Merry Christmas!

Ah...Christmas with children. A time for joy. A time for excitement. And a time for nervousness, and fighting, and insomnia, and (thankfully, minor) injuries, and (thankfully, minor) illness. We have somehow, amazingly made it to Christmas day. And this is the point where I block out the insanity that has consumed most of the past few weeks, and especially the past few days, and focus on the amazing little moments that do actually happen. Here are a few from the last few days.

We just have a little four foot tall Christmas tree this year. Although Natalia removes all of the ornaments on the tree she can reach each day and we find them in some really strange places, at least the ones at the top are safe. (And whenever Natalia sees a Christmas tree, she calls it a "Don' Touch." If only she took her own advice!)

I took Leon, Michael, and Natalia to Chick-Fil-A on Saturday. We made it safely through the parking lot. The kids ate all their lunches and played on the playground without incident. They had a sundae bar out, so I even got them each a kid-sized ice cream and they enjoyed eating them and didn't spill ice cream everywhere or immediately get sick from the fried food/sugar/dairy bomb. Santa Cow was there, and Leon couldn't stop hugging him. And Ree had so much fun with Jeff she didn't even complain about missing the fun.

It's been nice enough out that we've been playing outside every day. Guess who likes to climb up and go down the big slide all by herself?

Almost there!

Whee!

Santa came!

And the kids were actually playing nicely together with Natalia's new kitchen.

Unfortunately, among other things, we are now sharing the annual Christmas cold. If only the kids would sleep as well as Minnie...

Christmas Vacation Begins

Christmas break so far:

I left work at 1:45 yesterday and realized that it was my sixth Christmas at UNCW and the first time I was able to take leave and start vacation early (like just about everyone else. When I left, there were only 15 cars left in the parking lot. I counted.) The first year, we had been here less than a month, and I was actually working extra hours to make up for the "required vacation" days over the break. (Totally worth it, since we always get 10 - 11 days off.) The second year I had newborn twins. The third year I was still trying to catch up from taking maternity leave. By the fourth year, I was pregnant again and saving up leave since I was due in February. The fifth year I was trying to catch up from maternity leave again. But this year, I could actually leave!

On my way home, I stopped at Target. As I pulled in, the parking lot looked insane. Cars appeared to be parked as far back as they could go on every row. As I got closer, I realized there were plenty of spaces up near the building - people just weren't driving up and down the rows looking for parking spaces. Inside, the store was busy but people still seemed to be in good moods. I heard no babies crying or parents yelling at children. I even saw couples holding hands. As I was paying, the cashier moved quickly but was still friendly. AND I got carded. The cashier didn't seem surprised by my date of birth, so I think he was asking out of duty rather than suspecting my youth, but I don't care. I GOT CARDED.

When I got home, I realized I didn't feel like doing anything. And so I didn't. I was so lazy I didn't even venture out to turn on the Christmas lights because I didn't want to mess with rearranging things (we had strong winds on Thursday night, so I had moved around some of the Christmas decorations on the porch) and I really didn't want to deal with going back out later in the evening to turn them off. Instead of attempting to get stuff done, I spent the late afternoon reading a magazine. It was nice.

This morning it was actually time to get stuff done. I had hoped to get the house cleaned today, but of course that didn't happen. I did manage to do four loads of laundry, a little vacuuming, and clean both bathrooms, so it was actually still productive. Actually really, really productive, at least by our standards. The kids were INSANE, and I don't just mean they were wild. I think they've lost their minds. So in an awesome parenting move, I decided to reward bad behavior. At lunch time, Jeff and Ree headed out for a daddy-daughter date, and I took the other three to Chick-Fil-A.

As we were getting ready to go, I put on Michael's socks. As he put on his Crocs he proudly said, "If the shoe fits, wear it!" Can't say I've ever heard that expression used quite so literally. Good ol' Mikey. At lunch the kids inhaled their chicken nuggets and fruit and some of my fries. Then they headed to the indoor playland where Natalia decided she wanted to climb through the tunnels and go down the tube slide. Perhaps I am as currently challenged mentally as my children, because I let her climb on up with her brothers in charge. While it's probably safer than the climbing things at the park since it's all enclosed, it's also a bit unnerving since most of the time I couldn't see her. However, Leon and Michael did do a good job of staying with her, at least for the first three or so trips up. Michael paid more attention, but at one point I did hear Leon tell another child, "Watch out for my baby sister!" The first time Natalia came down the slide, she did so carefully, coming down feet first on her belly. By the end she was climbing through the entire structure pretty much by herself and coming down the slide like a big kid. Don't tell her she's not four-years-old. She wouldn't believe you.

Still Christmas Concerting

I have a feeling all my posts are going to be really random for awhile. You have been warned! Think of it as an email. Or a rambling conversation with me. It's a nice flashback to the days before I had children when I had time to actually talk other than to say, Get Down! Don't Put That In Your Mouth! Where Are Your Pants??? (We use this one ALL the time.) And my favorite, Be Nice to Each Other! (dang it!).

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So I took the boys to the doctor yesterday for their four-year-old checkup. Michael has always been the big, "little" brother, but lately Leon has actually been looking taller. We thought Leon might just need another 'fro cut, but it turns out for the first time ever, Leon is actually taller than Mike. By a whole quarter inch!

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While I am sharing stories about Christmas concerts, we went to Ree's today. It was low-key, just all the families crammed into the kids' classroom. And it was perfect. The kids sang a few songs, and then the teacher commanded the parents to dance with their children. (And it was not a choice! It is hard not to love kindergarten teachers. They make me smile!) Afterward, we gorged on cookies. At 10am. Life was good.

I have always sang to Leon and Michael at bedtime, and now that they are sharing a room with Ree, she is part of the sing-a-long fun. I laughed at her concert today because it turns out we've been practicing for her concert every night. (She never wanted to reveal the concert songs.) The girl knows how to multi-task. One of the songs was a choreographed a capella version of Twelve Days of Christmas. The boys and I already knew all the moves.

