New Year's Ramblings

It’s New Year’s. For many Americans, that means celebrating the Turning of the Calendar in a manner that ensures they won’t remember the first few hours of the New Year.

I might have partaken of such celebrations at one time, specifically before the children. At least, I might have driven Ellie so she could partake of such celebrations since I don’t drink, preferring instead to get my mind-altering experiences from sleep deprivation.

Instead of celebrating, Ellie is working, and I’m home with the kids, blogging while they sleep, passing the time until the clock hits midnight, and I can officially say I stayed awake until the New Year.

Ellie and I will celebrate the New Year tomorrow in our own special way that involves the Snickers cheesecake in the fridge. Or maybe we celebrated the New Year yesterday over a feast of broasted chicken, knowing we wouldn’t be able to commemorate the New Year on time. Either way, I’m eating cheesecake on January 1st.

Staying up until midnight takes amazing skill when you’re a primary caregiver. Between herding children through their routines, cleaning up messes, and cleaning up the messes they made while I was cleaning up the first mess, I’m exhausted by the time my target bedtime rolls around. I’m usually ready to faint by the time I actually make it to bed, and that’s still several minutes before midnight. Fortunately, my kids always sleep late in the morning, giving me a realistic chance of making it until midnight unlike those poor parental souls who have to wake at dawn every morning.

I saw a couple events around that celebrate New Year’s at noon on December 31st. They’re geared for families with small children, though I’m not sure if their targets are the children too young to stay awake until midnight, or the parents to ragged to stay awake until midnight. Next year I’d like to go to one of these events. Abbie should be old enough to enjoy it. Ellie should be home to help me tote the kids. Most importantly, I’ll still be tired enough to be unable to stay awake until midnight.

Happy 2007

Going out

We'll be out of town this weekend, so no posts. I have too much to do tonight to pack, so no real post tonight either. Not even a picture or a top ten list. Why not? I can give you ten reasons why I need to get to bed now:

10. I’m already exhausted.
9. I have to be out the door early tomorrow.
8. It takes a long time to round up a weekend’s worth of Goldfish.
7. I still need to determine which toys are popular and portable.
6. I need to wash dishes.
5. Snow may be coming.
4. The dog needs a weekend’s worth of attention crammed into a couple minutes.
3. I’m still trying to count the number of ounces of milk three children can drink in a weekend.
2. The “Happy 2007” sign needs another coat of paint.
1. I need … hey, wait a minute…

"It says it's non-toxic." "Well, that's a plus."

The boys are reaching that “fun stage.” At least, others that don’t have to spend all day supervising them call it the “fun stage.” I call it the “headache-inducing and potentially lethal stage.” That’s the point when they’re mobile enough to interact with almost anything in the house, but not old enough to listen to me screaming at them or realize that ingesting anything that can fit in the mouth is a bad idea.

I need to keep a close eye on everyone at all times. This is difficult since I have one more child than eyeballs, plus I have the occasional chore to complete where I just have to trust that everyone is behaving. Like yesterday when I had to switch a load of laundry. In the time between opening the washer door and closing the dryer door, Ian had pulled several pieces of plastic and glass food storage containers out of the kitchen cupboard, Abbie had dumped half the filing cabinet’s contents onto the floor, and Tory had knocked the diaper pail open and was exploring its contents in a likely quest to find something edible.

That was bad, but it was more of an annoyance than anything dangerous. Ian could’ve broken a glass container, but the kitchen floor is linoleum, and I doubt he has that much strength. Tory could’ve swallowed something, but it probably came out of him in the first place. Abbie could’ve found a way to injure herself on the filing cabinet, but … actually, that one’s pretty likely since she could’ve slammed her fingers or something. The point is nobody was in mortal danger. No, the mortal danger came later.

Abbie recently discovered that she likes Play-Doh. We have several fun-size cans of Play-Doh stockpiled as Halloween treats. Some adults like to give the stuff away as an alternative to sugary-treats, but I have my own method of keeping my children from eating too much sugar, specifically I eat it before they can get to it. I appreciate these parents’ effort, but Abbie was too young for Play-Doh when she received it. When I opened it for her, she just poked it and shoved it to the side. Since I couldn’t remember what to do with Play-Doh, I left it on the shelf for a while.

A couple weeks ago, I tried the Play-Doh again, and this time she played with it. She’ll poke it, flatten it, stuff it back in the container, pull it out again, and repeat while occasionally slipping some in her mouth. When I’ve decided that she’s lost interest, or that she’s eaten too much of the stuff, I take it away and she returns to climbing on the entertainment center.

The problem with Play-Doh is the boys are really too young for the stuff, as their sole interaction with it is to try to eat it. The package says “non-toxic,” but the boys are capable of eating quantities larger than the good people at Hasbro have tested on humans. I work around this by giving Abbie the Play-Doh in her booster seat like I do for food at mealtime. The boys can’t reach the Play-Doh on Abbie’s tray, at least not without a lot of effort. Unfortunately, they’re usually willing to put forth a lot of effort to grab anything off Abbie’s food tray no matter how many Tasteeos I pile up for them in the living room.

Last night I was cleaning up after dinner, and Abbie hopped into her booster seat. I took this opportunity to set Play-Doh in front of her, and she went to work pulling and flattening the stuff. The boys also went to work, convinced that she had something delicious on her tray, and generally acting like I hadn’t just stuffed them full of mashed potatoes, milk, and Tasteeos. I kept an eye on them in between cleaning dishes, though I wasn’t too concerned that they might eat a little Play-Doh since it’s non-toxic, and therefore nothing could possibly go wrong.

Then Tory started gagging. He had grabbed a giant handful of Play-Doh while my back was turned, and attempted to eat it. Unfortunately, Play-Doh becomes a very sticky paste-like substance when mixed with saliva, and had glued itself into his mouth. Fortunately, it stayed in his mouth instead of moving down his throat. I knelt down, pulled out the largest wad, and called Ellie to finish the job while I kept the other two in check.

Things are getting tough, now. I have to keep a closer eye on everyone, and I have to devote more time to cleaning as they dump things on the floor. I guess that qualifies as “fun.”

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

The holidays are a busy time.

Come back! I swear I have a better lead than that.

I can’t wait until I’m rich enough to hire a cleaning service. As evidenced by the numerous picture posts leading up to Christmas, I was insanely busy preparing for the holidays. I had dinner ingredients to procure, pies to bake, and a filthy bathroom to ignore on top of my usual childcare duties. That explains why the stains

Many chores slid behind the proverbial kitchen table like so much collected junk mail in preparation for our joyous day of presents and feasting. It was worth it in the end as I spent an entire evening sitting at the dinner table engaging in gluttony and sloth while the grandparents took over the childcare duties.

Of course, the household chores still accumulated while I was idle. Dishes were dirtied, floors were cluttered, and clothes were muckified. Our Christmas dinner was before Christmas, so I was able to spend Christmas Day joyously scrubbing dishes, separating leftovers into consumable quantities for freezing, and picking up several trees worth of wrapping paper.

Yesterday I had just started to poke my head above the holiday chores. All I had to do was transform the kitchen back to a usable condition, vacuum the floors, and remove the layer of toy-based perma-crud that had formed on the floors so I could vacuum. Yesterday was the day after Christmas, though, and I’m obligated to hit the stores for clearanced holiday goods. I mean it when I say “obligated” since Ellie played hooky from work to get us out the door sooner.

Most guys seem to hate shopping, but I find some enjoyment in it, especially when the word “clearance” is involved. I don’t like dealing with large crowds, especially with three young children tagging along, so I needed to leave right after breakfast before the lazier shoppers could get in gear.

