The kids had a doctor appointment this morning. We seriously can’t stay away. I will say it again, but I am so thankful for our pediatric practice. Every single person there is amazing. We went to their smaller office today, and the double stroller barely fit in the elevator. It took some maneuvering, but we did it. The only reason I even brought the stroller was because we had a long walk through a busy parking lot, and I didn’t get to finish my morning coffee. When we got out of the elevator, there was a guy carrying one small girl stepping in. Taylor, thankfully, waited for the doors to close again before saying “Uh, why is that guy going in the elevator if he only has one kid and no stroller? Doesn’t he know the stairs are right there?” She was genuinely curious, but I’m still glad he didn’t hear her! Since the kids are so comfortable being at the doctors’ office, they just sat back and read some books. They are cute little patients.

Taylor is still obsessed with the idea of Todd and I “getting married.” She’s really excited about it, even though she knows we are already married. In the car today, she said “So Mom, when you and Daddy get married, then will there be another baby in your tummy? I really want another baby.” Thank goodness she isn’t in charge of those decisions! She also somehow knows about the Star Wars franchise and was excited to see Todd’s dvd. We’ve never talked about it in front of her, so I’m assuming some kids at school told her about it. She knew the full titles and everything! However, when I was dropping her off at school, she had a slip of the tongue and asked if we could have a movie night tonight and watch the “Starbucks” movie. That’s much more my speed!

Jackson helped meet the apparent quota I have for mention of boy parts in my blog. As I was changing his diaper before nap time, he told me “I no have no more penis. Bunny ate it up!” Oh dear. I laughed way too much at that one, and he fed off of my laughter and showed me how his stuffed bunny did it. Poor innocent bunny. Also, just in case anyone was wondering what one might find when entering my house, look no further. A toddler, sitting on the top of the toilet, eating a stick of cheese and holding a roll of toilet paper pretty much sums things up.

These kids are fresh.

Sometimes, I question my abilities as a parent, but then I speak to friends who assure me that their little ones are equally fresh down the street, or across the country and it makes me feel better.

At dinner last night, Taylor was digging into her chicken and rice with her fingers. I asked her to please use her utensils and her response was “Why, if this way is working just fine?” Fresh.

I’m trying to teach the kids body awareness and responsibility from an early age. They know the proper names for all of their body parts, which I think is super important. The boys are a bit too young to completely understand the entire concepts I’m trying to teach and enforce with Taylor, but Jacks proved he was listening. When I was changing his diaper this morning he shook his little chubby fingers at me and scolded me. He said “No, mama! You don’t touch. That’s my penis!” Fresh. Accurate, but fresh.

Joseph woke up screaming this morning and told me that his brother bit him. When I went in the room to check, I asked Jack if he did actually bite his brother. His response: “Ya! Like this.” He proceeded to show me how he bit him and then put himself in time out. Fresh.

The kids destroyed the playroom while I was getting dinner in the oven last night. I asked them to please clean up, and both boys said something in their native language, looked at me, said “Go away, mama!” and they closed the playroom door on me. As I was standing there staring at a closed door, I heard one of these knuckle heads yell “all clean” followed by lots of laughter. Fresh.

Now, I’m definitely not a pushover. They get time outs for hurting each other, they are forced to apologize and make up with each other, and they did end up cleaning the playroom, but the little things they say and do that are so fresh, get me every time.

Days like today, where they are hanging from the dishwasher, pouring milk on the floor just so they can lap it up like the dog does, hiding the clicker so Taylor can’t change the channel from the show they are watching, putting on a manhunt for Ranger’s penis, unplugging the DVD player because the movie they want isn’t playing, etc.; I remind myself how I have a lifetime of fresh ahead of me, and I embrace the crazy for the time being. I’d probably be bored if they were perfect angels.

I have Taylor to thank for my daily dose of cuteness and reminding me that she’s usually not too fresh. I showed her the spot where Todd proposed to me and this is how the conversation went:

M: This is where Daddy asked me to marry him. Isn’t that cool?

T: WHAT? You guys are getting married?! Who is going to take care of me and the boys then?!?

She was genuinely concerned and it was way too adorable.