Of course Leon being Leon, after we sang this each night, his request was for the THIRTEEN Days of Christmas, with Leon's own special additions. The lyrics (for day 13) are:

On the thirteenth day of Christmas my true love gave to me,
13 giant tickles
12 drummers drumming
11 pipers piping
10 lords a-leaping
9 ladies dancing
8 maids a milking
7 swans a swimming
6 geese a laying
5 Angry Birds
4 calling birds
3 French hens
2 Angry Birds games
and a partridge in an apple tree.

Christmas Concert

Like everyone, we've been soooo busy lately. It's been a long time since I was booked from 6am to 11pm every day. (And I was never on duty all night, every night before!) But we are hanging in there. By 5:00 tomorrow, we will be done with all formal commitments and can kick back and enjoy break. (As the kids keep reminding me, I'll be home for ELEVEN DAYS! I am as excited as they are.)

Forgive my cheesiness (or just ignore me completely) but from now until Christmas, I am going to try to post some of the sights and sounds from Christmas in my house.

Yesterday was Leon and Michael's Christmas concert. All the kids performed at once, and there were about 35 kids on the stage. My little shorties were right in the front row. Michael, Mr. Social, actually just kinda stood there most of the time, although he did liven up for Jingle Bells and Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. Leon has been singing continuously at home for weeks. Who knew he would be our happy little singer? He started out nervous, but was soon singing the songs with gusto. The catch? He couldn't stop fidgeting while he sang. He actually spent a good portion of the concert with his shirt pulled up over his face blinding the entire audience with his fluorescent white belly and chest. However, this was an improvement over the beginning of the concert where the teachers had to repeatedly ask him to get his hands out of his pants. People did seem to be entertained by him, though!

Away in a Manger, No Bottles of Formula

Yesterday Natalia was playing with our Little People nativity set. She picked up the Baby Jesus, and we discussed him in detail.

Natalia: Bay-BEE!
Me: Yes, that's Baby Jesus.
N: Sleep?
Me: Yes, he's sleeping.
She looked around.
N: Mommy? Daddy?
I pointed.
Me: Yes, here's his mommy and daddy.
She was contemplative for a moment, presumably thinking about all of the things a baby needs.
N: Booba!
Me: Yes, Baby Jesus gets booba.

Satisfied, she tucked Baby Jesus back in and went on to playing with the animals.

Her name was Magill, but she called herself Lil...

My kids have really boring names for their stuffed animals. There is no Mr. Snuggles or Sparkly Magic Rainbow Fun Unicorn. Michael has a little beanie baby sized turtle he takes everywhere with him. It's name is Turtle. Natalia sleeps with two baby dolls. She calls one Bay-BEEEE! She calls the other one Other Bay-Bee. At least it's easy to keep track of their names.

On the other hand, it's a little more difficult keeping up with the names of my children. Our youngest son has always been called Michael or Mikey. However, if you attempt to call him either these days, he will tell you, "The name's Mike."

We have always referred to the youngest girl has Natalia or Nati. But last summer she started calling herself Talia. And now it's just Me, ME, MEEE!

Leon actually goes by his own name. Shocking! But he does make me smile. Whenever he gets on the phone with my dad, Leon says, "It's your old pal Leon!" but with Leon's little boy voice and selective use of the letter L, it sounds more like, "It's your ol' pow Wee-on." (I shouldn't mock him, but it's totally adorable.)

And then there is the oldest. Her given name is Rebecca. We have always called her Ree. And now she only answers to Jewel.

I've given up on getting anyone's name right. I am getting pretty good at yelling, "Hey! You!"

(Still) Birthday!

Last week was busy with Birthday Part II, III, and IV and that whole holiday thing on Thursday. Thankfully, the weekend was pretty relaxing. Not quite as relaxing as we planned since the refrigerator stopped working on Friday morning. (Thankfully, after a little over three hours of tinkering, we had that bad boy functioning again except for the ice maker which went from hyperactive to comatose. But, hey, ice cube trays bring retro fun into the kitchen!) Also, we Tetris'ed up the house again to get the boys' beds out of the sunroom for the winter. Lots of random stories to share, but for tonight, here are some pics of all the birthday madness.

Birthday Madness Part II involved Leon and Michael's birthday celebration at school. They light a candle to represent the sun, and they hold a globe to represent the earth. Then the "earth" travels around the "sun" once for each year of their life. While they are walking, the teacher reads stories about what happened to them in that year.

They actually had a pretty nifty candle holder. The kids put on four pieces representing the seasons to encircle the candle, and then put on "rays" labeled with the months of the year.

We always take the kids out to eat for their birthdays and, of course, we go to a restaurant of their choice. For birthday celebration number 3 (!), the boys wanted to have dinner at Chuck E. Cheese. We went on Wednesday night, and there were mercifully only three or four other families there.

For anyone who is curious, they haven't updated it much since we were kids. The band is the same and it still plays 80s music. Apparently, those guys are difficult to reprogram! There is a TV next to the stage with a "hipster" guy who talks about 80s music and explains what records are so the kids can get the references of the chef with the bad Italian accent. So wrong.

While we were there, Leon went nuts, running from game to game, spending his tokens as fast as he could.

The girls road on a simulation roller coaster.

The images were actually pretty fun to watch.

Leon and Michael's actual birthday was on Thanksgiving. Although we typically celebrate family birthdays after dinner, the boys were so excited that for birthday celebration four, we let them open presents in the morning before everyone got dressed. It was like a little Christmas morning preview.

Birthday Madness, Part I

Last Thanksgiving brought forth a week of madness as we headed to Orlando to celebrate Leon and Michael's birthday, to attend my cousin's wedding, to visit Disney World and, um, oh, to eat some turkey. It's amazing how sometimes the stars align, and it was a very enjoyable, crazy time. Actually, the only things that didn't go amazingly smoothly while we were gone were the drive home on I-95 the Sunday after Thanksgiving (I will never reclaim those 14 hours, but the kids did surprisingly well), the fact that I forgot to plan for the kids' wedding clothes so Ree ended up wearing Natalia's socks along with her otherwise gorgeous flower girl ensemble (she didn't complain, though) and Leon's pants fell all the way while solemnly being escorted down the aisle by the usher (to his credit, the little dude kept on truckin'), and the stress of the week caused Michael to break out in head-to-toe hives which miraculously went away the morning after the wedding.

