things we passed, and the girls both learned to play.

When we loaded the van to go to Target, the girls got set up with their game.  They were so excited, they didn't say a word when I put on my radio station.  We backed out of the driveway and headed down the road.  Before we even made our first turn, Luke piped up from the back seat, "Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh."

I pretended I didn't hear him.  Again, "Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh."

Kate explained, "Mama, I think Luke wants to listen to Jack Johnson."

I just shook my head in amazement.  Now my not-even-thirteen-month-old has requests!?

"Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh."

I reached over and hit the button to flip the radio to the CD player.

Hey, buddy, do I look like a deejay?

Please take a number

Kate and Anna were playing "ice cream restaurant" in the sandbox yesterday.   Anna was the customer and had to wait until her number was called.  When Anna's "ice cream" was ready, Kate yelled, "Three and a half!"

I started laughing that her number was three and a half, because that is now her age.

After a moment, Kate said, "What's funny, Thirty-five?"

Touche.

Garden tomatoes

Bittersweet.

The moment, not the tomato!

The moment made me smile.

Ally grabbed one of the tomatoes I picked from the garden and gobbled the whole thing down.  She then ate an entire second one when she found the tomato Luke had grabbed, taken one bite from, and thrown on the ground.

It was cute and funny to watch her, and I found it adorable that my baby likes to eat a tomato like few others besides me.

But it was sad.  I felt a wave of grief as I really missed my grandma.

My grandma would always smile and shake her head when she'd see me eat a whole tomato like that, "like an apple," she'd say, watching the seeds drip down my chin.

I wish she could have seen the seeds drip down Ally's chin... and arm, and shirt, and legs...

"Just WHAT am I supposed to do with this?"

YUM!

Duck tea party

Okay, it's official.  My children hear way more lactation terminology than the average child.

Earlier today, Kate, Anna, and I were having a tea party.  Anna was being a little silly.  She ran off to the playroom to get a "present" for our tea party hostess Kate.  Kate laughed and commented, "She's an odd duck!"  Then, as a play on words, Kate laughingly continued, "Or maybe she's a blocked 'duck'!"

F@#%ing vaseline

I would have asked "Why me?" but the answer was obvious.  Because it had to be me.  No one else would be idiotic enough to let their babies get into the Vaseline for probably the ninth time in two months.  So, since I couldn't really feel sorry for myself, I took it out on an inanimate object, and the phrase, "F@#%ing Vaseline" went through my head this afternoon.

It's been a tough day.  It started with me getting up extra early after a particularly bad night to go to the dermatologist and have him chop an inordinate amount of skin out of my finger for a biopsy.  I returned home with instructions to keep the stitches dry for 24 hours.

After making lunch wearing a glove to keep my no longer numb cut dry, I changed Luke's wet diaper, Ally's poopy diaper, and then a poopy diaper Luke made while I was changing Ally's.  The poop was leaking out of one of the diapers, so I just hid the Vaseline in the diaper basket, but didn't take the time to put the basket away, before quickly running into kitchen with the leaky diaper.  As I got in the kitchen, the phone rang.  As I talked on the phone I thought What was I working on? and determined it to be cleaning the kitchen.

So, I cleaned up half the kitchen and then checked on the babies, to find them both around the tub of Vaseline, with their arms, legs, and faces completely coated in it.  Luke had one fist shoved into the tub and Ally had one fist, which was coated in Vaseline, shoved in her mouth.  Several toys lay around them, glistening in the sun coming in the window.  And, Luke's hair had once again been styled by his nearly bald sister, who just loves to take hands coated in pasta sauce, fruit juices, or, in this case, Vaseline, and make his hair stand up straight.  If you've never cleaned up Vaseline, take it from someone who's done it nine times in recent history.  It's nearly impossible to clean up.

After exclaiming, "You guys!  Oh, you guys!" and following it up with a medium-grade expletive, I grabbed both slick babies in my arms, and plopped them into the kitchen sink.  Stripping off their clothes, I began to wash them with my gloved, still throbbing finger.  I couldn't get the Vaseline off of anything, not their bodies, not Luke's hair, and not the sink or counter which it now also coated.  I thought my organic soap might not be strong enough, so at one point, you could have seen me washing my one year old twins in the kitchen sink with dish soap.

I eventually forfeited my fight with the Vaseline.  I dressed my two greasy babies, to which every stray dog hair now stuck, and put them to play for a moment so I can wash the rest of the lunch dishes and high chairs and eventually move on to scrubbing Vaseline from the playroom rug.

