Date Night

Have you ever taken a 3 year old to any sort of Sesame Street/Disney/Ice Capades type event? I have. Just did it tonight, in fact. Tate and I had a night out at the social event of the...hour. It went surprisingly smoothly, for the most part...pretty much, kinda.

As soon as I sat down, I felt like we were living on borrowed time. You know, where you just kinda sit and watch the kid, observing the initial excitement starting to wane and boredom and tiredness slowly creep in. Now, we had front row seats (yeah, I got an in with Elmo. What can I say) so at least we were RIGHT THERE. The problem was, we were RIGHT THERE at the very far side of the stage, so for much of the performance we had a nice view of furry blue and red and yellow...asses.

The characters did come out on the floor quite a bit though, so Tate got a lot of high fives and hair ruffles. I got a lot of ginormous, rock-hard, freaking 500 lb Muppet feet kicking me in the instep and clomping on my toes. I usually managed to bite my tongue before letting a profanity slip out. No reason to be teaching random kidlets something new besides the alphabet that evening.

Basically, the evening could be broken down like so:

FIRST 20 MINUTES: Tate: "Ooooh! Elmo! Cookie Monster! Let's get up and dance and sing and wave and freak out with general unabashed three-year-old joyfulness!" Me: "Aww, it's so fun to watch Tate enjoy himself. Such a joyous experience for mother and son."

SECOND 20 MINUTES: Tate: "Mommy, that little boy has an Elmo toy. Can I get an Elmo toy? Where are the Elmo toys? I think I need to go potty. Ooh, Cookie Monster just gave me a high five! I love Grover! Where are the Elmo toys?" Me: "Let's wait til the break, honey. There is a break, right? Shouldn't there be a break right about now? How long can these furry beings sing about sharing and the ocean and imagining crap??"

BREAK: Tate: "ELLLMOOOOOOO TOY!!! PLEASEPLEASEPLEASE!! I HAVE TO GO POTTY AGAIN! CAN I HAVE SOME POPCORN? THAT KID HAS POPCORN!" Me: "Oh my God, where are the stupid Elmo toys? Here, lady, here's your $4000 dollars for a cheap piece of plastic with Elmo's face on it. Oh look, and there's a guy walking around with Elmo balloons throughout the audience, 2 inches away from each kid. Hey pal, where's your sign saying 'Parents, if you make me walk right by your kid without buying them a balloon, you're telling them that you don't love them' ?? Awesome. Let's buy a balloon."

THIRD 20 MINUTES: Tate, as he wonks himself absentmindedly in the head with the freaking Elmo toy: "Soooo...Mom. What are you doing? Should I brush my teeth when I get home? Where's my popcorn? I think I have to go potty again. POO. I have to go POO. Does Abby Cadabby go poo? She doesn't have a pee-pee." Me: "Why don't they sell wine at these things? How can they sing 30 songs about the letter K?" Tate again: "Where's my drink made out of red dye and sugar? YOU THREW IT AWAY??? I WANT MY RED DRINK! Watch as I shimmy out of my chair and flop around desperately on the floor trying to suck up any puddles of red!"

All in all, it was a success. I kept myself occupied by snickering each time one of the characters wiped out on stage, which happened surprisingly often. Or maybe not all that surprisingly. Those feet are freaking heavy. I know. I still can't feel my toe from when Cookie Monster flattened it with his colossal paw. Big blue bastard. I also kept busy dreaming up ways to silence the brat behind me wailing "BEEEEEEERRRRRRRRRRTTTTTTTT!!!! I ONLY WANT TO SEE BEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRRRRRRTTTTTTTT!! NO ERNIE! NO BIG BIRD!! SHUT UP, GRANDMA YOU'RE STUPID!!!" Yeah, that kid was really pleasing to be around.

Nora and I had a little time together this morning, as well. She and I went to my friend's house for a little knitting and chatting time. Let's just say I'm a hell of a lot better at chatting than knitting. I would get to a certain point and then completely lose all coordination, patience, and even a minuscule sense of something resembling skill. Pretty much, I suck. I got to the point where I just put the needles down and declared I was done. Funny thing was, nobody really argued with me at that point. I think I may be a knitting failure. Oh well. There are other things I'm good at. Shut up, I'm serious.

Sweet Cheez-its.