We can't always count on things working out quite that well (summer vacation of doom, I am thinking of you! again and again and again), and so we are having a much quieter Thanksgiving week this year. It is just our little family at home, and we are looking forward to a day in which we can give thanks in our pajamas while eating way too much and watching hours and hours of TV. However, despite the relative quiet, we are getting in a week of birthday celebrations, since these little guys turn 4 tomorrow. 

The birthday madness started with a party last Saturday. Despite having a larger guest list, only two families were able to attend. However, given the size of our tribe and the fact that one of the family's in attendance has three children, we still had eight kids running through our house. It was actually a good sized party, and at the boys' request, we had Angry Birds EVERYTHING. 

There were Angry Birds cupcakes, which looked surprisingly less gray and scary when frosted.

I hadn't planned on party favors, but Ree insisted, and so we had Angry Birds graham crackers in Angry Birds bags.

For entertainment, we placed the train table in the living room and set up two Angry Birds board games and a ton of blocks on the table and the kids played with those for nearly two hours.

I am lacking pictures, but we also had Angry Birds banners all over the house. We were very festive.

The Curse of the Youngest

A friend recently blogged that her husband is stuck with the "curse of marrying the youngest" child in a family - what the youngest wants, the youngest gets. Natalia seems to have caught on to this early.

Recently, we've caught Natalia playing on our new computer while we are busy getting the big kids ready for bed. (The youngest somehow goes to bed last.) We are slow learners, and it took her several days to teach us that we have to actually shut down the computer before bedtime, because she knows how to activate it from sleep mode. We thought the love for the computer desk would end once we cut off her private computer time, but Natalia merely viewed it as an opportunity to explore further. That's when we found her sitting at the computer desk, playing with pens. She wrote all over our check register. She found a sheet of postage stamps, and marked all over it. She was very thorough and made sure not to miss any stamps.

We have also found Natalia in the middle of the kitchen table recently. Not leaning over, but actually on the table, and sometimes standing. Apparently the Thanksgiving decorations in the middle of the table are just to much fun to resist. However, we have to be careful in yelling at her, because when she is up there, she always jumps when we call her name. (We also used to have the same problem with Leon when he was about this age. He would stand on his tiptoes on the arm of the futon in the play room in order to reach the top of the play kitchen. We learned to always let him finish, and THEN yell at him for being dangerous. Funny how that never seemed to prevent him from doing it.)

Recently Natalia also snuck out to a garage, a place she is not currently allowed to visit since it is the storage room of doom. She finally came stumbling back into the house, hugging the kids' little potty. She sat it in middle of kitchen, pointed at it, and said, "Pee!" Despite her choice of locations for the potty, we actually moved it to the bathroom. Since it's been there, she has sat on the potty several times and peed in her diaper. She has also made us late to places on multiple occasions. Each time while I was busy buckling the big kids into the car, she stayed behind in the house. When I come back in the house to get her, I've found her in the bathroom with her shoes off and her pants down while she frantically tugged on her diaper. There was no leaving until she actually tried to go to the bathroom. She did actually go in the potty one time. She was not impressed. But on another day, she came shuffling through the house with Leon and Michael's Angry Birds underwear around her knees. To explain herself, she proudly told me, "Panties!"

Cupcakes

Over the past week and a half, I have started writing a lot of times, but I have never finished anything. Life has just been too crazy. Each time I sat down either someone needed something or I quickly realized my thoughts were incoherent. Among other things, we had visitors for a week, three out of four kids have been sick with really bad colds/bronchitis, we unexpectedly changed where Ree takes dance, and I've had to plan Leon and Michael's first ever "kid" birthday party.

Birthday party planning is always a bit of a struggle for me. For one thing, I am completely socially awkward, and I never know who to invite. In this case, the boys knew exactly who they wanted to invite from preschool, but I didn't know the parents. Long story short, I survived, and there are even children coming to the party.

The other party planning challenge is the overachiever perfectionist in me, wants to throw a "perfect" party like the ones all proudly displayed on Pinterest. Unfortunately, we don't have the money to buy all the necessary crap to make everything perfectly themed, and I am lacking the time to make it myself. (And in some instances, I just can't justify the waste of so much of the stuff.) I also want the kids to be involved. Thankfully, I know it really comes down to the birthday children having fun, and I am usually able to let go. Or I just throw myself in head first before I have time to think about it.

The birthday party is this Saturday, and earlier this week Leon and Michael helped me bake cupcakes. This wasn't really a planned endeavor, so I began by giving them a choice of either having yellow cupcakes or a chocolate cupcakes, using the two cake mixes I had on hand. They settled on half "vanilla" cupcakes and half chocolate. So we mixed up the yellow cake mix, I divided the batter, and I added cocoa to half. (We actually sifted it in, and Leon loved that part.) After the batter was divided and flavored, they informed me they wanted "swirled" cupcakes. With the batter swirled in the mixing bowl. So swirl we did. And they proudly made gray cupcakes. Really weird, elephant colored cupcakes.

All the food bloggers out there would cringe. But when I tucked them in to bed that night and asked their favorite part of the day, both Leon and Michael said, "Making cupcakes!" I may cringe a little too at the sight of the cupcakes, but it's hard to argue with their enthusiasm. Not to mention, it's nothing a little icing can't hide. I can't wait to see how they decorate them.

Not Quite 100 Days of Real Food

The holidays are already upon us. Holy cow. If I couldn't tell by the calendar, I can definitely tell by the kids. They are already completely out of control a wee bit excited. Yesterday's primary entertainment seemed to be running on the couch and jumping on our bed.

