Things I'm sucking at as a mom

Now before you get worried, this isn't some kind of  'I'm going to say what a horrible mom I am so that everyone can tell me that I'm not a horrible mom and do things like (((((Rachel))))) and I get all this sympathy and attention,' because that is not how I roll. I know I'm not a horrible mom, I'm a pretty good mom actually, but there are things I could be better at. The problem is, I don't know if I really care enough to get better at them. But the first step in solving a problem is admitting you have a problem, so as long as I take this first step, I can absolve myself of any and all guilt and just continue life as normal, right?

Thing I'm not so good at number one: Making my kids eat vegetables. 
I know I'm supposed to make my kids eat vegetables. I will occasionally make (heat in the microwave) vegetables and serve them on their little plates, only for them to be not touched whatsoever. The only 'vegetable' that they will eat is a french fry in either regular potato or sweet potato variety. And randomly Penny will devour pees. And I guess they will eat corn on the cob, but with this GD neverending winter, we may never have corn on the cob again. But really? Truthfully? I don't care. Eat your peas, don't eat your peas, I'm not going to make it a battle. Which leads me to:

Thing I'm not so good at number two: Making my kids eat in general.
I know I'm supposed to make my kids clean their plate or at least make an effort on cleaing their plate at meals, but I don't. From the very beginning of my parenting journey, I knew I didn't want to make dinner time a battle. Dinner time is very much a constant in our lives, we eat at six o'clock, every night, at the table, we all have assigned seats, it's the VanDernoot way. However, if Penny doesn't eat a damn thing on her plate, I'm not going to force her too. I've even started (gasp!) making PBJ's for her or letting her eat a whole banana for dinner, because I know it's something she'll eat and she's tiny and needs food to grow. But on those nights when she eats nothing, we don't talk it to death, we don't get mad, we just make her sit at the table with us until Jamie and I are done. And I know I should be doing better about somehow magically making her eat, but I just. don't. want. to. I want to actually enjoy myself at dinner, which makes me selfish I know. I also just don't want to fight with my kids over something I'm not that worried about. My kids aren't starving or malnourished, they get a daily vitamin (I'm a big believer in the daily vitamin), and they've never woken up in the middle of the night or the morning starving. But I know I should do better and care more, I should make them try three bites of everything until they can leave the table, but I don't. I suck at this aspect of being a mom.

Thing I'm not good at number three: Hand washing.
This one is a hard one to admit because I can already sense the reaction in some friend's minds- we'll never be invited to their house again! And it's not that I never make them wash their hands, I do, but definitely not as much as I should. I basically have the rule that if you touched the toilet with your hands (which is always Penny, she basically becomes part of the toilet when she's on it), if we're in a public restroom, or if you pooped you wash your hands. So there are a lot (most) of times where I don't make H wash his hands. It just never became part of our potty training routine, I'm going to go ahead and use the easy out of blaming it on the twin thing, but if I'm being honest, it's really a lazy mom thing. If they pee on the little potty in the living room, I didn't want to take the pot full of pee and them to the bathroom to wash their hands; it was just too much. AND, (and this will really horrify people), I don't even use hand sanitizer, their potentially pee-soaked hands just have free range over everything and everyone. DOUBLE AND I don't make them wash their hands before meals. Basically hand washing is a foreign concept to my kids. And I don't really care. But I should. But I don't. Another foreign concept to my kids is:

Thing I'm not good at number four: Sport
I prefer the Colbert tense for Sports, so I will refer to it that way on my blog. Because it's my blog and I can do what I want dammit! Like start sentences with like! And because! And and! And do this ... a lot because I feel like in real life I talk like this... most all the time. Anyway, back to sport. Jamie and I are not sport people, and that is honest to God one of the top ten reasons I married Jamie. (That would be a good blog post for later.) No sport, no video games, good in the sack...what else was there? Money, that's right, has to have lots of money. So I guess it's a top four list. But back to the kids. Since we are not sport people, we're not really great at introducing our kids to sport either. We tried soccer this fall, and really there are no words to describe the epic fail that was soccer. So I'll rely on pictures.

