Thankful

I love the fact that the kids are still young enough to be completely honest.  It's refreshing and can be highly amusing.  We got to witness it at dinner tonight.

Ree:  Mama, the word of the day on Super Why was "thankful."

Me: Do you know what that means?

Ree: No.  (Which actually probably meant yes, but she didn't want to admit she wasn't COMPLETELY sure.)

Me: "Thankful" means you're really glad for something.  You're happy that you got it or it's part of your life.  I'm thankful for my three fantastic children.

Jeff: I'm thankful for my wonderful wife and my terrific daughter.  (Pause, stare from me.)  And for my two stinky boys.  (Okay, good enough.  This is from the gender that considers "bonding" inflicting bruises upon each other and "sharing" indulging in a belching contest.)

Ree: I'm thankful for my two parents.

Me: Ahh.  Thanks.  Are you thankful for your brothers?

Ree: Noooo! (As though I had just asked the silliest question in the world.)

Die-nah-sore Vie-ta-men!

It's funny what kids can become obsessed with.  A few weeks ago we were at Target on a Saturday afternoon.  The kids were running low on vitamins, so we stopped in the drug section to get some.  We just started everyone on vitamins this fall, mostly because I was waiting until they could all eat the same kind, and they are still a pretty big deal with the kids.  (As for waiting on vitamins, yes, yes, I know.  Horrible parenting, but I didn't want to have to deal with sneaking vitamins to Ree or daily tantrums from the boys.  I'm lazy and selfish like that.)  We had previously only purchased vitamins at Walmart, and they only had teddy bear shaped gummy vitamins.  It turns out Target carries both the teddy bears AND dinosaurs.  So, thinking the boys wouldn't care one way or the other, I let Ree pick.  She picked the dinosaurs, and apparently that was the right choice. 

Michael immediately began chanting, "Die-nah-sore vie-ta-men!  Die-nah-sore vie-ta-men!"  He was a little excited.  I gave him the jar to hold.  He is typically not a great shopper (translation: he is that annoying screaming, whining kid in the store), and I figured it wouldn't be long before he launched the vitamins.  I just hoped they didn't collide with another shopper on the way down.  He surprised me and clutched them to his chest the entire time we were in the store, and he was actually pretty content to just ride in the cart.  He wasn't too thrilled about giving them to the lady at the check out (this would be the screaming, whining part), and when I handed the vitamins back to him after they had been very quickly scanned, he hugged them even harder than before.  In fact, he hugged them all the way home.  (On a side note, Leon was clutching a potty seat to his chest and hugging it this entire time.  I think Ree was reading a book and was holding it RIGHT in front of her face.  And they were all riding in one of those giant carts that seat 3 kids.  My gigantic belly and I were pushing the cart.  I bet we were quite the spectacle.)

The kids eat their vitamins with dinner, and I wasn't too surprised when Michael resumed his "Die-nah-sore vie-ta-men!" chant as we sat down to eat.  What I didn't realize was that the chant would continue at ALL meals in the weeks to come.  He also occasionally threw in the chant when things were boring or when he needed attention or when he just wanted the wonderful little kick only a dinosaur vitamin could provide.

Of course last night when my parents were here for dinner and we actually asked him to say "dinosaur vitamin," he refused.  He just kept saying, "Please!" to apparently demonstrate his fabulous manners.  I hate it when they are polite in front of company.

My World

This morning I put on lotion while I was getting ready for work.  This may not sound like anything important, but for me, this is monumental.  Many things have to be perfectly aligned in the cosmos in order for this to happen.  It helps tremendously that my parents are in town.  Because of this, I was able to take a real shower AND do my hair (in the same day!) yesterday, so I wasn't frantically trying to tame my hair this morning.  Also because of their help, we were able to get the kids to bed on time last night, so I was able to get both Ree's lunch and my own made before bed, so I wasn't rushing to take care of that this morning.  My mom was also kind enough to do my ironing (love you, Mom!), so I also didn't have to spend precious moments kneeling on the bathroom floor trying to make a pair of maternity pants look remotely presentable by ironing them from approximately the knees down.  Finally, and this is the most important part, because the kids are getting extra attention and going on adventures, the KIDS WERE ALL ASLEEP this morning.  Yes, I got ready without ANY "help."  Miraculous!

Despite this, I wouldn't trade my home life for anything.  I pretty much love it, despite the insanity.  And I'm oddly used to it.  I had to giggle this morning when I realized I felt guilty putting on lotion.  Seriously, when did moisturizing one's skin in dry weather become a guilty pleasure?  But it made me smile, and gave me a sense of perspective.