Our first stop was the mall-based big box store where empty parking spots were surprisingly easy to find. Our efforts to escape the house early paid off. Inside the store was sparsely populated, or at least it was until I found the holiday merchandise. Those aisles were a sale orgy of retired women and housewives with zero to one children in tow. There were a couple other men there, but they mostly looked like guys lucky enough to have December 26th off work, but unlucky enough to be drug to the mall by their also off-work wives.

I used the stroller to ram my way through the throngs, making sure Abbie stayed at my side lest she be swallowed whole by the mass of shoppers. The holiday merchandise was plentiful, but disappearing quickly. I cruised the aisles as rapidly as space allowed, picking up several things for next year such as cards, lights, and a couple boxes of four-foot tall candy cane shaped yard stakes that I had to balance on top of the stroller after Tory refused to hold them.

Next we hit K’s Merchandise, the store referenced a couple months ago that’s going out of business. They slowly dropped their prices as Christmas approached, but now that the gift-giving season is gone, I expected the floor to fall out. I was right, as all remaining heavily picked over merchandise was at least half-off. I used this as an excuse to buy that new television we’d been longing for. I got a great deal, and I didn’t even have to take the floor model.

Finally we stopped at the grocery store. This stop was at the weird grocery store that has closeouts on oddball generics and name-brand goods with hard-to-read expiration dates. I knew they had toys before Christmas that would now be half-off, and, against all better judgment, I bought one more toy for the kids: A box of building blocks. It doubles as a storage box, though, so really I’m saving space.

We returned home with too much junk in the car and a couple little men ready for their morning nap. I set them down to sleep, turned the television on for Abbie, and started work on putting away our new purchases. I grabbed a couple bags from the car, brought them into the kitchen, set them on the counter, and discovered I had too much stuff piled on the counter to hold any shopping bags. Cleaning the kitchen immediately jumped to the top of my post-Christmas chore list.

It's Music Time

One of my earliest purchases for Abbie was a music collection. It’s a three-disc set of the finest children’s songs in the public domain including “The Alphabet Song,” “Baa Baa Black Sheep,” and “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.” It also has some songs with educational value, like “Frere Jacques” to teach French, “Bluetail Fly (Jimmy Crack Corn)” to teach underlying racism, and “The Yellow Rose of Texas” to ensure they’ll get the joke about Emily Dickinson’s poetry later in life.

I bought this collection when Abbie was a few months old. Back when I had the luxury of only keeping one child entertained, I heard from multiple sources that children love music. Nothing short of a bottle kept her happy at that point, so on one particularly harrowing afternoon, I loaded her into the car, drove to the nearby big box store, and searched for CD’s with a low ratio of cents-per-song. Most of the music I found cost too much because they frittered their budgets away on licensed characters and production values. The set I bought seemed to be the best choice, as decided by its $.10-per-song price point.

I took it home, popped disc 1 in the stereo, hit play, and waited for the joy to begin. Abbie was unimpressed. The music was okay; most of the songs lasted about a minute and were sung by children with appropriately happy musical accompaniment. I sung along to the few that I knew the words, but Abbie didn’t care and continued grumping. I shrugged and gave up on using music as an integral part of the day, though I did burn some of the better songs to a disc for listening in the car on the off chance that it might help her scream less.

As she matured, she seemed to enjoy the music more. I knew she was making progress when she started laughing at the progression of animal noises in “Old MacDonald.” A couple months ago, I put the discs back in the stereo to see what would happen. Those discs have been playing continuously ever since, as she’s on her way to knowing how to use our electronic equipment better than I can. She already knew how to operate the television, VCR, and DVD player on her own; adding those discs to the CD tray gave her the incentive to learn the stereo.

The first thing she does after every mealtime, regardless of the amount of yogurt remaining on her fingers, is turn the stereo on. She’s discovered that the IncrediBlock, along with several other toys, make an excellent stool for reaching the buttons. Even if I’m industrious enough to put her toys away before mealtime, she can still climb onto the entertainment center. Once the buttons are within reach of her grubby mitts, she pushes the “tray open” button, and pushes the tray shut, which automatically loads the CD into play mode. Seconds later, I’m hearing “I’ve Been Workin’ on the Railroad” for the ninth time in the past 24 hours.

Of course she doesn’t know everything about the stereo operation. The most perplexing feature is the volume knob. I think she’s determined that it’s best not to touch it in spite of the inherent pleasure involved in turning knobs. She knows that if she turns it too much, the stereo doesn’t work, and she has to scream to convince me to stop feeding her brothers and fix it. She also knows that turning it too much can lead to the music playing too loud. I’m sure that in about ten years she’ll be testing the upper limits of her stereo speakers, but for now Volume Setting 50 is too loud for “Lucy Locket.” She screams, partly to get my attention, and partly because she’s terrified.

When she gets the stereo working, she can be fun to watch when she interacts with her music. When a song involves a dog barking (“How much is that doggie in the window…), she’ll bark back at the stereo. When a song involves clapping (There was a farmer had a dog and Bingo was his name-o…), she’ll clap along. When a song involves poetry (“Because I could not stop for death he kindly stopped for me…), she’ll recite it with the music, or at least I hope to teach her that last one.

Presents!

My earliest memory of opening Christmas presents came when I was about six-years-old. After fighting to fall asleep on Christmas Eve, I woke up early on Christmas morning, excited to finally discover what was in those packages that had been sitting under the tree for what felt like months. I walked into the living room to find Santa had stopped by overnight, and filled my stocking with candy and presents. I tore into the packages and found enough toys to keep me entertained well into the next week.

The observant readers have noticed a key ingredient missing from my Christmas memory: Parents. My parents were still asleep when I stumbled onto the cache, and my six years worth of wisdom didn’t include the fact parents like to watch their children open presents. Even if I’d wanted to wait for my parents, I don’t think I would’ve made it. I woke up about 2am, and would’ve gone nuts without the Transformer “Jazz” to play with for six hours until my parents woke up.

From my memory, I figure I’ve got about three, maybe four years before Abbie begins burning Christmas memories into her permanent psyche. That’s good, because it gives me a couple more years to perfect this “gift giving” skill, because it doesn’t come naturally. If she were to remember and expect all future Christmas hauls to be like this one, she’d be disappointed in perpetuity.

With two previous Christmases under out belts, we approached this one like all the others by buying Abbie a fair number of toys. We did not account for the multiplication factor involving the twins, though. The twins were around last Christmas, but we didn’t actually buy much for them, just a couple ornaments so that one day, they could look back at their first Christmas, and say “we got a pretty good stash of toys compared to that first one.” We didn’t bother with toys for their first Christmas because, being a couple weeks shy of their original due date, they couldn’t do much more than drool on anything. Abbie had plenty of hand-me-down toys to share anyway, assuming she was ready to hand them down, which she was not.

This Christmas they could use toys, though, and we obliged by buying them toys. We had to be fair, and bought as many for each boy as we bought for Abbie, which works out to 15 toys total under the tree. Then grandparents did the same. Finally, great-grandparents piled on a few goodies just to see what happens.

The result is our children now have every commercially available toy safety rated for children under the age of three, and a couple for ages three and up. I know they’ve run out of baby and toddler toys to receive because they opened a duplicate toy. We’ll return one for store credit, and possibly use it next Christmas when the store has something new that our children don’t have yet, assuming they can make it through the glut of birthday presents. They had so many presents, they grew bored before they could finish opening them, something I don’t remember experiencing until Ellie opened a package containing our fifth place setting of the morning while opening wedding presents.

