Independence Day

At times I am completely amazed at the independence of our kids. The other night I was attempting to get the kids in the bathtub. All three had been corralled in the bathroom but were still clothed when I got distracted and went to talk to Jeff. I came back to find that R had undressed, used her little potty, taken the top of the potty off, and emptied the bowl into the toilet (without spilling!). When I walked in she was standing naked at the sink trying to figure out how to reach the water so that she could rinse out the bowl.

I was so impressed by this that I again left to tell Jeff who was just outside the bathroom door. When I came back I found that the boys had spied the pile of toys on the floor and had each maneuvered to get a toy and were happily munching on their respective ones.

When it comes to the boys, M is generally more independent. The most amusing is when he feeds himself. We lay him on a blanket on the floor to eat, and if he is hungry enough, he will hold his own bottle. When he is done, he throws the bottle to the side, rolls over on his tummy, and burps himself before scooting off to play.

L is not nearly as independent, but that doesn't mean he doesn't try to do things for himself. When he decides he wants to eat, he wants to eat NOW. I am used to this by now, and I know all his crazy tactics for attempting to nurse, but the first time caught me totally off guard. He was a little over five months old, and we had just moved into our new house. It was bedtime, but instead of nursing him to sleep, I was foolishly talking to my dad who was helping with the move. Rather than getting frustrated, L, who was in my arms, leaned over, lifted up my shirt, and attempted to latch on by himself. He knew what to do. He had been learning about this all his life!

At Last

On July 17th, we marked five years of wedded bliss. Note that I said "marked" and not "celebrated." We did try to celebrate, it just didn't quite happen.

Long before our anniversary, we knew we couldn't leave the kids with a babysitter at night. There are nights when the two of us can barely keep up with all three. Often, we could really use a third person to help since, as Jeff puts it, they need man-to-man coverage, and not zone defense. Knowing that, we decided we would get a babysitter and head to the beach for the afternoon. If we got crazy, we might get some food too while we were gone.

That was the plan, at least until our last outing without the crew. We had R with us and we had two sitters for the two boys. It seemed like a good plan. They lasted 15 minutes before calling us back. L was screaming. Reaaalllly screaming. He stopped as soon as I picked him up. Ugh.

So, based on that experience, we scrapped the beach plan and decided to just go out to eat with the kids. The kids actually tend to be okay when we go out to eat, so this plan wasn't quite as horrible as it sounds. (It's just the separations from us that cause the breakdowns, and at a meal we are all sitting at a table facing each other. ) Knowing how scheduled M is at night, we thought we would even further increase our odds of a good outing by going out to lunch rather than dinner.

On our anniversary we managed to get ourselves and all three kids ready and out the door by lunchtime. Aside from me not having the time to wash my hair, we looked pretty nice. (And who is looking at my hair when we are out with our whole crew???) And no one was screaming. Got in the car. Headed to lunch. Got to the first restaurant, got everyone out, and realized that they no longer serve lunch. Got everyone back in the car. Tried to quickly regroup. As we were listing possibilities, R threw in "Olive Garden" between every suggestion that Jeff and I made. So we decided Olive Garden it would be. When we arrived at Olive Garden, there were no parking spaces. We didn't even bother stopping. So we moved on to Plan C which involved heading to the grocery store to pick up things for a fried chicken feast. We all went in, which meant R had time to eat all the samples, and she was quite happy. Actually, everyone was doing quite well, so at least we were enjoying the time together.

We had a fairly nice lunch at home, but we hated to call grocery store fried chicken our anniversary celebration. We tossed around the idea of going out to dinner, but at dinner time we were still stuffed and the weekend meltdowns were beginning. (There is a certain part of every weekend in which all three kids dissolve into hysterical, crying, screaming messes. This will be explored further in another blog...)

Due to the meltdowns, I've blocked out the rest of the day, but I'm pretty sure it was non-eventful and possible quite painful.

On Saturday, Jeff decided to try again. He got up early and headed to the grocery store. He got stuff to make an Italian feast for dinner. He also picked up champagne and our favorite chocolate cake to enjoy after all the kids were in bed. This sounded great.

He made dinner, and it was delicious. R, who is afraid of everything since vacation, refused to eat the marinated chicken. M fussed much because he was off schedule and had refused to take a second nap. But we survived. M went to bed at 6:30 and R was tucked in by 8:30. But then there was L. He did not want to sleep. I can't remember if he was happy or sad about it. Either way, by the time we finally got him to bed, we were way too tired to do anything other than gorge on chocolate cake and pass out. We decided to save the champagne for an occasion when we were awake.

