Fall Projects

It's finally perfect weather to play in the backyard! Cold enough to kill bugs. Somehow our backyard is the mosquito hangout all summer. You have to practically poison yourself with insecticide for protection. For perspective, one day, we forgot to put spray on David's face - I had to take him to the doctor for what I was afraid was chicken pox. They looked him over, ran some tests and had to finally deduce that he simply had 23 MOSQUITO BITES on his head. It's hard to feel like a worse mother.

So, November is the time when the mosquito's start dying off. We can play in the backyard to our hearts content! Tiffany and I went through a phase last spring where we were determined to catch something on camera for America's Funniest Home Videos. The backyard seemed to be our best option. We bought a bunch of outdoor play death traps and sent the kids out to play.

Our very best option was the teeter totter. Anthony used to fling Ava off of that so great. Unfortunately, we never had the camera on for the best flights :( And it was kinda hard to "ask" for a reenactment when we had to punish him for doing it in the first place... You should have seen her as she took off - she would get some great air! This fall we're hoping to do a better job of catching the good takes.

Mom's Never Sleep

It's 7am right now. I wouldn't normally mind (so much) being up this early except I stayed awake last night until 3am with a very alert, talkative boy. 4 hours of sleep, yuk! I guess it's my own fault... Sunday night, Tiffany brought a "flu"ish Anthony back with her from a trip to New Jersey for a friend's wedding. She had asked me to keep Ava up to see her brother when they got in so only David was already in bed when they got back in town and didn't get exposed. When Anthony was still throwing up Monday morning (yesterday), I packed a bag and threw David in the car straight from his bed. My escape had been made! I didn't know where I was going or what I was going to do - I would figure that out as the day went on - I just knew I had to get away while we still could!

A friend graciously offered for us to stay at her house and David napped beautifully here. For some reason, he just wasn't tired last night. Although, I'm sure the fact that I was sleeping in a bed only two feet from his was way too exciting for him to handle. I must have heard every scene from Dora and the Wiggles ever written. Here's how my night went:

Awake Son: "If you see Swiper, yell 'Swiper!'. Do you see Swiper? You do?? Say 'Swiper no swiping, swiper no swiping!'. Oh man!"

Tired Mommy: "David, lay down and go to sleep"

Not yet tired Son: "Oh No! Jeff fell asleep! On the count of three we're going to yell, 'wake up Jeff!'. Ready? One...two...three...Wake up Jeff!!!"

Really Tired Mommy: "David, lay down and go to sleep"

Still happy to be awake son: "Do you see Teddy Bear? You do? Where? Oh there it is!!"

I finally dragged his bed out of my room and into my friend's playroom - I drugged him up with a dose of banned Tylenol Cold, gave him a cup of milk and let him cry it out for about thirty minutes. It was a beautiful 4 hours that I slept.


So anyway, today we're going to miss Toddler Tuesday at the local museum. Tiffany says Ava didn't sleep well last night either - a public outing around other toddlers sounds like more than my poor sleepless body can handle today. Even the temptation of having a great disastrous story to tell tonight does not motivate me.

Toddler Tuesday is pretty cute. I like getting the "twins" out of the house for outings as much as possible. Been trying to stick by the APA's recommendation of no more than 2 hours of tv and at least one hour of outdoor play a day. Do you know how difficult that actually is?? Sometimes an hour outside can feel like years..."David don't eat the stick". "Ava stop pulling people off the slide.". And I definitely have to get the kids out in order to keep them from getting more than 2 hours of tv - tv is so easy...

Last time we went to Toddler Tuesday, we learned about the letter "C". They put a "C" stamp on everyone's hand as we walked in and we read some story about a cat. The teacher then held up flash cards of animals that started with the letter "C". We saw a caterpillar, a chimpanzee, a cricket... Ava and David were just sitting still for this part not really participating. Sometimes David is running around the room while Ava binds herself to my lap freaking out if another kid so much as bumps into her. Suddenly, the teacher held up a picture and said, "Look kids! What animal is this?" David stood straight up, lifted both hands in the air and screamed at the top of his lungs, "A TIGER!!!!!!". He kept screaming it and jumping up and down. Obviously proud that he knew the answer. The teacher had to correct him with the fact that it was a cougar.

Ok, they were obviously hurting for animals that started with "C". I mean how many toddlers would know the difference between a tiger and a cougar? (If your darling child does, don't bother commenting on this post - just keep it to yourself so I can feel better about my kid!) I should have punched that reckless teacher in the nose! They then passed around little tiny clear boxes each with a small cricket inside to the irresponsible 2 and 3 year olds, asking them to "please not shake" them. I'm still curious as to the final body count on that lesson.