We’ve learned a few lessons. First, just act like we’re buying presents for one child because everyone will play with every toy anyway. Second, set strict spending limits for total Christmas expenditures or else the house will be overrun by tiny one-piece figurines and about three twist-ties per new figure. Third, big group presents are good because they hit that expenditure limit quickly, take up a manageable amount of space, and create one present to wrap and open.

Speaking of big gifts, I’ll leave you with a picture of everyone enjoying their biggest gift: A bouncy house:


It says it’s for ages 3 & up, but we figure as long as we’re violating one safety rule by using it indoors, it doesn’t matter if we violate another.

Merry Christmas

It’s late, and Santa won’t come until I’m asleep. I’ll simply leave you with this photographic evidence that my children can play nicely with my father instead of screaming in fear every time he visits.


Note the dog sleeping peacefully in the background. She has the right idea.

Picture Post

All Abbie wants for Christmas is some street cred. And maybe a little ice cream.


Our neighbors gave us our family in gingerbread form. I was delicious.


Here’s one of the disgustingly cute things you can do only with twins.


Pretty much every gift by the tree is for the kids except for the blender.


Abbie received a phonics toy, which she’s letting Ian examine. He apparently needs the phonics help because he can’t read that it’s for age 3+.


Ian somehow found me over the mounds of presents and discarded wrapping paper.

The Night Before Christmas Dinner

‘Twas the night before Christmas dinner
When all through the house
Not a creature was stirring
Except for Abbie who sounds like she started a fire that needs a douse.

The children were tucked
In their beds with care
In hopes that dreamland
They’d soon be there.

The twins were nestled
All snug in their beds
While Abbie bounced around the room
Causing ceiling plaster to fall on their heads.

And mama in bed
And I at the computer
Had just settled down
To plan tomorrow’s dinner.

The grandparents are visiting
And they care not what they eat
As long as there’s ham, pecan pie,
Green bean casserole, and beef.

I’ve baked my cherry pie
For I’ve had no desserts based in fruit
Tomorrow I’ll bake a pumpkin one
Is pumpkin also a fruit?

I’ll make green bean casserole
To add in some veggies
I’ve already made Oreo Fluff
That’s a salad; those are always healthy

Grandpa brought a tenderloin
Cooking it is his duty
If I tried to prepare it,
It would surely emerge burny.

Grandma will make
Her pecan pie tomorrow
If I convince her to add chocolate chips
After dinner I’ll be in triple-dessert sorrow.

Four kinds of soda pop are
In the fridge next to a little spirit
If that drink selection doesn’t please everyone
I don’t want to hear it.

When it comes time to cook
I’ll go straight to work
Heating this, stirring that
Giving orders, and being a jerk.

I’ll call everyone to the table
If need be I’ll whistle
Anyone who doesn’t come promptly
Will have a plateful of gristle.

But that’s tomorrow
And my eyelids are too heavy for sight
So let me say before going to bed
“Dammit, Abbie, good night!”

Only After the Rain, Can You Deliver Cookies

Baking Christmas cookies is half the fun of the holiday season. Delivering them door-to-door is the second half.* Nothing tops the joy of traveling to all of your neighbors, or at least all the ones that gave you baked goods first, and handing them a plate full of cookies and calories while flanked by three smiling children. Yep, nothing can beat that experience, although trying to do it on a cold, rainy night can beat the joy out of the experience.

A couple nights ago, we had three families arrive at our door baring treats. That, more than the calendar, was my cue to get my butt in gear and spread some cheer. I spent the next 24 hours finishing my baking, rolling out the last kringla, and sprinkling sprinkles across the frosting of the last cupcake. I filled the plates, attached the cards, and watched the rain fall outside.

It had been raining most of the day, which is unusual for Iowa in December. Generally when precipitation falls, it comes in the form of a beautiful snowfall, or at least a freezing rain that looks pretty until tree limbs and power lines snap under the ice’s weight. We’ve experienced a mild winter with high temperatures regularly reaching the 40’s and nary a snowflake in sight. This would be great news in January, but not in December when I’m looking for something to get me in the holiday mood besides the Christmas music the stores have been playing since mid-November. Maybe it’s global warming in effect,** or perhaps God is taunting me.

As the puddles deepened outside our door, I considered postponing my treat delivery. The weather would probably be better tomorrow, plus I would have to take the kids into the rain since Ellie was working. I set the treats in their plastic-wrapped plates on the table, and started cleaning.

No sooner had I grabbed a sponge than Abbie wandered into the kitchen, perhaps summoned by the frosting, and started poking the cupcakes. I moved one plate back from the edge, and Abbie found another one to poke. I quickly realized that we have no surface in this house beyond Abbie’s reach large enough to accommodate every treat plate. I pulled out the stroller, bundled up the kids, and went into the neighborhood despite the rain, or “light mist” as I deluded myself into decreeing it.

Every family we visited remarked at how, um, brave we must be for going out in this weather. I explained at every house that delivering the treats tonight was the only way to ensure no one would have fingerprints in their cupcakes. The one house that I didn’t have to explain myself had no one home. I slipped the treats inside a plastic bag for protection and left because there was no way I was going out again in this cold mist.

I kept us moving, and the deliveries took about 15 minutes. Everyone was cold and wet by the time we returned, but I was unconcerned since it was bath night and I was about to strip everyone anyway. I shuffled everyone inside, halfway folded up the stroller so we could store it while it dried, and ran the bath. At first I was unsure if I made the right decision to go out, but Abbie validated my choice by snitching a cupcake before the tub was full. Then Ian grabbed a handful of frosting off the cupcake. At least it was bath night.

* Eating them is the third half.
** I’ve heard Al Gore wrote a scintillating book about this phenomenon that’s not hypocritically preachy in any way, shape, or form.

Co-ooooooooooookie Christmas

I love baking. More specifically, I love the results of baking, especially when chocolate is involved.

There’s no better time to bake than the holidays. The cold weather begs you to fire up the oven. The grocery stores have big sales on baking ingredients in hopes that you’ll drop a Franklin or two on all the other holiday dinner paraphernalia from their store. Neighbors are constantly dropping off their baked good with the tacit expectation that you’ll return in kind. Joyous times.

I went Christmas cookie crazy a couple years ago. It was Abbie’s first Christmas and I knew lots of family members would be infatuated with our little screaming bundle of joy, so I’d need a really spectacular cookie spread to grab their attention. I made six kinds of cookies that year in between Abbie’s naps, and dutifully toted them to every holiday function to share in the cheer. I spent most of January eating what cookies I couldn’t give away, and when you have cookies you can’t give away in spite of the family with eight kids living next door, you know you made too many cookies.

I’ve tempered my cookie enthusiasm ever since. Even the World’s Greatest Cookie* loses its appeal after eating your two-dozenth cookie copy over the span of a month.** When everyone is bringing a dozen or eight to your function, you know you’ll have a few leftovers.

This year I limited myself to three batches of sweets, but two of them were super easy. I made the first batch a couple weeks ago. We had a children’s party thrown by Ellie’s employer to attend, and all employees were expected to bring a batch of cookies. Since Ellie sprung the cookie caveat on me at the last minute, I baked an easy M&M cookie with the green and red holiday pieces I had leftover in the freezer from last year. I baked them quickly with ingredients on hand and they were tasty. As a bonus, our cranky kids caused us to leave early, so I could “forget” my cookies on the table and not worry about leftovers.

