All I want for Christmas..

Is my TWO FRONT TEETH!!

Mystery Object of the Day: Pulsar

This is a great picture of a pulsar. Look at the sunspots and the complex inner structure. You can actually see the radiation pouring off in waves from the burning hot center sun.

Ok, maybe not. But the pot is almost clean! This is what happens to me when I try to cook elaborate birthday dinners while 'watching' two toddlers and a baby. Hmmm...to be fair.... This is what happens more often now that I have to watch two toddlers and a baby. And why one of the first things we vow that will be installed in the kitchen in the "New Minnesota House" is a good hood over the stove that vents to the outside. Whoever decided that a dinky, greasy fan under the microwave with a carbon filter in it would be great for mitigating billowing smoke obviously didn't try it. And didn't have two two year olds running around with their hands over their ears in the midst of the fire alarm yelling, "Too Loud! Too Loud! Too Loud!"

The chicken stew that I made for the birthday pot pie was one of the most well-balanced, complex, delicate flavored stews I had ever made. That is, before I turned up the heat slightly to thicken it for a minute. I may have forgotten the stew a little between entertaining the twins, Sam crawling at my feet, drying meringue cake layers, rolling out the pot pie dough, baking cake, whipping butter for icing, and melting various mint candies and chocolates. After emergency chicken stew first aid (for extreme burnt overtones), it was a very hardy, robust, richer stew but with a lot less of that complex flavor. Luckily the birthday guy didn't notice...

Biscuit the Cat vs. Fire Engine

Sam learns the 'uh-oh' game, aided by two exuberant brothers...

Proper Use of the Play Table

Back to the Plains Part III: Take Junk. Put in Box. Repeat.

With only three weeks to close, we decided (of course) to go to an airshow that weekend. It was at Jefferson County Airport and we had a ton of fun with airplanes, fire trucks, ambulances, and all sorts of fun stuff. Then, we went hiking in Boulder. The next week I didn't really feel like packing. Who does, anyway? We were busy having fun. That next weekend-- we went camping up in Wyoming. Yup, can you say procrastination?

So on Monday morning I finally tried to be realistic. It was now June 16th, 10 days from closing. I had a full house full of junk, a basement full of junk, a yard full of junk, and a storage locker (you guessed it) full of junk. Maybe it was time to start packing? (Duh!) So I began, packing what I could when the kids were awake and working like crazy moving boxes during naptime and when I had help watching the twins.

As the week wore on, I realized two things: First, I could use a little help as we needed to get a LOT done this last weekend. Second, wow, we owned a TON of stuff. I began throwing things away right and left. Mike emptied out the storage locker into our backyard and garage. I disassembled my prized workbench (it's such a behemoth it can't be even shoved once it's assembled) and began stacking boxes in the garage. Aunt Karen volunteered to come out for the second time in a month to help pack for the weekend, and Matt and his girlfriend Angie volunteered to come out and help us load the truck and drive back. Things were coming together. I even managed to entertain the twins in the backyard with new toys: a kayak and a windsurfer.

Aunt Karen arrived and saw what I had done in just four days; I had organized and boxed up most of the bedrooms, the bathrooms, all the closets, the living room, the books, and the basement. Only the garage and kitchen to go! "Wow. You got a lot done. What do you want me to do?" asked Karen, wondering exactly why she flew out to help. "The Kitchen, " I said, "I've been avoiding it." Karen looked at it skeptically. I could see her calculating about two, maybe four hours tops to carefully pack the kitchen. I had a fuzzy recollection of endless packing of kitchen items when we moved from California, but I like the optimist approach. I thought, cool, she must be right and we'll be hiking by evening.

The day packing stretched on. Evening came, then the next morning. The next afternoon. Wow. Where did all this stuff come from? I get discouraged and decide to pack the garage for a break. Mike tries to pack in the kitchen. Evening comes again. I get done packing the whole garage. I sneak back inside. Unfortunately, they are still packing the kitchen. Karen now understands, I have a LOT of junk in my kitchen.