And the holiday fun in our house keeps going and going and going. Between now and Valentine's Day we will celebrate all the major holidays plus five birthdays. We'll also throw in a Super Bowl party, and I'm sure some other events will pop up. Based on last year, this translates into a lot of bad eating.

There was a part of me, the insane, anal retentive overachiever, who thought, "This is the year we will eat healthy! We will substitute whole grains and fruit for all the junk! We will limit baking! Sugar products will be made with coconut sugar and other natural sweeteners! Gone will be the white flour and white sugar!" And then I burst out laughing, because even I am not ready to consider giving up some of that yumminess at the holidays.

So instead of being "perfect" or extremist, we're going to try to get through the holidays with moderation. (I know. How shockingly un-American.) To help us, we are going to be following the 100 Days of Mini-Pledges at 100 Days of Real Food.

To be perfectly honest, last week was actually our first week. We were supposed to eat two fruits and vegetables with every meal. Even with me allowing snacks to count so we didn't always have to get those servings in with each meal, it was a failure. There wasn't a single day we actually managed to get two servings of fruit and vegetables with every meal, BUT we came close. We even managed to have two servings of vegetables and dinner on Halloween! And I learned a lot. So I will be consulting with my nutrition gurus at breakfast (that would be the children). And I think we are going for a do-ever. Stay tuned...

Just some random tidbits to share:

It's getting too cold for the boys to sleep in the sunroom. We've been trying to figure out where to put everyone, and we're thinking we may have the boys and Natalia sleep in the same room (her current room, their old room) for the winter. I brought this up with Leon and Michael just to get a sense of how they would feel about it. Even after emphasizing they could keep their toys in the sunroom, and keep a gate on the sunroom to keep Natalia out, Michael was not sold. Leon, however, was a huge fan. He told me, "I could come get you when Nati won't stop freaking out. I could say, 'Mommmmm, Nati needs booba.'"

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The kids watched an episode of Sesame Street about careers. As they were watching it, Natalia grabbed her bag and sippy cup and told everyone goodbye. Jeff explained to the other three that Natalia wanted to go to work like I do, and, of course, they thought it was hilarious. So Jeff asked them what they wanted to be. Ree said she wanted to be a fashion designer. Michael wanted to be a "kid doctor." Leon wanted to a be a pirate.

Given Leon's previous career ambitions of being Mickey Mouse or Stefanie Baker, being a pirate sounded pretty reasonable. That night during baths, I asked him about him.

Me: I hear you watched an episode of Sesame Street about jobs. Dad says you want to be a pirate.
Leon: No, I want to be a builder.
Me: Oh, like Bob the Builder?
Leon: No. (Rolls his eyes.) LEON the builder.

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On Saturday evening during dinner, I happened to look out the window and I noticed the wind had really picked up. After gusting for almost 24 hours, we finally had some definite sustained winds. I made the mistake of mentioning this to my family. Suddenly, all the kids wanted to "feel" the wind.

It turns out, the easiest way to convince kids they don't want to go out and play in a tropical storm is to let them go out and play in a tropical storm. They ended up spending less than 2 minutes in our sheltered backyard before running inside and deciding they were not quite ready to replace Jim Cantore.

Pumpkin Decorating

For us, Sandy could not have picked a better time to visit, and for once I am being completely serious. This weekend the Bengals have a bye and we have no visitors. That means we get to spend our hurricane day relaxing and catching up on life.

It's been an interesting week. The heating element in the oven went out. (Actually, it made a loud popping noise, and when I peeked in the oven, I noticed it happened to be on fire) The motor on one of my car windows died (I already had an emergency repair of another one this fall), and my cell phone started acting all crazy and not really working. So the downtime was very welcome.

Among other things, we used today to start getting ready for Halloween. We had great intentions of getting the Halloween decorations down two weekends ago. However, that was the same weekend we also decided to completely rearrange our bedroom one night after the kids went to bed. We were trying to make room for a desk so we would have a place to do work and we could finally open the all-in-one computer we had purchased two weeks before after the death of our computer. (What is it with us and things breaking? I forgot to mention the ice maker in our freezer also went hyperactive this week and we have mountains of ice pouring out. I should probably find the instruction manual and figure out a way to stop that instead of just seeing it as an excuse to make unlimited frozen margaritas.) In rearranging our bedroom, we finally took down the crib that Natalia slept in for about six total hours ever. It got placed in the garage. Right under the shelf with the Halloween stuff. We did not plan, and we were not moving the crib parts to make room for the ladder at that point.

The last weekend, our friends Mike and Janae came to visit. Janae kept her camera handy and snapped some great pics of the kids. Halloween stuff definitely didn't happen last weekend.

But we sold the crib this week, and with nothing but rain and wind outside, we had no excuse but to get down the Halloween stuff. Jeff got out the boxes and left them in the living room. Natalia quickly proved that she was able to figure out how to open them, and she showed she had her brothers' knack for throwing holiday decorations and shattering them. At least her brothers taught us to immediately put anything breakable out of reach.

Natalia was actually quite a terror all morning. Thankfully, she begged to go down for an early nap. Once she did, the big kids were able to get busy decorating pumpkins.

In the past, we've always carved pumpkins. The problem is the kids can't carve them by themselves, and they end up swinging from the table like deranged monkeys while we slice and dice since they don't want to miss anything but they don't actually have anything to do. It's been a rather painful experience. This year I gave them acrylic paint and let them go to town. Ree quickly started complaining, but once I gave her a bucket of Sharpies to use instead of paint, she was a happy girl.

The only thing we didn't get to today was making Halloween costumes. I did start working on them, only to realize I was out of glue sticks for the hot glue gun. But it's only the 27th. Plenty of time!

Riverfest

Ree's fall break was a very busy three weeks filled with two sets of visitors, an overnight trip to a training session for me, and all sorts of outings. One of our adventures was a trip to Riverfest here in Wilmington with my parents.

The U.S.S. North Carolina sits just across the river from downtown Wilmington.

