Hopefully the Baby Didn't Notice

That Patric was as uncomfortable holding a such a small package, as I was once again taking a picture of him doing so.

We're still a little close to those days, and those utterly sleepless nights.

Saving for a goal

They picked the toy.

They plan to pool their money.

They are earning a small allowance.

They have a goal.

They are obsessed.

And then when they set the table without being asked, they said they required money.

I'm afraid my lecture on being a good citizen of this house, and how there are responsibilities and there are opportunities to go above and beyond sounded a bit like Charlie Brown's teacher.

We Will Laugh, Some Day

As I tried to figure out how to use our printer/scanner to sign and send a new house document last night, Benjamin stood close dismantling my every effort by pushing every button on the thing. Elaine was in her room crying crocodile tears, naked because she couldn't figure out how to put on the Tinker Bell dress. Downstairs, and thankfully mostly out of earshot, I heard the wails of Alida as she fought with Nicholas. They would have to wait.

I called Patric, cell phone in one hand, beating Ben back from the computer with the other. In the middle of my fussing, I noticed out the window that two police cars with lights were racing down our street. No. They were stopping in front of our house. I was relaying this all to Patric when I realized that they were very seriously assessing our yard. No. They were very seriously approaching our front door.

Bother.

I hung up and went downstairs. Nicholas beat me to the front door from out of nowhere, and I shoved him behind me to see one officer standing back and ready. Then this exchange.

"There was a 911 call from this house with screaming in the background."
Another officer made his presence known by coming out from behind a tree.
I looked down, "Nicho.."
Nicholas had already hid his face in my leg and started clinging.
"Please come in."
"Who's in the house, ma'am?"
"Me and four children." (What great grammar lady, way to impress them.)
Then two more officers appeared. I opened the door wide.
One disappeared to the back of the downstairs immediately. The most gigantic, seven-foot one stood and took up our entire living room.
It crossed my mind very briefly to ask if he was in the market to buy a house, and then another asked me who was upstairs.
"My girl and my boy."
Up he went.
Officer four went to the garage.
"Nicholas? Did you call 911?"
"Yes." Barely audible.
"I'm so sorry. They have been learning about 911 at school..."

And so that is how my non-actress Alida set to screaming at Nicholas for not letting her have the phone at just the moment that he hit send on his 9-1-1 call.

The Game

Wrestle while trying to kiss each other's hands.

The the girls laugh until they can hardly breath.

Eek out this phrase between gasps: "Are you hungry?"

Roll on the floor laughing.

Repeat.

Until you draw blood.

I failed to get a picture of Nicholas' scabbed nose.

The game: brawl.

Oh It Was Silly Alright

Bedtime.

Take away all the toys that are going to keep them awake and annoy me time.

Debate about whether the gifted Silly Bandz need to be banned time.

Too tired to fight it time.

And Nicholas, the boy who destroys all things, went to sleep with one of those yellow bandz wrapped around one of those green bandz.

Then the storm came through because it is still monsoon season apparently.

On came their lights because it is so much easier to watch a storm out the window with the lights on...

I talked to a friend on the phone; I took a bath; I was consumed with the book I'm reading; I was lining up things for the morning.

And around 9:45 I decided to put a stop to the party in the boys' room.

We re-tuck and good-night again while I showed an unusual amount of patience taking into account the shock I was in that the girls weren't running around screaming due to all of the thunder and lightening. And then I find out why they had the light on.

"Mommy." (as I click off the light) "I have something in my nose." (gigantic sneeze from Ben)

"Feel better? Good night boys."

"No, mommy! I have something in my nose!"

Click light back on. Inspect nose. Blood.

"What's in your nose?"

"Something."

Nose Inspection, nothing. "Okay, blow." (total disregard for what I'm about to discover.)

"No, Mom. It's a Silly Band," from Nicholas.

"What?"

"Yeah, mom. I put a Silly Band up my nose."

Argh.

Go get a flashlight. Can't figure out how to get the batteries in, fumble. Can't find the tweezers, dig. Drop the Kleenex on the floor; why am I so sore all the time?

Upstairs. In the boys room. Flashlight hanging from my mouth. Benjamin's head cranked back. I start inspecting. Nothing.

