Web of Love

Sometimes I wake up in the morning and realize I'm half way off the edge of the bed and I'm covered in a web of toddler arms and legs. I've been kicked and hit and shoved out of bed by these little 4 a.m. visitors. I haven't slept enough and I'm roasting from all the body heat. And then I realize how blessed I am that my kids love me so much they can't wait two more hours to come snuggle. That something about my bed and my presence is comforting enough to them that they don't mind being squished and hit by each other. That this is free snuggle time - I didn't even have to pay in candy for it. And that I've been given an awesome chance to take a moment from the chaos of our daily grind and almost freeze time. These kids are growing up before my eyes. I can't stop it. I can only enjoy these little things. And I better do that before they wake up and realize they have each others blankies and the fights begin again. ;)

Car-go

I explained to the kids that the gas pedal makes the car go and the brake pedal makes the car stop. I was smiling to myself while I was explaining this, thinking I would earn major brownie points from Dave for teaching his babies about mechanics. A few minutes later, grin still in place, I quizzed my minions to make sure their newfound knowledge had been cemented in their little memories.
"What makes a car go?" I asked excitedly...
"Gas!" they shouted from the back seat...
"What makes a car stop?"
"Red yights."
"WROiiiiight."

The Return of the Green Puppy

It has been months since Jordan first decided he wanted a green puppy. We've heard many, many stories about the green puppy since that first day. But since there aren't any green puppies out there, we thought we would try to redirect Jordan a little. When he started talking about getting a green puppy, we told him he can't have a green one but he COULD choose between a regular puppy or no puppy. The conversation continued for several minutes and we realized he wasn't getting it. Dave tried to put it differently...
Dave: Look, Buddy, you can either have a black puppy or no puppy. What do you choose?
Jordan: Gween puppy.
D: Okay you have a box with a black puppy and you have a box with no puppy. Which box do you want?
J: None of dem. I wan da box wif da gween puppy.
D: Okay there is a man and he has three boxes. One has a green puppy (uses his hands to show the "boxes"), one has a black puppy, and one has no puppy. The man says you cant have the box with the green puppy but you can have either of the other two boxes. What do you do?
J: I get a NEW man and HE give me da gween puppy.


Fast forward to today, when Jordan had to go in and get a couple of stitches in his chin after a trip into the sidewalk...
The nurse gave Jordan a little sedation before the stitches. She returned a few minutes later to see if it had kicked in yet. She was immediately pleased that the sedation was working... Oh wait, he ALWAYS talks about green puppies running through the rainbows? Nevermind, I'll come back in a few more minutes when it actually kicks in...

Broken Heart

I tried to guilt Jordan into hugging me this morning after he refused my first couple of hug requests. I told him I had a broken heart. He told me "Wait a mint. I go get da tape."

Brown vs White

Emma told me that my eyes are brown. Jordan didn't want to mid out on the praise, so he quickly chimed in...
J: You'w eyes have WHITE too!
Me: You're right! Good job guys!
J: You'w haiw is bwown too.
Em: You'w haiw have white too Mommy.
Me: Yeah, thanks guys... Good job.
J: You'w teef is bwown too.
Em: Dey white.
J: Dey bwown.

Whoa whoa whoa guys. Thanks a lot. :(

A Rash of Embarrassment

We went to the pediatrician for a little checkup. When the doctor walked in, Jordan went slightly limp in my arms. I thought he was just being shy, but the moment she asked how everything is going, he croaked out "I have a rash" in his best fake sick voice. She came over as he held out his leg and she took a look. I was shocked to see that he really did have spots all down his leg! The doctor checked it out and took a deep breath... "That's dirt, Jordan. I think you need a shower little guy!" The bad news is that my kid is so filthy even HE thinks he's got a rash and I took him to the doctor like this (embarrassing!). The good news is that my kid is going to be able to take good care of me when I'm senile after he wins his first Oscar, and I won't be able to see the dirt then anyway! :)

Don't Eat Your Burgers

We've been out running errands all day and the kids started to get hungry, so I thought I'd make a stop for some fast food. I got the kids really excited about eating burritos for the first time because I thought Taco Bell sounded better than Carls Jr at the time and I knew they would be wondering where their nuggets were. But when we got to Taco Bell, it was closed. I was pretty bummed and I turned the car around and told them "I guess we'll have to eat burgers." Jordan was horrified. "Don't eat your burgers Mommy! Dat nasty."

Mmm... Phlegm-broiled boogers are my favorite though.

