Merry Kidsmas

I have always loved Christmas. It's so much fun to spend time with family, eat deliciously sinful food until you're sick, and give and receive gifts. I love the lights, the smells, the twinkles and sparkles, and the magical wonder of the season. But what I experienced for the first time this year was something new and better than any of my previous 26 Christmases.
This year, I experienced the joy of spending every moment with my babies. Watching the way their faces lit up every single time they saw Christmas lights or shimmering decorations. I experienced the magical amusement they had over a simple roll of wrapping paper, and fondly nicknamed Jordan "Rip Van Crinkle" because of this fascination. I watched their amazement every time we lit a fire, and how "fire" quickly became Jordan's favorite word. I watched them love and play with one another, and fell more and more in love with being their Mommy. And when we walked into the living room on Christmas morning, I watched their eyes twinkle as they looked over the bags and packages Santa put under the tree for them. And we all sat on the floor and laughed so hard every time Jordan would rip open a package and scream "oh wow!" and jump up and down. And our hearts melted as Emma crawled right over to her new pink walker and took her first steps with it. Later in the day, we spent our afternoon together hanging out and assembling baby toys, laughing about how Santa should really think about assembling things before hand. This year I had my favorite Christmas. Because this year, I didn't just feel love. I saw it, and all of its incredible, perfect beauty. Merry Kidsmas.

Chocolate? Surprise

Dave took the kids for a little while so that I could go have some "me" time. When I returned, he was wearing different pants. Then he told me why...
He was playing with the kids when Jordan ran over to him and wanted his hands cleaned off. Dave wiped off Jordan's little fingers with his hand, while Jordan wiped his other hand off on Dave's shorts. It wasn't until later that Dave realized his hand smelled like poop, and that both his hand and shorts were covered in poo that Jordan had pulled out of his diaper and wiped on him. He was absolutely disgusted. I, on the other hand, was highly amused. I didn't realize how funny it is when it happens to somebody else ;)

Mama, Oh No!

I was trying to finish wrapping the last of our Christmas gifts after dinner tonight. Emma had already gone to bed and Dave was reading to Jordan in the living room, so I had a free moment. I needed more wrapping paper. We keep it above the cabinets in the laundry room, so I climbed up on the counter to get it. I was digging through a couple of boxes to find what I wanted when Dave came rushing in with Jordan. Both of them looked up at me standing there and Dave started laughing, then explained what happened.
Jordan had followed me into the laundry room and saw me climb up and stand on the counter. He ran back in to Dave and said "Mama, oh no! Mama, oh no!". Then he started walking away, saying the same "Mama, oh no!"... So Dave followed him, expecting to find me injured on the floor somewhere. I'm glad my son knows it's bad to stand on the counter when I do it!

It is What I Said But Not What I Meant...

I was playing with the kids on the floor in the living room this evening when Emma decided that she did not want to sit, nor did she want to crawl on the floor. She wanted the bottoms of her feet to be the only thing touching the floor. Unable to play with both babies in this particular situation, I asked Jordan to go get me their little red car/walker so that Emma could hold onto it and stand. He ran into the other room, but he didn't return. I went to go find him. He was standing in the hallway, hanging from the doornob into the garage. When he saw me, he let go of the doornob, pointed to the door, and said "car!"...
I didn't realize that when I said "Go get Emma the car", he would take me literally.

Head to Toe

I think the term "covered from head to toe" is often misused. I don't think anybody understands the true meaning of the term until they feed their extremely active son prunes one night and let them play in their footed jammies a little too long the next morning.

Bath Time

I took Emma into the bathtub with me last night. I had been painting her room, so I was covered in paint. And she had been eating, so she was covered in food. We played and splashed around in the bath for a couple of minutes, until she threw up her entire dinner into the bathtub. But that wasn't quite as bad as a couple of minutes before that, when we were getting into the tub and I thought I saw a piece of food on the floor, so I picked it up between thumb and forefinger only to realize I was holding a tiny turd with my bare hands. Sometimes bathwater just can't make you feel clean enough.

Iced Pee

I emptied our Diaper Genie the other day and was actually surprised by how heavy the bag was. There weren't that many diapers in there, but the bag must have weighed around 20 pounds. I tossed the bag right outside the back door, not wanting to leave the kids unattended long enough to take the bag out to the trash can. I thought I would take it out later, when they were napping. But I forgot. The diapers sat overnight. And the next morning when I went outside, I grabbed the bag. I lifted it, and the previously heavy bag was extraordinarily light. Mainly because all of the pee had frozen and was so heavy that the bag ripped and the diapers poured all over the place. Frozen diapers roll. And sink in pools.

NOOOOOO!!!

Jordan went upstairs to play yesterday. I thought that he was playing in his room, so I waited about two minutes before going to check on him (normally I don't let him out of sight and/or hearing distance for more than about 30 seconds... that's all it takes for him to cause major destruction... any longer and the destruction is often irreversible, unless of course he's playing in his extremely childproofed room). Anyway, I went upstairs to check on him and was horrified to find that he was NOT in his room. Instead, he was in the upstairs bathroom. Okay, not good. Never good. There is too much stuff to get into in a bathroom. Fortunately, the only thing he was playing with was Megan's toothbrush. He was brushing his teeth with it. Not so bad, really. But here's the kicker: he likes water on his toothbrush. The toothbrush was wet. However, the sink and tub were both dry. And I watched as my son dipped the toothbrush back into the toilet, swirled it around, and stuck it back in his mouth. Now the title makes sense.

Dae's Mornin With the aies.

We had a rough night with Emma last night, and I ended up spending about four hours up with her in the middle of the night. So this morning at the crack of dawn when Emma decided she was ready to wake up, I think I appeared to Dave as a character you may have seen in The Exorcist. Not my finest moment. Fortunately, I am one very lucky lady, and Dave got out of bed and took Emma into the living room to play while I caught up on some lost sleep. When I finally crawled out of bed, I walked into the living room to a room full of bright and smiling faces. And "Guess what your son did?"...
I don't like that game.
"Look at your computer."
So I walked over and opened it up slowly.... In the middle of my keyboard, there was a small void. No G. No B. No V. Just little empty spots where the keys once were.

(I think Dae is fiurin out that it only takes four or fie seconds for aies to destroy EERYTHIN, ut the ood news is that I'm startin to feel less uilty when the aies destroy his thins.) Hehehe

Fine Done-ing

We went to a very nice restaurant last night to celebrate Dave's birthday with his family. We couldn't find a babysitter, so we thought we would take the kids with us. We made sure they had long naps before we left, and that they were both well fed. I thought it would be a little bit challenging to have the kids there, but I didn't think we were in for what was to come...

By the end of dinner, five of the eight adults at our table had spent time outside with Jordan. Jordan had screamed at the top of his lungs on three different occassions and consumed about five tiny glasses of egg-nog. Emma slid out of her high chair four or five times. The floor was covered in hundreds of cereal pieces that we had brought along with us (most of them crushed at that point). Emma had thrown up twice on the floor and my purse. Jordan had blown the candles out eight or nine times. Each baby had consumed at least one sugar cube. Jordan spent time on six different laps; Emma on three. The radius of the food mess around the high chairs extended approximately four feet. The white tablecloth was covered in about 47 seconds of scribbling. Jordan's white button-up shirt had two tomato slices on the front of it, and his face was covered in 1/4 piece of chocolate mousse cake. Emma had eaten 1/2 piece of chocolate mousse cake, and Jordan.... well, who knows really. It was fine dining at its best... It was the longest 2 1/2 hours and the smallest one glass of wine, and I think we are fine done-ing for a while. At least with the kids ;)