The other easy batch is cupcakes. Last year, I bought a couple boxes of clearanced holiday cake mix with the intention of making them this year after noticing the mix doesn’t expire until March 2007. I opened the boxes, discovered they’re simply white cake mix with a packet of waxy red and green sprinkles to mix in right before baking. As I poured the mix into 48 wrappers, I felt ripped off mentally for buying a blatant add-on product, though I was glad that I paid half-price for the mix.

The third batch I made was kringla. This is a more difficult cookie with origins in Norway, specifically requested by Ellie because it reminds her of her childhood, growing up with dreams of living a Norwegian lifestyle. The recipe I used comes from an old family recipe, or at least that’s what the writer claimed when I found it on the Internet. It’s a difficult cookie because, instead of dumping it into 4x3 rows of balls on a cookie sheet immediately after mixing like a normal cookie, the dough must be refrigerated overnight, and rolled out cookie-by-cookie on a lightly floured surface because you do not want to bite into a heavily floured kringla. Each roll must then be shaped into figure-eights, which is the approximate number of hairs you’ll lose forming each cookie while a child screams at your feet. Abbie and Tory were thoughtful enough to play quietly and non-destructively in the living room during this delicate step, but Ian decided to crumple into a screaming ball of toddler fury as soon as the raw dough coated my hands.

Everything has turned out well so far. I have kringla in rough figure-eight shapes, cupcakes that aren’t too heavily burned, and no M&M cookies left. Now, as long as no one drops off cookies unexpectedly, I should be set.

* The chocolate chip cookie recipe on the can of butter flavored Crisco. Mmm.
** Well, a week. It was at least a half-week.

The Open Door

I don’t pay enough attention to Abbie while the boys take their morning nap. I pay plenty of attention to her the rest of the day as I make her meals, change her diapers, and pull her away from the cat before it realizes it still has its back claws. When the boys fall asleep, though, I can’t help but shut my brain off and log onto the computer, start a load of laundry, or sort bills into “third notice” and “final notice” piles. I’m not watching her, but I leave the television running, so it’s not like she’s unsupervised.

She’s usually a pretty good kid while the boys nap, and by “usually” I mean “slightly more than half of the time.” She usually watches television, plays with her toys, or hops around the living room. The other 49% of the time she’s digging into forbidden objects, climbing furniture, and scouring the refrigerator.

I put a lock on the refrigerator months ago to protect our chilled foods, but the thing isn’t 100% successful at keeping her at bay. Apparently it only works when the last person to close the refrigerator door fastens the lock. Usually I remember to attach it, but I’m a parent, and I’m usually working on 6 hours of sleep. You’d think these child-safety equipment engineers could design a parent-brain proof refrigerator lock.

I forgot to engage the lock a couple days ago. I need to take responsibility for my actions so it never happens again, but in this case I blame Ellie. It was the weekend, and she was home, which threw me off my routine. I’m ordinarily careful about things such as locks while I’m home with the kids, but Ellie must have done something distracting like talking while I was shutting the refrigerator door, and I forgot to use the lock.

I should have known Abbie was about to rummage through the refrigerator before logging onto the computer. The last I saw her, she was removing her shirt. I always pull her shirt off before she eats something potentially messy at home to save her shirt. I used to demand that she wear pants and a shirt for every meal because proper manners demand it. I quick discovered that every shirt she owned was permanently stained with at least one flavor of yogurt, and abandoned the shirt rule in the interest of preserving shirts for future garage sale revenue.

After a few minutes of important Internet research, Ellie called me into the living room. She said she needed my help cleaning up, which is a bad sign. Then she asked me to bring a fresh roll of paper towels on my way, which is a worse sign.

Ellie met me at the doorway to the living room. I handed her the paper towels, and she handed me the bowl of Jell-O she’d been snacking from. Abbie was nice enough to grab a spoon before plopping down in front of the television, and gave it an honest try before resorting to transferring gelatin into her mouth via giant, leaky, carpet-staining handfuls. As a bonus, this wasn’t the sugar-free Jell-O I ordinarily make; this was the extra-sticky, full-sugar variety I made to boost our caloric intake while battling the stomach bug of last week. It was also cherry flavored, which doesn’t blend into our carpet color as well as white grape flavor, or even lemon flavor.

I dumped the bowl in the sink and grabbed a sponge for the return trip. Ellie was busily scrubbing the carpet by the doorway, so I proceeded deeper into the living room, looking for other stains. I found a couple red stains on the couch, but more importantly I saw Abbie standing over the couch with an open ketchup bottle in her hands, squeezing its contents onto the cushions.

I quickly snatched the bottle before she could squeeze too much. Abbie used her spoon to eat it off the cushions while I asked Ellie why she didn’t take the bottle from her when she took the Jell-O. She shrugged and blamed me, not just for leaving the refrigerator unlocked, but also for putting ketchup on all my food and giving her the idea. We need to pay more attention to that girl.

Busy Day

The Top Ten Things I Did Besides Blogging Today

10. Wash the dishes.
9. Pick up the floor so I can vacuum.
8. Vacuum.
7. Install new RAM in my computer.
6. Scour the Internet to figure out why my new RAM won’t work.
5. Call Jeff over to let him figure it out.
4. Wash laundry.
3. Cook supper.
2. Wash dishes again.
1. Home remodeling.

I might have done some childcare somewhere in there, too. And the Number One Thing I Need to Do Before Going to Bed.

1. Finish Christmas cards.

"Ew, how long has this box of baking soda been in here?"

Abbie’s Top Ten Things to Pull from the Refrigerator and Try to Eat

10. Her cup of milk leftover from the last meal.
9. The whole milk jug if she can’t find a cup.
8. Spaghetti.
7. Macaroni and cheese.
6. Yogurt.
5. The soy sauce bottle (I haven’t figured that one out).
4. Soda pop bottles.
3. Jell-O.
2. The ketchup bottle.
1. Whipped topping.

Nap, Nap, Go Away

I know exactly how much sleep my children need.* My children know exactly how much sleep they want.** We usually meet somewhere in between, with the kids waking up as soon as they’re fully refreshed from their nap, and me opening their room door as soon as I’m fully refreshed from their nap.

I put the boys down for about an hour nap in the morning. They usually fall asleep quickly and quietly, which is my karmic penance for those half-hour long screaming sessions Abbie would occasionally throw at that age before drifting to sleep. Sometimes they nap for the entire hour, only picking their heads off the mattress when I retrieve them with a hot lunch ready in the kitchen.

Other times they’re awake while I’m still deep in my Internet research and their applesauce is still in the refrigerator. When that happens, I let them go for a few minutes while I finish reading an insightful piece on the latest travesty in sports.* Their mood turns from excited to be awake, to curious about the things they can do while they wake, to concerned that no one has rescued them yet. I usually enter their room about the time they reach “convinced they’re going to starve in their cribs,” and whisk them off to lunch just as the meltdown commences.

I’m never concerned they’re not getting enough sleep when they wake early from the morning nap because that’s their short nap. The afternoon nap is where they catch most of their rest, as they sleep for ideally two-and-a-half hours. Sometimes one or both will wake up a little early, but I know they’re getting enough sleep because they always nap for at least 90 minutes.

Except for yesterday. Ian awoke from his afternoon nap after 30 minutes. Sometimes Abbie wakes up after 30 minutes. Sometimes Abbie takes 30 minutes to fall asleep. Sometimes one of the boys will pop up after 30 minutes, scream for a minute, and fall back asleep. The boys never wake up for good after 30 minutes. Yet there was Ian, happily bouncing up and down like he was fully refreshed.

