What we've been up to

It's been a while since I've posted, mostly because I couldn't think of anything to post about. I would start writing a post about potty training, and then someone wold poop their pants. And then the other someone would poop AND pee their pants. And then the original someone would once again, poop their pants. So I've been doing a lot of drinking lately.

But we've also been:

Playing in our tent. Ask me again why I got this tent out?

Having a complex pretend family of a fire truck daddy (pictured), car carrier mommy, and a mini- tow truck baby. We haven't really figured out the genetics of that one. This 'game' takes up hours of our day.

Have bear hunts. One of the perks (?) of it getting dark earlier is that we can turn off all the lights in the house and have bear hunts until Daddy comes home. Which is approximately 77 minutes from when the sun goes down. But who's counting? We've also started exploring shadows. Science.

Attending preschool two days a week and making slightly (maybe totally?) racist crafts like this Indian hat.                          I think that's what it's called.

 

Having early Thanksgiving with Gigi's side of the family. We are going to Ohio for actual Thanksgiving, and we were all really torn up about having to eat two Thanksgiving dinners. 

So that's about it. With a sprinkling of playgroups, train store, birthday parties, trip to the zoo, pooping our pants, watching Cars when we poop in the potty, drawing all over our legs for Santa, and counting down the days until Christmas. Someone told them that Christmas would be here once all the leaves fell off the trees and it got cold, so... now she is paying for it big time. Hopefully my next post will be about potty training- get excited!

Games children play

I'm not going to pretend that anyone who doesn't know me reads this blog, so you all know I have boy/girl twins. I have tried really, really hard, made a serious effort here, to not buy them stereotypical toys (overload H on superheros, overload P on princesses), but in spite of my best efforts- they are both a walking stereotype. Which makes it very interesting when playtime comes around. I have a thing about TV that I haven't gotten over yet, so when we are at home in the morning or after nap we have a lot of time to play. My kids are very, very good at playing independently (thank you Jesus), but that only lasts so long and sometimes I get bored and decide to jump into 'dollhouse' or 'racecars', which I regret almost instantly. But I'm making treasured memories, right? RIGHT?

So this afternoon H wanted to wrestle. We don't do this often, he's much more of a read-a-million-books boy than a rough-and-tumble boy, but I didn't mind (except for the two times that he bit me, that was no good). But I could not stop laughing because we would be mid-wrestle, and P would come and put a princess tiara on me and give me a wand. Or I would be on the ground after he knocked me over and she would put a blanket on top of me because I was her baby. She seemed totally oblivious to the fact that I'm in a serious wrestling match here and not playing house with her. And this sort of thing happens all the time. Her and I (She and I?- I am losing brain cells by the day) will be playing dollhouse and all of the sudden H's bulldozer will come and knock it down. Or one of his cars will come and steal the baby. So then I'm playing two totally different things at the same time, and neither kid seems to notice that I'm splitting my time between them. Or we are all playing cars, but P and I are playing 'mommy car/baby car' and H and I are playing 'crash the cars together over and over again for no understandable reason'. It is quite the balancing act. But I wouldn't have it any other way (said the cheesy mom, not me, I would never actually say anything like that in the real world, but I can't figure out another way to end this post. I was never good at conclusions.)

Hey little sister...

So I've been involved with the Big Brothers, Big Sisters program for the last two years. My little is a teenager, let's call her Emily (I'm sure there's some kind of rule against giving her name in a blog, but I'm too lazy to investigate it). He favorite restaurant is IHOP (we are clearly perfectly matched), so we go there for breakfast often. You didn't know there were these kinds of perks with mentoring programs, did you? You should think about volunteering...

Anywho, I've been trying to have more serious conversations with her as she enters high school and all the boy drama that can come along with that. I have a hard time finding the balance between friend/teacher/mom/mentor and I try to listen more than I talk, but there are some times I can't keep my mouth shut. Shocking, right? So she was telling me how she can't wait to be an adult, and if she had a kid it would be fine, she would just bring the baby with her everywhere, and she's practically grown anyway, yada, yada, yada.