Tate's becoming a pro at this whole preschool thing. Every morning as we drive there, he exclaims "I'm SO excited, Mom!" and every afternoon as we drive home, he gives me a garbled rundown of all his activities that day. Usually it's how they learned about dinosaurs or apples or owls, but last week was something rather...unexpected. This was the scene in the car ride home:

Me: "So, what did you learn about today, Tate?"
Tate: "Cheez-its."
Me: "...Cheez-its?"
Tate: "Yep. Cheez-its."
Me: "You mean you had Cheez-its at snack time?"
Tate: "NO! WE TALKED ABOUT CHEEZ-ITS!!"

Now, at this point I'm wondering if the teacher just plain ran out ideas of what to talk about that day and conducted an impromptu lecture on the joys of unnaturally orange snack crackers. Perhaps she had had a ferocious craving for them for one reason or another. Maybe she just wanted to make sure all the little children were able to revel in the wonder of...Cheez-its. I don't know.

Me: "Well, uh, what did you learn about Cheez-its? Are they yummy?"
Tate: "Mom. NO. Don't be silly."
Me: "O...K..."
Tate: "Cheez-its is our friend. Cheezi-its lives up in the sky."
Me: "Tate. Do you maybe, by chance, mean JESUS?"
Tate: "YES. CHEEZ-ITS."

Therrrrre we go. Tate will now be saying his evening prayers to a gigantic box of cheese-flavored squares floating merrily in the sky, looking down on all the little children telling them to do unto others as they would do unto them.

And if anyone knows the patron saint of missing shoes and socks, hit me up with their digits or something. Because I have like no foot coverings of any sort for any person in my house at this point. Now, things are even more cluttered and disorganized around here than usual. Eric's working 14 hour days, 6 or 7 days a week so I'm pretty much Single Mommy these days. The kids aren't much for washing windows or scrubbing down baseboards, and also aren't really fans of letting me out of their sight for more than 3 minutes before pushing each other down the stairs or off the couch. Or out of the laundry hamper, toy shopping cart or clothes dryer. Therefore, I do not get much done. Well, really, anything done. It ain't pretty.

So today, I was in the usual chaos of trying to pin down both kidlets long enough to wrestle them into their clothes. I took a clean pair of matched socks off the kitchen table (yes, we have clean laundry on the kitchen table. It's usually only there for about 5 or 6 days. Then we'll have a different load of clean laundry on the kitchen table.) and put them on the couch. I left for 20 seconds, came back, and there was only one sock on the couch. The other sock apparently got so fed up with the disarray around here it staged a protest and stormed off. I made a quick check to ensure it wasn't stashed in Nora's cheek, and asked Tate if he took the sock.

Tate: "I'll help you look, Mommy. It's ok"
Me: "Gee, thanks. Why don't you tell me where you put it?"
Tate: "Um....your name is Nemo."
Me: "Awesome. That's the next place I was gonna look anyway."

I still haven't found it. I seriously think it made a desperate dash for freedom, to find a world where socks can run free without being stuffed into random cupboards or left in the car under one of the seats for years at a time or chewed on by little girls. A world where Tate's shoe doesn't end up in the clothes hamper, where mittens are no longer hidden inside the broom closet, where my hairbrush doesn't find itself buried under a foot of sand in the sandbox outside. It just unfolded itself, bid it's mate adieu and ran. Goodbye, sock. It's ok. There are days where it's simply easier to run to the store and buy new socks rather than wash and try to match up the ones you already have. There are always more socks out there.

But maybe it's just me and my stance on cleaning. Like the average person out there and I most likely have different views on what exactly "just do it" means in terms of cleaning. For most people, it might mean setting aside an entire day to to clean the hell out of your house: scraping old food off the oven, shoveling the dust out from behind the couches, sweeping out mummified carrots from behind the fridge. For me, "just do it" means finally bending down and picking up that piece of paper towel on the floor instead of just kicking it out of my way 100 times a day. Hey, every little bit helps.

Ok, for any of you who are A) not parents and therefore not used to dealing with this kind of stuff or B) extremely grossed out by gooey things, let's just save you major discomfort right now by saying this: SLIMY GREEN EYE BOOGERS. Oh, and EYELIDS CRUSTED TOGETHER WITH GOOPY, STRINGY, MUCOUS-Y EYE MATTER. And what the hell...DIARRHEA. Yep, you can leave now. I understand.