"Son. I don't see anything. Did you get it out?"

"No."

More cranking. More flashlight. And there it is--yellow Silly Band I can only see if I pull his nose open in a particular way and flash the light as deep as I can.

Tweezer time.

I maneuver the tweezers about a foot up the boy's nose and pull out a yellow Silly Band, broken, about three turns of the yellow one above.

Nicholas: "Mom! You look like a doctor."

Me: "Well I'm not, so let's not do this foolish stuff anymore so I don't have to pretend that I am."

"Okay mom."

Benjamin: "I'm just so sorry mom."

Yeah, I'll bet you are buddy.

Just What He Needed

In February I made sure to take pictures of all the kids with their dad, thinking it would be great to have one for each of them. Then I picked up some cheap frames. Then my project stalled.

I finally got around to getting them printed and framed last weekend.

And Benjamin has carried his around everywhere since. Yesterday, he took it in the car with him to daycare. I had to set it just so on the dashboard before we exited the car. And you better believe I made sure to have it set back just so when I went to pick them up.

Here he is feeding daddy some soup.
And lest I run off and call the mental health experts he gave me this, "Don't worry mommy. I'm just pretending to feed daddy soup."

I had to draw the line at giving daddy a bath.

There Was One Pig There Too

We headed South to Mississippi Sunday afternoon to visit our farmyard friends. And we fed the chickens, and Elaine ran in terror from the dogs, and the boys were fascinated by the rabbit but not enough to actually touch it. And the goats were there too; they are expecting a kid--so cute.

Ben asked to hold the rabbit when he saw their 3-year-old doing it, but then he wasn't so brave when he was actually invited.

All of the animal touching came after lunch Dukes. You can mop off your cold sweat now.

For lunch we had hot dogs and Cheetos--perfect food for a table with six children. I didn't mind either. I stuffed down my hot dog and started to eyeball the girls' since they weren't eating them. I made a couple of lame attempts to encourage them to eat their hot dogs, but really I didn't do much to discourage the fact that they were only eating Cheetos. So when Elaine wanted to sit in my lap, still being scared from the dog and all, this comforting mother opened her arms and held her close dragging her plate near. I eyeballed her hot dog for a few moments. Then I kind of pulled it in half thinking maybe I could have the second half if, you know, she didn't want it. It wasn't long before she asked to get down. I nearly tossed her out the door as I grabbed for her left-over half. Not feeling too piggish yet, I set my eyes on Alida's dog. In the name of helping her manage her hot dog a bit better I tore it in half. But she stubbornly stayed at the table slowly eating her chips. She was the last child standing, and she just kept smiling at me. When she asked for more chips, I snapped to and ordered more chips for both of us from our host. When she wasn't looking, I grabbed for her hot dog. She didn't flinch. I started to stuff it in my mouth. That's when I heard this:
"The goats are sure going to love all of these leftover hot dogs."
Apparently adult conversation had been happening as I schemed on my daughters' food, and I had managed to take part in it. I smiled and dropped the hot dog. Had I just stolen food from a pregnant goat? It didn't matter, they were serving cobbler and ice-cream now.

Our First Act of Thievery

But a quick side-note this morning. Alida. When I put on my new, tan wool pants this morning with the smart heels and wool sweater (read dry clean only, which generally means I don't purchase them but this was such a good sale), I had it in my head to be careful not to make any messes today. When I was walking to the car with you in my arms before I put on my coat and my heel stuck in the cuff of these wonderful new pants sending me dancing across the driveway, you rolled with it girl. When I somehow managed to dance my way across the driveway, fly into the air and perform a mid-air barrel roll to save you from being hurt when we landed in that snow in the yard that I managed to fling myself and you in to, you laughed. Then your dad laughed and took delight in telling everyone he could find at daycare to be careful because it was slippery today. That was our morning. Let's hope our days go better.

Now. Nicholas.

This is the carryout container from dinner the other night. It had used ketchup smeared all over the inside when you stole it from the table and started stashing toys in it. This son does not keep your toys safe; it keeps your toys nasty.