And then...

the food comes...

and she asks me to cut her pancakes for her.

It was pretty amazing. My tongue might have been bleeding from biting it so hard. But as soon as it stopped bleeding she did a lot of listening. I'll wear my 'friend' hat next time. ;)

How could you be so Heartless?

This is the bridge my heart walked across today as I learned the news that the Kanye West concert had been canceled. CANCELED. Like, not happening.

Good thing I shaved my back yesterday.

Here's a picture of myself after hearing the news. You can't see it, but my face is buried in the bowl of Halloween candy. The Butterfingers taste like salt...or is that my tears?

I bet you didn't know I went to Carnegie Mellon, did you? And I thought we were friends.

Kanye, can you hear me? I bought skinny jeans for you man. SKINNY JEANS. And I was getting ready to buy fashionable knee-high boots (someone please confirm if those are still fashionable), because I didn't want to be the suburban SAHM nerd in the crowd and embarrass myself when you pulled me on stage to crown me "Fan of the Millenium" But now, what's the point. I'm going to take the refund from the tickets and buy some fat jeans. And some more Butterfingers because dammit, H and P did not get enough in their buckets this year. And I gotta fit into those fat jeans.

A day in the life

Woke up. Got outta bed. Dragged a comb across my head. Not really, but I couldn't resist.

After a complete lack of inspiration for anything to blog about, I decided that the world is dying to know what a typical day is like for me. I'll probably be contacted by Dreamworks after this post, so don't be surprised if you see the movie adaptation in 9 months. Starring January Jones as me, because people are constantly getting us confused! Ugh, so annoying. Today was a preschool day, also known as one of the best two days of the week. Because of the learning, not because of the time alone, what kind of monster do you think I am?

So here goes:

Some God-forsaken time in the morning: Penny is awake, talking to herself.  We can hear her on the monitor and Jamie thinks she is saying 'water'. He gets up to help her like a good parent, but I bully him into getting back into bed because:
a- she isn't crying, yelling, or acting upset in any way
b- if he goes into her room, there is a chance he will leave said room with Penny in his arms and that. ain't. happening. I can count on one hand the number of times a child has been in our bed and it never ends well. For me. Who is really the most important member of the family.
So mission accomplished, we go back to sleep.

7:51- My alarm goes off and I get the kids up. I hate getting the kids up. Not that they're totally terrible about it but I just feel bad for them. But today they were actually awake so score one for mom. We did our morning routine which looks like this

I'm including pictures for my illiterate fans.

I have found that TV makes our morning go super smooth. I toilet, dress, feed, style hair all three of us in the 28 minutes of a Disney Jr. show. Which explains why I am always looking so good at preschool dropoff. Here is me today.

I decided to go casual.

9ish- I drop the kids off at school. H was kind of a grumpy cat, which is always just darling. I powered through and went to workout. Which is always so fun!!!!!!!!

10ish- Got home and changed to go to Time For Dinner. I didn't have time to shower (sorry employees and customers) but I DID put on deodorant. Because that is when it is most effective, after a workout.

10:30ish- Time for Dinner. If you don't know what Time for Dinner is you are missing out. I am already tired of writing this post, so please google it. And if you go, call me and I'll go with you so I can get a free chocolate gooey butter cake.

12- Go home. Ate a salad with oil and vinegar dressing on the side, which I delicately dipped my fork into every three bites of lettuce as a special treat. So delightful! Almost as delightful as a microwave burrito with shredded cheese on top.

Sometime between 12 and 3- Checked the mail and got these!!!!!!!!!!

In case you don't have the superhuman vision it would require to read the small print, these are Kanye West concert tickets. I'm so excited I bought skinny jeans. Just for Kanye. He is the only man I would purposely be uncomfortable for.

I also did random house chores and hung pictures. We recently painted our kitchen bright yellow and I've been dying to put something on the wall to make it not so bright yellow. Jamie is usually the photo hanger in the house (When Penny saw me hammering the nails she actually asked me "Why do you have dad's hammer?" That hurt my feminist-side a little.), but I decided to do it myself. And I think it turned out pretty good, it takes me a couple days to warm up to home decor but I don't instantly regret it so that's a good sign.