I didn’t know what to do. I had barely finished my nap when he woke up, and I sleep about 7 hours a day less than him. I let him go for a few minutes, but it quickly became clear he was going to wake someone else up with him. I snuck into their room, thinking maybe he needed his blankie or the forbidden pacifier to help him back to sleep. Nope, both were already in his crib.

I turned around and let him go for another half-hour. He rolled in his crib the entire time, cooing in progressively more agitated tones. When they finally bordered on screaming, I fetched him from his crib for good.

We chilled for another 90 minutes while Tory took the rest of his nap. Abbie joined us after a bit, and I let Ian share in her post-nap treat of Dora and fruit. I felt horrible that Ian was awake already since our close friend Patty was coming to watch the kids that night, and I didn’t want him to be a sleepy monster.

Fortunately, Patty assured us at the end of the night that everyone was exceptionally well behaved, which made me wonder why our kids suddenly shaped up. We thanked her and started the kids down their bedtime routine. Everyone had to be sleepy after the excitement of a babysitter, especially Ian, and would likely fall asleep quickly.

Fall asleep they did, and I resumed my Internet research that I missed earlier. Then Ian woke up an hour later. This time he took a little acetaminophen and fell back to sleep quickly, which was good, because there was no way I was going to stay up with him for another 13 hours until his morning nap.

* More than they’re getting.
** Less than they’re getting.
*** Right now, that would be a fight in the NBA.

Going out on My Own

I enjoyed a rare treat yesterday: I got to go grocery shopping by myself. No boys to heft between car seats and stroller and back again. No Abbie to herd in the general direction I want her to go and hope that she doesn’t open a package of cookies while my back is turned. No wife to slip a package of cookies into the cart while my back is turned.

The impetus for this event is Ellie’s illness. We had planned a glorious evening of grocery shopping as a family last night. That plan went down the tubes like so much gut vermin when Ellie stumbled home early, sick from the same stomach illness I’d suffered through a couple days before. I had just set the kids down for a nap, and was trying to nap as well when she collapsed into bed and suggested I get groceries immediately while the kids napped.

I was torn. Ellie couldn’t go out with me or watch the kids later tonight, and our next two nights were already booked even if she recovers as fast as I did. This was my only chance to get groceries until at least Sunday. The boys needed milk, but I needed a nap. Could the boys function without milk? Probably, but not without screaming. Could I function without a nap? Probably, but not without screaming at least a little.

I decided I had a better chance of holding it in than the boys, and opted for the grocery store. This wasn’t my weekly trip to the usual grocery store, though.* This was my bimonthly trip to the off-brand grocery store, the place with the suspiciously cheap cereal and produce alongside reasonably priced milk. I go to this store sporadically and stock up because cereal has a long shelf life, and I still have a little free space in the basement.

I hopped in my car, popped out the children’s music CD, and popped in the Ben Folds CD, the one I can never play with the kids along because the first track is entitled “Bastard.” Off I went to the store to shop for groceries unencumbered by the demands of children. This turned out to be an especially good thing since I left at the beginning of rush hour, and my children usually demand that the car be moving.

The funny thing is once I entered the store, all I could think about was the kids. After packing my cart full of cereal, I took a long look through the toy aisle even though for Christmas my children are already getting one of every toy on the market rated for children of all ages.

When I rounded a corner, I saw and heard a screaming child with an exasperated mother, and felt total sympathy for the mother because for all I knew all three of my kids were doing the same thing at that moment.

At the checkout line, the mother ahead of me had her two daughters, the older one about Abbie’s age and the younger one about the boys’ age. As I watched the mother unload the cart, the baby sat motionless in the cart while the toddler innocently poked foil-wrapped candy and played with a gate. I could only wish my children behaved that well.

While I unloaded my cart, the man behind me looked at my gross of cereal boxes, and offered to help me to speed the line. After he pulled the last of my five gallons of milk from the cart, I asked if he could tell I had kids. He said I’m doing it the right way.

I paid for my groceries, wheeled them out to the car, and loaded them for the ride home. I needed to return before the kids woke up and started bothering Ellie just like her nausea. I pulled the car out of the lot, and drove out a little further to buy some frozen custard for the ride home. Sure, it was 50 degrees out, but that’s warm for Iowa in December, plus I didn’t have any kids to bug me for a taste. They were still asleep back home anyway.

* But considering they’re closed on Sundays, I maybe should’ve gone there instead.

"This is such an eye-opener. I always pictured the kids dying in the living room."

I like to think I’m pretty good at childproofing our home. I’ve had two-and-a-half years practice thanks to Abbie. She’s a monkey, scaling furniture like a mountain climber reaching for the summit of those bubbles I put out of her reach. I could make money renting her out to prospective parents to point out all of the dangerous things their child can and will get into. By now, I’ve successfully hidden everything I don’t want her to play with on the one ledge in the house that she can’t reach. There is absolutely nothing left for her younger brothers to play with.

Or so I thought. It turns out childproofing is child-specific. Some kids will ignore a frayed extension cord sparking its way across the bathroom floor. Other kids will learn how to smelt their own copper just to have something conductive for jamming in an electrical outlet.

The first thing the boys discovered that Abbie didn’t is the toilet.* Until she developed the skill to climb on the toilet, she mostly stayed out of the bathroom unless I was in there. In those pre-twin days, I could leave the bathroom open and be confident that she’d stay in her room innocently ripping apart books.

The boys, though, think the toilet seat is the greatest toy in the house, much better than anything requiring batteries. I have to keep the bathroom door closed or else they’ll immediately dart in there and start playing with the seat. They lift it, and slam it down; lift it, and let it fall; lift it, and smash someone’s fingers. On those occasions when the boys must be in the bathroom, such as during teeth brushings, I have to keep my foot on the seat to keep them from injuring their fingers. Plus the toilet is possibly the most disgusting location in the house, and I don’t want them to catch whatever germs just moved through my gut and are currently churning their way through mommy’s gut.

Without access to the bathroom, the boys might move into the kitchen, which I thought I child-proofed long ago. We have locks on the cabinets, a lock on the refrigerator, and covers on the oven knobs. I thought there was nothing left for the boys to get into.

Then they got into a cabinet. The locks I put on the cabinets came in packs of two, but we have an odd number of cabinets. Instead of shelling out for an extra lock we didn’t need, I left the most innocuous cabinet unlocked. It held dishtowels and other harmless objects, and Abbie ignored it.

The boys, however, found this one unlocked cabinet great fun. It held dishtowels to strew about the floor, plus a fire extinguisher that I forgot about. That thing was great for poking, watching it rock back and forth, and trying to make it land on the other one’s fingers.

Since I’m still too cheap to spring for another package of locks, I moved the lock from a harder-to-reach cabinet onto their favorite cabinet. Now the boys can’t play in any kitchen cabinets unless I move our portable dishwasher. Of course, I have to move the dishwasher every day to wash the dishes, so while it’s in use I need to watch the boys closely. They’re sneaky about opening the vulnerable cabinet while I’m in the living room pulling Abbie off the furniture.

* In fact, she still hasn’t figured out what the toilet is for besides providing entertainment when it flushes.

Technical Difficulties

I’m feeling better today. Whatever bug was in my gut seems to have moved on, along with a lot of other stuff that was in my gut.

Whatever I had must have moved to my computer though, as it crashed hard today. Instead of blogging, I’m restoring it to working order. Actually our close friend Jeff restored it to working order while I fed the kids. I’m rearranging windows, resetting preferences, and reapplying that photo of kittens as my desktop wallpaper. I’ll be back up tomorrow.