 Money well spent! And now with spring coming all our little friends are signing up for T-ball and I'm torn as to what to do. I'm pretty sure if I signed them up for T-ball, we'd be recreating these photos with a bat and a helmet on (and really, can you imagine Penny in a helmet? That is what they're called right? Maybe it's a batting hat? Either way, it would be giant.). So we're not doing T-ball, and I really have no desire to be a soccer mom, or a baseball mom, or any kind of sport mom. I don't want to spend the money, the time or the energy on it. At. all. I see my parents running all around town with my nephew every day of the week (who is legitimately freakishly talented at soccer), I have friends who we can't see during certain times of the year because of their kid's sport schedule, I have other friends who have to go out of town for tournaments and stay in seedy hotels, and none of that sounds appealing to me. H and P are currently doing gymnastics, and P is taking dance on Saturdays and that's working for now. So maybe my kids will be more individual sport-type kids instead of team-sport kids. Because gymnastics and dance are held indoors. In places with HVAC systems. And I'll be damned if I'm sitting at some soccer game in the middle of the summer with no shade, listening to a bunch of assholes scream at my kid to run faster, fighting the urge to scream back at them, and somehow I'm (Jamie) paying for this pleasurable experience? Uh uh. No sport for the VanDernooties. And I should feel bad, but I don't.

Thing I'm not good at number five: Writing a short blog post. Seriously, what is wrong with me. I don't go into this thing thinking it's going to take me hours and cut in to my priceless Young and the Restless watching time, but it does. Every. damn. time. This blog is ruining my life.

Thing I'm not good at number six: I'm too mean to my kids.
I realized that I'm too mean to my kids yesterday as I witnessed my very kind, very gentle, peaceful parenting all the way friend explain to her daughter why they had to go home and she could wait to poop until she got home (the claim of needing to poop was obviously a last-ditch effort to try to stay longer), and talk talk talk and crouch on the floor and speak gently and look in her eyes and love love love, and all I wanted to do was say 'Your mom said you have to go home- go home.' I think I actually did say that. I couldn't help myself. I am SO not good at explaining shit to my kids. I'll explain why the sky is blue, what I'm eating (even though they can see what I'm eating, they're eating the same GD thing), what song is on the radio, what a fish eats, etc. until I'm half insane (or completely insane), but when it comes to explaining why I want them to do this thing that they don't want to do? I suck. I want them to do it, I don't want to talk about it, and I have used the 'Because I said so!' line more times than I'd like to admit. I'm like Nike- Just do it. I'm going to go ahead and blame teaching sixth grade for five years for this character flaw. With pre-teens, the more direct you are, and the less full of shit you are, the better you'll survive as a teacher. I had high behavior standards for my students, I expected them to meet them, and when they didn't, they had a consequence. That's it. No negotiation, no gray area, no talking about it or yelling- Just do it. And I got pretty good if not excellent results, if my foggy memory serves me right (and I'm sure it does because clearly, I was an AMAZING teacher). So that's how I parent, for better or worse. I'm not a yeller, I think if I actually yelled at Penny she would seriously have a mental break, sometimes I can't even talk sternly or give her a look without her dissolving in tears (where in the world does she get this hyper-sensitivity from?), I'm usually not a spanker (although I have spanked before (feel free to alert the authorities), but it's not something I do on a regular basis), but I do let my kids know what I expect and let them know when they don't meet that expectation. I'm kind of mean. And I wish I were nicer, I wish I were a talker, but I'm just not. And for now, the kinda mean thing is working. I'll let H and P's therapists work it out in twenty years or so, it won't be my problem anymore.

Thing that I'm not good at number seven: Wanting to sleep/cuddle with my kids.
We have never been a 'family bed' type of family. With twins, a queen-size bed, and my body pillow which I CANNOT sleep with out, having the kids in our bed was never an option. Plus me and Jamie are usually all over each other all night long like Beyonce and Jay-Z, so the kids would really put a kink in our nightly routine. There have been times when I have brought a kid to our bed, and 100% of the time it is because I don't want them to wake their sleeping sibling up. When Jamie brings a kid to bed, 100% of the time it's because he thinks it would be so nice to sleep with them and cuddle them. And even typing this, my face naturally contorts into total disgust. I seriously don't know this so called 'husband' of mine, how can I be soul mates with someone who thinks that adding a three-year-old windmill who runs about 105 degrees at night and has no regard for anyone or anything (like my precious body pillow), would be fun? The times that a kid has fallen asleep in our bed, I wait about three minutes and their little butt is back in their crib. I'm a monster. I need to get better at this, but I just can't. Until we get a king-sized bed. Then maybe I'd be okay with it. No, I'm just going to go on the record and say that I will never be okay with it. The truth has set me free.