They're For Boys

Jordan and Emma are really into coins lately. When Dave comes home from work each evening, he gives them the coins in his pockets and they put them in their banks. This has become a huge deal to them, and Dave gets the cold shoulder if he doesn't have any change when he comes home. I feel bad for him sometimes when they act so excited that he's home and then they just want his money. I guess this is what it's like being a dad though, huh? Well, Emma had a small collection of coins that she had been dragging around all day and wasn't quite ready to retire to her bank. She played with them for hours until it was time to take a shower. I made her leave them on the floor by the shower. Sure enough, Jordan wandered by and they caught his eye, and he began playing with the coins. I didn't tell him to stop because I didn't want to point out to Emma that she was being robbed while she was in the shower, because it freaking echoes in there and echoed screaming really has a way of rattling the good mood straight out of me. When Emma was done showering and realized on her own that she had been robbed, she handled it well...
E: Jodie, dose MY coins.
J: Nope, dey mine.
E: No Jodie, dose is mine. I had dem.
J: No Emma, deese ah foh boys.
E: Dey not foh boys, Jodie. Dey foh me.
J: Nope, see (shows her faces of the coins) -- dey gots boys on dem. Dey foh boys.

What a nice day at the poo-l, dogonit...

My kid sister is out of school on summer vacation finally. But she needs a ride to swim practice on the days that our mom works and I have traditionally taken this responsibility up. Well, now that I have moved across town, it's a little harder to do, so my dear sister cut me a deal. She'll play with the kids and give me a little break on these days before we have to leave for practice. I decided to take full advantage of this opportunity and ask her to throw in swim lessons. Afterall, she is seriously a badass when it comes to swimming and the kids trust her and listen to every word she says no matter what the situation. She is cooler than Mickey Mouse to them at this point. So she agreed to do it and the kids were more than excited to participate. She gave them their first little lesson in their pool today and it was adorable. Then they got out and all things adorable promptly ended when one of them crapped on my mom's patio. While I yelled to Taylor (she ran inside to dry off) to come help me, their little old deaf dog started chow-hounding it up and couldn't hear me as I yelled at him to stop. Then the kids got grossed out and started to run and the dog thought they were playing so he chased them and was trying to lick them, which grossed them out even more and my dry heaves began, causing total loss of control of the situation. Taylor ran out to help and asked where the poop was... Oh no... Dog-on-it... Standing on it now. By the way, Mom, I cleaned it all up but Eddie might smell kind of crappy when you get home. Sorry about that.

Blanket Dander

I have ridiculous allergies this morning. My eyes are swollen, my nose is running, my throat itches and I can't stop sneezing. Have I been around a shedding animal? No. Am I having grass or pollen allergies? Nope. Could it be the trees? No, not that either. What could be causing this incredible misery then? It's the kids' damn blankies. Dave washed them with our towels the other day and they shed their nasty fluff all over. Now I'm being suffocated by raunchy blanket fluff. I feel like I'm dying, and this is a horrible way to go. Suffocated by slobber-induced-rotting blanket fibers? I might prefer the droopy-loogie torture by my brothers that I endured as a kid. At least THAT spit was fresh, and not sticking to the walls of my lungs. I'm starting to think I even prefer things like last month's barf-o-rama, when I couldn't suppress my gag reflex after my poor child spewed all over me. At least that was fleeting torture.

Rewriting the Lyrics, Mommy Style: Pocketful of Sunshine

I like to keep a small handful of jellybeans in my pocket to reward my kids for good listening throughout the day. The other day I was filling my pocket when they asked me what I had...

I got a pocket got a pocketful of jellybeans
I keep em in there to make my kids do things oh
Oh oh oh...
Do want you want if you never wanna eat these
Otherwise listen yeah listen to your mommy oh
Oh oh oh...

Make me behave, a special way
A sweet lil bean, makes me behave
Make me behave on all the days
Make me behave, with bribery!

(Inspired by Natasha Bedingfield's "Pocketful of Sunshine")

The Purple Alligator

Jordan: Mama, I wan a yittle ahyigatoh.
Me: An alligator? Ahh shoot, is there one on the floor again? (Playing along)
J: No mama, I wan a purpoh ahyigatoh. I can have one?
M: Sure, but I don't know where to find a purple alligator, Buddy. I'm sorry.
J: I go get one.

He came back moments later with his purple gator. Well, grape flavored Gatorade anyway. Sucks that I already said he could have one back when I thought we were playing imagination games. Duh, Mom.