Yeah, the kids have pinkeye. I started to suspect something when Tate woke up this morning unable to open his right eye due to it being glued together with slimy yellowish glop. Oh, and when Nora's eyes both started looking kinda swollen and, uh...pink. Well, pink aside from the neon-green slime slithering out of the corners of her eyes and instantly hardening on her cheek, dying a quick and painful death. Pretty. Oh, yeah, and the diarrhea. That was fun too. Especially when it got embedded under my fingernails and splattered up onto my neck. I have to say though, you know you're a mom when you can strip your kid naked. scrub the poo off them and you, and wedge them between your knees and wrestle them back into clean clothes, all while keeping the phone firmly wedged against your ear, chattering a mile a minute with your friend, not missing a beat.



After taking both kids to the walk-in clinic where Tate managed to make the nurse almost fall off the stool when he snuck up behind her and lifted the little lever that makes the stool go "pphhhhffft" and drop like a rock, we headed to Target to get the prescriptions.


Holy Hell.


Normally I'm a fan of Target. However, I've realized that this is because I'm normally smart enough to not take both of my kids there at 5:15 pm. But since I needed to get eye drops I really had no choice. So we went. And waited for 45 minutes for eyedrops. Forty. Five. Minutes. I mean, really. Watching Tate hit Nora over the head with a plastic hanger gets old after like 8 minutes, people. So that left a whole 37 minutes to kill. And this is how I killed it.

"Tate, please stop doing that. Tate, I said stop. Seriously, STOP. Ok, really. Will you please stop. Just DON'T. OK??? WILL YOU NOT DO THAT?? COME BACK HERE. Look at me. I'm walking away. Really. No, Tate, I am. Walking. Away. Ok, this is supposed to make you FOLLOW ME. No, follow ME. Not the smelly 500 lb man with toilet paper hanging off his shoe. ME. Ok, where are you. Seriously not funny! WHAT CLOTHES RACK ARE YOU HIDING UNDER?? STOP PULLING ALL THE CARDS OFF THE SHELF. STOP LICKING THE DVD CASES. STOP OPENING THE HOME PREGNANCY TEST BOXES. STOP TRYING TO CRAWL INTO THE PHARMACY. SANTA WILL NOT BRING YOU ANY TOYS IF YOU KEEP SQUIRTING ME WITH KY JELLY"

Yeah. Just imagine 37 minutes of that. And 37 minutes of Tate going:

"No. No! NO! NONONONONONONONONO!!! I want to! I want Nora to cry! I HAVE TO! BYE BYE MOMMY!!! NO! NO! NO!NO!NO!NO! Are you very happy with me, Mommy?"

And Nora going:

"NUM NUM!! MAMAMAMA!!! NUM NUM!! MORE!!! MAMAMAMA! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!"

By the time we left the store I was down to saying three words. It's all my brain could process. "Don't. Stop. Go. Stop. Go. Don't." I do believe it was a glimpse into the 8th circle of hell. Just remember, kids, Mommy is always 2 seconds away from Crazy.

But we got home. I think I got the drops in Tate's eye. It's kind of hard to tell when they're thrashing around like a demented, possessed Jack Russell terrier on crack. I know I got them in Nora's because she just laid there and looked at me like "well, what the fresh hell is this, you crazy woman?" while I dripped them in there. Then she trotted away with her Dum-dum and proceeded to drop it in the dog's water bowl.

Yep, good day. I know experiences like these are a huge part of the job description of being a mommy, but sheesh. This job is so freaking hard, and I have a feeling my performance review is not going to set me up for a promotion. Although, really, what do you get promoted to from Mother? God?

Candy? What Candy?

I'm pretty convinced that toddler ears are tuned to a certain frequency that allows them to hear candy being opened from anywhere in the house. Seriously. I have the Halloween goods stashed away in a corner of the house we're rarely in to discourage the kids (and myself...who am I kidding) from going through it in a mad, sugar-crazed frenzy more than a couple times a day. I swear, whenever I notice the kids are upstairs without me and probably smearing Vaseline all over the dogs, rugs and toilet seats, and creep over to the stash of candy to snag something, it always ends the same way. I open the wrapper. I hear: Thump. Thump. Thumpthumpthudthudthudthud. Pitter patter pitter patter. Then I turn around and my two little angels will be standing before me, bent over with their hands on their knees, panting madly and gasping for breath as they hold a hand up in the air and force out "Ma..ma....candy?"

Every. Time.