And. When we all six went to the grocery store the other day, you insisted on having some tomatoes, which we certainly aren't going to discourage. Well, actually we are going to discourage it now. Because at check out when you started handing out all of the items from the cart, we didn't really imagine that you had stashed back the tomatoes. And later in the car, we found you holding those tomatoes, and right or wrong we determined that we support Schnucks enough that we weren't morally obliged to go back (but don't think that when you are capable of understanding the lesson, we won't march right back in that store and apologize and pay out of our allowance. But right now, you get a pass for stealing tomatoes.) So. We promptly forgot about those tomatoes until a couple of days later when I remembered them while at work and tried to remind myself to dig them out of the back of the car later. But I forgot. And then a day or so later when your dad was looking through your stashes for something you were screaming for, he ran across your tomatoes. Again son. This is not keeping your toys safe; it is keeping them nasty.

Things Too Aggravating To Grab the Camera During: They Say We'll Laugh About This Some Day

Now that the ladies are taking a more active part in dinner time, most nights there is a round of sweeping the kitchen floor. Most nights, but not all nights. Okay, for the past few nights there has been no sweeping going on in our house. Alright, for the last week there has been no sweeping really. Last night, I braved dragging out the broom and wading through the children because there was crap all over the floor. Usually I can get this done when they are playing outside, but dark and cold are making us re-work our methods. They get the little brooms; I get the serious broom; and, I hope they don't destroy everything I've accomplished as its happening.

So last night, I kept muttering to myself that someone really made a mess with the pizza we had last... When did we have pizza last? How long has it been this messy? Why didn't I clean this up? There is sausage mess all over the floor. Good grief.

Wait.
A.
Minute.
That's not sausage!

Full alert was blown in the house as I discovered another reason that I hate potty training. Remember I said the boys hadn't had an accident at school since they started wearing big boy pants? Well I jinxed that, and we came home with wet clothes the next day. And we are certainly not accident free in the comfort of our own home. The smart boys wait till we get here I believe. Yet this was a first.

So the children were made a train to get them off the floor and distract them as the vacuum was brought out for good measure in the living room just in case there was something lurking there, the kitchen floor disinfected, and little bare feet examined. I never imagined when the pediatrician said not to let the girls go barefoot where there might be poop, that she should have reminded me that meant the kitchen too. Yep. We did not skip bath night last night.

That might help Benjamin, but we can't assure you.



Lessons Learned:

1. Don't ever say anything on the blog that you want to keep having happen.

2. Don't ever, ever cavalierly sweep the floor after pizza night or any other night for that matter.

Now Accepting Reservations

Late Friday night Ann and Matti joined the Stuber clan all the way from St. Louis. And Saturday morning they were up with the mayhem and out the door to the zoo with us.

No matter how together I think we look, we always just wind up looking like a big mess of people on a school outing of some sort.

Can you find all of the Stubers?

Matti. I tried to talk her into living with me, and she agreed! Then her mother said she couldn't.


The ladies were let out to wander at the zoo for a few moments. One shoe each and in the mud. But they kept running back toward dry ground, generally in different directions. And then I figured out that this was a tram stop, and I had a heart attack. (Notice the pants. It was a perfect weather day.)

Matti entertained us all in the backyard later that day. The boys are going through a phase of ripping off every last piece of clothing when they see water in the yard, so we'll just pretend there were no pic pics.

And then Sunday morning, Ann made good on her word, and she went and made Matti go back home. Yadda, yadda, something about a volleyball game and the rest of her family at home, etc. So we all stood at the window and cried for awhile. And then we just landed in our usual pile on the floor and muddled through the rest of the weekend.

And fell asleep eating our lunch.


Where is he?
He is in Baton Rouge now on orders until the 15th. What was to be a long four weekends and three weeks has turned into a long five weekends and four weeks. And so we have space available for next weekend if, you know, you were looking for something to do...

Ready for Fall

We tried on our winter coats for grandma this weekend since she was going shopping and was curious. The ladies were quick to take them back off while we were still inside.

But Nicholas and Benjamin had other ideas.

And they played out there in the Southern August summer like that for longer than a moment. Let's hope October gets here quickly.

Do You Ever Dress the Twins Alike?

Yes, once. They hated it.