Since they couldn't play in the play room, I gave them a shovel, a Mylar balloon, and a few other toys on the floor next to me.  The balloon, as I should have anticipated, became a point of contention.  I ignored the fussing for a moment, but looked down when I heard a scream.  I saw Luke pinned under Ally with her face on top of his.  I was confused for a second until I realized her little teeth were sunk into his nose.  I separated them and waited to see if any blood would come from the distinct little teeth marks on my baby boy's cute little nose.  When no blood came and he stopped screaming, I nursed each of them decided the only chance any of us have for surviving this day is an early nap and some mommy blogging time.

So, my little Mike Tyson baby and her greasy haired twin are up in their cribs, and I am now feeling a little better.

And that's em"bare ass"ing

Anna wears "nighttime underpants" (Pull-ups) at night, just in case.  She always remembers to take them off in the morning, but doesn't always remember to replace them with daytime underpants, or any underpants at all, for that matter.

I always helped her get dressed, so I'd remind her, but the last week or so, she's dressed herself and today, with everything else going on, I didn't notice her lack of underwear until she was trying to get out of this swing at the park and her dress went up.

That's embarrassing

We were driving to the park today when I saw a garage sale.  Kate loves garage sales, but I usually drive right past them.  For one thing, we don't need any more junk around the house.  For another, I don't love unloading four children with spectators who have nothing to do beside watch me try to get my children out of and back in the van.

After one look at this garage sale, however, I pulled over.  There was some really great stuff!  It was almost noon, but there was still a lot of stuff that hadn't been snatched up yet, probably because it was a Monday, an odd day to have a garage sale.  It took me at least four attempts, going backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards, before I believed I was far enough off  the road.  As I did this, I noticed both the husband and wife were watching me.  Then I began unloading the kids, first Kate, then Anna, and then I grabbed Ally, telling Luke I'd be right back.  I went and plopped Ally on the lawn, beside the slide I really wanted to buy, when the wife said, "We're just cleaning out our garage."

A recurring dream

I have two recurring dreams.  Once every couple weeks, I dream about a tank of fish that I've forgotten to feed for an extended period of time, some of which are dead and others of which inevitably wind up on the floor so I am forced to use my hands to rescue them.  But, more often than that I dream of snakes: snakes below a bridge I'm crossing, snakes on the carpet beside my bed, snakes on the ground as I fly above them, snakes that crawl up the walls, snakes that I always have to make my way past.

I'm not sure when the snake dreams began.  I've been afraid of snakes as long as I can remember.  I actually passed out during a cruel high school prank when I was held against a door as a large snake was brought up to my face.  But I don't think the dreams began until 14 years ago, when I saw a snake in the woods in Florida.  I remember just standing on the path, paralyzed with fear, unable to breathe, becoming light headed and dizzy.  I'm sure I would have passed out if I hadn't convinced myself, "Do not pass out or you'll fall right next to the snake."

Ever since Kate was a baby, I have consciously tried to avoid passing this fear onto my kids.  I've always taken them to see the snakes at the zoo or in pet stores.  I would never look in the cages myself, but I'd hold the kids right up.  Just knowing the snakes were there would give me the feeling that my heart was in my throat.  I'd have to take slow, deliberate breaths and try to think of something else.

A couple months ago, after nearly having a panic attack trying to buy dog food when a pet shop employee took a snake out of its cage, I decided I had to get over this fear, not just for my kids, but for myself.  I decided to start making myself look at the snakes at the zoo.  I'd try to think of them as lizards without legs.  I'd try to think they were cute, or at least interesting.  I thought I was doing better.  I even took pictures of the snakes at Discovery World last weekend.

Unfortunately, this "therapy" I'd devised did nothing to lessen my fear in a practical application.  Although I'd made it the first 35 years of my life only seeing one snake in its natural habitat, on Wednesday, my birthday, I saw another.

The kids and I were hiking down to the beach at Doctor's Park.  I was pushing Luke and Ally in the stroller and Kate and Anna were leading the way.  I saw a blur of something streak from the path to the leaves and brush on the side.  I figured it was a groundhog or something.  Kate and Anna stopped, and Kate said, matter-of-factly,  "Snake."  I practically shrieked, "A what?"  She repeated herself.  I looked to the edge of the trail and saw it.  It was right in front of the stroller, just 6 inches off the path, where it lay completely still, just looking at me, like it knew it had the upper hand, like it had no intention of going any farther away.