Thing that I'm not good at number eight: Embracing technology.
Every three-year-old I know has a tablet and I don't. My kids don't and I don't want them to. They seriously could go their whole little lives without them having an Ipad or LeapPad or Whateverpad and I'd be cool with it. I have tablet-phobia, and I know I shouldn't. My friends kids are already writing their names, spelling words, contributing to the U.N. peace talks in Damascus- all because of their tablets. And I am so afraid of them. I'm afraid they're going to turn my kids into anti-social, zombie monsters, who are on their tablets all the time and when they're not, they're bitching at me about wanting to be on them. One of my TV issues and why we don't watch a  lot of it is because H turns into a total drooling (literally) zombie in front of the TV. He totally spaces out. He is not one of those kids who can just have the TV on in the background, he will watch the news, any sport game, infomercials, whatever, as long as it's on TV. It drives me nuts. Penny can go about her business with the TV on, watching it here and there if something catches her eye, but not her brother. And I'm pretty sure the same would hold true for the tablet. And I look at our days and nights now, we have plenty to fill our time, and I just don't know where a tablet would fit into that. In the beginning I considered it one more thing for the kids to fight over, and that was a giant part of my resistance to getting one, but now H and P share pretty well and I think they would be fine. So I need to get over it. For the sake of the Middle East if nothing else. Now who wants to buy them one?

Thing that I'm not good at number nine: School choice.
So this time last year I was literally losing sleep about where the kids would be attending preschool. They will be young kindergarteners with a late May birthday, so I wanted them to have two good, quality years of preschool before they started. I found a place that was great, right price, great program, but it was a bit of a drive and they got put on the waiting list. Then I found this place that was also great, but for different reasons. GREAT price (I actually still can't believe how cheap it is), VERY close to my house, and it's a full day (9-3). We started the year and I was very impressed; the classroom is controlled, organized, clean, the kids are happy, the teachers are loving and professional, and H and P like it. All that still holds true after six  months in, but I am really starting to question if they are learning anything. I found out last week that there are a few two-year-olds in the class, and H and P never come home with any academic looking sheets or projects. P randomly wrote a Q a few weeks ago, and when I asked the teacher if she learned that at school, she told me they were not working on letters, that some of the kids in the class still didn't know their colors and shapes so they're working on that. Which is not what my kids need to be working on. So I feel like I failed them, like this whole year has basically been a wash academically, but you want to know a secret? I don't really care. My kids like school, I love their teachers, every day when I pick them up they are sitting on Ms. Phyllis' lap being read to, and did I mention it's a full day and it's super affordable? I know next year when they move up to the 4/5 room they'll get a lot more academic instruction, and I know I should feel bad about wasted time for learning and growth, but I don't. Something is wrong with me.

And finally, number ten: I haven't taken my kids to see Frozen yet.
They may be the last two kids in the world who haven't seen it. And it's all me. I hate cartoons, I am not one to voluntarily watch a Disney movie, and I certainly don't want to pay for it. But I know I should want to because I know my kids would love it, but if I'm being honest, we just haven't had the opportunity yet, and if I'm being real honest, I just really don't fucking want to. 

The end. The number for DFS is 1-800- Bad-Mama

Sweet, sweet justice

Today's post is about traffic and idiot drivers. Super exciting stuff, but Jamie is gone again and I'm bored.

I drive to Florissant often. My parents live there, my church is there, my hair dresser is there- it's just a good place to go. I'd still be living in Florissant paying an embarrassingly small amount of money for rent for a house next door to my grandparents if it weren''t for Jamie. Or I could be living literally next door to my parents if it weren't for Jamie. That dude seriously hates Florissant. Or my family. Who can tell, really? 

Anywho, to get to Florissant I have to drive down 170. I guess that would be north. Cardinal directions are not my strong suit. I think down is a more appropriate description anyway. Or to the left. So I'm headed left down 170 and after 70 it's two lanes, and then an exit only, do-not-cross-this-straight-white-line lane appears for Boeing people which I will never understand. Why does Boeing have it's own lane? I use to drive left down 170 every morning for five years for work, and that lane is never packed with cars, there doesn't seem to be a mad rush of Boeing employees in that lane, and where does it really go anyway? Straight to the parking lot? To the front door? There is really no way of telling as I am not a special Boeing employee and I'm scared to go down that lane and there would be a security guard or something, or some kind of machine where I have to scan my card to continue, or maybe a parking lot that you can't get out of without scanning some special Boeing card and then I'd be trapped there forever. So it's not worth the risk. And if there's one thing I'm not known for, it's being a risk taker. Who has the time or the energy really? We're going to Colorado this summer and I was thinking in the car today 'I should surprise Jamie with a white water rafting trip, but this time I'll go with him (last time I made him go with a friend),' and even THINKING about it, my eyes teared up a little. And whilst I type this, my heart has started to race and I'm breathing a little faster. It's almost like Jamie's entered the room. HA!!!!!