Happy Earth Day! I meant to get this post out earlier, but my phone stopped working and I nearly lost thousands of pictures. Thankfully, I got it back up and running long enough to save everything to my external hard drive so I wouldn’t lose it! It was the kick in the butt I needed to save my pictures more frequently.

Taylor has been learning about the environment and ways we can help save the planet. We’ve discussed recycling, planting flowers, not littering, etc. to reinforce what she’s learning in class. When we were stopped at a red light on the way home from school the other day, she said: “You know mom. Your truck is really big and we could make the Earth better if we all walked places instead.” I was called out by a four year old!

Facebook’s “On This Day” feature reminded me of Earth Day last year. We celebrated by helping Taylor’s class plant flowers. It’s so funny to look back and see how small she was just a year ago. She is growing so quickly! This year, she HAD to have an outfit that looked like the Earth. I had purchased this one from a boutique site when it was on clearance. I’m still not sure how I feel about it, but she loves it. Todd thinks it looks like she’s wearing pajamas. T loves that it is perfect for “twirling” and is very excited, so that’s what matters. She also has an Earth Day hair clip!  I’m sure there are worse clothing choices for four year olds out there anyway. And like Diane once said to me, “That girl can make a brown paper bag look good.” Truth.

The “On This Day” feature also reminded me that we have lived in this house for exactly six years now! When Todd and I (and Ranger) moved in, we couldn’t believe how much space we had. The house seemed massive for the two of us and we joked that we’d gradually fill it up over the next few years. We were kind of ambitious I guess! Now that we have kids, I wish we had a bigger backyard, larger bedrooms, etc., but we love this house and our neighborhood so much. We seriously have the best neighbors ever and have amazing relationships with most of the people in our immediate area. Everyone looks out for everyone else and is so helpful. We have many impromptu play dates and dinners. It’s so wonderful knowing that our kids have so many friends their age to grow up with, and so nice to have adults that we love nearby! You can’t put a price on that.

Anyone who knows me knows that I don’t partake in the Star Wars franchise (or the Harry Potter franchise for that matter) at all. It’s just not my thing. Todd is into both, however, so being the awesome wife that I am, we rented “The Force Awakens” last weekend. He really enjoyed it! I couldn’t even pretend to follow along, so I read a book instead. Todd mentioned how much he loved the movie, so he’s now the proud owner of it, courtesy of my parents. They have shopping problems. My dad, specifically loves going to multiple stores every weekend and slowly perusing each and every aisle. (Hi Dad! You know I’m kidding.)

We had a pretty laid back weekend around here, which was a welcome change. We were sitting down and looking at the calendar, and Taylor has 7 birthday parties coming up! She won’t be able to make it to all of them, but the idea alone is daunting. If her social life is this busy at four, I don’t even want to think of the teenage years…times three. Joseph was not a good listener at dinner and practiced his aim with throwing food against the wall instead. He lost dessert privileges and got to watch his siblings eat delicious sugar cookies without him. He wasn’t happy, but he needed to learn. The kids went downstairs as we were cleaning up, and Todd walked in the family room to find that Joseph has used his Spider-Man climbing skills yet again, to get an entire economy size bag of animal crackers on his own. He had cheeks full and was eating as fast as he possibly could, knowing that he was going to get them taken away. This boy is fresh, but clever.

I wasn’t going to post anything tonight because it’s been one heck of a long day around here and the Rangers are playing, so here are just three quick things.

1. How cute do these fire fighter monkeys look in their pajamas?! They are way too big on the boys and fall off whenever they move (don’t worry, I used duck tape). They are only in size 24 month!

2. I snapped this picture during dinner tonight because Jackson clearly missed his mouth with both the salad and the baked chicken. I thought it was a funny picture, but the funny part actually came later. When I showed the boys the picture, both separate and alone, they both said it was Joseph. I told them repeatedly that it was in fact Jacks, but they both said “No! That’s Josie!” Silly twins…

3. We played some games with the kids tonight. There’s something magical about seeing a little girl and her Daddy spinning tops in the sunlight. The kids love when he’s home and not working late!

Also, later on when the boys were in bed, Todd, Taylor, and I played a game of Zingo. We are encouraging Taylor to read and spell out the words that go with the picture, and she always does a great job. One of the tiles that came up was a [baseball] bat. She looked at it and said “penis.” She wasn’t even joking! She just went off of what the picture looked like and not the letters. Todd and I tried to keep it together the best we could. I guess when you have two brothers, it’s inevitable. I can’t make this stuff up!

