Rolling with the Punches vs. Panic

About a month ago three of my BFFs flew in from across the country and Canada to spend the weekend, play with the babies and get in some much needed "girl time." They had coordinated their flights to land within a half-hour of each other which made picking them up at the airport insanely easy.

We left the airport and headed to out for Sushi.

I haven't had Sushi since the weekend we closed on this house two years ago November. When I was pregnant nothing looked appetizing except turkey subs and Sushi was an especially nauseating thought never mind the fact that I was not allowed to have it. I have been craving Sushi for months now, so I made sure that everyone was on board with it and found a highly recommended place in Baltimore.

It did not disappoint.

Two of us LOVE Sushi, one likes it and the other, at the end of the meal, declared it good...except for the fish. Ha! It's a good thing that I wasn't drinking anything when that line was uttered or I would have had iced tea shoot out my nose!

Some of the pieces were extremely large. I don't cut my sushi I just dive in and stuff the roll into my mouth. One of the girls figured out how to pull the seaweed apart so that she could divide it in half. One of them tried to copy that technique and used her chopsticks...like a knife and fork...as if she were cutting filet mignon. I tried to not make fun of her but after watching her do this, seemingly endlessly with no visible result, I and the other two girls just burst out laughing. She might as well have been trying to cut down a tree with a herring. (note the Monty Python and the Holy Grail reference).

We laughed hysterically, jumped from topic to topic and left with our bellies full but our wallets not ridiculously light. I even ordered some sushi rolls to take home to hubby who was being daddy extraordinaire with the boys for the afternoon and evening.

The next day hit the Amish Market and got pretzel wrap sandwiches which are AMAZING and just for good measure picked up some pretzel wrapped cheddar wurst and some pretzel cinnamon sticks. As if that wasn't enough we cleaned out the day old table at the bakery and grabbed some pumpkin bars just in case anyone got hungry!

On the way back from the market we went around two cars that were stopped on a back road and three young ladies standing on the side of the road looking beyond confused. As I backed up to their cars to check on them I noticed that one of their cars had a flat tire.

I know my way around a car pretty well so we parked our car and gave the girls a hand. None of them had any idea how to change and flat and the car with the flat didn't even have a jack in it! The rim with the flat tire on it only had three lug nuts holding the wheel in place. There are supposed to be four. She said her mechanic said she didn't need the fourth. Um...yeah...I'm pretty sure the fourth one isn't just there for looks.

I hate mechanics like that.

How would he feel if someone told his daughter some crap like that. She was driving up and down the turnpike on that thing!

While removing the lug nuts, one of them broke in half. Apparently, the know-it-all mechanic put them on too tight and in the process of trying to loosen it, it just snapped off.

And then there were two.

She asked if I thought she could make the 50+ mile trip to Baltimore for the weekend. I'm not 100% sure but I think we all shouted, "NO!"

While all of this was going on my twins were just hanging out in their infant seats on the embankment. They love to be outside and watching all the action was plenty to keep them entertained.

The girls that we helped were really excited to have learned how to change a flat tire and I explained that as single girls traveling alone there are certain things that they should know...that is one of them.

I love these weekends with the girls. We stay up entirely too late, eat horrible foods and laugh...a lot!

The weekend was a weird comedy of errors that had us running in odd directions dealing with things that most people never have to deal with much less all in one weekend. But, it's par for the course when we get together and we always weather whatever comes.

Most of my friends, if not all, can pretty much roll with the punches. We seem to be able to adjust to whatever comes without much fanfare. I can't say as much for my hubby.

My hubby is a wonderful, loving, patient, kind, understanding, good hearted, fun loving guy...until the babies are crying or he is behind the wheel of a car. Those are truly his major weaknesses. Well, that and he is a horrible multi-tasker. Give him a task and he will knock it out of the park. Try to have a conversation with him while he is doing it and he will completely stress out. Throw a crying baby into the mix and...well...all bets are off!

When the girls were planning their trip they not only coordinated their arrivals but they coordinated their departures too. This made pick up and drop off very easy! The one difference was that one of the girls has a friend who lives in Virginia and she had made arrangements to have that friend pick her up at the airport at the same time I was dropping everyone off.

Great idea until the friend was almost an hour late!