I will not be white water rafting this summer. I'm going to go ahead and blame my mom for this fear because we used to go to church camp in Colorado every summer and one time my mom went white water rafting (which is kind of shocking now that I think about it) and she was like, 'It's very dangerous, if I don't ever see you again, I love you, blah, blah, blah,' so I sat there the whole time she was gone completely freaked out and convinced she was going to die. She didn't, so you would think that this would be a lesson learned for me and I should be brave like my mom, but no, that is not how this story turns out. I will never be as brave as my mom which is saying a LOT. Poor Jamie. I hope his next wife has a sense of adventure.

Anyrandomwhitewaterraftingstory, back to the Boeing lane, so these asshole, non-Boeing employees like to use this lane as like a drag racing lane to speed down 170 and then when the lane ends and they have to get off to enter the mysterious Boeing land, they cut over into the left lane, which is where I always am, because I am a responsible driver and I know that I need to be in that lane for my quickly approaching exit onto 270 left. So these jerks jack everything up for everyone in this lane, and then we're constantly hitting the brakes until you pass the B.L. (I'm tired of typing Boeing lane), because of these ignorant motherfuckers. That's right, I just majorly cursed on this blog. And I really didn't want to have to do that ever. But these B.L. douchebags makes me SO ANGRY you don't even know and there is really no other way to describe them.

BUT TODAY! TODAY! The best day EVER! Today, there was a cop strategically parked right at the little triangle shoulder thingy next to the exit sign at the B.L, and this marroon butthole car did the ignorant MFer thing of cutting people off at the last possible second to get in the 270 left lane and as soon as he did, I saw the brake lights go off on the police car and watched him get behind that ignorant MFer and pull. his. douchey. ass. over. It was so great. SO, so great. I cheered and really confused the kids, but I think they could feel my passion and could sense that they just very passively witnessed a great moment in criminal justice history. A moment I will never forget. Definitely a blog-worthy moment, wouldn't you agree?

Someone please come and entertain me.

Tedium

Tedium describes my evenings when Jamie is gone. I do a pretty good job of avoiding the monotony of SAHM-life during the day; the kids are at preschool two days a week, and the other three I always manage to find things for us to do. My kids have a pretty active social life for three-year-olds, and this is entirely because the thought of actually staying at home all day with them makes me start to hyperventilate. Like I've said before, I'm not very good at the staying at home part of being a stay at home mom.

So our usual routine is to do something in the morning through the early afternoon, come home for nap (which is usually just an hour and a half of the kids in their beds not sleeping, but not raising hell either so I don't feel too bad), if they don't fall asleep I get them out of bed around 3:30 and then we play until dad gets home at six. And then it's dads turn to play. Except for when dad is in Michigan for the week. Then the tedium sets in.

Now I will say that I am very fortunate to have twins that get along and like to play with each other. They do a very good job of playing a variety of make-believe games ('house' has been the popular one lately). They also play well independently (H better than P), so it's not like they are in my face all the time. Usually. And when Jamie is home, he has all of this stuff called 'energy' and is excited to see the kids who he hasn't seen every minute of the entire day thus far, so he plays with them or we play together as a family. One of our recent games is he times the kids running around the house and I am the pit stop for a bite of an apple. (It makes no sense when typed, but promise me that the kids love it and can do it for an hour.) (This is also the only time H will actually eat a fruit.) (Don't worry, we make them chew and swallow before we let them run). Or we go on 'bear hunts' or make shadow puppets- all 'fun' activities when you have someone to share in your pain pleasure.

Tonight though, since Jamie is gone, I got to be part of every game! We played Jail (I was the prisoner and their stuffed cats licked me and wrapped me up???) We played Drill Mom (I realize how it sounds), where they literally chase me around with two toy drills while I fend them off with a toy hair dryer for about fifteen minutes straight. And that's only because I quit after fifteen minutes, the other night we played it for a solid half hour and could have kept going for God knows how long. Then after Drill Mom, I was back in jail, but it was time to eat so they all had to bring me food. The kids AND their stuffed cats. And this is when I became a slapstick comedian, spitting out food, making funny faces, flicking food across the table, using weird voices, saying silly all the time, all to the GREAT delight of H and P. P was laughing so hard that she couldn't breathe at one point. And this was all fine and good and we were all having a great time but...it just goes on and on and on and and on and on and on and on until I eventually make it stop. I swear they could have brought me fake food for hours. And so on and so forth. Incredibly entertaining stuff for the kids, painfully boring stuff for the mom. I know that none of this makes me sound like the worlds best mom over here, but these are the feelings I'm feeling and this blog is nothing if not about keeping it real bro.