Riverfest has free admission and a free play area. (We love Riverfest!) Everyone loved the inflatable climbing wall.

Ree and Leon loved the giant slide.

 Bouncing was lots of fun too.

Natalia did not limit her climbing to the designated area.

 The kids all went for train rides.

When it was over, the kids were too tired to even clean up toys before naps.

Talk, Talk

Over the past few weeks, Natalia has gotten so much better at communicating. For quite awhile, we had been asking her to show us what she wanted, and she dutifully drug us around the house with quite a bit of success. But then I noticed she started asking for "more," especially at meals. And to make sure we knew she wanted more, she would say the word and sign at the same time. (Not that she ever used the sign BEFORE she knew the word. I'm afraid she thought it was a package deal. Or she liked torturing us.)

I was so relieved to hear her asking for more instead of just screaming, that I pretty much let her have at least a little of whatever she was asking for more of. The good news is she usually had pretty healthy food. The bad news is that no one really needs a third banana, but hey, Pampers loves us.

Following the success of "more" she started trying out other words, and now the words are coming faster and faster, with her saying several new words every day. One of my favorite words she tried out early was "ice." She never just says the word. Instead, she gleefully exclaims, "Aisssssss!" Every time.

After months of saying, "No, no, no, no, no!" and shaking her head, she also started hissing out "yessssss," too. Even more fun, over the weekend she figured out how to nod her head yes, and it's comical to watch her concentrate to make sure she gets the neck movement just right.

She can now chastise all her siblings by name, and she loves reprimanding them. For a long time she has worried about our dog "Poo" (aka Pru), but she can now also yell at Max when he gets in her way.

My parents and grandmother were visiting for the past week, and today when I came home from work, she said hi then asked, "Gene? Graa? CiCi?" (Grandpa Gene, Gran, CiCi) since they often arrived for dinner at the same time I got home from work. I told her they had gone bye-bye. So she ask again. And when the answer was the same, she slugged me. Sadly, I knew exactly what she meant.

Classic Rock Kids

Wilmington seems to be one of the last cities in the country that still has a wide variety of independent radio stations. We take advantage and always have the radio on in the car, and often in the house too. There are about four stations we listen to regularly, but it's classic rock that always catches the kids attention. And somehow they are able to put images with the music. We were eating at Red Robin one night over the summer when Michael glances up at a poster and said, "Hey! It's the Beatles!" (I do believe we are raising him right.)

Here are a few of my favorite moments from driving in the car with the kids this weekend.

Ree: Is this, "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds?"
Me: No. It's...(listening)..."Wheel in the Sky Keeps Turning."
I don't know if I said it wrong, or she heard it wrong, but she then said:
Ree: Shouldn't it be "keeps" and not "keep? A wheel "keeps" turning.
Me: You're right.
Before I could elaborate, the chorus came on, and we both listened. It was "keeps." She sat back in her seat, relieved. And I made a mental note to keep the grammar Nazi-in-training away from country and rap.

Ree and Michael spent at least ten minutes debating the lyrics of "You Might Think" by the cars. Michael would sing a line, and Ree would correct him. Over and over. The funniest part? She never had the lyrics right. I decided not to step in and correct her. For now they can keep singing:

You might think I'm crazy.
All I want is you.
You might think I'm foolish.
To hang around at school.

And my absolute favorite was all four kids singing "Werewolves of London" at the top of their lungs. Even Natalia howled along to the chorus. Oww-ooooh!

The Doll

Ree got a baby doll for her birthday, which Natalia assumed meant Natalia got a baby doll for Ree's birthday. Thankfully, Ree is willing to share.

The doll looks pretty realistic, and it even makes six exciting real baby noises. As with real babies, we occasionally get it to coo or giggle, but it mostly just cries. Natalia likes carrying the doll around and feeding it until it cries. Then she finds a parental unit to help. One night she handed Jeff the doll while it was crying. When it didn't see to do anything about the crying, she rolled her eyes and said, "Bottle." Apparently she thought Jeff was sufficiently trained, because she usually takes him the doll and the bottle when the doll cries.

But one day when he wasn't around, the doll started crying. She yelled, "Mommmmm!" and then thrust the doll at me and commanded, "Booba," her word for nursing. I guess that's how moms take care of crying babies.

Movies and the Beach, Oh My!

Remember how your mother always told you if you didn't have anything nice to say, you shouldn't say anything at all? That's how I feel about last weekend. It wasn't all horrible, but it certainly wasn't sunshine and rainbows either. Lots of screaming and crying. And that was just the grown ups! It seemed like no one was happy and none of us could get along.

So we took a different approach this weekend. Jeff and Natalia ran errands on Tuesday and Thursday so that we would actually (gasp!) have time for fun on the weekend. I normally enjoy shopping, and running errands in general, but Natalia has sucked all of the fun out of that, so I wasn't too sad to turn those duties over.

On Friday night, I took Ree to see Brave which was playing at the movie theater on campus. She's been to the movies a few times before - with Jeff, with my mom, and with a friend, but I had never been to a movie with her, so that was exciting for me. And being that it was about a mom and daughter, it was a perfect movie for us. Plus it was nice and dark in there, so it wasn't quite so obvious that I am a complete wuss and cry at everything. Adding to the fun, the movie was sponsored jointly by a film club and a Scottish heritage society. Consequently, we were greeted with live music performed by a bagpipe player, and there was a contest for best Scottish brogue before the movie. We both enjoyed the festivities.

On Saturday morning, we went to the beach. And we had a good time.

So serene...

Until a wave tried to attack him!

Meanwhile everyone else played in the sand.

It turns out boogie boards make great boats for the preschool set.

Michael requested a picture of his feet.

And his footprints. In the dry sand.

I left the beach feeling more relaxed that I've felt in a long time. In months. In my deliriously content state, I suggested we stop for Mexican food on the way home. We hadn't gone out to eat since Ree's birthday in August, and it seemed like a good time to splurge. Unfortunately, I think Natalia had other ideas. She was, well, I am going to refer back to the first paragraph and stop there. I will say at least the food was good.