I have to explain.  I didn't think it was going to strike.  I didn't have any fear that it would hurt me or my children.  I didn't think it was poisonous or anything like that.  It was just the thing's presence, its mere existence, that petrified me.

The girls continued down the path.  They weren't afraid of the snake, but they also weren't interested enough to look at it.  The path was very narrow, not much wider than the stroller.  If I were to walk forward, I'd have to come within three feet of that snake, which was right there, right on the ground, right by my sandled feet.  What was I to do? We'd hiked all the way down.  We were less than 20 feet from the beach.  I couldn't make the girls turn back.  I had to walk forward.

I did it one small step at a time, moving my legs from my hips because my knees weren't working right.  I could hardly breathe, and, as Kate has since attested, I was making low, guttural whimpers.  But I did it.

And, oddly enough, it wasn't my self-induced therapy that helped.  It seems that did absolutely nothing to lessen my fear.  I was afraid as I have always been.  But, this time I didn't pass out, I didn't even "almost pass out."  I walked past that damn snake.  And I did it because I've done it thousands of times before... while I've slept.

I was going to post a picture of the type of snake I saw,
but I just can't.
Instead we'll pretend Luke's saying, "No!  I can't look!"

I love this kid!

Ally has such a great personality!  She's a total clown, and also incredibly sweet.  

She says "Hi" to people we pass in the grocery store or where ever we are.  She says it so clearly that many people respond with a somewhat surprised, "Uh, Hi!"

She loves to do things to get a laugh, begging us to chase her and laughing hysterically when we do.  She even knows how to laugh at herself.  Yesterday she tried to get me to chase her.  When she did, she tried to crawl away so quickly that she fell over.  She just cracked up.

She also crawls over to Luke, the girls, or Dave and me when we're on the floor, and gives us very forceful kisses.  They're enough to brighten any day!

She's 3 1/2!

We celebrated Anna's half birthday last week with our tradition of a half-birthday cake.  

Since my mom's actual birthday is just two days later, the poor woman only got the remainder of the cake, a half of a cake, for her big six-oh.  It just doesn't seem right. 

Anna got a Nemo that actual swims for her present.  She was thrilled!

Sprinkler

It looks like my kids are filming a Mountain Dew commercial.

Double trouble, without a doubt

One baby can think of a lot of mischief.

The logical assumption would be that two babies can think of twice as much mischief.  But what that assumption neglects to consider is that there is always a second baby to participate in each act of mischief either baby thinks up.

Oh... uh... hi?

A day at the pool

It's one of those moments that scares you beyond what you think your body can physically take and later leaves you, if only for a short time, no longer taking for granted how fragile life is.

We went to the pool for an afternoon of family fun.  They have "float swim" from 11:00-1:00 on the weekends, so Dave and I got the kids into their suits and swim diapers, slathered them in sun screen, loaded the van with the floaties, life preservers, and the giant blow up crocodile, and strapped the kids into their car seats.  We arrived at the pool just as the clouds cleared and it got even hotter.  It was the perfect day for a swim.

Dave and the big girls wanted to swim in the diving well, so I took the babies over there, too.  The girls were in their life preservers and the babies were in their floaty inner tubes.  It was really fun!  Dave, Kate, and I competed to see who could jump off the edge onto the crocodile and stay on its back.  We swam around with pool noodles, enjoying the cool water in the scorching sun.  I held on to the babies' floaties and spun them in circles, making them throw their heads back in laughter.  Dave and I showed off our dives, impressing Kate and Anna, and Kate worked on perfecting her own.  I was talking to Kate about one of her dives when I heard Anna say, "Look at Lukey!"  I turned around to see an empty floaty.  I looked below it, under the water, and saw a streak of navy blue, Luke's swim shirt.

