Mess of the Day

Friday morning, after I got Elizabeth off to school, I was unloading the dishwasher with Annie.  Emma was in her room getting dressed, and I assumed Maddie was with her.

Bad, bad assumption.

Maddie found my make-up and discovered the joys of mascara.  Luckily it wasn't the waterproof kind.

I decided it was time for a new tube, even though there was still some left.  Just couldn't bring myself to use it after it painted the bathroom.

Car Wash

A Play in One Act

Cast:

Mom

Twin 1

Twin 2

Scene 1

(Curtain opens to Mom washing minivan.  Enter Twin 1 and Twin 2.)

Twin 1: I help?

Mom: Sure.  Go grab a wash cloth.

(Exit Twin 1 and Twin 2.  After a minute, they return with two wash cloths from the kitchen.)

Mom: Ok, just put your wash cloth in the water, and wash the car.  Like this.

Twin 2: Wash, wash.

Twin 1: I help!  No. me do it.  No, ME!

Mom: Everyone can help mommy.

(Mom washes back of minivan.  Twin 1 and 2 wash the driveway and get lots of dirt and rocks in the bucket of soapy water.)

Mom: Wow, this water got dirty fast.  Oh.  Oh!  We don't wash the rocks. 

(Mom dumps out bucket of water and refills with fresh soap and water.  Leaves dish soap on the porch.)

Mom:  Come on, let's wash the car.  Only the car.

Twin 1:  Wash, wash.

Twin 2:  (Grabs Twin 1's wash cloth)  Mine!

Twin 1:  MINE!  (Takes wash cloth back)

Mom:  (Finds other wash cloth in bottom of the bucket)  Here's the other wash cloth.  Now we can all wash the car.

(Twins 1 and 2 play in bucket of water.  Bucket spills.  Mom refills bucket for the 3rd time.)

Mom:  Come on girls!  Wash the car!

(Twins grab dish soap from porch when Mom's back is turned and squeeze it into the bucket of water.)

Mom:  Whoa!  Ok, girls that is enough soap!  (Grabs soap)  Help me wash the car!

(Twins 1 and 2 ignore Mom.  Twin 2 washes Twin 1.)

 Mom:  (sighs)  Good thing I'm done now.  Bath time!  Into the house NOW.  (Mom, Twin 1 and Twin 2 exit)

End of Scene

The Dress Question

For the last 3 weeks, the twins have worn nothing but dresses.  At first I thought this a cute passing folly.  Then I thought it was due to my choice of wording in the morning- "Time to get dressed!"  Now I'm just blaming the Disney princess movies.

3 weeks.  3 WEEKS!  We started borrowing Elizabeth's dresses (which she didn't care for), so I put a plea out on Facebook for any hand-me-downs that someone might have laying around their house.  Two people responded, so I don't have to re-use the same 5 dresses.  (Some dresses are strictly Sunday dresses and not for playing outside.)

This is entirely out of control.  Annie and Maddie have even been insisting on "dresses" for bed.  Since we only have two nighties in the right size, I've been letting the twins (and the other 2 sometimes as well) use my old t-shirts for bed.  So my old girls camp, WWU, Old Navy flag tee from 2001, Kannely family reunion t-shirts, etc. are all getting used.

Silly girls. :)

My Hot Date

We got a babysitter  last night so Ryan could take me out on the town.  I picked up our trusty babysitter from the high school at 5 and brought her home.  When I arrived, the girls started squealing with joy.  But it wasn't mommy coming back that brought the squeals- it was the babysitter.

I grabbed my coat, Ryan made sure he had his wallet, and we climbed in the minivan.  We grabbed a foot long sandwich from Subway and headed for the real venue of our date.

The high school.

No, wait.  It gets better.  It's freshman orientation.

We walked through the crowds of 8th graders (and their parents) to the teacher's lounge to eat our Sweet Onion Chicken Teriyaki sandwich.  Oh, and the two bananas we brought from home too.  If the ambiance of a pop machine and two copy machines wasn't enough, Ryan's colleagues coming in to make copies and exchanging witty repartee sealed the deal. 

This date is awesome.  I'm feeling like a 5th wheel on my own date.

Then Ryan got his assignment.  He's in a Spanish-speaking room.  This is getting even better.

(Good thing I brought a book in my purse.)

So I sat at the teacher's desk in the back of the room so I could witness Freshman Orientation in all it's glory.  (Too bad I couldn't even understand it.)  Every once in a great while there would be a word I'd recognise.  7 years in this town has rubbed off on me a little.

Orientation was running longer than we had a babysitter, so I left Ryan at the high school, picked up the babysitter and all the kids, took the babysitter home and then picked up Ryan.

This is the life.

(FYI- this was better than other nights this week.  Friday is the only night this week that Ryan doesn't have a meeting, so the girls and I have been spending a lot of quality time together.)