But I figure, the more they eat, the less I do. And since my body apparently hates me and refuses to acknowledge that I've been hitting the gym almost EVERY FREAKING DAY, it's probably best I don't stuff my face with chocolate all that often. I swear these days it's like I can gain weight by osmosis. I have to sprint through the chip aisle in the grocery store for fear my fat cells will start expanding just from breathing too deeply near the Doritos. Seriously, it's like my metabolism is sitting in a corner rocking back and forth with it's hands over it's ears going "I can't heeeeeeear you! I don't belieeeeeeeve that you're on a treadmill!!! I've decided to totally screwwwwwwww you!!" And, on that note, why does 30 minutes on the treadmill feel like two and a half hours, while the two and a half hours that Tate's in preschool go by in a 30 minute blink? Just wondering.

Anyway. Back to the original subject. Halloween was pretty low-key this year. Eric worked, as he has like practically every single other day this year, so it was just me and the kidlets hitting the streets. How cute are they?

Uh...good evening folks. This is your Tater speaking.


Heeeere, kitty kitty.

And then there's me, the Friday before Halloween, doing shots at a party with Kate Gosselin and Jessica Simpson. I may have to go platinum blonde on a permanent basis. On account of my sassiness and all. And yes, we're doing Jell-O shots, simply because we are classy in that way.

It was good times...from what I remember, anyway.

Out of the Mouths of Babes

All of a sudden, Nora is really talking. A new word here, a new word there. "Please", "Cheese", "Okay" "Tate" and, uh..."Gracias." I don't know if she's decided to be half Spanish, or if Tate is sneakily teaching her a foreign language in one his late-night seminars on How to Drive Mom as Crazy as Possible in 100 Days or Less or Your Money Back. One of these days they're going to playing in the next room and I'll hear Tate say "Vamos a ir a tomar una botella de vodka del armario y de un paseo en coche." Nora will reply back with "Si, senor diablo!". And I'll sit there in blissful ignorance and all of a sudden wonder why I'm missing a bottle of vodka, the kids, and the car.



I don't know what Nora's trying to say when "gracias" comes out, since she throws it out there at pretty random times. I do know, however, she's trying to say "thank you" when in fact what actually comes out of her angelic little mouth is "fuck you!". Yeah, that's a fun one. If I'm in a punchy mood at the grocery store, I'll hand her a bag of rice or something to play with just so I can watch people's faces as she shouts out "FUCK YOU, MA!!!!" with nothin' but a smile on her face. I have a feeling I'm pretty much known as the Crazy Mother with Strange Children at Festival by this point. Which I'm fine with. It was a long time coming.



She's also still bidding people "Die!" as she leaves them, waving her little hand frantically. I particularly enjoy when I lay her down for her nap, and after she's given me a hug and a kiss she'll lift her head up and holler "DIE, MA!" and then flop back down, curl in a ball, and fall asleep. Gives me a warm fuzzy feeling all through naptime.



Tate's favorite phrase is (get ready to judge me) "Oh...for God's SAKE!". He says it 300 times an hour. We also get a lot of double takes and strange looks in public when he breaks that one out. And apparently it's a pretty universal phrase. Happy, sad, angry, hungry, bewildered...it all merits an "Oh...for God's SAKE!" Examples:



Me: "Tate, can you get your jacket on, please?"

Tate: "Oh, for God's SAKE, Mom!"

Me: "Ok, say goodbye to your teacher before we leave."

Tate: "Oh...for...God's...SAKE!!!"

Me: "Goodnight, Tate. I love you."

Tate: "OH! FOR! GOD'S! SAKE!"

And on and on. Sometimes it's mumbled, sometimes it's shouted, sometimes it comes out of nowhere while he's watching Sesame Street (apparently Grover is extremely annoying). And, yes, since everyone's thinking it anyway, he learned it from me. I know. The Mother of the Year award is on it's way.

It Was Epic

Epic, I tell you. Ep. Ic.

What was epic, you say? Why, I say, the tantrum that Tate threw at the YMCA yesterday, that's what! I have seen more than my fair share of Tate tantrums (Tatetrums?). I've got enough stored up to last me until I am 9802 years old. This one, though, was one to go in the history books. I should totally write a book about the history of tantrums, and how my dear son has committed his very being to the art of sharing tantrums with the world at every possible opportunity, in every possible place, in front of EVERY POSSIBLE PERSON IN THE WORLD. I would rock that.