Today was another gorgeous day! I think it’s safe to say that the nice weather is finally here…to stay. Taylor had her first day of school today, after being off for spring break. She said she had fun with her friends, but she would rather stay home with Mommy next time. I’d love that too, my girl. When I asked her if they did anything fun at school today, she excitedly replied “Yeah, Mama! I found bird poop on the bench!” I’m really glad to know the tuition money we spend is being put to good use!

When we got home, we broke out the sandbox and toys and the kids played for a few hours, while Ranger and I “supervised” them. He’s the best helper.

I can’t wait until it’s a little bit warmer out so they can have hose baths after they are done playing. Bringing three sandy kids through the house and getting them into the bathtub is kind of like an Olympic sporting event. Then, the backwards motion of vacuuming their steps has to be done as well. They are only little once, and they enjoy being outside so much.

It’s so funny to me to watch my three kids interact with each other and play separate from each other, as well. Taylor and Jackson are mostly content to sit in the sandbox for hours on end building things and making “meals.” Joseph enjoys playing in the sand for all of five minutes before he has to leave to dig up some rocks, climb our hill, chase bees, or purposely throw balls into the neighbors’ yards. He’s going to be a blast this summer!

Since it is so beautiful out, all the neighbors have their windows open. The girl on the street behind us was practicing piano, and the sound of music filled our backyard. Taylor looked around and yelled “Hey! What’s all that noise? Knock it off, you piano player!” I guess she doesn’t appreciate Beethoven unless he’s in dog form. She proceeded to loudly out-sing the piano music with her own version of some made up song. I know she’s my kid, and I love her unconditionally, but the girl is tone deaf. One of our neighbors (a man named Jerry) stopped over to help me with something. She looked at him and said “Hi Jerry!” and then went back to playing. The next time he walked past, she said “Wait a second! If that’s Jerry, where’s Tom? He must be missing.” She might be cartoon obsessed with her Daddy. Tom & Jerry is one of their favorite things to watch together.

In between all of the playing, all three kids stopped to pick flowers for me. We have a bunch of weeds and wild flowers in our backyard, but they were the most treasured gift I could receive today. They handed them to me and said “Love mama, love!” I melt.

This was one of those perfect family weekends where there was nothing we had to do. Everyone was healthy and happy, and the weather was gorgeous! The kids did lots of coloring and practicing letter writing. Taylor came out of her room with her doodle board and it had “Mom” written on it. As we were discussing it, she said to me “Mom, now that I spelled this for you, I’m going to go work on the letter W. It’s like an M but is upside down. W is a very useful letter, you know.” It cracked me up. I’ve never even heard her use the word “useful” before!

Today, we spent a few hours at the Nature Center. My friend, Colleen, told me that twin baby goats were recently born, and we just had to go see them! They were as cute as expected, and as a bonus, one of the volunteers was there to help us pet one of babies. While we were there, a woman and I kept making eye contact with each other. I thought it was one of the NICU night nurses we had, but Todd said it wasn’t. As we got closer, I asked her if she was who I thought, and she said yes. She remembered us and was so excited to see the boys “grown up.” She gave them hugs and talked to us a few minutes while I literally cried in the middle of the goat farm. A mommy never forgets one of the women who took care of her babies. As I’ve said before, NICU was tough. The whole time period was nerve wracking, scary and unpredictable. Knowing that the most special women with the kindest hearts were taking care of our babies made it just a bit easier. I am so thankful that we ran into her today!

The kids had a wonderful time exploring, making animal sounds (at both people walking by and animals), and pausing for pictures. Taylor has caught on to the fact that I like capturing our memories, so she even said “Hey mom, how about a nice picture in front of this lovely tree?” My pleasure, my beautiful girl. We ended our trip with ice cream, which is always a fan favorite over here!

