Ol' Yeller

I am a yeller. I admit it. Some moms manage to keep a calm, collected tone no matter what ridiculous, annoying thing their kids do. Me? Not so much. I yell. A lot.

I wish that I didn't. I don't like that it teaches my kids to yell at each other (which they do, constantly) I don't like how it makes me sound. Growing up, I had a neighbor that yelled at her children non-stop, and you could hear her across the neighborhood. She was pretty much the white-trash queen, and that is not something I aspire to be. Of course, I also witnessed her beat the crap out of her kids with a plastic baseball bat in her backyard on more than one occasion, and I haven't sunk to those levels. And yet, I find myself hollering at my children in the backyard frequently, and all I can do is shake my head in shame and wonder 'What must the neighbors think?"

But in the past few days, Will's developed a new habit that I hope will help curb my yelling tendencies. Any time I raise my voice, he puts his finger to his lips and says, "Ssshhh, Mommy, be quiet.." I know it's probably not such a good idea to let my three year old reprimand me, but honestly, kid's got a point. And perhaps getting called out by my toddler will help me be a little more aware of how much I'm yelling at my kids. After all, yelling is way more effective when you don't do it all the time. Then they know you mean business.

Hopefully, I'll be able to turn myself into one of those calm, cool, collected mommies. Okay, that's probably too lofty a goal- you know how crazy my kids are, sometimes yelling is necessary. So instead I'll aim for not yelling unless I really need to. Maybe I can teach them to keep their cool by keeping mine. Hell, anything that reduces the noise level around here is worth a shot.

Escape to Bitch Mountain

Finally, after months of waiting, I had my girl's weekend with my mom and sisters. You may remember that my sister, Elizabeth, rented us a cabin in the mountains as the Best. Christmas. Present. Ever. We were supposed to go a couple of months ago, but had to postpone due to widespread illness. But finally, the weekend that Matt had nicknamed "Escape to Bitch Mountain" had arrived!

We left Friday afternoon, which meant a fairly harrowing trip through rush hour traffic in Atlanta. We narrowly avoided a multi-car pile-up when mom practically came to a stop in the middle of the interstate when she thought she missed her exit, but we escaped with only a few dirty looks. Nightfall was closing in on us as we drove further and further into the hills of North Georgia, and we were racing the dark to get to our VERY isolated cabin in the woods.

I'm not gonna lie, four women alone in a cabin in the woods can be a little scary. I mean, that's how horror movies start. We were slightly jumpy and on high alert lest we be attacked by marauding hillbillies. At one point, mom had stepped out on the back porch only to race back in with a terrified look on her face. My stomach just about dropped out of my body when she said, "I think I hear someone walking around out there." Luckily, it turned out to be a decorative flag brushing up against the porch railing, and not Cletus the Hillbilly coming to get us. (But in mom's defense, it really did sound like someone walking through the leaves.) We passed the night without further scares- well, I think Paige was slightly terrified when we started singing the score of The Sound of Music, but who could blame her.

We didn't do much the next day. We spent a lazy morning drinking coffee and talking. We did have a hillbilly encounter in the form of a maintenance man- I don't know his name, but we called him Pappy. I'm pretty sure that given the chance, he would have taken Mama off to his hillbilly hideaway to make her his bride. But considering his diminutive stature, community theatre sweatshirt, and love of scented candles, we were fairly certain the four of us could take him if he tried. We spent a couple of hours bumming around the rather unimpressive town of Blue Ridge, but we were back by mid-afternoon and spent the rest of the day drinking (except for preggo Elizabeth) and watching movies.

We survived the storm of the century Saturday night without incident, and headed back towards civilization Sunday morning. We had a good time, and it was a much needed break from being the mommy. We definitely want to do it again, but no more mountains. Next time, we'd like to be a little closer to other human beings. It's just a little more relaxing when you're not worried about being killed in your sleep, ya' know??

Aquarium Adventures

Ready for a fun-filled day!

Pardon the blurriness, but this is Hays trying to touch the penguins

I'm not sure if Hays is trying to touch a star fish or dive in!

Driving the shrimp boat!

Hays, Matt and Aunt Bea

This is sooooooo cool!!!!

Will's trying to figure out a way to get in there....

Will was petting a sting ray

Hays thought the fish were totally cool

So, we've already established that Matt and I are total slacker parents when it comes to taking our kids places, especially if it takes more than 15 minutes to get there. And if we have to go all the way to Atlanta to do it, we generally don't. The Georgia Aquarium is no exception. It's been open for several years, and we've always said kind of vaguely, "Oh, we should take the kids to the aquarium." But, of course, we never did. Until this weekend!!!