Eventually, we call it good enough for now. We're out of boxes. Time to go hiking. After all I need to leave a couple dishes out. Next week I've planned two dinner parties before we close on Thursday, against the prudent advice of everyone I've talked to. I don't care, I think it will be fun to have the my friends over, and anyhow, I'm nuts! My husband agrees. ;)

(Biscuit supervising the packing)

(Sam in the midst of a really big mess)

The Birds and the Bunnies

"Mommy. Mommy! Look what I made. The bird is hatching out of the egg! Like the bunnies do!"

Today, it's a Blue Kayak

Chocolate with Carmel Buttercream

I went upstairs this morning with Sam to get the boys clothes. It was really, really quiet. This is why-- they found the cookies I made the night before for Dad's 'snack day' at work and decided to get the stool and help themselves.

The dangers of good oral hygiene

I was sleeping, and it was warm, and fuzzy, and really, really good. I was generally aware of Baby Sam sleeping still in our room. I also knew Patrick and Isaac woke up right before Dad left and were playing quietly downstairs. But I love sleeping and if all's well... From the edge of consciousness, I heard a Patrick voice, "Mommy? Mommy?" (Mommy doesn't move...) "I need a drink of water. The dental floss is too spicy." Uh oh.

We stock mint dental floss in our house. I try a quick fuzzy calculation: How much mint dental floss do you have to have in your mouth before it gets 'too spicy'? I remember little details: my dentist appointment the other day, the container of dental floss lying on the counter. Patrick finds my big water bottle and takes a long drink, then scampers off. Sam hears Patrick and I can see his head poke up above the crib rail like a rabbit. "Dab dah? Bahb dahb da dah!" says Sam, babbling and grinning. I grin back. It's hard to be too cranky when Sam wakes up bobbing like that.

Downstairs I find Patrick with a string of dental floss. He's trying to hide it under the coffee table. I pull the string and follow it around the table around Isaac, around several cars, around the couch, all the way across the room. We find the empty container, talk about asking before playing with Mommy's things, and I deposit the yards of dental floss in a big spaghetti pile in the middle of the kitchen table.

I forget about the dental floss until I go up to get clothes for the boys. I come down and Isaac yells, "Mommy, we're stuck!" The dental floss is wrapped around all three of them, and Paddy's still trying to pull it through his teeth. "All the boys are stuck," Isaac states. This time I'm brighter and the floss goes right in the garbage. Maybe, I think to myself, it's time to start flossing their teeth. After I buy more floss of course.

Happy Halloween from two tigers and a monkey boy

Isaac grabbed me the other morning. "Look Mommy, a car dealership!" Now that's cool.

Yup. It's official. I'm a climber.

Guys and Dolls -- Guys and Cars

Some kids talk to their dolls. Patrick and Isaac have their very own babies, they picked them out themselves. We were in Target when I was pregnant with Sam and I wanted to buy them stuffed dogs. "Baby Baby!" they exclaimed. Indeed, the stuffed animals were across the aisle from the dolls. I tried to ask for their opinion on dogs, but they kept looking at the babies. "Baby! Baby!" So we went home with two dogs and two babies. They took care of the babies in the weeks ahead, putting them to bed and feeding them their little bottles. We talked about babies and what they did and the new baby coming soon. But the babies weren't carried around like the doggies and eventually the favorite part of the babies was throwing their hats.

These kids talk to their cars. We have cars. LOTS of cars. Hot Wheels and Matchbox and cereal box. And even though the twins don't play dolls, they do play cars. Their cars drive and crash, go too fast and too slow, get stuck in the muck and break. But they also eat and drink. They cry and get hurt, they get band-aids and go to the hospital. They get sick and don't feel good and barf repeatedly (complete with sound effects I could do without.) When we moved their cars spent a lot of time "finding our Minnesota house." Cars go on picnics and go to people's houses. The cars get sad every once in a while and want their 'car friends'. Of course they also go to the Target store, and the grocery store. They get lost and run into 'dead ends'. Every once in a while the cars 'try' unsuccessfully to find the train store. Sometimes, their cars hit each other and get in trouble, but they also say I'm sorry and give hugs.

I find I really love it. I get to give the cars kisses and hugs and car food (the only food the cars seem to get.) And I see them re-enact their joys and concerns and good times and bad times, hashing them out and generally having a lot of fun. Cars are cool.