Not totally hideous. Nothing crooked. Success!

3- I picked the kids up from school. According to Ms. Nicki, Harrison stayed 'sober' all day, so that's good? Or bad? I'm not sure. I'm going to go with good. He did tell me that turkeys come from eggs and after they hatch and grow big they have a parade! So I know he learned something. We had an easy afternoon, except for a game of Thomas the Tank Engine Trouble which got emotions running high. Harrison prefers to play the game where no one else can move their piece, and if you do move your piece, he automatically gets to move it back to wherever the hell he wants. Such a team player. The joy of twins.

Before the bloodshed.

Playing dress-up dolls. Just in case you forgot she is a girl.

Playing cars. In case you forgot he was a boy.

Someone pooped on the potty and got to watch Breakdown Chugginton for the 543rd time as a reward.

6- Dinner time. Jamie was six minutes late but who was counting? I'm trying a new thing with Penny who does not eat dinner most nights because it is 'too spicy' or she just doesn't like it, so I gave her half a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Which she ate about half of. So I'm considering that a win. Or maybe a major mistake. I haven't decided yet.

Between dinner and bedtime-

What Jamie did.

What I did.

We also played another game of Trouble which went just as well as it did earlier this afternoon. Trouble is nothing but trouble for our family, I think it is going to have to mysteriously disappear. Maybe a boating accident.

8ish- Bedtime- snack, jammies, brush teeth, potty, read two books (I leave at this point and then Jamie extends bedtime by a good half hour doing various things like reading a story, singing, dancing, and generally getting the kids riled up. He's clearly the fun parent.)

9:55- Finishing this God forsaken blog post and watching The British Office. Hilarium. If you have never seen it, get yourself a free trial of Netflix and watch it, you won't be disappointed.

The future- Jamie and I will continue playing dueling laptops, watch The Daily Show and Colbert and then I'll go to bed with my old friend Wally.

I went to his reading last night at the library and can't wait to start reading. 

So that's that. Boy was this grueling. Expect my next one in 45 years.

Child-free weekend

As I wrote the title for this post, I was struck by inspiration and genius. I'm going to run for governor of Missouri, and replace the tax-free weekend with a child-free weekend! That will be my only platform, the only thing on my campaign-signs. I have no idea how to accomplish it, but it has such a nice ring to it, don't you think?

Anyway, we had a child-free weekend and it. was. glorious. GLORIOUS! We have had child-free weekends before, but this one was extra special because we didn't have anything we HAD to do. Anytime H and P are being babysat or staying the night somewhere it's because we have something to do/somewhere to go. Not having plans already was wonderful, even though I quickly filled the itenerary (I'm a bit of a social planner). We went to dinner and a movie on Friday, and actually walked around the mall and shopped a bit. It was fun. A lot of fun. Jamie and I don't get many nights out with just the two of us, and it reminded me of when we were dating and why I fell in love with him to begin with and why I still love him. (Cue the violins).

Saturday I visited with two of my very best friends, one for breakfast and one at her house during her son's nap time. I am so very lucky to have friends like these, and I hate not being able to spend as much quality time as I would like with them. So it was great to catch up with both of them, and I also discovered that a Venti Pumpkin Spice Latte is only 20 cents more than a Grande AND (I'm assuming) less calories because of magic and wishes, which is all life-changing information.

That night Jamie and I went out with friends that we have not seen together since New Years Eve. That's 10 whole months. But as it is with old friends, it was like no time had passed at all and to make a long, super fun night short, we didn't get home until 3:30 or 2:30 am depending on the time change. There was Rumchata. And Champagne. Which is an excellent combination.


So that was my weekend. We went and got the kids early this afternoon and I was happier to see them than they were to see me. They were trying to hide when it was time to go; they have a lot of fun at Papa and Grandma's house and we are very lucky to have willing and able grandparents who live nearby to give Jamie and I a break. I feel relaxed, rejuvenated, and ready to face another week with twin toddlers. Now can we do this again soon, please?