I was not really concerned because this gave me some really good one-on-one time with her that I would not have had otherwise.

Hubby was home with the kids who were evidently fussy and my cell phone started blowing up! So much for “quality time” with a friend that I get to see once a year!

Rather than being able to enjoy our extra time together, I was peppered with phone calls from a stressed out hubby who had evidently lost the ability to think on his own and despite my telling him otherwise, and our repeated conversations about the drop off schedule, thought I was going to drop them at the curb and head right back home. 

I sent text messages to both of my mother’s helpers begging assistance and discovered that neither was home and therefore unavailable!

I contacted a friend and told her what was going on and she said she’d go right over. Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU!

For the most part the kids are pretty easy. Their fussiness is usually short-lived and they giggle at the drop of a hat. Unfortunately, my hubby is not all that easy to distract and once the kids start crying his ability to think goes out the window.

I understand that crying or fussy babies can get on your nerves; they get on mine too. What I don’t understand is the panicked response to it.

My mother assures me that this is just a normal male reaction to crying babies.

Unfortunately, I don't think this is a stage that my hubby is going to grow out of!

The Climb to the Top

As I have mentioned in previous posts, we have a fireplace with a raised hearth. Many people, mostly well meaning family members, have questioned our decision to not put padding around the edge of the hearth. We refuse the bubble wrap the house! They all fear that the boys will crash into it and hurt themselves. This may in fact be a concern but it's hasn't been...yet.

For weeks now, we have been keeping the boys from climbing up onto the hearth for fear that they will fall off it. We have hardwood floors, installed by yours truly and the hubby, and the fall is a solid 9.5". (Yes, as a matter of fact, I did measure it.)

The battle to keep them off the hearth was unending. They were bound and determined to climb up on the damn thing. When they weren't trying to climb up they were pulling on the screen and the fireplace tools. The screen is not really a big deal because it is very light and there are not really any sharp edges. The tools are another story completely. Not only are they heavy but this is a wood-burning fireplace and we use the tools...they are dirty!

In an effort to win at least one battle, hubby put the tools behind the screen inside the fireplace.

Nice idea but it missed the mark.

Now the kids saw the screen as a challenge. Every-freakin'-day was a constant battle to keep them from trying to pull the screen down to get to the tools. It was a nightmare.

As their crawling improved, so did their strength.

Not only could they stand at the hearth and hit the screen, they could climb onto the hearth and pull on it. Of course the inevitable happened. One twin pulled and the screen came down on top of the other.

Oh joy!

The one that managed to pull down the screen was very excited that his access was no longer blocked and he was not at all deterred by the fact that his brother was crying. I now had one twin on the hearth happily enjoying unencumbered access to filthy fireplace tools and another on the floor screaming! He was not hurt but it scared the crap out of him.

I moved them off and away from the hearth and put the screen back but I knew that this was not over.

A couple of days later while talking to my hubby I had to pull the kids off the hearth about 10 times in as many minutes and we decided that it was time to teach them how to safely get down off the hearth. We practiced the "feet first dismount" a couple of times and the first time we let them crawl up there without resistance from us David let out a triumphant growl while clenching his fists and wiggling his feet. We laughed.

Battle lost.

The next day David once again, won the battle of the kitchen island shelf. This one is 13" off the floor ( yes I got the ruler out again) and a much tougher climb. Up he went and again I got the growl.

Another battle lost.

I keep a pile of spare baby blankets on the love seat in the playroom. It's convenient and I don't really have anywhere else to store them. Anyway...last weekend the kids were in the playroom while I was getting breakfast ready when I heard my hubby shout, "Oh my God!" I looked up and there was David ON the love seat...growling!

The dynamic duo had figured out that if they pulled the blankets off the sofa and climbed up onto the pile they could get up on the cushions.

Oh goodie!

So exciting because I certainly didn't have much to worry about before.

I am not delusional; I never actually expected to win any of these battles but I didn't expect to lose them so soon.

Collision in the Dark

One thing that my hubby does on a regular basis is to trip over things. He's gotten better lately. He actually went two weeks without a seriously calamitous collision with an obstacle on the floor.

Unfortunately, when he did collide with something it was immovable and he re-injured the toe he broke when tripping another time.

Each time he does this the thud is followed by a loud "OOMPH!" and sometimes a swear or two. Which is usually answered with me laughing.