Back to the Plains Part II: The Contract

With great summer weather upon us and virtually no showings on our house, we figured we were probably going to be in Colorado for the summer and we should enjoy it. So it came as a surprise when all of the sudden we got an offer on our house. The potential buyers...the same ones who tried to buy our house last fall and in the spring. At least we knew they were interested ;) It looked like they finally had a buyer all lined up for their house and this whole thing was going to work! We negotiated a price that week and signed an official contract agreeing to close on June 26th. Crazy. Today was June 5th- that meant closing was three weeks away. "Mike," I laughed, "Look at the calendar. Didn't we just bury that statue less than two weeks ago?" "Huh, you're right," he replied. Thanks, St. Joseph.

Put your New shoes on and suddenly everything's Right

Let's cut right to the chase: my kids made my feet big. People kept assuring me that my feet would magically shrink after a while. So, I waited. And waited. As a result, when Sam was 8 months old I had exactly two pairs of shoes that fit. So, I got really impatient and bought three new pairs in a week. Might not sound like a lot, but it was a new personal record. I put them on for the first time last week and came down the stairs. Paddy walked up to me and asked quite clearly, "Mommy, are those your new shoes?" "Yes," I replied, smiling. "They look nice!" said Paddy. My favorite compliment all month.

Baby Buffet: Under the Learning Tower

Sam finding some illicit food under the tower after the twins eat.

Back to the Plains Part I: St. Joseph is in the Yard

Well, I've put this off long enough. Maybe the journey here wore me out a little ;) But the time has come to let everyone know that yes, we made it to the plains. So here's our story!

. . .



It was on a warm Memorial Day weekend when Aunt Karen asked about the box on our table, "What's this?" "That," I replied, "is something I've been meaning to bury."

This was our second shot at trying to sell our house, the first being B.S. (before Sam). The practice of trying to "stage" our house with twin 2 year olds and me 8 months pregnant wasn't really working for us, so we decided to pull off the market until 'spring', which meant until we could deal with the whole mess again.

We had had one honest-to-goodness offer the first time around, but unfortunately the buyers had to sell their house first so it just didn't happen. The same buyers were back in the spring and actually approached us while we were off the market, but again they failed to sell their house.

So it was back to trying to keep the house "clean". Ha Ha Ha! And hope for the best. That's where St. Joseph comes in. Bury him in your yard, ask him to intercede for you, and voila! No more showings.

So Aunt Karen took the twins out to the front yard, dug a hole with the shovel, and dropped in St. Joseph. No, I'm not sure if he was upside down, facing the entry, etc. But I did say a quick prayer to myself when I found out what was going on. Might as well do this sincerely. Then, true to form, we went camping. And forgot all about such material things as houses and statues and 'for sale' signs.

Out in the Sun

Summer is in full swing here and I'm constantly applying sunscreen, "You need it so you don't get burnt," I tell them over and over again.

So this morning, we were eating peanut butter toast as a snack and I had given Isaac a couple of pieces made with *gasp* the crust. "Too hard!" He complained and refused to eat it. So, I had the great idea of microwaving his crust pieces slightly to soften them. However, as I only use one button on the microwave (just ask hubby) I cooked the toast a wee bit too long and it was hot as well as soft. Isaac declared it too hot to eat, but Patrick touched it first to check, "Finger burnt!" he called. I wasn't too worried as I knew it wasn't that hot. "Just wait until it cools off more," I replied. Patrick had a different idea, and held out his hand, "Sunscreen on it!"

Raising yuppie toddlers

I thought I was pretty down-to-earth. But often these little guys serve as a perfect, somewhat unnerving mirror to my own behavior. The other day Patrick was standing on the tower trying to reach something on the counter. He was jabbering about something but for the life of me I couldn't figure out what. So we played the game where I picked up everything on the counter one by one, "This?" I said, "This one?" Finally I had picked up all the two dozen or so items (yes, the counters were not that clean)...except for the cork from tonight's wine. I held it up. "Yes!" he exclaimed. Then I all of the sudden knew what he had been saying all along, "Mommy, smell cork!"