From this point on, I remember every detail, but I have no sense of time.  The next thing I remember was thinking, and saying, "Shit!"  He's so deep, what if I don't grab him right away.  I remember wondering, Why am I thinking?  Why am I not already pulling him up?  Dave later informed me that I was instantaneously pulling him up, but there was enough time for me to wonder What if I don't reach him my first try?  As I went to reach for Luke, I heard Dave's voice.  I didn't understand what he said.  I think my head went under as I grabbed for Luke.  But I remember thinking Dave's not in the water with us right now?  This is up to me!  As I reached for Luke I noticed he was actually head down, legs up, and he was sinking.  I reached for him and I got a hold of him.  Is this his arm?  Well, at least I have him.  I pulled Luke's body up, kicking my legs like crazy to keep myself at the surface so I could lift him up above the water.  This isn't happening.  Where's a lifeguard?  Where's Dave?  As I pushed Luke above water, I went under.  Before my head went under water, I noticed Dave was still at the edge of the pool.  Why is it taking him so long to jump in?  God, please!  Somebody help me!   I swam for the edge. I can do this.  I have to do this.  It's not far.  Oh, my God!  Is his head even above the water.  Can he breathe? Suddenly I could lift Luke easily. Dave was pulling Luke up.  Dave got Luke up out of the water, onto the edge of the pool.  As if it wasn't obvious, I said, "Just get him up on the edge."

I climbed up out of the pool and pulled Luke into my arms, trying to process what we needed to do, wondering if I should flip him upside down, if that would get any water out of his lungs.  I tried to see if he was breathing.  He wasn't crying, but he was breathing.  I started to flip him upside down, and he began to fuss, and I wondered if maybe he was okay.  I started asking Dave, "Is he okay?  What should we do?"  The lifeguards were checking if we needed help, and Dave was saying Luke was okay.

I just grabbed my baby, holding him tight, and I began walking like a crazy woman over to our towels, trying to stop the shaking and crying, my shaking and crying, not his.  He was fine.

Really?

We stayed at the pool a little longer than we probably should have on Saturday.  When we came home, we were in a hurry to bathe all the kids, get all the kids dressed, and make dinner.  This made it all the more frustrating that it took Dave and me a full 45 minutes to remove a comb Anna tangled in her hair.

Although I doubt this occurrence would happen anywhere 

beside our insane household, 

if you do happen to run into this situation, 

I'll save you 40 minutes by telling you what finally worked.  

Conditioner.  

Right when we were about to get the scissors, 

I thought to squish conditioner into the knot.  

Then the hair pulled out a little at a time.

Fried green tomatoes

On the way home from the farmer's market this morning, I stopped and talked with the neighbor.  We were talking about how there weren't any good tomatoes yet.  She said, "You must have some in your garden, though." And I responded, "I do, but they're all still green.  Some people eat green tomatoes, but not me.  I'll wait for them to turn red."

As we were walking home, Kate said, "Which people eat green tomatoes?"  And then, thinking she may have the answer to her own question, continued, "Pregnant people?"

Sweet buddies

Luke and Ally are such good friends already.  

After naps we'll sometimes hear the two of them giggling in their room.  When we go in, we find them playing peek-a-boo over the edge of their crib bumpers.  

Now that they're both mobile, they've started to play a game with doors.  Luke will hide behind the door, and then open it just enough to see Ally.  When they find each other, they laugh.  Then Luke will move the door to hide his face, and Ally will crawl to another place for Luke to find her.

When Luke is crying about something, Ally will sometimes rub his arm or put her face by him.  When Ally is crying, Luke will often pat her back.

This morning, Luke and Ally were sitting beside each other in the stroller as I unloaded our farmer's market vegetables.  When I looked at them, they were putting their heads together, kind of hugging.  I grabbed the camera.  When I came back out and started to take pictures, Luke put his arm around Ally.

All right!  Enough pictures!  Paparazzi Mommy, I tell you!

When you were really little

As we headed home from vacation, I sat in the back of the taxi between Kate and Anna on the way to the airport.

Kate suggested we take turns telling stories.

On one of my turns, I told the story of when Anna was born.  After I'd gotten to the part about Kate and Grandma coming to the hospital to meet baby Anna, Anna asked skeptically, "How come I don't remember seeing any of this?"

I smiled and explained, "It was when you were really little, before..."

Anna interrupted, because she thought she might understand, and finished my sentence, "...before I had eyes?"

Actually, I was going to say ...before you would remember.

A very little Anna, complete with eyes

A happy birthday

Although there were many days I thought might never end, 

the last year seems to have flown past.  

Since Luke and Ally's birthday was on a Thursday, 

we saved the actual celebration for Saturday, 

and Thursday we had a low key day of swimming at the pool and cupcakes for dessert.

On Saturday, Luke and Ally wore the shirts Kate had designed for the day, 

promptly breaking them in with an assortment of stains despite their bibs.  

Their grandparents come over, and we opened presents, enjoyed two birthday cakes, 

and watched a movie I made of pictures from the last year.