The last few days have given me a revived appreciation for single moms or the friends that I have whose husbands travel all. the. time. Allthetime. Like every week. I seriously don't know how they do it. I would be insane. Insaner I should say. So the point of this post is- Jamie come home.

Vacation!

So this has been a terrible winter, as everyone who is reading this knows. Terrible. It is so cold, so windy, so icy and snowy and white and gray and just blah. I am SO SO SO over it. I'm tired of being cold, I'm tired of preheating my car, I'm tired of bundling the kids and myself up every time we leave the house, but I'm definitely not tired of complaining about it. Jamie is always begging me to complain about the cold more, he never gets tired of it- what a sweetheart! I knew I married him for a reason.

In order to get out of this gloomy mood, I've been busy planning vacations. My first vacation is coming at the end of March, when I'm flying out to Denver to visit with my best friend for a while. Jamie is also flying out with some of his friends to go skiing in Breckenridge, but I'm flying out a night earlier and coming home two days sooner so I'm not messing with his guys ski weekend at all (I know you were worried.) We will probably spend most of the time on the couch, at IKEA, at the mall or in the car driving to these places, and I CAN. NOT. WAIT. My ideal vacation is where I spend a LOT of time relaxing, reading, watching crappy TV, whatever, and AK's house is the perfect place for all of that. Plus she lives much closer than I do to Beau Jo's Pizza, which is the best pizza ever.

As you all know, my birthday is in April, and as I'll be turning 26 this year (which makes it my Golden birthday since my birthday is April 26th and therefore very, very special) I feel the need to do something big. Like going to the Lake for the weekend with another birthday girl (she's turning 26 too, but I am younger than her by one day and that's really what's important), and doing whatever we want for two-and-a-half glorious days. Our kids are friends, and most of our social engagements are constantly interrupted by our darling children and meeting their basic needs (so overrated), so it will be really, really nice to be able to visit without interruption. Or do anything without interruption actually. Like eat. Pee. Sleep. Think. Read. Stare into space. Is it my birthday weekend yet?

Then May comes and I got nothing going on. =( Who wants to take me on vacation sometime in May?

In June I'm going back to Colorado, but this time with everyone. Everyone. My parents, my niece and nephew and possibly my sister. No comment. My (step)dad lived in Colorado Springs for part of his early adult life, so Colorado has always been a vacation destination for my family. About three years ago we went to Manitou Springs, which is right at the base of Pike's Peak, and we're going back to the same place this year. Manitou is such a neat little town, and absolutely gorgeous, and the place we stay is just perfect for our family. They have a creek in the front, a swingset, a hiking trail that leads to a bigger playground in the back, AND the most delicious coffee outside the office every morning. It is my happy place. I'm very excited to take the kids back to all the places we went when they were so young, now that they are at a much more fun stage and age and they may actually remember something. Plus I think taking the Cog Railway up Pike's Peak will pretty much be the highlight of H's life thus far, and I can't wait to do that with him. I grew up going to a church camp right outside Manitou every summer with my family, and haven't been up Pike's Peak since then. I'm sure it will be just as thrilling as an adult, right?

July takes us to Branson. I'm sure none of you are surprised, if there is one thing you think of when you think of me it is 'She is truly a Branson girl.'  But you would be wrong. So very, very wrong. I am kind of like the opposite of Branson. Nosnarb. (See what I did there?) BUT, this particular Branson trip is going to be super fantastic and wonderful because we are going with friends! And I love friend trips. I am a very social person by nature, so the thought of staying in a house with a bunch of my friends for a couple nights is very exciting. Plus the place we are staying is amazing, and I already want to move in there for good after just looking at the pictures. It's not set in stone what we'll be doing there, definitely Silver Dollar City at least one day, but I also feel compelled to Ride the Ducks. And make Jamie take the kids to the Live Noah's Ark show while I shop at the Outlet Mall. Because if he really loved me he would. And if there is one thing that is holding our marriage together, it is these tests of love that I like to spring on him. And I'm not even worried about this, because he doesn't read my blog. Love test fail. Love. Test. Fail. Who wants to be my new husband?