Toddler Hit-and-Run

A truck in the hand is worth two in the bush...

The other day I was at the park with a friend and her two-year-old son. The three two year-old boys were playing fairly nicely when her son decided he was done sharing. "Share one of your trucks with Isaac," my friend said. "No," he replied firmly. (Wow, don't they love that word when they finally learn to use it!) When my friend pressed the issue he ran away, and I looked up to see him 'hiding' in the middle of a large bush:



I burst out laughing. All the commotion must have made his two-year-old stubborness give out; he soon decided to come out of the bush and share again. ;)

Big-eyed Sam

Learning Colors

I was cutting up a red onion the other day and Patrick was 'helping'. "What it is, what it is?" asked Patrick. "A red onion," I replied. Patrick took another good look at it. "Purple onion," he stated. I couldn't disagree. When you're right, you're right.

A (small) Tale of Woe

Last week, I did the unthinkable. I dropped our digital camera. And it broke. I know, this kind of thing happens once in a while, but I feel we as a family have paid our due. In the last six years we've gone through five cameras. Five. Count them with me:

1. We left the first one on a hike (along with a pair of binoculars) in the Trinity Alps wilderness. Darn good pictures on it too...
   
2. Dragged off the table, down the stairs, and whapped against the basement door by Biscuit the Cat.
3. Dropped down two different mountainsides by hubby, this camera slowly died over several months.
   
4. Thrown from the top of the dining room table by a rambunctious twin.
   
5. Dropped (by me) for no apparent reason in the living room.
   

So I was ranting and raving at myself for being such a bungling fool when I knew I had just bought the last replacement camera last fall. I sat down and made a quite futile attempt to take it apart and 'fix' it. The twins came up to me and I explained that mommy had broken the camera and I was very sad about it. Patrick thought about this for a second, then came up to me and grabbed my knee. "Big Hug," he stated solemnly. Wow. Sometimes that does make it all better.

McMuffin!

...eating is so exiting when you're a toddler ;)

Uh oh.

We love pizza at our house, and since it's a fairly cheap meal I usually end up making homemade pizza about once a week. We also have the Learning Tower (which we absolutely love) and so the twins "help" with dinner more often than not. I usually start with the dough, and while that's rising we make pizza sauce. They love to pour ingredients in and taste each ingredient and are so excited by the prospect they will literally try anything: salt? "Tastes good!" flour? "Tastes good!" raw dough? "Tastes good!" I had just put the plain tomato paste in the bowl when baby Sam started to cry. Silly me...I told the kids, "Sure, you can go ahead and taste that," and then I went into the adjoining living room and sat down to feed a hungry baby. Folks, this was less than five minutes, really! Sam didn't want much and I was hearing way too much giggling coming from the other room. This is what I found:

"UH. OH." I said slowly, trying to process the scene. I couldn't believe the mess. It was packed into Isaac's ear. The back of Patrick's head. All over their sweaters. Eyebrows? Up both noses. Wow. I gotta get a picture. So while they were still shocked and knew they were in trouble, I snapped this. Priceless. Then I started laughing. :)

The two-year-old and the penny

During a recent camping trip to Canyonlands and Arches National Parks in Utah, we realized what made all those cool sandstone arches and sculpted canyons. Wind. Duh! But when the wind kicked up on our last day and we had to pack up the tents, the twins did not want to get out. "Too windy! too windy," they yelled every time we tried to plunk them out of the tent. So they got plunked in the Expedition's spacious front seats instead to cause trouble in there for a while.

I checked on them several times; each time as I opened the huge door they scrambled to NOT touch whatever it was they were touching, I verified the relative safety of the button/lever/object, and closed the door again. However, on one of my trips to the car I noticed Isaac's big eyes dropping those crocodile tears and thought I'd better investigate.

Opening the door I noticed Isaac looked like he was goobering. "What happened?!" I asked. "I eat penny," Isaac stated. Uh oh. This could be trouble. "Where is the penny?" I asked carefully, really hoping he wouldn't point to his tummy. "Mine barf penny! Right there!" Ah. Sure enough, right in the center cupholder, was a puddle of barf with a slimy penny in the middle. At least the car is a rental. As I cleaned the cupholder out, we talked about how we shouldn't eat pennies and how you need to ask mommy whenever you want to eat something new. "Why in the world did he eat a penny!?!" I complained. Aunt Karen, of course, provided the perfect answer, "He had a penny. And he's two."