The French Bread Dementor

Ryan went to the store to buy some French bread to go with our dinner.  He surprised me by coming back with two loaves.  One for tonight, and one to enjoy later.

After dinner, we were comfortably settled in the living room, playing, doing homework and working on getting to bedtime.  After a while, I realize I can only see and hear 3 of the 4 children. 

Uh oh.

When I arrived in the kitchen, I found this:

Elizabeth was lurking in the corner, with her hands full of soft, white bread.  She doesn't care for the crust as much as the inside of the French Bread.  She sucked the soul right out of the poor loaf.

My Super Power

I ran across this article the other day about mothers of twins living longer than singleton mommies.  (This based on a study of Utah women from the 1800s.)  Researchers believe this could be due to twin moms being "stronger in the first place."  Having twins allows me to pass on my oh-so-amazingly-strong genetics at twice the normal rate.

I had to laugh.  Strong?  Me? 

You should have seen me pregnant with those little rug rats.  I still maintain that my body was not meant to carry two babies at once.  I was a miserable, painful and whiny mess.

I suppose I do have rather developed biceps.  Now, anyhow.  I mean, have you seen my twins?  Try carrying those kids around for any length of time.

Watch out world.  Mothers of twins (and their over-developed biceps) are on the loose.

Ages and Stages

The other day at church, someone asked me at what age do kids stop systematically dumping everything out.  This particular little boy is almost 18 months and apparently likes to get out every single toy he owns, as well as anything else within his reach.  Not to play with; just simply because his favorite thing is to unload anything he can reach.  (I can relate.)  The funny thing is, this dad (asking the question) is a physician's assistant, and I felt like I should be the one asking him.  When does it end?

The following came to mind:

The twins can get past some of the drawer and cupboard locks, and will still unload all the clean dish towels and all the dvds.

Annie and Maddie have been known to climb onto the counter to grab the box of cereal I neglected to put away on top of the fridge, and empty it on the floor.

Elizabeth, instead of putting away all the books that the twins dumped off the bookshelves like I asked, helps the books scatter further.  (It was making the twins laugh.)

Elizabeth and Emma go through the box of dress up clothes to find the important dress/shoe/purse on the bottom and leave everything scattered on the floor.

Annie and Maddie climb on the couch and throw every cushion, including the large ones you sit on, on the floor.

Discarded clothes at the end of the day don't always get put in the laundry room. 

Annie likes to put used silverware away in the drawers.

Fruit snack wrappers are found, having been dropped willy-nilly on the floor.

All the kids like to do their own sprinkling of powdered sugar on their crepes, so the entire table gets dusted.

I have nail polish on the table from some one's not-too-careful application.

Emma, at any one time, has at least 2 books going.  We are lucky if we can find the AR book in the morning, so she can take it back to school.  It can be on her bed (from late-evening reading), the toy room, the living room, the bathroom, accidentally shoved in with our books on the book shelves, in the car...

Instead of taking naps like good little 2-year-olds, Annie and Maddie rearranged their beds so they could reach the humidifier on top of their dresser, got the back-up binkies and got into a new package of diapers and unloaded them.  If that wasn't enough, Maddie pooped, took off her diaper and walked in it all over her room.

At any given point during the day, there are Barbies, refrigerator magnets, crumbs, hair rubber bands and clothes on my floor.

This is just stuff from the past week.  I think what I'm getting at is- it will never end.  The method evolves, but the child will NEVER stop making messes.  Not in the first 8 years of life, which is all the experience I have at the moment.

Yet, I'm looking at this harassed dad, who has spent the last week with his son (mom being newly on bed rest, and mother-in-law hadn't arrived yet) and he is clearly looking for some reassurance. 

So I lie.  "It seems to taper off sometime between 18 months and 2 years."

And then I wait for the bolt of lightening to hit me.  I told a big lie at church. 

But it never came.  Whew.

The Fabled Day of Rest

The day started with me waking up to a sinus headache.  Oh yah, it's going to be a great day.

A little Sudafed and ibuprofen later, we were off to church.  The children were their usual delightful, calm selves.  Emma kept passing the 16 month old little boy in front of us all of our doodle pads/crayon and paper/baby books/her bracelet.  Elizabeth needed to go to the drinking fountain.  Annie wanted what anyone else had.  Maddie tried to escape under the pew.  Maddie tried to stuff as many fruit snacks in her mouth as her hand could hold.  Annie wanted to sing when there was no one else singing.  Elizabeth tried to eat the twins' snacks.

Finally sacrament meeting was over.  Off to Primary!

I walked into the Primary room, and once again, we had 5 chairs for our class.  (Seriously?  The fewest kids I've ever had in this class is 7.)  Those chairs were already full of kids and there were two wandering aimlessly.  So I scooted row 1 back and put in another row of chairs.  There are now ten 4 and 5 year olds plus me (the teacher) and my helper.  We take over half the Primary room. 