So fast forwarding to the weekend that just ended, Friday was another awful night. Saturday morning was more of the same. By Saturday afternoon, Jeff and I were done. But apparently so were the kids, because they all went to bed without too much fussing on Saturday night. We even had L tucked in by 9:00. And then, miraculously, we had the house to ourselves. Even the dogs seemed to be on their best behavior. We got to kick back and watch a DVD and finally drink our champagne. It was an anniversary celebration with two dogs and three kids under three. It was heaven.

Kiddo Update

This is mostly for the grandparents and other folks that want to know all the details of our crazy lives. I decided to just start posting excerpts from emails thinking that will help me post more often, so sorry if you run across things you've read before.

Here's what each kid did last weekend:

The Girl
Friday was too much of a "regular day" and R had a meltdown. We are not supposed to have regular days when I am at home. So come Saturday, it was time for weekend fun! There was a brief window on Saturday morning in which both boys were asleep, so she and I used that time to make apple pies using a recipe from her High Five magazine. The recipe was very kid-friendly, and it simply involved putting apple pie filling and cinnamon on tortillas and rolling them up to create McDonalds's-style apple pies. While R enjoyed eating them, she wanted to put "more ingredients" in the pie. This girl is not ready for Sandra Lee's Semi-Homemade. She is all about cooking from scratch.

On Sunday, we had girl time. She and I went shopping yesterday for big girl undies for her, and then she got her first professional hair cut. Not knowing what to do with her rat's nest, they ended up giving her a shag cut. It's really cute but it looks kinda odd on a little one. She looks like a cross between Joan Jett and Carol Brady. Each night at bed time, she and I share our favorite parts of the day. I thought she had a great time on our outing, but when it came time to share, it turns out her favorite part of the day was playing outside with the whole family in the afternoon. She is a simple kinda girl.

M Man
Over the weekend, M discovered kicking in the bathtub. He is a big fan. When he gets in the tub he kick, kick, kick, kick, kicks! It is much fun to watch. Poor M spent a great deal of the weekend screaming. I know he was hurting, but we never figured out exactly why he was hurting. We are thinking something disagreed with his belly, but he may have just been tired. Or, like his sis, he wanted more Mommy Fun Time since he seemed to be perfectly content any time I was touching him. Who knows. He definitely established himself as our morning child. He was up at 6:30 every day, and completely happy to just play on the floor til everyone else woke up. As a result, he was also the first to bed each night. On either Friday or Saturday night, after not really napping all day, he went to bed at 6:30 p.m. The boy likes his sleep.

Little L
L mastered sitting over the weekend! Despite refusing to do anything other than lay on his back and play with his toes for so long, he actually mastered sitting before his bro. He is now very happy to sit and play. It is great. He also wanted to learn how to crawl over the weekend. He figured out how to get up on all fours, rock back and forth, and lurch forward with his hands. He's not quite ready to move, but he wants to be. He has also given up on sleep. He is now the last kid to bed every night. He won't even try to nurse until he knows his sis is tucked in. (M is not even a factor.) Once the girl is tucked in, L is fairly happy to go to bed, so we are just working on getting her to bed earlier so that we can all get to bed earlier.

Mt. Laundry Lives

As anyone with kids knows, there are just not enough hours in the day. Not enough hours in the day to clean the house, not enough hours in the day to play with the kids, not enough hours in the day to sleep, and certainly not enough hours in the day to blog. (But I thought I would squeeze a quick writing session in. I'll call this "morning wake up time" and argue that it will make me more productive at work because my brain is already working. Yeah, that's it.)

I have a sneaky suspension that laundry could be the big time thief. I remember back in the days before dogs and children. I would do laundry every 10 days or so, and Jeff would do his once a month. (Seriously!) Then we got Prudence, and then Max, and suddenly we were doing laundry once a week. (Jeff's laundry also started mixing with mine at this point, increasing the frequency.) Then R came along, and while she certainly added to our laundry, her itty-bitty clothes just don't take that much space, and we started doing laundry every 4 or 5 days out of convenience, but it was certainly not a necessity.

We actually stayed at that level of laundry for a long time. But now laundry is at a whole new level. I like to blame it on the fact that we have a puker, a pee-er, and a pooper. (In addition to generating laundry, kids and dogs also make you very comfortable discussing bodily fluids!) Poor little L, with his acid reflux, is our puker. Food goes in, and at least three times out of four, spit up comes out. Not only does he generate a lot of laundry as he spits up on his clothes and on burp cloths, but he usually gets us, so Jeff and I must add our clothes to the laundry pile. There are also all the associated towels, blankets, and household items that must be cleaned as a result. He is probably our worst offender.