Basically, I wanted him to put on his jacket before going out in 40 degree weather. He disagreed, somewhat strongly. I told him that we would not be budging from the spot we were standing in until he put on his jacket. He would budge, I would replace him in his original spot, he would wail and thrash and lunge for the handicap button to open the door (his form of crack), I would replace him, etc etc freaking etc for 30 minutes. I know I am prone to exaggeration every once in a great while, but it was literally a half hour. 1800 seconds of hollering, caterwauling, bellowing, trying to remove random parts from Mommy's body with his teeth, what have you. Nora would wander off for a bit, come wandering back, frantically sign "eat" for a few minutes, realize I was not about to magically produce a plate full of ravioli from under my clothing, and wander back off in search of people to beg food from, or tables to scour for crumbs under. She was a peanut on a mission.

Finally I got tired of watching people steadfastedly, pointedly ignore my psychotic toddler as he tried to hurl himself through the front doors of a public venue and decided to get the jacket on, get through the doors, and get home where I could start pouring wine down my throat because I was thisfreakingclosetolosingmysanity. So I did...somehow. I still don't know how I did it, since he seemed to think the jacket was the spawn of Satan, but I ended up with him tucked under one arm, Nora in the other, and wearily trudging out to my car wondering why I ever decided to open my uterus for business. Good times.

Then I took Nora to the grocery store and she dropped a full can of enchilada sauce on my foot. I'm convincing myself, perhaps futilely, that it was not intentional. If my 18-month-old starts trying to break my metatarsals on a regular basis now, I think it may be time to wave the white flag and just letting the kidlets start the dictatorship they seem so intent on cultivating. Hey, I tried. Not many 31-year-olds can say they got their ass kicked by a couple of kids who like to run around naked after bathtime and roll themselves up in curtains. That's something. It IS.

And Unto Tate, A Child Was Born

Tate and I had a fun conversation the other day. Sometimes I just gotta wonder what goes through that brain of his. The rundown:

Tate: Mommy, I have a baby in my tummy!
Me: Oh, really? How did it get there?
Tate: The spaceship flew it into there and then it had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Now it's living in my tummy. Remember when I did that? When I was in your tummy?
Me: Yes, I do remember that. Do you?
Tate: Yes. That was so fun. I'd run around and go "Wheeeee!"
Me: Well, sometimes it certainly felt like that. Do you remember doing your best to dislodge my rib with your heel? Cause that was really fun for me, too. What kind of baby do you have in your tummy?
Tate: A girl. Her name is Hammer.
Me: Always an option for the next kid. Not many little Hammers running around these days.

I tried to get him to continue the conversation but he got distracted by a patch of sunlight on the wall or something and wondered off. Later, when I tried to ask him about Baby Girl Hammer in his tummy, he looked at me like I had been sneaking hits from the bong when his back was turned. I guess it was a short pregnancy.

The four of us went to get our pictures taken this past week. I was not entirely optimistic, seeing as both kids were turning into snot fountains, Eric had worked all night the night before and not gone to bed yet, and I was annoyed at Eric for not being totally excited and exhilirated about getting his picture taken after being awake for like 18 hours. Small detail.

Anyway, things went surprisingly well. Tate had to be...himself, and did plenty of looking the complete opposite direction of the camera with his patented little smirk on his face while pretending he was deaf, but the creepy, ugly, freaky rubber chicken that the photographer waved in both kids' faces did a great job of coaxing a decent number of smiles out of them. I'm really happy with the ones we've seen so far. See? Look how cute we are.



And just for kicks, here are the little rapscallions at this time last year. Sniff. They look so little and innocent. Well, ok, only Nora looks innocent. Tate hasn't looked innocent since he came shooting out of the womb.

Take Me to Your Leader

I took Nora in for her 18 month check up yesterday. In the past 6 months, she's gained a grand total of 3, count 'em 3 lbs, bringing her up to a whopping 22 lbs even. Now, considering the fact that she shoves a total of 22 lbs of food in her mouth every 12 hours, this is somewhat impressive. I've come to the conclusion that she has either A) a hollow leg, B) a tapeworm, or C) some sort of alien DNA coursing through her veins. I have never known a human being to shove this sheer amount of food in their mouth on a 23 an hour a day basis and only gain like an ounce a month. She's from another planet. I gave birth to ET's sweet, plucky, teeny-tiny, second cousin or something.

Tate has learned the fine art of lying. We're extremely proud. I keep insisting that Eric take the credit passing down this laudable trait, but he seems to think it's something that can only be passed from a loving mother down to her mentally pliable, impressionable son. The other day Tate and I were coming in from the garage to the house. I had 4000 grocery bags in my arms and Nora hanging off my neck, writhing and squealing as she tried to separate my eyebrows from my forehead. This was our exchange:

Me: "Tate, can you please open the door for Mommy?"