Sick Again

I’m feeling a little sick tonight. I have flu-like symptoms, possibly caused by the flu. I’m doing better now since I can eat, something I couldn’t say a couple hours ago. I’m going to assume that this is nature’s way of saying I need to take a break from blogging for a night and get some sleep, or at least write that Christmas card letter that needs to go out.

Ians Bounce. Torys Flail.

It’s always bothered me that I can’t tell the difference between the twins’ personalities. I’ve reached the point where I can tell them apart by looking at them, and I don’t just mean I search for the mole on Ian’s sole, or compare guts to determine the larger one belongs to Tory. I can look at their faces and tell who’s who; Ian has a more elongated face, Tory has a thicker face. Unless the kids are in the bathtub; then I have to search for Ian’s foot mole.

I want to find personality differences too. I want to know how each of my children think. I want to know Ian as an individual, and Tory as an individual; learn what works best to motivate and soothe each one. Instead I know this Torian hybrid that I care for in exactly the same way by dumping Tasteeos in front of them whenever someone cries.

I’ve always said that Tory is quicker to melt down, but that’s only true most of the time. It’s not like I can tell a first-time babysitter that the fussy one is Tory. Besides the fact that most first-time babysitters would run away screaming upon hearing that one of the family’s twin 12-month-olds can be labeled as the “fussy one,” Ian can have his moments of irrational exasperation. When I sit down to breakfast, it’s just as likely I’ll end up holding Ian as Tory.

I think I finally have a distinct personality difference between the two boys: They bounce at different times. Ian bounces when he’s happy. When I open his door in the morning to release him from bedtime prison, he’s usually standing in his crib, holding onto the railing. Upon seeing me he’ll often start bouncing up and down with a giant smile on his face. If he’s really excited to be held, like when mama picks him up after coming home, he’ll start bouncing in our arms and giggling while we encourage him.

Tory is the opposite. Make him happy, and he’ll just laugh, or possibly continue eating. Make him angry, and stay clear of his legs because he could probably break a nose with that feet movement. Specifically, he often hates being set down. When I turn him horizontal to set him on the changing table for a diaper change, he’ll scream and flail his legs, which probably smears the mess in his pants worse. When I lovingly remove him from the kitchen so I can clean and stand him in front of a bowl of Tasteeos, his legs start flapping as soon as he breaks contact from my side. When he touches down, he might bounce for a few seconds while vocalizing his displeasure. Sometimes he’ll collapse into a bawling heap of defeated baby. When setting him down makes him really angry, he’ll collapse onto all fours and take three or four crawl steps, screaming furiously the entire time.

Now when babysitters visit, and they have an emergency mix-up and need me to explain who’s who over the phone, I can tell them to watch for someone bouncing. If they’re happy, it’s Ian bouncing. If they’re mad, it’s Tory bouncing. If they’re sullen, just weigh them; Tory weighs more.

"It may not be glamorous, but it's good, honest work." "How much is this quart of milk?" "Twelve dollars."

As I mentioned yesterday, the boys are now drinking whole milk straight from the cow. Or at least it’s homogenized and straight from the jug instead of scooped from the can and reconstituted with water.

Their pediatrician gave us the go ahead to switch to whole milk at their 12-month check-up. Actually he gave us the option of switching the boys and Abbie straight to 2%-milk so I wouldn’t have to go through the rigmarole of buying and stocking two different kinds of milk, having to match the correct color cap with the correct child. Little did he know that I drink only skim milk, and I’ve been buying two different kinds of milk since Abbie started drinking it. I was just looking forward to a time when Abbie and I could share milk. She’s tipping the scales at 32-pounds as a two-and-a-half-year-old, so I can safely drop her down to skim without worrying that I’m depriving her of mass she’ll need to earn that college basketball scholarship because, let’s face it, she’s not going to earn an academic scholarship if those verbal skills don’t start improving. Even if I’d been willing to move Abbie and me to 2%, I’d still keep the boys on whole milk. Their little bodies barely plot in the weight chart, and they need all the fat they can get. Plus the sooner Ian packs on a couple more pounds the sooner I can turn everyone forward facing in the car.

I don’t remember having any difficulty switching Abbie from formula to cow’s milk. I was concerned that she might reject it, so I offered it to her slowly, maybe a cup of cow’s milk once a day, and then twice a day. After that I realized that she didn’t care if it was cold and straight from a bovine, so I gave her milk with every meal and haven’t looked back.

I was glad to make the move with Abbie since cow’s milk is much cheaper than formula. I wanted Abbie to have the best, so I stuck with formula longer than I needed, even spending a couple months giving her the “next step” version, or as I like to call it, the “toddler milk for idiot parents” version. I still remember our pediatrician stuffing back a laugh when I asked if the “next step” formula was better than cow’s milk.

With experience from Abbie, I moved straight from infant formula to cow’s milk as soon as I exhausted the powder stuff. Their first glass of the cow stuff came one night at dinner a couple weeks ago. I pulled the milk from the refrigerator, poured it into two sippy cups, and set it on their trays. Each boy picked up his cup, inserted the spout in his mouth, took a couple drinks, and threw the cup to the side, horrified that daddy would give them such a cold, vile drink.

Several minutes and many tears later, I placed warm cow’s milk on their trays, which they greedily sucked down. I dug back to my days of pulling breast milk from the fridge to remember my tricks on warming baby milk. I filled a large measuring cup with water, microwaved it for a couple minutes, and set the cups in the water to warm them to the baby-appropriate temperature.

Since that night, I’ve been amazed to rediscover how much milk a child drinks. Each boy drinks a quart every day. That means they combine to drink a half-gallon a day, or three-and-a-half gallons a week. Our refrigerator barely holds that much milk, especially since I have to keep skim milk on hand for Abbie and me. Abbie is doing her part to stretch the household milk budget by nursing the same sippy cup of milk all day.

I can’t wait until the boys hit the point where I can give them skim milk. Not only will that allow me to buy one kind of milk, but they’ll also be refusing to drink their recommended amount of milk. That way I can get by only buying a gallon of milk a week.

Two Good Reasons

I never venture outside the house with all three kids unless I have a good reason. Usually that good reason is medically related, such as when the boys need a check-up or Abbie right after Abbie dislocates something.

Yesterday morning, I had a couple non-medical reasons for leaving the house. I needed to visit the home improvement store where Tory lost his shoe the previous night. I called them early in the morning, and discovered that they’d found his shoe, and were holding it at the front desk. There was no hurry since I’m sure they would have held onto the shoe for several days before it was thrown away by some overzealous employee, probably the same one who cleans the office fridge weekly and always throws away several lunches people brought that morning. I didn’t want to chance losing it again, though, plus Tory needed it for foot warmth.

We also needed milk.* We weren’t in danger of running out soon, but I knew our supplies wouldn’t last 24 hours. Better to stock up too soon than to run out and hope skim milk will stop a baby from screaming.

That makes two stops. The home improvement store is on the southeast side of town; my preferred milk supplier is on the west side of town. Why not throw in another stop? I’ve been overdue to visit good friend and occasional commenter Patty in the far western exurbs, so we made a lunchtime play date.

First I drove to the home improvement store. I walked through the doors and approached the bored associate behind the returns desk. As soon as I mentioned “boy’s shoe” she perked up and offered it too me. I was hoping she might verify that I was the true owner by asking its color or size; a baby shoe theft ring could be sweeping through town, with members randomly walking into stores and asking if anybody found a baby shoe. Even an unmatched shoe can fetch upwards of a dime at a garage sale in the right neighborhood. Perhaps seeking to prove our rightful ownership, I shoed Tory right there, giving him the Cinderella treatment in full view of the employee. She was too fascinated by their twin-ness to notice it was a perfect match.