Potty Trained!

A few weeks ago we passed an amazing milestone, one so momentous I was terrified to write about it for fear of jinxing it. For the first time since October 2008, we are down to just one kid in diapers. It is a good thing. A very, very good thing.

When Ree got out of diapers, I rejoiced. Life would be easier! We would save money! And life was easier, but then I wrote her first tuition check to preschool the following week. Doh. So I knew not to get too excited about the money savings this time around, which is good since it turns out I have to write a bigger check to send two kids to a church preschool two days a week than I had to write for my half of the rent in most of the places I lived when I was single. (Yes, it was the Midwest, and yes, it was, um, awhile ago, but still...)

The one expense I really did not anticipate? Since the boys have given up diapers, I think we now spend as much money on toilet paper as we previously did on diapers.

Still, it's totally worth it.

Picasso?

On Mondays, I work a half day from home, and this Monday was one of those days that worked exactly the way it was supposed to. (Shockingly, it can happen.) I floated between blocks of time for work and for being a mom, and, well, it was great. Among other things, the kids played outside for awhile after lunch. It was so nice to be able to be outdoors again but, of course, Michael quickly got bored.

That's when I broke out the outdoor craft supplies. I let them draw on the fence with sidewalk chalk. It had never occurred to me previously that sidewalk chalk could be used on vertical surfaces, but hey, it worked great. Leon made it his job to draw a line on every board.

Natalia alternated  between scribbling on the fence and running through the yard with all the chalk.

And after months of frustration, Michael finally drew a person. It turns out all I had to do was to tell him to draw zeros and ones, and suddenly he was able to make the circles and lines that other kids are able to do at a much younger age. (He is such a math nerd. Already using binary.)

Here he is hard at work.

And here is the finished product.

I realize that at first glance it looks like a jellyfish. And it also does at second and third glance (unless you think it looks like a squid or possibly an octopus). But he tells me it's a person with really long legs. And I believe him.

Clifford Sighting

My mom has always wished for 25 hour days, and over the summer, it felt like we found that magical extra time. We started going to the beach with friends on Friday nights, and it was like our whole weekend opened up. Of course it threw our whole night off, and it was often 10:00 before we got everyone to bed (even though we typically left the beach by 7:15 or 7:30), but we were so used to our nights being nothing but dinner-dog walking-baths-snack-stories-teeth brushing-bed, that breaking out of the routine really felt like we were given extra time to spend together.

Over the last month or so, we've fall out of the habit of going to the beach, but we have still been doing stuff on Friday evenings when we can. This weekend we took the kids to see Clifford at Barnes & Noble. They were so excited they started jumping up and down as soon as they got out of the car. We really need to get out more.

(On a side note, they also started jumping up and down with excitement while inside Whole Foods today. We really, really need to get out more.)

Since Clifford didn't arrive until the end of story time at 7:00, we arrived early so they could play before seeing Clifford. As usual, they were total enthralled by the wall of educational toys.

I tried taking pictures of Natalia in action, but every time she saw the flash, she looked up, grinned, and said in a fake Japanese accent, "Chee-zu!" I did catch her unaware at the train table.

When it was time for Clifford, the kids all ran to the book section. (Yes, we even occasionally go to the book section of the book store!) Then they proceeded to flip and flop all over while the poor woman working there attempted to read two Clifford stories. In their defense, the other kids were acting about the same. There was even a two-year-old who ran up during each and every page, pointed at the book, and shouted, "Clifford!" The woman with the book had the patience of a saint.

When Clifford came out, Natalia was in awe. She squirmed her way through the crowd to see him with me scrambling after her. Leon also gave him a hug. As for Michael and Ree, our super readers who love Clifford, they stayed in the back and watched from afar. It was safer back there. With the books.

Preschool Update

After two days of preschool, here is what Leon and Michael have shared with me:

On Tuesday they both ate all of their snacks. Today Michael ate his granola bar but he didn't finish his snack pack of Craisins. But Dad let him eat those in the car on the way home.

On the first day they sang "Wheels on the Bus" but on the second day they didn't.

They heard two stories today. No details were given as to titles or plots.

On Tuesday they both went potty twice. (Impressive, since they are only there for an hour and a half a day for the first two weeks.) Today Michael went potty twice and Leon went potty once.

There is only one potty in their classroom. (There are more potties down the hall. I fear the day they discover them.)

There is a girl in the classroom who wears Pull Ups but she calls them "panties." I am sincerely hoping the Pull Up wearing has nothing to do with the boys hogging the one potty in the classroom.

What they still cannot tell me: the names of any of their classmates or their teachers.

You Can Always Get What You Want

Natalia is a little strong willed. Um, let me rephrase. Natalia is one of the most stubborn, head strong, determined creatures ever to walk the face of this earth. I have to admit though, there is something to learn from her whether she is proving that she will sleep when and where she wants or she is demonstrating that, yes, she can do everything her siblings can do.

After the great house rearrangement, we ended up with a dresser full of craft supplies in the living room. This works out well as the three big kids can now get out paper, coloring books, crayons, and scissors whenever they want. (Okay, so it works well except for the time Leon decided to see if the scissors would cut the skin between his thumb and forefinger, and, hey! It worked! At least there were no stitches involved...)

Natalia, of course, has her own crayons and loves to color as much as the big kids. However we do keep the craft supplies above her head to minimize coloring on the walls, crayon eating, and other such madness. The other day the three big kids were coloring and Natalia asked to color. (By "asking" I mean she drug me over to the craft dresser, pointed at the construction paper, hit me, and grunted. Such great conversation skills.) I told her no, I was in the middle of something and I tried to distract her by letting her throw around the dirty laundry while I attempted to sort it.