Let's just say the last two hours of church is more exhausting than the first one.  I failed at keeping my class quiet during sharing and singing time, and on that happy note- it's time for class.  I am at my wits end trying to keep their attention for any length of time.  And I have an 56 minutes to fill.

The good news is the twins took their nap today. 

The bad news is one of the screws fell out in Elizabeth's glasses.

Ryan tried for a long time to put it back.  (You practically need a microscope to see the screw on this particular pair of glasses, and the hole for the two pieces doesn't line up exactly.)  I convinced Ryan that we should seek professional help.  I called the places in town and no one is open on Sundays.  I called the place where we bought the glasses and they too are not open on Sundays.  Finally, I called Costco.  They will be open another 45 minutes.  I told them where we live, and how we'd hurry.

Ryan and Elizabeth jumped in the van and arrived with 4 minutes to spare.  The card-checker at the door started to turn Ryan away, but Ryan said how they just needed to see the optical department really fast.  "Oh, you are that one from --.  They are expecting you."

Those nice people at Costco took the time to fix Elizabeth's glasses ("Oh, you could have tried for two days to put the screw back.  The screws that come with the glasses are never long enough to put back in.").  They also gave Ryan a couple of longer screws to have, should this incident ever repeat itself.

It's nice to know that Customer Service isn't dead after all.  Thank you Costco!

The rest of the evening brought rice dumped on the carpet, most of the household books dumped on the floor, quarreling, and a little hair pulling.

I don't think I'm ready for another week yet.

Mother and Daughter Luncheon

Today there was a luncheon for the 8-11 year old girls and their moms at our church.  

The girls did all the decorations and setting up.  We were instructed to drop off our girls ahead of time and wait for everything to be ready.  I ran out and did a quick errand, and when I got back, the other moms were waiting in the hall still waiting for the girls to work their magic. 

Eventually they were ready for us. 

They did a great job and it was really nice.

She's Had A Birthday, Shout Hooray

Saturday was a very busy day.  Ryan had his plant sale until 12:30.  Then I had a couple of errands to run, a baptism to take Emma to (3 of her friends got baptized) at 2 pm, and by 3:10 we were on the road headed to my niece's birthday party.  We arrived a little after 4:30.  We missed most of the day, but at least we made it for dinner. :)

 Megan, Amy, Elizabeth and Annie enjoying their hot dogs.

Princess Amy (the birthday girl) with Aunt Brynne.

 At about 7 o'clock, we told the girls it was time to get ready to go.  In an effort to distract us from our purpose, the kids started a somersault contest.  Kids are amazing coming up with delay tactics, aren't they?  They weren't in a hurry to leave their grandparents, cousins and aunts.

As you can tell, some of the adults got in on the action too.

Cinco de... What?

I think we could host our own "Kids Say The Darnedest Things."  Here's the latest example:

Our town (being rural and agriculturally based) has a large Hispanic population.  So when Cinco de Mayo comes around, our town goes all out- a carnival, a street fair and of course the holiday gets mentioned at the schools.

Well Elizabeth came home on Thursday saying her class had chips and salsa for something that sounds like, "Sinko daymyhole."

I'm sorry, what?

She draws it out: "Sinko day my hole."  Yep, I heard it right the first time.

Amidst the giggles, I tried to get Elizabeth to pronounce the Spanish words correctly.  But she was adamant she was saying it how her teacher said it.  Later, Ryan tried too.  Nope, it doesn't matter that Daddy lived in Mexico for two years as a missionary.  Elizabeth was convinced she was saying it right.

What's a parent to do?

Oh yah, post it on the internet for every one's enjoyment.

(We had taco salad for dinner that night.  Yum!)  Happy Cinco de Mayo!

On the bookshelf

I find strange things sometimes.

Often I wonder, what is so hard about keeping food on a plate?  Or even just in the kitchen?

2nd Grade Concert

Last week Emma had her 2nd grade concert.  I got a babysitter for the twins, and took Elizabeth down with me.  We were hoping that the admin at the high school would be kind and let Ryan leave parent-teacher conferences for an hour to come watch.  And they were! 

The theme for the night was bugs.  Each 2nd grade class made a different kind of bug "hat" that went along with each of the songs.  Emma was in the spider class.  

 (I want to know who decided my little munchkin should go in the 2nd row, behind all these tall girls.  It was difficult to get a picture of her...)

We were able to catch a glimpse of her when she had her speaking part.  She did great!

Daddy Daycare

Last Saturday, Ryan took all 4 girls with him to the FFA plant sale at the high school greenhouse.  That meant I had several hours to myself.  Guess what I did? 

I cleaned my house, trying to recover from being sick all week.  (Ok, maybe I read a book for a little bit too.)

When Ryan brought the kids home, this is what they looked like:

They must have had fun playing in the dirt. :)  I had them strip their filthy clothing before coming inside my nice clean house for bathtime.