Last night, we had a “picnic dinner” (we ate in the family room instead of at the dinner table) so we could watch Game 2 of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. The Rangers won! Ranger even put on Taylor’s “summer hat” and got some chicken in celebration of his team. Taylor kept asking who was going to win the “Piston Cup” which was so cute to hear. For reference, that is the trophy cup in the movie “Cars.” It’s not exactly the same as the Stanley Cup, but when your adorable four year old says it, you go with it. The kids were taking forever to finish dinner since they were so excited and distracted. At one point, I said “I better see all that chicken off your plates in the next few minutes or nobody is getting dessert.” As if on cue, Joseph picked up handfuls of chicken and slyly places them on big sister’s plate. “All done, mama!” I was kind of proud of his evil ways and logical thinking!

 

If anyone was curious as to what a toddler looks like when you are scolding him, look no further. I told this guy not to bite his brother. I told him it hurt brother and was not nice, and these are the little looks I got in return. I’m sleeping with our bedroom door locked tonight. Yikes!

Jackson is usually really good at keeping his glasses on. He knows they help him see, and he generally enjoys wearing them. This morning, however, he was not having it. I took them out of the dresser drawer and handed them to him and he said “No. No glasses. All gone!” as he tucked them back in the drawer. I again took them out and put them on his head and while I was changing Joseph, Jacks actually put the glasses in his case and then in the drawer – an added layer of armor against Mommy finding them! I told him he needed to keep them on and that was that. We packed up and headed out to Costco and as I was unbuckling everyone in the Costco parking lot, I realized his glasses were gone. I asked him about their location and he said “I don’t know! Glasses are gone! Bye!” I found them in the way back of my truck, where I keep the stroller. The didn’t have lenses in them. Taylor and I searched the entire car until we found both lenses and he went shopping without glasses. He won this round, but I am not pleased. I don’t know why he’s extra fresh today.

We made it through our shopping trip, with lots of stares and comments, as per usual. I was pointing out fun things here and there, like the large water rafts that were hanging from the ceiling. Taylor said “Oh yeah! I see that mom! So does Joseph. Too bad Jackson can’t even see a thing because he broke his glasses!” She also had to explain to the man in the produce section that each of my children required their own bushel of bananas because they are monkeys and eat a lot. No argument from me. After spending an insane amount of money, to feed these monkeys, we went to leave. The guy who checked our receipt was very nice and made a nice “smiley face” on the back of our receipt for Taylor. As we were walking across the parking lot, Taylor was studying the face and looked up at me and said “Well, what was wrong with that guy? Was he grumpy or something because this smiley face is angry. He needs to try that again!” Thankfully we were out of earshot for that one. It’s a rare day when Joseph is my most “well behaved” child, but I’ll take it while it lasts.

Most people who know my kids know that they are not shy, at all. Today, Joseph proved this statement to be both true and false, all at the same time. We had a total of six kids playing outside, when Joseph went off to the side and was kind of hiding himself from the rest of us. Curious about what he was doing and why he was away from the other children, I went to look. He had taken his pants down and was pooping deep within the confines of a bush. He still had his diaper on, for whatever reason, but he just needed some privacy to do his business. He looked hilarious, squatting pants-less in a bush! Luckily, I always have my phone with me for a quick picture.

This afternoon as I was emptying the dishwasher, Taylor came to me with this odd shaped glass piece in her hand and said “Here mom. This was on the floor and I don’t know what it was.” Realizing that it was broken glass, I quickly went to look. A crystal candle holder had fallen off of the hutch we have in the dining room. I’m not sure if the boys were involved or not, so I can’t place the blame on them. I started to usher everyone downstairs so I could safely clean up without six little feet going in all directions on broken glass. I looked down at Taylor and realized that her poor little foot was already covered in blood. She had cut herself and didn’t even notice at first. I cleaned her up, applied a magical princess bandaid, and she headed downstairs with her brothers. The entire time she was saying “Ow! I broke this whole leg! How do I walk with a broken leg? Mom can someone carry me around since my foot broke?” A for effort, girl.

Taylor turned on the tv, and all was quiet as I cleaned up the glass upstairs. Great, right? Wrong. So wrong. I walked downstairs to silence from the kids, followed by the boys saying “Put back! Put back” as they heard my footfall on the stairs. The chaos should have been surprising, but since I know what my kids are capable of when left alone, I wasn’t too surprised. The boys had used a chair to reach the tissues. They took every single tissue out of the box and scattered them around the floor. This was like Christmas morning for Ranger, who thoroughly enjoys snacking on tissues. He prefers them dirty, but he settled for these clean tissues, just this once. The boys immediately started cleaning up the tissues, and it was then that I realized that they were wearing my brand new lipstick. Wonderful. Happy Thursday.