Instead of her usual protest of "No, no, no, no, no!" she quietly toddled off. (I do love how she runs. She literally pitter-patters on our hard floors. It is adorable.) I should've known something was up, but I chose to repress all maternal instincts and continued on with the laundry fun. Our washer and dryer are in the garage, and when I came back in the house I saw that she was quietly playing on the floor. I looked over and realized she was coloring. I was a bit perplexed until I looked over by the dresser and saw that she'd drug the step stool from the bathroom to the craft dresser, climbed up, and gotten out paper and her crayons.

At that point she was sitting there so quietly, coloring just on the paper, that I left her. And she reminded me that if you think creatively, there is always a way to get what you want.

(Another) First Day of School

It's hard to believe that these (really) little guys...

...started preschool today.

The boys actually got a practice run last week. On Thursday, all of the kids got to have a fifteen minute session alone with the teachers to check out the place and, most importantly, confirm the location of the bathroom. I had scheduled Leon and Michael for back-to-back sessions, but they let them both play in the classroom for the entire 30 minutes. They loved it. Ironically, it was Natalia who cried hysterically when it was time to leave.

Last night Michael had me tell him the schedule for today about 17 times since knowing EXACTLY what is going to happen is his way of dealing with stress. It must have worked because this morning when he woke up he came into our bedroom to use the bathroom and stage whispered, "We get to go to preschool today!" Michael, as usual, has verbal diarrhea and told Jeff all about his day as soon as Jeff picked him up. When I got home from work, Michael also told me all about his day. The highlight (repeated many, many times) was eating his snack.

Last night Nervous was so worried he just started jumping around his room when it was time to tuck him in. It was like the worries were just bursting out of him. I finally corralled him and got him to go to sleep. This morning he was still jumpy and so concerned he couldn't even utter one of his favorite phrases, "I can't stop freaking out!" He was pretty much a zombie. A bouncing zombie. Despite that, I think he had a great day. He told me there was a little boy at school who was "just like" him. And the boy sat on the other side of Michael (presumably during circle time). And, according to Leon who regularly blends fantasy and reality, Leon and the boy went on a field trip to a farm and the blue bus dropped Leon off at home after the field trip.

I think that's Leon's way of saying preschool rocks.

Kindergarten-land

I knew we had officially moved to kindergarten-land, and away from Ree's nice sheltered past, when she showed me an ad for the shoes she wants. A girl in her class has them, and Ree loves them. And they were on sale for $59.99. There is nothing particularly special about them other than being cute. No magical powers. They cannot be used for any sports or Antarctic treks. They are just sneakers. They are $60 sneakers for a (now!) six-year-old. Thank goodness Ree has at least a basic understanding of money and is okay with not getting them (for now).

Kindergarten is definitely influencing the things she says, both the topics of discussion as well as the delivery. She now must gush over things while proclaiming disgust at others. One of my favorite comments of the week was, "Don't you just love Blu-Rays? The quality is just so much better." True, definitely, but most likely not an original thought.

When Ree was younger my thought regarding food was always, "I will get as much good stuff in as  I can, while I can." The first two years of her life were filled with whole grains and organic produce. She began her love affair with junk food the summer before she turned three, and last year she proclaimed herself a "junkfoodatarian." Going to kindergarten and eating lunch at school is taking the love to a whole new level. On the second or third night of school she asked what she was going to have for dessert the next thing, and which point I gently reminded her we didn't eat dessert with lunch every single day. (Yes, I still have a monster sweet tooth. And, yes, mothers are allowed to be complete hypocrites.)

Among other things, Ree has discovered Cheetos, and she is in love. (And I have to admit, if I am going for a completely chemical-laden product, Cheetos are pretty high on the list. But I managed to hide this from her for a long time.) Incidentally, Natalia has also discovered Cheetos and is in love. The differences between the oldest and youngest children...

Last Weekend

A friend asked how my weekend was. The question caught me off guard, and I had no response. I am happy to say that after some pondering, I managed to figure out where at least some of the time went. This is taken from my response to her.

Last weekend was good. Lazy, but good. On Saturday morning, Jeff and Ree ran errands. While they were gone, I attacked Mt. Laundry and did puzzles with Leon and Michael at the dining room table while attempting to wrangle Natalia away. Jeff and Ree got back a little after ten ("morning" in our house is defined as about 6-9am). Jeff then took the three big kids to my parents' house where they could play while he watched soccer. While they were gone, Natalia and I took a long walk in search of yard sales. The yard sales were all over long before we arrived, but we did scout out a park not too far from our neighborhood that just opened. We will definitely have to go back and play. When we got back to the house, I took a shower while Natalia dutifully trashed the bathroom. She also found every bath toy in the house and launched them into the shower. (I really need to teach her to shout, "Incoming!" or something. After the first few hits, I got much more adept at hearing the shower curtain rustle and dodging the flying boats.) Jeff brought the big kids home, and then he took off for a soccer clinic around 12:30. I fed 'em all lunch, and we all went down for naps. I actually got to sleep for over an hour. Crazy! We have been trying a lot of new recipes lately, and for dinner, I managed to find an awesome recipe for stir-fried chicken and broccoli. I let the kids play outside after dinner, and I felt horrible when I realized I had no idea when I last took them outside to play. It's been a LONG time.

Sunday morning Ree and I went to the grocery store to pick up stuff on sale this week and to a party store to get stuff for her birthday party. (She is having a luau-themed party with a small group of friends from preschool and kindergarten. I am very excited about her birthday cake. We shall see if my version even remotely resembles that.) Jeff left for soccer again at noon. Although the kids tend to be too wired to nap on Mommy Days, they managed to take naps again on Sunday. Even Ree slept, and I managed to work out while the house was quiet. I tried another new recipe for dinner, and it was not that great. (I seem to be having one great experience and one "eh" experience a weekend with new recipes.) It stormed all afternoon, so playing outside after dinner was not an option. So, instead of getting exercise and fresh air, I took the kids to Dunkin' Donuts for dessert. (I had planned on taking them for ice cream, but Michael always picks donuts over ice cream, and in the scheme of things, donuts are much cheaper and probably less sugar since they are each only allowed to eat one. At least that is what I tell myself while licking the icing crumbs off my fingers.) Sunday night I actually remembered it was a school night (I've been having trouble with that on Sunday), and I got the kids AND me to bed on time.