Laundry the Montessori Way

If you're a parent, you've tuned them out. If not, you've at least seen it- parents have an uncanny ability to tune out their kid's incessant chatter, not because they don't care, but because they are always chatting about something. Toddlers in particular seem to repeat the same thing over and over and over until you acknowledge it, "Yes, there are people outside. I see the people. Are you watching the people?"

I had to put the washed clothes in the dryer and so I asked for help from the twins. I immediately received an answer from Patrick, "Help laundry! Help laundry! Help laundry!" So I opened the front-loading washer and dryer and told him to put all the wet clothes in the dryer. It looked like he was really getting into it so I simply let him go at it and wandered over to the computer. A while later I realized that Patrick had been yelling something at me for the last five minutes, "Pants too Big! Pants too Big! Pants too Big!" I came over and started laughing as Patrick was tugging futilely at one leg of Mike's pants, the other leg stuck deep in the washer...

Paddy was sitting on my lap this morning "helping" read the grocery ads. All of the sudden, "It is it! It is it! It is it!" (Paddy's version of 'that is'), "DOG poop!" Mmmm...tasty...

Minty Fresh!

I had stopped letting the twins play in the car as they kept getting into stuff, but on this morning I had just cleaned out the whole car so I gave the go-ahead to climb in and 'drive'. Meanwhile, I was running around the house frantically trying to get everything ready to 'go somewhere'. Bottle? Check. Sippy cups? Check. Mom's water bottle? Check. Snacks? Check. Sam? Hmmmm....maybe I should check on the twins...

Sliding doors were open, looks like they figured out how to work those buttons now. As usual, when I got close to the car they scrambled to distance themselves from whatever they were doing that was surely a big no-no. But there was something in their mouths. And on their faces. White tablets- everywhere. Pieces of tablets- everywhere. Luckily my nose told me exactly what they were furiously trying to eat...I smelled curiously stong mints. They obviously figured out how to open the glove box. I had them pick them up and put them back in the tin and removed it. As I was cleaning the floor of tiny goobered pieces I noticed something white wedged in a vent. Uh oh. The vents were chock full of Altoids! That ought to make it smell minty fresh in here...

The plumbers

Two little boys, just less than a year old. Learning to explore on their own, they teach each other as they find new things...

My husband peeks in from working to chat, "Did you decide to clean the drains today?" Hmmm...now that's a strange question. Me, I'm an organizer. I love to organize. To put away. To clean out and find a brand new storage solution. I don't like the 'boring' cleaning that never changes: mopping, laundry, dishes, vacuuming, *ughhh* deep cleaning. "Not me," I said, "I haven't scheduled drain cleaning yet." "Well, you'd better look in the shower then," he replied.

O.k., we'll look-see in the shower. Probably just some dirt, huh? I walked to our bathroom and found the shower door open, the small grate covering the drain off, and a nasty, black, gooey hair ball the size of a hamster next to the drain. Ewwww....

I watched this story unfold again the next day. Patrick and Isaac crawl to the bathroom. Patrick shows Isaac how to open the sliding glass doors. Isaac shows Patrick how to stick your really little fingers in the drain cover and pry it off. And Patrick shows Isaac how to reach in to your elbow and pull out all the goo and hair inside. Wow. Now you know why I brush the shower drain with a toothbrush once a week.

We should hire these guys out. Two short plumbers, bargain rates.

Goofybots, Stinkerdoodles, and me...

"Wow they really grow fast, don't they?" How many times have we heard that, said that, passed that on? Only because it's true. After thinking "Boy, I really should write that down" about a thousand times, I decided to make at least a temporary attempt at recording the cool stuff before it sifts from my brain and is replaced by yet another recipe. Here goes from a generally good-humored, stupidly optimistic, crazy, lazy mom who wants to "do it all" and, at the same time, sit under a tree and read a book while eating ice cream bon bons...