Close behind is M, the pee-er. These days, you cannot survive pregnancy or having a young infant without being inundated with reminders that you should put your baby to sleep on his back, as back sleeping cuts the risk of death from SIDS by 50%. M refuses to listen. He always has. Now that he can roll over, if we do something as foolish as put him to sleep on his back, he will immediately roll over on to his belly. Even if he is asleep when we put him down, he will slowly roll over in his sleep. He wants to be on his belly. Not only is this not good for him with the whole staying alive thing, but it inevitably leads to diaper disasters. He gets really relaxed when he sleeps on his belly. His system flushes all the extra fluid. He quickly runs out of room in his diaper, even though we bumped him up to R's diapers weeks ago. And so at least twice a week, he wakes up during the night having soaked through his diaper, his clothes, his sheets, and his mattress cover. We change him, and then we add all of that to the laundry pile.

And last, but not least, is the pooper. R is pretty potty trained and has even been staying dry at nap time and overnight for weeks. But she is still having issues with, as she puts it, numero dos. She just doesn't like putting numero dos in the potty. So then we have her undies. And her shorts. And occasionally the bathroom rug. The only good part is that she loves helping with the laundry. I wonder if we can remind her of this in 10 years?

And for the record, that isn't a photo of our laundry pile. But I bet we could beat it!

Take a Bite Out of Crime

M has been beating up his big brother for quite awhile. During that fateful ultrasound when I was 20 weeks pregnant and we discovered there were two babies in my belly, we watched M pummel L. L gave one firm slug back, but mostly took the torture.

Until they were five months old, the boys shared a crib. At that point, M figured out how to kick L into a corner. And, of course, he would continue to kick him once he was there. L truly didn't seem to mind, but he was starting to bruise, so we decided it was time to remove him from that situation.

Yesterday afternoon the boys were on the floor playing. Although they had started facing opposite directions, they had migrated so that M's foot was directly in line with L's forehead. Before Jeff could intervene, M kicked L's forehead. And L laughed. This happened several times. Then M's foot started drifting lower on his face, and L didn't like that so much. Finally, M kicked L squarely in the nose. In retaliation, L grabbed M's foot with both hands and took a big bite. Although I missed the action, I did get to observe the teeth marks that were still visible when I gave M his bath last night.

Peas and Pancakes

Our lives always seem to revolve around food. Or maybe they don't but I just happen to notice because I'm a big fan of food. Anyway, the food update from the past week:

Now that we are done with moving, vacations, and other craziness in our lives, we decided it was time to feed the boys solids regularly. So, starting last Tuesday, the boys are eating dinner with us every night. And they are loving it. They have been chowing down on sweet peas, oatmeal, and bananas. L is a messy eater. He wants to grab the spoon (I ended up having to go with purees - they aren't quite ready for finger foods unfortunately), touch the food with his fingers, and finger paint all over his tray. It's quite something to see. M is more like his sis when she was this age. He just wants the food in his mouth - now! To make life easier, I feed them with one spoon, alternating bites. (Gross? Unhygienic? Perhaps, but they roll around on the floor spitting up on each other and sharing toys they teethe on. Come on, we are far past worrying about sharing germs!) M gets angry when it is not his turn for a bite. And he practically turns into a demon child if I do something silly like try to turn around and take a bite from my own plate.

But while the boys can't get enough to eat, their big sis doesn't want to touch food. And she is turning into a stick. We figure there could be a few different things going on here. She has been so spoiled on fast food and unhealthy foods over the last three months that plain food just may be too plain for her right now. She has consumed a lifetime's supply of chicken nuggets and fries, and her mouth is used to salt and sugar be the seasonings, and not herbs and other natural flavors. There is a slight chance she could just be detoxing in her own weird way. The only foods she requests at home are fruits and veggies. In a desperate attempt to get her to eat the other day, Jeff asked what she would eat. She replied, "strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, carrots, celery, cucumbers..." And she is certainly putting away a lot of fruit and veggies - they just lack calories, fat, and protein, which she needs. And finally, it could just be that she is going to be skinny. Jeff was a stick most of his life until I came along (oops!). She may just be taking after him.

She does still enjoy cooking and baking, and so we spent a fair amount of time concocting goodies over the weekend. On Saturday she and I made homemade granola bars, and she has been scarfing down as many as we will let her eat (which does seem to negate the healthy detox theory and support the salt/sugar addict one). Sunday morning we made oatmeal pancakes for breakfast. Before bed each night, I ask her to tell me her favorite part of the day. Yesterday I expected her to say "swimming," since we had made two trips to the backyard to swim in her kiddie pool, but apparently making pancakes truly was the highlight of her day. (She also, thankfully, enjoyed eating the pancakes.)

I can only imagine the food adventures that this week will bring. Jeff is adding another meal for the boys this week. They will now get lunch too. And it will be interesting to see if the petite princess ends her food strike. For now, at least, our lives will continue to revolve around food.