Every now and then I get a glimpse of what other people think of our lives, and that makes me smile as well.  Last week I stumbled upon a blog entry written by a friend who came to visit in August.  She and her husband are our age, but in a very different phase of life.  She is finishing her PhD and is just starting her career.  Kids just aren't on the radar yet.  She commented that although we have great kids (her words, not mine, really!) I never get any personal space, let alone a moment to think.  Hmm.  Something to ponder if I had a moment... :)

But if that didn't bring it home, actually observing someone else in our environment did.  On Saturday afternoon, my mom offered to clean the bathroom and sweep and mop while the kids took a nap.  To me, that sounds like an insane amount to accomplish in a single day, but I suppose a normal person would see it as feasible, especially given that Leon and Michael often nap for at least 2.5 hours.  She got the boys all tucked in while I cleaned up the kitchen.  The kids were ALL sick last week (woohoo for preschool!) and I went four days in a row on five hours of interrupted sleep a night.  The last thing I told her before I stumbled off to nap was to spend some time doing crafts with Ree and not worry about the cleaning.  I also told Ree that after craft time, she needed to leave Gran alone.  (Ree is more than capable of playing by herself, especially when she is avoiding actually taking a nap.)

So they did crafts, and that lasted for about 20 minutes.  Then Ree wanted to watch a movie while my mom cleaned.  So my mom started Aladdin for her, which Ree was dying to watch again.  But Ree wanted Grant to sit with her and fast forward through the scary part at the beginning.  So my mom did.  They were just past that part, and my mom was walking toward the bathroom, determined to clean it, when Michael woke up.  He was still sick and all congested and woke up because he couldn't breathe.  So she then spent half an hour sitting outside on the porch swing with him so that he could rest and to keep him from making noise and waking anyone else up.  About that time I got up.  I had planned on decorating the boys' birthday cake, but I realized I didn't have the food coloring I needed.  (More on their birthday, part one, soon.)  So Ree and I headed for the grocery store.

About that time Jeff woke up.  He had also been napping, in an attempt to recover from taking care of 3 sick kids for 6 days.  With Ree out of the picture, and Jeff in charge of watching the boys (Leon, of course, woke up just as Ree and I were leaving), my mom resumed her mission to at least get one bathroom clean.  She got it mostly done before Jeff accidentally broke a glass and she needed to go watch the boys so he could clean up the shards.  Ree and I returned while he was cleaning.  Of course by that time it was time to make dinner and begin the insane spiral toward bedtime.  Any further cleaning before the kids went to bed was out of the question.  While my mom shared her story with me, all I could think to say was, "Welcome to our wold!"

Two Boys, Two Perspectives

There was a moment yesterday that just seemed to sum up the boys' personalities nicely.  My parents were in town, and they were watching the kids at their apartment while I was at work and Jeff ran errands.  The kids were starting to get bored, so my mom went to the kitchen and got a plastic mixing bowl and a large spoon for each of them. 

Leon took his, headed to the bin of toys, and started adding "ingredients" to the recipe he was making in his bowl.

Michael used the spoon to hit the bowl and said, "Tennis!"

Mother's Little Helper

When we don't channel his energy for good, Leon is one crazy little dude.  The child is just filled with nervous energy, and he has to always be tinkering or climbing or disassembling a car or something.  I am learning to take advantage of him, at least while he's young enough to be willing to help.  Each night in the bathtub, I ask the boys who wants to get out first.  And the response is always the same.  Leon ignores me completely and Michael points at the other kid in the tub and says, "Lon," which would be his name for his brother.  I've discovered though, that if I get Michael out first, Leon will pick up the tub while I dress Michael.  For the past two nights Leon has cleaned the tub, dumping all water out of cups, wringing out washcloths, and stacking everything in the toy bowl.  Considering that it's getting more and more challenging for me to bend down and clean the tub (and, honestly, I'm caring less and less), this is fabulous.

Another area we've been struggling with is teeth brushing time.  Leon brushes his teeth first, and then he proceeds to stand and jump on the toilet while Michael brushes his teeth.  So Leon is now responsible for gathering all the dirty laundry in the bathroom and taking it to the hamper in our room while Michael brushes his teeth.  And amazingly, Leon is happy to comply.

I am so going to enjoy this while it lasts.  It would be great if he makes it through the tween years and is still this helpful.  But I will still be ecstatic if we make it to next week.

Michael the Mynah Bird

Michael repeats everything we say.  Everything.  Yesterday he asked a question, and my response was something like, "No, not right now, sweetie."  He then spent ten minutes wandering around saying "Sweetie, sweetie, sweetie."  And he does this regularly.  It's like we live with Rain Man.