Next I drove the 40 minutes to Patty’s. My plan was to let the boys take their regular morning nap in the car, since 40 minutes is all they usually take no matter how much they’re screaming from exhaustion when I set them down. I assume the plan worked well since I didn’t hear a peep between the time I left the parking lot and the time I stopped the car in Patty’s driveway. I heard Abbie sing along with her CD, but the boys were at least quiet.

With everyone fully fed and entertained, we left Patty’s to find milk. I prefer stopping at the warehouse store since their milk is the cheapest, and with three kids sucking down milk like oxygen, those pennies add up. Of course I can’t just buy milk at the warehouse store. As long as I’m there, I might as well get some diapers, raisins, carrots … ooh, and we’re almost out of soap. I had my cart’s basket full of Vital Supplies and the boys in the front seating. Abbie wandered beside us as I tried to steer my 100 pounds of babies and bulk-rate purchases. Several people found our little parade charming, though they found it less charming after Abbie wandered from my side and directly in front of their carts.

With a lot of patience and a little grunting, we made it out of the store. I packed everyone and everything back into the car, and we headed home just in time for the afternoon nap. Abbie fell asleep on the way, though, which was not what I had planned. Her 5-minute car catnap ruined her 90-minute normal nap. At least the boys slept well.

* The boys switched to whole milk right after their first birthday. It’s a fascinating story that will make a thrilling post some day, but not today.

Into the Tundra

Evenings used to be our prime errand-running time. Since my three children leave me terrified to venture outside without adult help during the day, I need to wait until Ellie comes home at night. We could wake the kids up, stuff some food in them, pack them in the car, and head out for an exciting couple hours of collecting Vital Supplies. That’s enough time to stop in two completely different stores, or three if they’re close enough that we don’t need to pack the kids back in the car.

Those halcyon days are gone now. We still run errands at night out of necessity, they’re just not an exciting time. Or enjoyable. Or tolerable without the aid of a mood altering substance, preferably caffeine since I’m usually driving.

A big part of their crankiness involves coats. Back in the summer we could throw the boys in the car wearing little more than a onesie. When the autumn chill filled the air, we had to slip jackets on them for warmth, and to prevent every other middle-aged woman that passes us from remarking on how they look cold. Now that the winter frost is here, they need heavy coats, which they hate. They hate how it takes us forever to put their coats on, they hate how hot they get while we’re taking forever to put their siblings’ coats on, and most of all they hate their coats’ bulkiness that leaves them an immobile down-filled blob while we’re taking forever to put their siblings’ coats on. Unable to stand, crawl, or move their arms more than 20-degrees in any direction, they express their displeasure by screaming. They usually scream for about ten solid minutes between the time a brother first dons a coat, and the time the car starts moving, which instantly calms them. Of course the screaming returns as soon as the car stops, such as at a traffic light, or while toting around the store in their stroller. It doesn’t help their attitude that they’ve recently designated nighttime as their fussy time, as opposed to mornings, which are just generally unhappy time.

Knowing all of this we still ventured out last night. We needed to stop at a home improvement store to pick out important design paraphernalia, and what better time to shop for important design paraphernalia than while toting two screaming 1-year-olds?

We entered the store with the boys in their stroller and Abbie walking at our side. I hadn’t planned on grabbing a cart, but decided I’d need one when Abbie left our side to push a stranger’s cart.

We spent the next several minutes browsing through tiles, trying to decide if we like pattern #1 more than pattern #2 because it matches our walls better, or if we just have a better association with #1 because the children were screaming less while we looked at it. Abbie helped distract us from our decision making by running through the aisles, threatening to disappear from view or at least pick up the most interesting, i.e. fragile and expensive, tiles.

Somehow we survived. With two children screaming next to us, and a toddler screaming some where within a two-aisle radius, we examined every tile and determined we hate all of them. We left the store, walked to the car, and packed the children back in the car. That when we discovered that Tory had lost a shoe. Usually he can only kick them off into the stroller, but this time he managed to kick it off somewhere in the store. Ellie went back in to look, but had no luck.

With three screaming children and five children feet adorned with shoes, I examined the rest of our plans. We needed pet supplies and the pet store was just down the street, so I decided to make another stop. We were already out anyway; I can just flash a dirty look at any middle-aged women who remark that Tory’s foot looks cold.

Bored Babies

I think most parents of multiples look back at their babies’ newborn weeks as the hardest. Endlessly fussy babies, constant diaper changes, and midnight feedings* combine to create exhausted parents. I’ve heard other parents say they sleepwalk through the early days in a fog, unsure of who needs to eat: Baby #1, baby #2, spouse, or self.

I never had this trouble when my boys were born, and not just because they were in the NICU for three weeks and I didn’t have to do a thing besides drive to the hospital and gaze lovingly at them for a few minutes a day. Even when they came home, they were pretty easy babies. Maybe it was the NICU’s rigid schedule, or maybe it was my adherence to the Babywise techniques that two-thirds of the Internet swears leaves children unloved and malnourished, but my job could’ve been much worse. During the day I had to feed them, keep them awake for a while, let them nap, and repeat on a two-and-a-half hour cycle. At night they only woke up twice to eat except on the rare worst of nights, and quickly transitioned down to one feeding overnight. If I ever needed a break, say to go to the bathroom or perhaps to pull something from Abbie’s mouth, I’d leave the boys on the floor and they’d stay content and possibly asleep until I returned.

I’m not bragging. No, I’m trying to elicit sympathy, because I swear the boys are growing more difficult. I don’t mean difficult in a “getting into everything now” way, either. They are getting into everything, but Abbie already gets into everything, and does so more efficiently, so I’m used to it. I’ve learned to move everything beyond a child’s grasp, or to accept that someone will grab it and break it, eat it, and/or coat the furniture with it.

I mean the boys are more difficult in a “quick to meltdown” way. For the past several months we’ve had an agreement: They get to eat, and then I get to eat and afterwards clean up while they entertain themselves. It’s been a useful arrangement that gives me a few minutes of downtime while the kids play nicely, or at least they’d better refrain from killing each other because I’m not putting down my spoon unless there’s blood spilled.

Our arrangement is eroding as they’re melting down before I can finish my cereal. I used to be able to appease them with handfuls of Tasteeos, and that’s still my first tactic. I’ll walk out to my screaming mini men, drop a handful of Tasteeos between them, and return to my bowl as they snack from their bowl. The Tasteeos are losing their allure, though, as sometimes they ignore the food and continue screaming, or even keep screaming while eating, which has to be a choking hazard.

Yesterday, I didn’t even have a chance to pull my cereal box off the shelf before Ian started screaming. He was piercing eardrums as soon as his bottom hit the ground, and no Tasteeo was tasty enough to distract him. He wanted attention, or that “love” concept I’ve heard so much about, but I still had two children to care for plus my milk to pour. I left him to scream, hoped he’d calm down while I tended to his siblings and my cereal, and swooped him back up when he was still screaming a few minutes later. I ate my cereal that morning with the bowl to the side, the paper spread out in front, and Ian on my knee to the other side.

I’ve been hosting dinner company with me more frequently lately. I’m not sure why sitting passively on my knee is a more acceptable activity for them than playing with their toys while I eat, but I usually have someone with me. Abbie went through this phase, but she was much younger and I could still plan my meals around her naps.