Rather than buy the kids another piece of plastic junk for their birthday, my parents decided to give them a trip to the aquarium instead. They bought tickets for all of us, themselves, and my sisters, and Matt and I put on our big girl panties, and took the kids to the big city. I knew it would be kind of crowded, but I figured we had six adults for three kids, so it would be a piece of cake, right? Well, sure, for most families. But most families don't have Will.

Will loves to go places. He loves to explore, and if we had just turned him loose and left him to his own devices, he would have been happy as a pig in mud. Obviously, that wasn't an option, so we encountered more than a few battles of wills (or battles with Will.) Yeah, he liked the exhibits- for about five seconds- then he wanted to climb on the rocks, pull on the plants, run as fast as he could in the opposite direction that everyone else was going, anything and everything except what we wanted him to do. That led to lots of us scooping him up, much to his displeasure, which he made clear by kicking and screaming. Or us trying to take his hand, to which he would respond by going completely limp so we were forced to drag him along. It was lovely.

Mason and Hays, on the other hand, LOVED the aquarium. Mason declared it, "the coolest place he's ever been," and that's coming from a kid who's been to Disney World. Hays loved the animals, especially the penguins. He tried desperately to touch them through the glass, and when another child dared to put his hand by the penguin that Hays had claimed as his own, Hays rebuked him with a stern, "No!!" He wasn't quite so fond of the shark tunnel. Whenever one would swim by, he would back away saying "No, no, no!" I guess he was afraid he'd become a shark snack!

All in all, it was a cool trip, even with Will's shenanigans. We got to see some amazing things. I wanted to take an otter home with me, but Matt said no. I was really glad we got to take them, and REALLY, REALLY glad we had my parents and sisters to help us with the kid wrangling!

Happy Birthday and Such

We celebrated the twins' third birthday today. When Mason turned three, I did a big party with lots of kids. We borrowed a bouncy house and we got one of the local firefighters to bring the firetruck to our house. It was super cool, and we have these great pictures of the kids on the firetruck- I mean it was one cool party for a three year old. So what did I do for the twins' big three? Ummm, bought a plastic Cars tablecloth, and Cars plates. Shoot, I even went all out and sprang for the Lightening McQueen happy birthday banner, and that set me back almost $4!

So yeah, not quite as much effort was put forth for their third birthday. And I was kind of feeling bad about that. I mean, I did put some effort in. I made their birthday cake- and it definitely ranked up there as one of the best I've done. But still, no firetruck, no bouncy house, no kids..... So I thought I might be setting myself up for some major resentment down the road when the twins realized that they'd gotten the short end of the birthday party stick.

But honestly, the party itself changed my mind. Because, while it admittedly wasn't as elaborate as Mason's, it was awesome. We had so many people here to celebrate my wonderful boys that we couldn't even fit them all inside! We had to move the party out back to have enough room for this big, wonderful family that was just surrounding my boys with love. And I looked at all those people that love them enough to spend a beautiful Saturday afternoon celebrating their very existence, and I thought, "My god, they're lucky." They are cherished, and what could be better than that? Who needs the firetruck - we've got family.

So I don't think my guys got shafted after all. I think they had a wonderful birthday party, and I hope that as they grow older, they can look back at the pictures of this day and know just how lucky and loved they are.

Valentine's Insanity

Every classroom needs a suck-mom. You know, that mom who never contributes, and her kids always have the crappiest stuff. And this Valentine's Day, I am wearing the suck-mom crown and sash big time. I have to admit that I'm not really in to Valentine's Day. I don't see the need for a bunch of cards, candy, balloon bouquets and fuzzy stuffed animals with big eyes, clutching a heart. And it was never a huge deal when I was growing up. My parents gave us a card and a small box of candy and we exchanged paper valentines with the kids at school. Maybe you'd get really lucky and someone would toss in a box of conversation hearts. But that was about all for Valentine's Day, and that was okay with me. But somehow, in the years (okay, decades) since I was a kid, Valentine's has turned into a huge production.

Not so much at our house- the kids got a little toy and I made each one a card. I did cut Mason's sandwich into a heart shape and made them a funfetti cake, but that's about as far as Matt and I went. In my opinion, that alone would have made for a good Valentine's Day. But those were mere pebbles in the Valentine's avalanche that followed. They got Valentine's presents from all of their grandparents, so stuff was starting to add up. But then they went to school.

Someone please tell me, when the heck did it become customary for EVERY SINGLE KID to include candy with their valentines??? Mason's Valentine bag looked like dadgum Willy Wonka's factory. It was crazy- but it didn't even hold a candle to the twins' nursery school haul. Not only did almost every child include some sort of candy, over half of them made up goody bags!! WTF??? This is preschool- they don't need five pounds of candy! I seriously think they got more candy today than they did at Halloween.

