Saturday

Completely unexpectedly, Saturday turned into a perfect day.  As Jeff said, you only get maybe 10 of those in your lifetime.  I am glad I got to share mine with my family.

It started off as a regular day.   I had a nightmare about Ree's upcoming birthday party and woke up at 4:30 and was wide awake.  I tried to fall back asleep but the inevitable disasters of having seven creatures under one roof happened.  I was finally falling back asleep around 5:30 when Michael decided to get up for the day at 5:40.  I let him lay in bed and moan (he can't cry or whine like a normal child, he moans) for awhile.  By 6:00, both he and Leon were crying so I got them up.  After much drama, I got them out the door around 6:15, and we took a walk around the neighborhood.  Leon was thrilled.  Michael moaned.  I cut the walk short and headed for home.  When we got home, Michael screamed.  Apparently going home wasn't the right answer either.  When we went inside, I carried Michael straight to his high chair and started feeding him, even though the plan was to go out to breakfast.  I went ahead and fed Leon too.

Those two made enough of a ruckus that it wasn't long before Jeff and Ree were up.  As it turns out, everyone was dressed, and we were out the door before 8:00 for breakfast.  I don't know if we've ever taken the whole crew out to breakfast before aside from eating at McDonald's while traveling, but Jeff and I had watched a special on PBS last week on breakfast places, and it just seemed like the thing to do.

We went to IHOP and got there early enough that we were able to get a table right away that was big enough for our crew including two high chairs.  Ree and Leon were quite happy to look at their menus.  Ree colored on hers and Leon ate his crayons.  Michael started to throw a temper tantrum.  I feared it was just going to be a long day. Thankfully, before too long, I was able to dig a box of raisins out of the diaper bag, and those ended Michael's moaning.  I was afraid it was only a temporary fix, but miraculously, that was the last of his major meltdowns for the day.

Breakfast was fabulous, and on the way home, we discussed heading to Tospsail Island, which is about 30 miles from our house.  We had never been there before, but there was a surfing competition at the beach closest to our house, so we decided it would be a good day to explore. 

We got everyone into swimsuits and slathered with sunscreen and we headed back out the door.  Both boys fell asleep on the way to the beach, and Ree happily looked out the window.  She didn't remember driving that way before, and we drove past fields of corn and a little town she has never seen.  She happily commented on it all.  The boys were still asleep when we got to the island, so we drove the length of the island which includes three towns. They woke up as we were wrapping up our driving tour, and they actually woke up happy.  This beach has free parking, and we were able to find a spot in a lot that has a ramp, which is a necessity for getting our crew out onto the sand.

To get from the car to the beach, the boys ride in the wagon with blankets and towels piled on them, and Jeff does his best to tug them along through the sand.  I hold Ree's hand and the rest of the gear, and together we all stumble towards the water.  Thankfully, it turns out, our car was probably within 100 feet of where we plopped down, so we only had to do a minimum amount of stumbling.

There were other people around, but the beach was by no means crowded, and it was a perfect place to play. We spent two hours there before we decided to leave prior to anyone having a complete meltdown.

We attempted to eat lunch at a Dairy Queen but discovered that although their menu listed hot food, they really only sold ice cream.  This turned out to be a great thing because Jeff was driving and excited to explore, and we ended up at a great little 1950s style diner.  The place only accepted cash, and amazingly, we had enough on us to pay the bill. 

The kids fell asleep on the car ride home, and Jeff and I got a chance to just chat.  Ree had been disappointed that we didn't get dessert at the diner, especially since we were seated next to the ice cream case.  We decided to stop at her favorite ice cream place when we got back to Wilmington, and when she woke up, we were in the Boombalatti's parking lot.  She was a happy girl.

We feared that the kids would fall apart at home, but they actually had a good evening.  We had been on a crazy eating schedule (lunch at 2:30 and ice cream at 4:00), so the kids ended up eating a really late dinner.  Still, we managed to get everyone to bed by 9:00.  It was our anniversary, so Jeff and I then got to spend some time by ourselves after the kids went to bed.  Remarkably, the kids let us enjoy that time by ourselves and weren't constantly up checking in to make sure we were still there and they weren't missing anything.  Overall the day was...perfect.

How to Calm a Crying Boy

Sometimes the boys are just, well, such boys.  For instance last night there was a meltdown in the bathroom.  I have no idea why.  It's hard to keep track of these things when they happen every 15 seconds, but for whatever reason, both boys were crying hysterically and Leon was running around naked and sopping wet and I was trying to subdue him before he slipped or, more likely, ran into the corner to take care of nature's business.  At the same time I was trying to make sure Michael didn't fall because he was still in the tub and he was standing and he was agitated and he was starting to flail and he had already wiped out in the tub once yesterday and landed flat on his back.

Had it been Ree in this situation, well, she wouldn't have been running around naked and sopping wet in the first place.  Nor would she have been flailing around in the tub.  She always sat patiently in the tub and then waited for me to take her out.  She still does most of the time.  Meanwhile Leon, our little monkey boy, is always working on climbing in and out of the tub by himself.  And there was only one of Ree.  Not two crazy boys who can make a 6' x 8' bathroom (or something like that) feel like a giant cavern.  Anyway, to calm Ree down if she was that upset, I would've wrapped her in a towel, given her a big hug. If things were really bad, I would've started singing.  If things were REALLY, REALLY bad, a cookie or brownie would've been thrown into the equation.  And the world would be back to normal.

But the boys took a whole different strategy.  One involving bodily function sounds.  Yes, within .3 seconds of making a farting noise, both boys stopped flailing, stopped crying, and started giggling.  Within 2 seconds, they had joined in the fun.  Several minutes later, they were still growing strong, and Michael realized that he could also make vomiting noises.  And he thought those were hilarious!

Five minutes, and approximately 857 nasty noises later, everyone was safely dressed and out of the tub.  Phew.

Climbing Monkeys

We joke that my husband's primary job is making sure none of the kids need to go to the hospital.  However, it's not quite so funny now that doing so is getting exponentially harder.  These days the wonder twins are on a suicide mission.  Kamikaaaaazeeeeeee!

They have started climbing.  They climb everything.  Over the weekend I found Leon jumping on the toilet one day and standing on a large pile of toys to reach the top shelf of his bookcase on the other.   So, apparently now, not only can we not put things on bottom shelves, we cannot put them on top shelves either!  In the sunroom, we have a dresser filled with craft supplies.  It contains both Ree's nontoxic supplies as well as my paint, glue, and other really bad stuff.  Jeff pushed the kids' train table in front of the dresser so the boys couldn't get to the craft supplies.  Yesterday Jeff found Leon standing on the train table.  Meanwhile, Michael was sitting on top of the dresser, handing down all the "good" stuff.  Last night the boys were playing chicken on the futon.  Loser was somersaulting off the futon into a large pile of stuffed animals on the hard tile floors.  Love them!

I think it might be time to color my hair again.

Oh, and as though the climbing was bad enough, Leon has also started sneaking things.  The other day he ran by me all twisted sideways with something in his arms.  The little stinkpot had swiped the tissues from my bathroom (which again required standing on the toilet seat, sigh) and was trying to get them to his room where he could gleefully remove all the tissues from the box. 

I must find a way to get them to use their powers for good and not evil!