A Petty Meal

The kids have been really fascinated by their uncles lately. Particularly Jordan. He has been especially enthusiastic about Uncle Jake this passed month. Jake has a pretty cool self-sustainability thing going on at his house and raises goats and chickens for eggs and meat. Jordan thinks Uncle Jake is a famous cowboy. Last time we went to visit Jake, Jordan wore his cowboy boots and hat from Holloween last year. This is serious business for Jordie.
Fast forward to two days ago, when Monta took the kids to the park. Jordan found a duck egg in the grass. He brought it home and put it in a box to hatch, just like Jake's chicken eggs in the incubator. I just thought it was kind of cute, but it wasn't until the following day that I realized what my son was up to. We got home a little late and it was time for dinner. Jordan walked over to our pet rat's cage and peeked in.
Jordan: Mommy, when we gonna eat Say-wa? (Her name is Sara.)
Me: Jordie! We're not eating her! She's our pet!
Jordan: Uncoh Jake eat HIS pets. Why we not eat Say-wa?

Umm... Because she's a tiny rat, little dude. And plus you're not very good at sharing yet.

The Sack of Crap

I doubt I've ever worried so much about possibly needing to hit the brakes. But you see, I had a sack of crap in the back of my car. A McDonalds sack. And the crap part, literal. Not the figurative sack of crap from McDonalds. But I kept having this horrid vision that I'd need to hit the brakes and the sack might go hurling through the car and explode across the windshield or something. It's kind of the way things seem to chronically go for me. You're probably wondering at this point why, exactly, I was transporting raw turd in a McDonalds bag across town. More specifically, raw human turd. Well, we left my mom's house and a few miles down the road Jordan decided he needed to "potty"... He said he couldn't wait and started shouting about it so I knew it was urgent. I quickly pulled over and ushered him to a bush in the parking lot, thanking my lucky stars that boys can pee anywhere. I helped him get his pants down and he started shaking his legs and yelling "Wha-do I do?!" I told him to just go and he looked at me with sheer disgust. "I need ta poop, Mommy!" OMG you're freaking kidding me. In a parking lot?! What do I do?! It's really frowned upon to leave human poo on the ground in a parking lot I think. So the proverbial sack of sh*t became literal, and I might drop an anonymous note to the manager of the shopping center regarding their need for trash cans.

The Stench of Reality

I found an almost-empty cup of milk this morning when I was picking up in the playroom. Not thinking too hard about it, I took it downstairs and opened it to wash it. Jordan was standing right next to me when the week old sour milk stench blasted its way out of the cup...

My family has made it very clear at this point that Emma's blankie is disgusting. My mom makes new suggestions of horrible similar smells each time she even thinks of the blanket. And I have to admit, once I thought a dirty diaper had been left in the car on a hot day, but after a thorough search of the car, found nothing but the blanket. I have three "copies" of it, but she likes to suck on the corners of it. Within a few hours, the blanket stinks, but I refuse to give her more than one a day. It's just too much laundry...

Well, I guess I know how terrible the blankie really smells now, because my son has a way of piercing through the fog of mommy denial. When that horendous smell of sour milk entered our nostrils, Jordan quickly proclaimed, "Dat smell yike Emma's bankie." Holy crap, he's right. Not letting her take that out in public anymore.

Sweet Dreams

A couple of months ago we were putting the kids to bed when Jordie asked if he could say the prayer. Here was his prayer:
Now I lay me
Down to sleep
I pray the lord
My soul to keep
And if I pie before I cake
I pray the lord, my soul to cake.
Almonds.

Chalklet

I was just finishing up the breakfast dishes when Emma walked in completely covered in blue. It was in her hair, on her hands, clothes, face, and even her toes. A perfect opportunity for a little talk about getting into things? Would have been, if she hadn't started crying...

Em: Mommy, brudder telled me dis choc-it an it NOT! It gwoss!
(Tears begin to stream... Brother runs in on the defense.)
Jord: I NOT say'd it choc-it! I say'd it CHALK, Mommy! She eated it!
Em: Ohhh nooo Mommy, it gwoss. He need time-out.
Jord: Not time-out! I say'd chalk, Mommy. SHE say'd choc-it.

That may be the cutest mistake I think I've ever seen.