Are they going to grow up normal?

I sit down to blog and decide to check on the kids (a good thing to do every once in a while). To my right, down the hall, I can see the glass doors of the playroom closed. David is screaming (really? screaming??) and pulling frantically on the doors to open. Suddenly, Ava runs into view. I see her grab David around the waist and pry his fingers off the door handle - she pulls him out of sight. At this, my interest is piqued. I move closer to get a better look. I swear I'm not making this up...She had him on his stomach on the floor, her knee in his butt with the barrel of a toy gun pushed into his back! I'm not sure what was supposed to happen next, luckily I saved the young hostage just in time. Sometimes I worry that David is going to grow up with a bully complex. Do you think he'll be socially scarred for life as this continues??

Like I have time to worry about such things! I'm currently more worried about keeping my son in custody! I found him outside again this morning. The anguish your heart feels as you discover how easily something so precious to you could be lost is something I can't even describe. The biggest problem is that, this time, I can't figure out how he got out! In times past (yes this is now the fourth incident) someone left the front door open and he helped himself out the screen door. This case, all adults present swear they didn't do it.

Dear husband and I decided to perform a test with which we could determine if David could possibly open the front door himself. We didn't want to actually ask him to open the FRONT door because we weren't going to give him permission to do it - or teach him how if he didn't already know! We took him to the door which separates the kitchen from the laundry room and excitedly exclaimed, "Open the door, David! Go ahead, open it!". He was shocked at first - he's not allowed to go through that door... Was this a trick? Could he get a spanking for this? (Yes, we spank for certain major offenses) You could see the uneasiness and confusion as it slowly grew to excitement. He did his little excited dance and then ran to the door! He put his hand on the handle and gave it a little shake. He then stood back, raised both arms and said, "Open Door! Abrir!!"

*Sigh* My poor baby thinks that because he can help Dora the Explorer open things by just yelling out the word "Abrir"... You get the picture. So I'm going to vote "no" on the whole idea of David being able to open the front door on his own. Now that I think about it - the whole recent playroom scenario sort of backs up my vote.

Ava comes walking into the living room the other day and sees a blanket lying on the floor. Before I even knew what was happening, she threw it over her head and took off at full speed into the wall. I was in total shock for a minute! The crumpled mass just started rolling and moaning - it took me a few minutes to find her under there. She cried and cried, holding on to me. I was trying to comfort her, but I really couldn't stop laughing! She looked like E.T. when Elliot and Gertie dressed him up like a ghost for Halloween to get him past their mom. Wasn't he bumping into walls?




I certainly wasn't expecting her to take off running! She pulled herself together pretty quickly and climbed out of my lap. Immediately, the blanket went back over her head as she cautiously walked out of the room in total blindness. Wouldn't it be fun to know what kids were thinking??

My mom comes over every Wednesday after work to spend time with me and the kids. She just loves to show how much more fun grandma is than mommy by pulling out or bringing over dangerous, messy, and complicated activities! I don't mind it, really, I just try to stay out of the way - and make sure the babies don't swallow too many marbles (not sure if I will ever forgive her for that game...). She tells me she's making memories of them with her that they'll have when they grow up. Who am I to stifle that sort of aspiration? So grandma's more fun than me, I'll let it slide for now.

We decided to take the little one's for a walk this past Wednesday since it had been raining all day and they hadn't been able to get out. We go through the garage so Anthony could bring his bike. You wouldn't think Darling Husband cleaning out the garage could be a bad thing. It's just that the kids could now see all their favorite toys in plain sight. I had wanted the babies to go on foot for this particular walk because I felt like they needed to get some energy out. They immediately climbed into the double jogging stroller and chimed in chorus, "push, push! Let's go!"

The rain looked like it wasn't quite done for the day so we decided to just walk back and forth down my street in case we needed to run back in quickly. I pushed David and Ava up and down the street, trying to coax the littlest free loaders to get out and walk for themselves, while Anthony rode his bike. Mom and I decide we've gotten enough outdoors for one day and head everyone back into the garage. I pulled the babies out of the stroller and put Anthony's bike back up on the hook in the ceiling (that took mom and I both to work out!). As I'm herding everyone back in the house, the babies located the red wagon. "Pull, pull! Let's go!", I hear as I turn around to two 2 year olds strapped into the red wagon, ready for their walk. Grandma, of course, coaxes me into another one. How could we dissapoint them? As I pulled the babies up and down the street in their new mode of transportation, with Anthony riding behind on a tricycle (no way I was getting that bike back down), I thought, "Please God, don't let my neighbors think I'm crazy.". Hopeless prayer.