Tate: "No. My hands are full."

Me: "Is it hard work, carrying all that air?? Open the door."

Tate: "I just CANNOT right now. My HANDS are FULL."

Me: "Oh, right. I failed to notice that gigantic speck of lint on your palm. I'm surprised you haven't been reduced to dragging your hand along behind you, grunting and groaning as you strain to take every step. Please, please let me put down my 600 pounds of groceries and stash Nora down my shirt or something so you don't pull a muscle by trying to balance a piece of fuzz in one hand while wrenching open the door with the other."

Tate: "Ok, Mommy."

Then we have the typical situation where he pushes Nora down while standing 3 feet in front of me, then quickly saying "I didn't do anything!" Right. I may be a little slow on the uptake sometimes but I'm pretty sure he's not able to inadvertently knock people over with an innocent flick of his eyeballs.

I took the kids on a hayride this morning. Nora, as usual, was so thrilled she simply lost all expression in her face. It takes a lot to impress this kid.

What the hell, Ma.

Tate and good ol' One Eye.

I may be a liar, but I'm stinkin' cute, too.

It was a really good time, but the whole getting-in-and-out-of-the-car process made me really, really not excited for winter. It takes 45 minutes to get everyone's crap into the car, and then you get where you're going and take another 3 hours to get both kids crammed into their hats and mittens and jackets and boots and other stuff they insist on wearing because they want to be warm or something. After I'm done getting them ready in their 40 layers of clothes, I'm about to strip all mine off because I'm panting and sweating and about to fall over from fatigue. Then Nora poops in her diaper and Tate starts screaming because he doesn't like the way his zipper smells and I start mumbling that this taking the kids out stuff is for the birds and next time we're just staying home and wearing the same clothes for 2 weeks at a time because even though I remember all the kids' clothes I inevitably forget something of mine, like, oh, my shoes. It's good times.

Can't wait for winter. Can. Not. Wait.

I Got You, Babe

I know. Yes, I know. Really. You all have been tormented and left feeling strangely alone and unfulfilled by the lack of blogging. Well, too bad. I was in a really bad mood for about a month and any nugget of humor in my life was hiding deep under all the clutter in my family room. So I didn't have any desire to put my bitchy moanings and rantings down for all the world to see.

But I'm back now. Clap, clap.


To jump right in, let's start with the recent makeover we had. This is what my dear little Nora had been looking like:
Lovely, isn't she? Just pure sweetness and delicacy. What a little flower, all abloom with dainty and cute. Actually, to get the real picture, you'd have to imagine this 'do with food and lint and, I don't know, baby raccoons hanging off of it. She was like Little Miss Dustmop Head. Plus there was the whole issue of her not being able to, you know, SEE. We got tired of hearing the thumps as she careened into walls and took headers down the stairs. Kidding.

So I took her in for a little snip snip and here she is now:

Or maybe this is her. They've pretty much got identical hairstyles. She's still working on the moustache, though. I'm trying to get her to start answering to "Sonny" and teaching her to sing "I got flowers, in the spring....I got you, to wear my RIIIIING". It's slow going.

She's learning a lot of new words, although her favorite is still "BladabladaBLAHBLAHBLAH". So far that's seemed to have meant "cup", "sponge" "blackened banana peel" and "Mommy's arm fat". But she's also got "Doggie" "Airplane" "Thank you" (which comes out sounding like "Dankmnn"), and still, of course "BOB!!!!!! STOP!!!". She also likes to bid people adieu by saying "bye", although when she says it, it comes out as "Die". So I often hear her sweet little voice warbling "Die, Ma! DIE DIE, MA!" It's a little disconcerting. I keep expecting to turn around and see her coming at me with a stick in her hand or something.

And let's not forget about this little tornado:

I'm sure you'll be shocked to hear he's still the same bounce-off-the-walls, yell-at-the-top-of-his-lungs, make-Mommy-drink-straight-out-of-the-winebox little dude he always was. He's in preschool now and adores it. I've also got him in swimming and gymnastics in vain attempts to burn off some of the energy he has stored. He enjoys those classes too, but refuses to let them tire him out in any way, shape or form. Truly, how daft and moronic of me to hold out any pathetic little morsel of hope. I chalk it up to sleep deprivation and just pure desperation. Can I get an hour of downtime in the afternoon, people? No? How about 20 minutes? 10? Periodic escapes to the bathroom where I feign gastrointestinal troubles? Nope. These children follow me everywhere.