And in August, I want to go to Michigan to visit friends (surprise Courtney!), go to the beach,  and go blueberry picking, but we haven't officially set that up yet. Lamie (HA! I can do that because he doesn't read my blog), thinks we are taking too many vacations but I told him that is quitter talk. Our president wants us to stimulate the economy and it is our patriotic duty to do so. And he works hard for the money so I might as well enjoy it, right?

Is it March, April, June, July or August yet?

A Harry moment

Harrison is a little bit of a mama's boy, which I love.  (I should say this is true when only I"m home. When Jamie is home, they both prefer him. Which works out great for me.) If you compare the two kids (which I would never do because that is bad, bad parenting), but if somebody else did it, H is definitely more affectionate towards his mama than P. He will let me cuddle him and hug on him and love on him for long periods of time, where most of the time trying to cuddle Penny is like trying to cuddle a Mexican jumping bean. She'll be still for a moment, but then pops back up and wants to move on to whatever she's doing next. She is even hard to kiss on the lips, she usually prefers kissing you instead, and somewhere weird like on the arm are on your boob on the outside of your shirt. She's a little strange. But we still love her.

Before I was pregnant, I always wanted a daughter. My mom and I have a very good, close relationship and I knew I wanted that when I got older. Plus I saw how my mom took care of my grandma when she was dying, and I knew that having a daughter is key to not ending up abandoned in a nursing home forever. Jamie also wanted a daughter, probably just as much if not a little more than I did. So when we found out we were having two, I figured there was a pretty good chance that we would get our wish. The question was always, 'What was the other one going to be?' We didn't want to know what we were having before I delivered, so the plan was to find out right there on the operating table. We had everything green and yellow, two boys names, two girls names, all that gender-neutral jazz. We were ready to be surprised.

THEN.

Towards the end of my pregnancy I was getting non-stress tests and ultrasounds two or three times a week. Baby A (Penny) had always measured significantly smaller than Baby B, and they wanted to keep an eye on her fluid levels. So I drove my big body to St. John's a few times a week, sat in a chair, drank Sprite and watched Ellen while they monitored me, and then laid on my back on a table and tried to breathe while they took Penny's measurements. During one ultrasound appointment toward the end, I laid on the table and while the ultrasound tech was getting stuff ready, she casually said 'Two girls, right?' I had a moment of shock, as it was written in our file that we didn't know and we didn't WANT to know, but I gathered myself and told her that I didn't know if it was two girls, we were waiting until delivery. She laughed and said that she remembered that now, she must have been thinking of the mother before me. But it freaked. me. out. I convinced myself that it actually was a mistake on her part, that I WAS having two girls, and that these two girls were going to come home to a green and yellow bedroom with green and yellow clothes, and if this was the case than this was not acceptable. So I asked her to tell me. She asked me if I was sure. I told her that I just wanted her to tell me if I was having two girls. She looked at my chart again and said, 'You are not having two girls.' Then I swore her to secrecy that she could not tell my husband or my doctor that I knew, and she swore, and then I knew. I knew I was having a boy and a girl. A had always measured so much smaller than B, so the only way it made sense was that if A was a petite little girl and B was a big strapping boy. And that's pretty much how it ended up.

Sidebar- During delivery, I acted surprised (as surprised as one can while going through a c-section where the epidural never really took) to find out they were one of each and then I didn't tell Jamie the ultrasound story until I got drunk on our first kidless weekend to Chicago when the kids were one-and-a-half. I made sure he was good and drunk too so he wouldn't freak out on me. It worked. I was totally prepared to take that secret to my grave if necessary.

Anyway, fast forward to today. I was cuddling with Harry, and saying all the things I say to him about will he be my best boy forever and never leave me and never get married or have kids and he can live in my basement forever and it will be mommy and Harry forever (I realize that I'm probably giving some therapist some work in the future- the first step in quitting this is admitting I have a problem), and he said yes, he will be my best boy forever and never leave me. And so I said, 'Why don't you want to leave me?' and he said 'Because I don't want to eat anybody else's food.'

Boy does this boy have his priorities right. And while I can cook without killing anyone in my family, and my meals have gotten more edible in the last five years or so, I am in no way a great cook. So I'm going to go ahead and think that he doesn't want to leave me because he can never find another woman like me so why even try and there's another thing to talk to his therapist about. Dammit.