I don't know what it is wrong with me but the sound of him tripping or colliding with something, especially in the dark can throw me into a fit of giggles that leaves me gasping for air and groping for my inhaler!

In his defense, there are a great number of obstacles that now exist in the house that never used to be there before. However, he is not Helen Keller...he can see where he is going. He just doesn't look down when he is moving through a room. This may be good social etiquette but is dangerous in a house with ankle biters.

This is not a condition that started with the arrival of the boys either. This has been going on for quite some time. The most memorable of all events was when I was about 5 or 6 months pregnant. We had brushed our teeth, taken our vitamins and headed to bed when I complained that I was hot.

Being the wonderful hubby that he is, he valiantly hopped out of bed and headed downstairs to the dining room where the thermostat is located adjust the AC.

We have a center-hall colonial style house with a foyer at the bottom of the stairs. To the left is the dining room. Between the foyer and the dining room is a small alcove. When I finished the vacuuming earlier that day,  instead of putting it away I tucked the vacuum in the alcove because I had more to do but was tired and needed to rest. I wasn't on full bed rest for my pregnancy but wasn't allowed to do much. Vacuuming was pushing it!

To get to the thermostat hubby was going to go from the bottom of the stairs, across the foyer and through the alcove.

It was nighttime, it was dark and we live alone. There was no one else in the house so rather than putting his sweats on and turning on a light, he just ran downstairs in the dark. Naked.

OMG THE VACUUM CLEANER! Before I could yell down to him I heard him make contact with the Dyson.

OOMPH!!! F*&@!!!

Fortunately, he did not hurt the Dyson.

Don't Put That in Your Mouth!

I have mentioned in previous posts that hubby and I have our usual chores around the house. I do the laundry and cleaning and he does the guy stuff like taking out the trash. One morning a few weeks ago, after harvesting the pumpkins and squash, before leaving for work, he decided to empty the diaper pail in the playroom.

To be honest, it was really stinky!

I love that he takes out the trash and does the "hubby jobs" around the house. I hate that he has this really annoying habit of forgetting to put a new bag in the can.  As was the case this particular morning.

I didn't notice this until I rushed one of my boys to the diaper changing table with a massive blowout in his footie pajamas.

Not good!

Hmmm...well, I thought, I'll just put the diaper at the end of the changing table and dispose of it when I was finished. In theory this should have worked out really well.

There was a fatal flaw in my thinking.

At 11 months he is pretty long and his feet come to the end of the diaper changing pad. I couldn't leave him on the table to go get a new bag, I couldn't set him on the floor covered in poop and couldn't put the diaper on the floor because my other son was now standing between my legs.

I removed said diaper and placed it at the foot of the changing pad, hoping for the best, and tackled things with the wipes. Lots and lots of wipes. I piled them up on the offending diaper and grabbed a new diaper to put on him.

That's when the trouble started.

The boys' desire to squirm or rollover is directly proportional to the amount of crap on their butts. The bigger the poop, the more they want to squirm.

When I prevented him from rolling over he got really mad and slammed his feet down...right into the poop filled diaper.

I screamed. Yeah really actually screamed. It sort of...splashed!

My scream startled him and he began to cry, then in a show of some sort of twin solidarity, the other one started to cry too.

Greaaaaat!

Not only do I have a colossal friggin mess but now I have two screaming children to deal with, one of whom was also naked and covered with poop!

When all was said and done, the baby had a new diaper, tears had been dried, the pad on the changing table had been changed and, most importantly, there was a new bag in the diaper pail. Of course I handled it like a pro but then again I am here alone, it's not like anyone else was going to do it. It's just another poopie experience to add to the list.

But...what I am proud of is the fact that I didn't call my hubby and rip him a new one. I didn't even send him an obnoxious text message. Mostly because one of the boys fell down again and needed his boo-boo kissed and by the time I finished dealing with that it was snack time. Ranting at him about something like a trash bag just seemed so menial at that point.

Falling down is the norm around here. They are constantly hitting their heads...usually on the floor. They have learned to avoid the coffee table and the bottom of the kitchen hutch but they trip...when crawling no less, and face-plant. Either or both have been known to have pretty good bruises on their foreheads at least once a week.