It's ridiculous, and I refuse to buy into it. Therefore, I am the suck mom. I did not put candy with Mason's valentines. I did bend a little bit to peer pressure and got valentines that included tattoos- he's old enough to realize if his valentines suck, and I don't want to embarrass the poor guy. The twins, however, are not old enough to be aware of, or care about the suckiness of their valentines. And since I don't believe in giving toddlers tons of candy, I didn't include any. And their valentines consisted of pink paper cut into hearts on which I wrote "Happy Valentine's Day! Love, Will and Hays" I had planned on letting them decorate them with crayons, but when I said "let's decorate your valentines!" they laughed at me and said no. If they don't care, why should I?

I almost gave in when I took them to school and saw the extravagant valentines the other kids brought. I had to go to Party City this morning to get some stuff for their birthday (which will be a whole other post about how much I suck), and I almost caved and bought some pink and red, heart-covered crap to make up goody bags. But I stood firm. I thought to myself, "I only spent $5 on my own kids. Why would I spend $25 to buy a bunch of plastic crap- that's not even discounted even though it's the day after valentines- for kids that couldn't care less? So I didn't. And I'm totally okay with being one of only three families that didn't load up the preschoolers with sugar. In fact, I consider that my Valentine's gift to their moms.

The F Word

We got hit by the flu. "Hit" may actually be too gentle of a word- I think it's more appropriate to say we got punched by the flu, or perhaps, b!tch-slapped by the flu. Whatever it was, it was ugly. Matt started feeling kind of sickly Sunday night. I figured he had indulged a bit too much in the deep-fried Superbowl feast I had made, so I kind of shrugged it off. But when he woke up Monday morning shivering so hard the bed was shaking, I thought we might be in for something worse.

I had already planned to take Will to the doctor Monday morning because he had started up with fever/coughing over the weekend. I decided to bring Hays along for the ride since he had some free-flowing snot in a lovely shade of green. Thirty minutes and a couple of positive flu tests later, we had our answer. Our utterly fantastic pediatrician wrote Tamiflu prescriptions for the entire family, saving Matt and I $80 worth of doctor co-pays to officially diagnose the obvious. I was starting to ache and cough at that point, so the doctor told me to go ahead and start the medication as well, and to hold onto Mason's just in case.

The next couple of days were brutal. Matt was sick, soooooooo sick. Seriously, this one ranks in the top three of illnesses he's had in the decade we've been together. The twins, though technically sick, were as full of energy as they usually are. Matt was convinced they're just some evil flu-carriers, because they sure didn't act like they were feeling bad. I hovered somewhere in the middle. Tired, achy, congested, but well enough to stay on my feet and look after everyone else and try to keep the house taken care of to the lowest of standards. It was not fun. Matt and I were starting to feel a little better, and I thought we had weathered the worst of it. But then Mason woke up yesterday with a fever. Yup, five for five. The flu got us all. TKO.

But I think we're on the mend. I'm feeling pretty good, and Matt felt human enough to go into work today. He went late and I don't know how long he'll stay, but he's there. (I did threaten to leave him if he goes overboard and relapses. I know I said "in sickness and in health" but I've got to draw the line somewhere.) Mason's kind of puny, but better than he was yesterday. And the twins are their usual crazy animal selves. To get this crud out of the house, I have purchased a big ol' container of clorox wipes and a can of Lysol, and I'm de-funking everything in sight. You might have won this round, flu, but I'm wiping you out!!!!

Potty Time

I am attempting to potty train the twinados. It's not going so well. So far, it has resulted in lots of puddles, laundry, nudity and profanity. Imagine it if you will....

Will: I want go potty

Me: Okay, let's go

(take him into the bathroom, take off all his clothes since he insists on being naked when he does his business, put him on the potty seat and wait....)

Will: Hi mommy! Hi mommy! Hi mommy!

Me: Hi, Will. Can you go teetee?

Will: Yesh

(waiting, waiting, growing older by the minute)

Me: Hays! No! Turn off the water, it's HOT. No, stop messing with the toilet paper. Put you brother's toothbrush DOWN. No, sir! You may NOT squeeze out all the soap!! Will!! STOP FLUSHING!! We only flush after we go teetee. Hays! Get out of the bathtub!!

Will: I all done. I need tissue. I flush. NO HAYS!!!! I FLUSH!!! MY TURN!!!!

(fist-fight ensues)

Me: Stop it!! STOP FIGHTING!!! That is ENOUGH! Both of you- out of here!!!

(Tiny naked bottoms running down the hall.)

*End Scene*




And here are some pictures to illustrate the joy of potty training twin toddlers:



After a successful potty attempt, Will decides to ride his bike.

We have a little potty for when the big potty is otherwise occupied. The twins, however, discovered a new use for it.

Potty training is tough on everyone. We could all use a drink

And a snack