Volcano Mom

I'm not what you would call a "morning person." Actually, I'm a pretty awful person to be around until after I've had a cup of coffee. And this is the self-admitted part so it's probably worse than I think. But what REALLY gets me is when I'm dozing peacefully and suddenly, inches from my face, I hear that sound that Jim Carrey once deemed the "most annoying sound in the world" ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cVlTeIATBs ) coming from one of my kids. I feel like the guy in the middle seat. Except add that to the absence of my first cup of coffee, multiply reaction by two (once for each kid), and think of the potential energy once that festers for a few minutes (while I try to maintain serenity). I turn into Volcano Mom... that villain in the movies who appears to be sleeping, then explodes almost instantly into a scary, messy-haired monster that yells "I'm up!" and starts shooting pillows at its unsuspecting victims. Then there is that weird "only one thing can stop her! (drumroll) COFFEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!" deal that actually works. I mean, I don't know... maybe that part is all still in my dream but that freaking noise that they make really gets to me.

Question of the Day...

I was snuggling the kids up before breakfast when Jordie asked his question:

J: Mommy, I'm going to get big like you?
Me: Yep, someday Buddy. Someday you'll even be bigger than me.
J: And my butt, too?

What are you trying to say kid?

No Stanks

I got an opportunity to run a few errands yesterday without kids. Our Kenyan friend, Monta (okay, his name is Nelson but the kids have called him "Monta" from the beginning and now it has kind of stuck), has been staying with us and I had tons of errands to run, so he watched the littles and I escaped for a few hours of peaceful erranding.
When I returned home and asked Monta how it went, he laughed a little and said the kids were good. Yay! It wasn't until a few hours later that he spilled the story...
Jordie came and asked Monta for some wipes. Monta, being the innocent soul that he is, thought nothing of it. That is, until Jordie came screeching out of the bathroom moments later yelling "I did it!" ... Then promptly bent himself over in front of Monta, spread his cheeks with his little hands, and shouted "See- all clean! .... High five?" 
Sometimes I underestimate Jordan's ability to disgust and humor people simultaneously...

Your Number is Huge

Jordan stepped on the scale this morning and gasped "Oh my gosh I'm gettin old! Yook how big my number gettin." ... If only that was how age worked.

Pissed

I woke up last night around 4am wondering what happened to my pillow when I realized it had been hijacked. In it's place? A small pair of bare, slightly sticky butt cheeks. Stuck to my face. Fantastic! Just what I love waking up to! Not only were the cheeks bare; the entire kid followed in the same manner. I rolled out of bed to reassess the situation and do a little detective work when all my questions were quickly answered. There, on the floor next to my bed -- my foot was directly atop a lovely pair of soaking wet jammies. Apparently when there is a midnight bed wetting in this house, it's appropriate to strip down and plant your naked self right between Mom and Dad, steal Mom's pillow and snuggle your tiny ass right up into the face of the nearest parent. I'm seriously thinking of reversing the lock on their bedroom door.

Breakfast in Bed

The kids brought me an unwrapped, half-eaten protein bar in bed this morning. They said they brought me breakfast in bed and they need a reward. I giggled as I bit into the semi-slimed bar. I told them how sweet it was to think of me like that. The smiling response?
"We bited it alweady. It weally gwoss so we give it to you, Mommy! Foh you bweakfiss!" Aww thanks guys. What kind children.

What Vanity

Emma told us how she put pancetta and parsley in the pasta last night as we sat around the dinner table...

Me: How'd you get so cute, Emma?
Em: I wohk hawd.

Wow Em... Not even a shoutout for me? Hehe ;)

Simple Division

This morning Jordan asked me for help going to the bathroom. Now, let me start this by saying that he is fully capable of doing this on his own by now and I have no idea why he suddenly wants my help (except for the occasional times like at my brother's house the other day when he decided to only pull his pants down enough to get the urine out, but not enough to allow for any aim, thereby causing a fountain that subsequently sprayed across walls, lids, seats, toilet paper and floor, and barely missed the reading material). So now he wants my help. Where do I turn? Bribery, of course. He may have a piece of chocolate if he goes alone. Minutes later, my proud son walked over to me with a grin worthy of suspicion. 
"Mommy I needa show you sumpin."
"Okay, show me."
He took my hand and walked me into the bathroom, then pointed at his doings, proudly.
"I pooped TWO times! I need two choc-its."
Buddy, just because it broke in two upon entry does not qualify you for two rewards...
But to save myself the fight, I walked into the kitchen, grabbed a piece of chocolate, and broke it in two. 
"There you go Buddy. Good job!"