And now, my brief reintroduction back into the world of blogging must end for today. Nora is chucking cut up fruit at the dogs and Tate is trying to crawl into the dishwasher and shut the door. Better I don't do too much all at once anyway. I don't want to pull a muscle.

Show Me Your Booty

We've been busy lately, as evidenced by the fact I have not bothered to blog in like two and a half weeks. I've just heard once or twice that things like fresh air and exercise are supposed to be good for kids or something, so we've been outside a lot. Then we come inside and I herd the kids to bed and all I want to do is sit on the couch and not use any part of my brain. This is why I watch "Dating in the Dark". No brainpower required.

We did, however, make a trek to Minneapolis for my cousin's wedding and then on to Nantucket with the whole fam. It was a nice time. Some things I did not do while there:

1) Meet "the man from Nantucket". I did, however, buy a t-shirt proclaiming that I am the man from Nantucket. I live for irony.

2) Get in any major fights with a family member. This is a big one.

3) Refrain from jumping in the pool with my clothes on. The fact that Tate tipped over in his inner tube and got stuck upside down underwater with his feet flailing madly above the surface may have had something to do with this.

4) Refrain from jumping in the pool with my clothes on again. Tate apparently had a vendetta against the pool after it kicked his ass the first time, so he marched right on back in, only this time he had no inner tube. All that chlorine snorted up his nose must have short wired something in his brain.

5) Manage not to make a fool out of myself on the flight down. I'm what some would call a nervous flier. At this point, my family would call it a screaming, bucking, hyperventilating, looking-like-someone-who-just-got-electrocuted flier. It's not pretty. I thought ahead on the flight home though, and started drinking pretty much immediately. The fact that it was only 11 am played no part in my reasoning.

All in all, a successful trip. My mom, sister and I went on a house tour where we got to mingle with a bunch of snooty women who all got some magic, East Coast memo to wear white capri pants, pastel shirts, sweaters with ropes and gold chain things printed on them slung jauntily over their shoulders, and big straw hats. We did not wear any of these things because we're just lowly Midwesterners. I don;t think I impressed any of them when I yelled "Hey, Joanna, look at me!" and opened my mouth to show off my partly masticated brownie. While at the tour, we also experienced what we dubbed "Booty Gate". All the houses made you put on these shoe-condom thingies so we wouldn't track in our mud and germs all over their house. Imagine the uproar when one of the houses ran out of booties. Not a booty to be found. Then the people in charge started trying to get women to give up their booties as they left the house so some of the sad, pathetic little booty-less people could have some.

No one would give up their booties. It was booty madness. Some of these women were about to start throwing chairs or Louis Vuitton purses or their kicky little wedge heels at people in order to get booties. It was pretty much impossible for my sister and I to not start snickering "Give up the booty! Give me booty or give me death! I'll kick your ass for some booty!!" When we finally procured booties for ourselves, we decided that it was everyone for themselves, bitches. Therefore, as we walked out of each houses, we hid the booties under our shirts and steadfastly avoided looking at any of the booty-less masses as we passed. Hey, I don't give up booty to just anyone. I was afraid at any moment I'd turn around and see some Botox-ed, collagened, Lilly Pulitzer-wearing grandma come sprinting towards me intent on getting my booty.

We also went to the beach, swam in the pool, strolled around the town, chased Tate out of the street a million times because it was made of rock and looked just like the sidewalk, and frolicked on a centuries-old Quaker cemetery across the street. We figured the Quakers were a pretty chill group so they would be ok with it.

I would post pictures of the adventures, but something is screwy and the powers that be that live in my computer are not letting me. Bastards. They're all on my Facebook page anyway. And now, since it's been so long since I've blogged, I must stop, for I am spent. I should have stretched first. Hopefully I'm not sore tomorrow.

Ha HA!

Since his surgery a couple weeks ago (no fevers yet...yay!), Tate seems to have a new outlook on life. Mainly, everything is incredibly freaking funny. He wanders around the house all day going "Ha HA!". He sees something humorous on TV? "Ha HA!" Mom drops something on her foot and hops around cursing madly? "Ha HA!" Nora uses her peanut butter and jelly sandwich as hair mousse? "Ha HA!" He puts his underwear on his own head and runs around like a lunatic? "Ha HA! Ha HA!" At least he finds humor in the mundane. Because at this point, underwear-on-head-running-around is a pretty stock activity around here. It's a strange day when that doesn't happen.