But it's more than just repeating words.  He gets how to use them.  Last week he came up to me, a ball in his arms, and said, "Catch!" as he threw it at me.  When I caught it, he was delightfully surprised and said, "Niiiice!"

It's entertaining, but this could be dangerous.  I suppose I should refrain from referring to anyone as a "shit ass ho" in his presence.

I'm Still a Little Bit Sleepy

Jeff has always sworn the reason our children get up hours before the sun is to spend time with me before I go to work.  I've had my doubts.  Then yesterday morning, as I was getting ready to walk out the door around 7:00, I heard Ree calling me from her room.  Our conversation:

Ree: Mom?
Me: Yes?
Ree: Can I get up?
Me: Um, yes.  (Why was she asking?  She normally just shows up in the living room carrying her blanket, pillow, and Abby doll.)

I walk over to her room and meet her as she's coming out.

Ree: Why are you in your work clothes?
Me: I have to go to work.  I have one more day of work this week.
Ree: I'm still a little bit sleepy.
Me: Do you want to go back to bed?
Ree: Yes.

And she went back to bed and slept for another hour.

Score one for Jeff.

Stimulating Dinner Conversation

It's funny the things you promise your children.  Other parents promise their kids toys, trips to the zoo, movie nights.  I promised Leon a kitchen table.

For weeks he had been bugging us to let him sit at the big table.  At first when we said it was time to eat he would run and get Ree's old booster seat, bring it to the table, and show us which chair we should put it in so that he could sit in it.  (He had already been sitting in it when we cook.)  When that didn't work, he started running to the table, pulling out a chair, and sitting down in it, hoping we would serve him there.

And it's not like we were trying to deny him the milestone of moving to the big table.  The problem was just our big table wasn't big enough.  When we left Athens, we sold most of our furniture since it was mostly well used when we got it.  We figured we could at least upgrade to newer second-hand stuff and then we wouldn't have the expense of renting and buying gas for a bigger U-Haul to get the stuff from Ohio to North Carolina.  This theory worked out pretty well, and when we got here we were able to get a cheap little wooden table and two chairs from Goodwill.  We found two additional chairs in the same style at a local discount store, and we painted everything to match.  For us, we were pretty dang coordinated.  But if you do the math, this only gave us four chairs, and we have five people.  And of course we would have to move Michael to the big table too so that it's FAIR.  We could've just purchased another chair, but the table wasn't that big, and there is no way to put 5 or 6 people at it without everyone touching. If you've ever had children or been a child, you know that touching is BAD.

But last week I got paid, and so the first thing I did was go on Craigslist to search for a table.  (We are slowly upgrading!)  I was actually able to find something that we could afford that didn't look like someone's grandmother had died and her relatives were trying to unload it as quickly as possible, and the owners were even kind enough to deliver it to us.  Once the table was purchased, the next step was to buy a second booster seat, and we took care of that on Saturday morning.  Since then, we have been enjoying true family meals.

I have to admit, these make me insanely happy.  I'm sure the pregnancy hormones are partly to blame, but I'll take the good with the bad.  I love that we are all sitting in one place interacting.  And the table is a giant square, so the kids aren't even touching each other.  The best part, though, has to be the dinner conversation.

Ree loves knock-knock jokes, and the old one about the banana and the orange comes up regularly.  Last week Leon tried to tell it.

Leon: Knock, knock.
Me: Who's there?
Leon: Knock, knock.
Me: Who's there?
Leon: Knock, knock.
Me: Who's there?
We repeated this about 15 times before I declared it was the last time he got to say "Knock, knock."

It came up again tonight.  This attempt was a little closer.

Leon: Knock, knock.
Me: Who's there?
Leon: Orange.
Me: Orange who?
Leon: Knock, knock.
Me: Who's there?
Leon: Banana.
Me: Banana who?
Leon: Knock, knock...
...and then he repeated the banana part 15 times before I cut him off.  It's much harder to get to the punchline when you already used it.

Michael was dying to get into the conversation and he decided to jump in at this point.  He was going to correctly tell the joke.

Michael: Knock, knock.
Me: Who's there?
Michael: Orange.
Me: (cringing) Orange who?
Michael: Knock, knock.
Me: Who's there?
Michael: Banana.
Me: (Seriously cringing) Banana who?
Michael: BANANA!

And then he almost fell out of his chair he was laughing so hard.  And then we repeated this about 5 times before I cut him off from his joke telling too.

Now that I read this, it just sounds annoying, and maybe it was a little annoying at the time.  But it's a good annoying.