Generally, Taylor refers to Jackson and Joseph as “my boys” but she changes it up sometimes. She went through a phase where she called them her “minions” and another phase where she called them her “little chickies.” Each term she comes up with is a term of endearment. Lately, she’s been calling the boys her “little nuts.” The conversations and one-liners she says as a result have been too hilarious not to share. They are even better (read that with a hint of sarcasm) when she says these things in public. As if people didn’t stare at us too much already… This girl is full of funny and I actually dread the notion that she will grow up and not say these cute thing anymore. For now, I will cherish it, even if it involves her “little nuts.” Here are a few of her best lines:

• My nuts are dirty.
• My nuts are covered in chocolate.
• My nuts are hurting each other!
• One of my nuts smells bad.
• My nuts are stuck in the car seat.
• I love my little nuts.
• Can we let my nuts play outside?
• Can I have some cheese for my nuts?
• My nuts sure are growing! They are going to be so big some day!
• My nuts don’t have beautiful red hair like I have.
• My two crying nuts woke me up this morning!

Just for good meaure, here’s a picture of my pretty girl wearing lip gloss and ready for the Rangers’ first playoff game!

 

The boys have always been really close. They shared their first home, my uterus for over eight months, so naturally, they have always wanted to be close to each other for comfort, on the outside. When they were in NICU, we were told that Joseph was finally eating well and would be able to come home two days earlier than Jackson, who was having other complications. I swear he knew what the doctors were saying, because right after that, he started having horrible feedings and he could not go home until the feedings picked back up, consistently. They ended up leaving the NICU at the same time. From early on, when placed on blankets, play mats, etc., they would always grab each other’s hand or snuggle in as close as they could be to the other brother. It really was sweet. As they’ve gotten older, they learned to get what they wanted and be near to each other always. While they were in cribs, they would figure out how to scoot the cribs across the bedroom floor so they could reach each other. They started out by holding hands, or sleeping against the crib slats in the same way so they could still feel each other. This progressed to them climbing out of one crib and into the other. I think this was for brother comfort, but also them being fresh. The day we put them in toddler beds, they were the happiest boys ever. We would put them in separate beds for the night, and before we could even get the monitor on, they were snuggled up against each other, sharing one bed.

The have some sort of twintuition going on lately, which has been really fun to watch. Last week, the boys were at opposite sides of the house. Joseph closed his finger in the bedroom door. Without knowing Joseph was injured (he didn’t hear it or anything), Jackson came running down the hall with the same finger stretched out crying about his (nonexistent) boo boo. Did he feel his brother’s pain? Today, the boys were climbing on furniture and Joseph fell, resulting it a bit tongue, accompanied by lots of blood. As I was cleaning up Joseph’s mouth, I looked around to see what mischief Jacks was getting into. I found him sitting propped up against the sofa with his hand in his mouth. He was seemingly wiping something out of his mouth and saying “yuck” as he was doing it. As freaky as it sounds, I think he was feeling and tasting blood.

On Christmas morning (around 2am) two years back, Jackson woke up, stood up in his crib, and started screaming his version of his brother’s name, repeatedly. I immediately heard it and thought he was just being rude and trying to wake his brother up, across the room. We ended up going in there because he wouldn’t stop. We didn’t want the whole house to be awake! As soon as we walked in, we noticed that Joseph was having serious breathing trouble. Their little colds had turned to croup over night and poor Joseph just couldn’t breathe well. Thankfully, his twin knew what was happening and woke us up. We were able to get him to the ER in time and after some oxygen and medications, he was much better. It still gives me the shivers to think about what could have happened if Jack didn’t let us know.

Twins really are so fascinating, and each set is different. I have twin mom friends who told me that their twins didn’t even acknowledge each other for years. I am so lucky that my boys have had so much love for each other from day one. This is not to say that they don’t fight, because trust me, they do their fair share of that too. I’m so curious to see the little people they will grow into. I hope their bond is always so strong, and hope that they always look out for each other, and for their big sister.