Monday was my super mommy errand day. I took Leon, Michael, and Natalia to Dollar Tree, the library, a hippie grocery store, and to Walmart, and was back home by a little after noon. It was all good except Walmart which was, well, Walmart. But that is to be expected, I suppose. After that it was time to make lunch for the kids, pick up Ree from the bus, and hide and work since I work a half day from home on Monday. And another week of life began...

Kindergarten

Ree is already on her fourth week of kindergarten, and she is still loving it. She pretty much likes everything about it, and this is the happiest I have seen her in a long, long time. (Not that she was unhappy before; she is just glowing now.) We are going to enjoy this enchantment while it lasts!

On the other hand, the rest of us are still adjusting. We are suddenly having to get another person out the door by 6:55 each morning. And the silly school district insists on having school five days a week, which just does not work with our family's previously established slacker four-day work week. I am typically a morning person, and until Ree started kindergarten, I could count on one hand the number of times I had overslept in my life. I've already overslept twice on kindergarten days, and both times were due to me sleeping right through my alarm. Granted it's not the loudest (I use my cell phone on vibrate on a flat surface so as not to disturb Natalia if she is within a city block of the alarm), but it normally wakes me every day. I even woke up the same way when Leon and Michael were newborns. And I know I was tired then!

But there are some benefits to the new schedule too. I have to make Ree's lunch at night, and consequently I am making my lunch at night instead of scrambling to grab containers of leftovers in the morning. And because we are planning for her lunches, we actually have a lot more lunch food and fruit in the house, which we are all benefiting from. Never knowing when Natalia will wake up (and insist on being held until I peel her off me as I walk out the door), I get ready for work before I get Ree up. That gives me time to sit down and eat breakfast at the table with her each day. I haven't eaten a weekday breakfast at the table since college.

I drop Ree off at the bus on my way to work. On mornings when we have extra time, she actually chooses to head to the bus early rather than play. We then get some time to just talk and watch the sunrise and the cars go by. And that is a wonderful way to start the day. It even almost makes up for the early mornings.

Catching My Breath

I can't believe I really just went almost a month without posting. That's so unlike me, but the last month has been busy. Not remotely exciting, but busy. Ree started kindergarten (well, I suppose that is exciting!) and we've mostly just been juggling things trying not to slip too far behind in everything.

Things have been off-kilter at our house for awhile. We just cannot find our groove. Things started getting weird last October. They got a little worse in November with vacation, Disney World, the boys' birthday, a wedding, and Thanksgiving all crammed into a week. We didn't expect December to be any different, and it wasn't. January and early February are also crazy in our house as we celebrate three birthdays and the kids love Valentine's Day. But we really thought we'd find our groove after that. Only we didn't.

By February I was an anger ball, and by April I was barely holding on to my sanity. The summer we had, all seven weeks of it, was a complete blur, especially when you factor in swimming lessons, vacation, and the death of our air conditioner. We squeezed in a few trips to the beach, but it felt just like that. Like we somehow took a shoehorn and squeezed them in to the few minutes we could find. They were okay, but not exactly relaxing.

So now we are trying to reclaim our sanity. I started by switching preschools for the boys. The preschool Ree went to was a wonderful place and very affordable, but it's a parent-run coop employing two teachers and no other staff, and there is a substantial work requirement for the parents. We had planned for Leon and Michael to go there, and I was president of the board for the upcoming year, so extracting ourselves was a little difficult. But when our first choice for an alternative preschool happened to have two openings for three-year-old boys on the days we wanted, we knew it was meant to be. And the boys are very excited about attending St. Mark Montessori Preschool next year, and each refer to it as "MY preschool," as compared to Ree's preschool.

The other thing we did was finally boot Natalia out of our bedroom. She has her own bed, but most nights I would wake up between 11 and 11:30 to find her climbing up into our bed with her blanket and sometimes a stuffed animal or two. Her sleeping with us was fine when she was little and cuddly, but she is now all knees and elbows and head butts. The challenge was figuring out where to put her. We have six people and two dogs in a three-bedroom house, and she refuses to sleep in a crib or really stay in her bed. She is also a fan of eating toys with small parts and has been known to literally devour a book, eating the binding right off while ripping a few pages along the way. And so last Saturday became the great house Tetris.

We started by cleaning out the sunroom which previously held toys, the dogs, a dresser filled with craft supplies, and a work desk that was used more for storage that work since Leon long ago established that chairs and toddlers are not a winning combination.

The sunroom before:

 

We decided to make this Leon and Michael's room and we attempted to sell them on the fact that now at least they would be in the same room as all their toys. We did not realize that we would need to spend an hour and 45 minutes de-spidering the place (EWWWWW is all I will say about that) and another half hour removing black mold from the windows and walls, but I suppose that needed to be done anyway.

So this is the room now. We are a long way from a true "after" picture, but at least it's a start. (And conveniently, we have not yet had time to move anything on the walls, making it easy to see how spaces changed.)

Leon is most liking the new space. Michael hates change, and consequently hates it. But that's just how he is.

Moving them into the sunroom freed up their old bedroom. This is what it looked like before:

We made this into Natalia's room, and she is loving having her own space. I have still ended up sleeping in there for at least part of the night for two out of the three nights she's been there, but at least she's not climbing into our bed. So here is the tan room now.

Yes, Natalia has a futon, pendant lamp, and jungle print rug. What every toddler has, right? The futon gives me a place to sleep, the pendant lamp is up high enough that she can't yet remove the light bulb (I shudder at the though that someday she and Leon will learn to team up), and the rug needed a home. At the same time, it all kinda just fits her personality. And the rug coordinates well with her Dora bed.

These changes also led to changes in the master bedroom, living room, dining room, and garage, but being that those rooms are still complete disasters, I will wait to share pics. For now, we are working on catching our breath.