I've gotten used to the sounds of their playing...and falling. Depending on the sound of the thump, I've learned to respond appropriately. Sounds in general tell me what's going on but more importantly, the sound of silence is even more telling.

Last week, during our morning ritual, I was enjoying a cup of coffee in the rocker in the bedroom while the kids played in the hallway. They like to crawl around in the hallway, the bathroom,  their room and our closet.

It suddenly dawned on me that it was completely silent.

Not good!

I left my coffee and headed down the hall to find that one of the boys had unraveled most of a roll of toilet paper, which was now piled up in the middle of the floor, and the other was happily chewing away on a wad of it that was so big it would make a professional baseball player jealous.

About the time I walked into the bathroom the one that had been doing the unrolling, discovered this little handle thingy on the toilet tank.

Flush!!!

Unfortunately, he liked the sound. Fortunately, it takes about 35 seconds to refill the tank on the toilet. Which is approximately the amount of time necessary to gather up the toilet paper, remove the disgusting pulp from the one's mouth and move both boys out of the room and close the door.

The bathroom door is now closed all the time and, just in case one of us should happen to leave the door open, the toilet paper is now located on the edge of the sink.

I draw the line at removing the flush handle.

As I've mentioned, I like to start my day slowly with a cup of coffee and the boys like to play upstairs. We now keep all doors upstairs closed with the exception of the master bedroom and the master closet.

They love to play in the closet.

Chewing on shoelaces is a favorite pastime as is, evidently pulling dirty clothes out of the laundry basket that serves as our hamper.

This was discovered one morning as I sat happily rocking away, sipping my coffee and reading the news. I noticed that the boys were a little too quite. As I was getting up to head into the closet to see what they were doing, one of them came crawling out of the closet with a pair of my panties in his mouth like a lion dragging home a kill!

Eeeeeeeeeew!!!

Nobody saw it and if I didn't write about it, no one would even know...but I was mortified! They carry stuff in their mouths all the time...just not my underwear. I don't even think it would have been ok if he had had a clean pair in his mouth. Somethings you just don't put in your mouth...period!

This no doubt will not be the last time that I am completely grossed out by something that one of my boys' puts in his mouth. I am sure the words, "Don't put that in your mouth!" will be said at least a million times but hey, that battle's got to be better than dealing with a flailing, poop-covered baby...Right?!

Mornings, Midnights and Mayhem

I am not a morning person.

If I could sleep until 7:30 every morning I would be a happy girl. Most mornings however, at least one of my boys is awake at 6 am or 5:30, 5:00, 4:30, 7:00, 7:30...you get the point.

There doesn't seem to be any real consistent time that he sleeps until. And, before you go analyzing it, there isn't any particular reason either. This is the child that can go 5-6 hours on a 20 minute power nap. The fact that I ever even get to sleep until 6 is often a miracle.

My favorite mornings are the ones where both boys are awake and "talking" to each other across the room.

I love waking up to giggles.

I truly believe that there is no better way to wake up in the morning than to happy, giggling babies. This used to be the exception but lately it has been the rule. There is just no way to have a bad day when your kids wake you up like that.

I wish the nights were as wonderful. Unfortunately, one of my boys has been having night terrors.

Despite my repeated attempts to clarify the difference between nightmares and night terrors to my mother she insists that it has something to do with the way we play with the boys.

The boys love, love, LOVE to be tossed around. One of them in particular really gets a kick out of being swung by his ankles, upside down and dropped on his back onto the bed or sofa. He gets the biggest smile and laughs out loud.

Truly a LOL - not the I'm smiling to myself LOL that we associate with Facebook.

The higher the better. If we can toss him onto the bed and make him bounce he gets even happier.

He is our wild child.

The other one likes to bounce but prefers to be on the bed on his back and have one of us bounce the bed. He thinks it's hysterical. He is also the one that is capable of entertaining himself for long periods of time with no other human interaction. He will sit and turn pages of books as if he is reading or study a pair of plastic toy pliers like he is looking for a way to improve them. He will be the head of engineering.

The daredevil is happiest on a lap. He loves people and doesn't care who they are. He will go to anyone and be happy as a clam in their arms. He is very stubborn, throws temper tantrums when told "No", smiles at everyone in the stores and already likes to be the center of attention. He will be the head of marketing.