He's changing so much lately. All of a sudden he just seems smarter and calmer and...less toddler-ish. I sit back and watch with an odd mixture of pride and mourning. Everyday he surprises me with something new that he knows and everyday I seem to need to fight back tears as I remember the little baby that he was, and is getting farther and farther away from. He likes to play outside by himself now. I watch him as he plays pretend and as he picks up his toys and dresses himself and writes shaky "T"s on his aqua-doodle, and I'm so proud at what he can do, and wonder what new thing he'll be doing tomorrow. I listen to him exclaim "Oh, my GOODNESS!" as he runs away from me and the face of Elmo imprinted on his big-boy undies peeks at me over the back waistband of his shorts. Soon he'll be in preschool, and then I'll turn around and he'll be in grade school and then all of a sudden he'll be graduating high school. Then he'll get married and have kids of his own and I'll be all old and wrinkly and wondering what the hell happened to my bladder control and when I started needing to wear Depends and to take my teeth out at night and put them in a glass by my bed and then I'll be DEAD.

Ah, good times.

Nora, on the other hand, is still my baby. And really lookin' fine these days. This is what happens when she spills something on her dress and it's late enough in the day that there's really no point in putting a clean one on her and neither of us can really be bothered to give a crap about what she looks like.

Now, that's a special looking kid.

And I'm thinking I may have to do something about her hair. Everytime I put pigtails or braids in her hair these days, they last approximately 2.4 seconds before getting savagely, forcibly undone. Then she ends up looking like this for the rest of the day. Imagine a few chunks of slimy crackers and ravioli hanging off the ends and you've got the perfect image of how great she's looking by about 5pm each day.

Nora, aka the reincarnation of John Denver

You're fired.

I long for the days of pigtails. Ah, pigtails. I shall never forget you. Perhaps we'll meet again someday.

RIP Pigtails. 2008-2009.

Prepare for Battle

Ever feel like life is just a series of battles? Battle here, battle there, battle battle everywhere. I battle with my daughter to take a nap without getting a bottle first, I battle with my house to stop barfing up clutter everywhere when my back is turned, and I engage in a battle of wills with my son just about every hour.

We went to a park today and of course Tate very quickly started making me want to pull my hair our. Par for the course. I just wonder what goes on in his little head sometimes, why he gets so frustrated and impatient that he can only express it by hitting or pinching. We try to tell him that it hurts, it's not nice, he'll get a time-out, someone will belt him back harder and we really won't be bothered to care all that much, blah blah BLAH. It doesn't sink in, he hits again, and we leave. It's a finely choreographed routine at this point. Apparently our family isn't much for spontaneity.

Then of course I notice the looks from other people, towards both me and Tate, and I let it affect me more than I should, because really, you think I'd be immune to it at this point. But he's still my son, stinker that he is, and when I can tell that people are disgusted or annoyed by him, it rankles me. I'm his mommy, and even though he drives me to bury my head under a pillow and scream obscenities that would make George Carlin blush, I grew the kid. He's still my baby.

Yes, he hits and yells and makes me wonder sometimes if his head is about to start spinning, but he also kisses his sister's boo-boos and strokes her on the head as she cries. He picks out the best french fry on his plate and gives it to me to eat. He buries his head in my lap and peeks up at me through his lashes, dimples flashing, as he asks "Are you just so proud of me, Mommy? Did I make you happy?" He gets out of bed sometimes at night when he hears me go into my room and asks if he can tuck me in. He's a series of ebbs and flows, rises and falls, smiles and tears, songs and screams. He's not easy, but he's never boring.

And honestly, I like that he's got such strong opinions. I like that he's stubborn and already knows how to stand his ground. He's tough, which often transitions into being naughty, which I'm not so crazy about, but at least he's not going to crumple into a heap and start wailing everytime someone looks at him the wrong way. He's smart. Quick. You really can't hope for more than that. Although there are days where I look at him and wonder if having a nice, dopey kid would be ALL that bad. Just kinda...bumbling along, singing "doo doo doo", getting entranced by a leaf or a rock...I wonder what that would be like, having a kid like that.

But he's not, so we will continue the battle. Someone's gotta back down eventually, right? Now if I could just get my house to stop refusing to stay clean. This battle's gonna be a bitch. Who am I kidding. I've already lost.