Night terrors, as you may know, have no similarity to nightmares other than sharing the word "night."  It is a sleep disruption, not related to dreaming. When we pass from one sleep stage to another it is usually a seamless transition that we don't notice because, well...we're asleep.

Kids with night terrors are disturbed by the transition.

You know when you're falling asleep and suddenly get the sensation that you're falling from a cliff? That's the same thing that happens to cause the night terror. They never wake up they just thrash and cry and sometimes scream. It can last anywhere from a couple of minutes to half and hour and there is really nothing anyone can do about it other than keep the child from hurting themselves when thrashing around.

In doing research I discovered that children don't often experience these until about 18 months. Mine are 11 months. We are ahead of the curve, so to speak.

Lucky us.

The good news is that he's been having these about an hour and a half after he's been asleep - and I am still awake. Dealing with an incoherent, unresponsive child is difficult enough. Doing so from a sound sleep is harder. I usually pick him up and sit in the rocker until he settles down and goes back to sleep. I wait a few extra minutes to make sure that he's really under and then put him back in his crib. Fortunately, once the episode is over he's usually down for the night.

If all goes well I wake to giggling.

We usually start the day upstairs in the master bedroom. I bunch up the comforter from our bed and have the boys lie down on it to have their morning bottles while I hang out in the rocking recliner sipping my coffee. The boys will play with each other for about 30-45 minutes while I read my email and then we venture downstairs for morning snack and more playtime.

Most days are pretty good. But... I'm sure you've heard of Controlled Chaos? Well, I live in Managed Mayhem.

They have learned to divide and conquer. If I catch them doing something that requires the word "no" and I have to head over to them they will crawl in opposite directions.

Smart little buggers!

I usually grab whoever is the closest and, if need be, put them in the playpen or at the very least, move them to the playroom. The head of engineering will usually busy himself with whatever I put in front of him. The head of marketing will decide that he needs a new plan and will head in another direction.

In addition to crawling the boys have begun to climb. I do know that there is little we can do to prevent this from happening. Oh sure, we've installed the baby gates at the top and bottom of the stairs. The basement door is now closed all of the time and we have locks on the cabinets with dangerous or breakable stuff in them.

However, my kitchen island is actually a commercial prep table with a shelf on the bottom of it that has been cleaned off of all baking items. Recently the boys have begun to climb on it. I use it as an easy place to store toys when I'm cleaning. Now, I am constantly trying to keep them from climbing on that shelf and the lower shelf of our end table.

We also have a stone fireplace and a rather large hearth.

The other day I was working at the kitchen table and looked up to find both boys on the hearth holding onto stone the fireplace as if they were about to begin a rock-climbing exercise.

A week ago, the boys were in the playroom which is located in the front of the house next to the stairs. They like to rattle the gate at the bottom of the stairs and I thought to myself that I hadn't heard the gate so I went to make sure that it was closed.

It wasn't.

I turned the corner and the head of marketing, who was 2/3 of the way up the stairs, turned and reached for me. He cartwheeled and as his feet came up over his head I caught his ankles. He was not injured and surprisingly I did not suffer a heart attack. I keep the gate closed almost all of the time now.

Between snacks, playtime, meals, naps, picking up toys and laundry my days fly by. Things I thought I would be able to finish in a day - take two, sometimes three, days to complete and of course I frequently forget what I was doing before I was interrupted by the heads of engineering and marketing to settle a dispute...or change a diaper.

The house frequently looks like FAO Schwartz puked in it. I pick up the toys two to three times a day. Not because I am some sort of anal-retentive neat freak but because I like to keep my ankles in whatever working order they have left.

We have the bottom shelf of the island in the kitchen, a cabinet in our entertainment center and the bottom shelf of the diaper changing table for toy storage. And if I am in a rush I just grab everything and toss it into the playpen. Thinking about this now, I'm surprised that I don't do that more often.

Some days I feel like all I do is follow the kids around the house saying, "No" or "Aah, aah, aah?" And, you know all those sayings that we swore we would never, ever say to our kids when we were younger? Yup, I'm there and they're only 11 months old.

I find myself actually saying things like, "Nobody wants to hear that noise, get your finger out of your brother's ear, and today was the first time I actually uttered the words: stop fighting."

I hate to admit it...But I sounded just like my mother.