After I finished my cereal, I set Ian back with his toys, and he seemed fine. I returned to my work in the kitchen, and loaded half the dishes into the dishwasher before hearing another scream. After investigating, I discovered Tory was screaming this time. Usually this means he’s bored, but this time it meant Abbie just raked her fingernails across his cheek hard enough to break the skin. I dropped everything I was doing to comfort him, living up to my rule to keep working unless blood is involved.

* Not to mention the 2am feedings, 3:30am feedings, and random screaming fits around sunrise.

"Look, Homer! Lisa's taking her first steps!" "You taping it?" "Yes." "I'll watch it later."

The boys are starting to walk.

This is a huge milestone. Once they get this walking thing down, I won’t have to carry them everywhere. Instead I can let them walk by my side, herding three children with two hands and making threatening comments to the loose child after running out of appendages with which to grab.

The boys aren’t really walking yet; they’re just starting to. Ian is closest to walking. He’ll stand while holding onto the couch, and stare at the Tasteeos in the tray of his activity table. I can see the hamster furiously turning the wheel in his head as he debates the merits of the various locomotions. He knows that dropping to all fours, crawling to the table, and rising back to his feet for Tasteeos is model of inefficiency far beyond anything existing in the federal government. So he releases his hand, and takes a step toward the Tasteeos. He steadies himself and takes another step. The hamster starts turning the wheel of self-congratulation since he found a more efficient way to move from the couch, where the pets often hide, to the activity tray, where Tasteeos are always present or at least a simple scream away. Eventually he always falls well short of his goal, quickly forgets all the work the hamster accomplished, and scampers to the Tasteeo tray before Tory scarfs scarf them all.

I think Ian’s record is six steps without falling. Tory is a little behind his brother. I think his record is two steps without falling, though to be fair he has a lot more mass to move. It can’t be easy keeping your balance with a milk-gut bulging your onesie way out in front of you.

Notice I used the words “I think” to describe their records. I can’t be certain of their stepping prowess, and not just because the sleep deprivation has numbed my powers of observation. I’m not sure how far they can walk because I don’t pay that much attention to them.

With Abbie we celebrated every achievement. “Oh look, Abbie can take two steps.” “Oh look, Abbie can move fast enough to catch the dog.” “Oh look, Abbie can climb high enough to put chinchilla food in her mouth.” That’s the joy of parenting one child; I can celebrate every micro-milestone. I’d even spend half the day holding her up by the hands to encourage her to walk sooner. As a result, she could walk fairly well by her first birthday, much better than the boys can at the same age. Not that I would ever compare my children unless I had something very important to guilt them into doing.

With the boys, I have too much to do. If I spent more than a couple minutes walking with one of them, the other would crumple into a wailing ball of ignored agony while Abbie would discover the latest place we hid the chinchilla food. Plus I have other things to do around the house, like clean dishes for a family of five, wash laundry for a family of five, and clean a bathroom for a family of five that gets amazingly filthy considering three of the family members don’t use the toilet yet.

So my back is turned on the boys for much of the day. They may be walking all over the house and I don’t know it, returning to their infantile stance on the floor when I pay attention like farm animals from a Far Side comic. When they start walking full-time, I’ll be ready for them. I already have the chinchilla food in a high location to keep it from Abbie.

Ours Has Pictures of American Eskimo Dogs

I took Abbie to the doctor yesterday. This was for that mystery appointment that popped up on my calendar.

I’ve never been an organized person. This trait goes back to my childhood when my toy organization system involved spreading them across my bedroom floor so I could easily spot things like my Lite-Brite, or my Mr. T card game.

In high school when I started taking responsibility for my schedule, I tracked them in my head. “Band practice is Wednesday after school, the next band trip is Saturday, and I work Thursday and Saturday night … uh oh.” This system worked well if for no other reason than I had plenty of “friends” who were always eager to take shifts from me.

When I entered the work force, I still kept track of appointments in my head. It was pretty easy when every weekday had “8:00am: Show up for work. 4:30pm: Leave work. 7:00pm: Check want ads for a way out of this rut. 7:10pm: Throw newspaper down in disgust. 7:15pm: Mint chocolate chip ice cream makes everything better.”

Now I’m a parent responsible for myself, three children with diverging medical needs, a dog that finds something harmful to eat at least once a week, and two cats that throw up daily. I’m always making appointments to run somebody or something somewhere for some potentially life-saving reason, and I need to make sure that these appointments don’t conflict with each other, or our library time, or Abbie’s regular speech therapy, or Abbie’s other regular speech therapy.

So I’ve learned to use a calendar. Before children, a calendar was something to hang on the wall, enjoy its pretty pictures, and flip the page as soon as I realized it’s the tenth of the month. I might write an appointment on there, but only if I didn’t have to bother turning to a different month to do it. Otherwise, they’ll send me a reminder card when it’s time.

After the boys were born, I quickly discovered the necessity of writing down appointments, not just to avoid scheduling conflicts, but also to remind us in our sleep-deprived state that we need to be somewhere with someone. When I made an appointment, I’d immediately write it on the calendar as a reminder.

Yesterday’s date said “Abbie, doctor, 9:10am.” The only problem was I didn’t write the reason for the visit, and all the hours of missed sleep between then and now purged the reason from memory. In fact, I didn’t even remember making the appointment, which gave me quite a surprise when I flipped the calendar page and saw that I’d be taking Abbie to the doctor in four days.

We knew Abbie had to go in for a check-up of some sort, but we couldn’t figure out why. They don’t usually schedule 30-month check-ups. She should be up to date on her shots. When the receptionist asked for the reason of our visit, I wasn’t looking forward to telling her “I was hoping you could tell us.”

We snuck through the check-in process, and let the nurses figure out the reason for the visit. The winning answer: Hepatitis vaccine booster shot. If I’d known Abbie was going to be sick with a cold at the time, I never would have scheduled her for a shot.

"Is your house on fire, Clark?" "No, Aunt Bethany, those are the Christmas lights."

The days following Thanksgiving mean it’s time for one thing: Dramatic weight gain! Also, they mean it’s time to put up the Christmas lights.

Since I’m a little slow, I needed a few hints that I need to get in gear and hang some lights. Driving around at night, I notice that many homes are now festively decorated for the season. I think, “I should really do that.”

After a few days of not doing that, I notice Ellie is spreading her indoor decorations throughout the house. I think, “I need to find those lights in the basement.”

After a few more days of not looking for lights in the basement, Ellie points out that we’re currently experiencing our last, beautiful, 60-degree weather of the season, and now is the time to decorate outdoors. I think, “I’ll get to it tomorrow.”

The next day I finally go into the basement, find our lights, and pull them into the frigid outdoors. I think, “No problem, I’ll put these up in an hour before the frostbite sets in.”

Turns out, I did have a problem. This is my first year hanging Christmas lights with three children depending on me for nourishment, love, and entertainment. At first I tried running outside while everyone played happily inside. I quickly discovered that I could only go outside and work on the lights for a short while, sometimes as long as nine seconds, before someone would suffer a meltdown in my absence. Then I tried going outside while everyone napped, but Abbie’s sudden refusal to nap destroyed that idea like a boot stepping on a light bulb. Then I tried going outside while the boys napped and Abbie happily watched TV. That worked until Abbie realized I was outside and she wasn’t, and she stood at the door screaming and threatening to wake her brothers. Finally I threw Abbie’s coat on her and took her outside with me. She quickly wanted to go back inside, so opened the door, and she became angry that I was outside without her and she was cold.

I spent the next several days working on the lights in small chunks whenever Ellie was home or the kids seemed like they could cope without me for a minute. Hanging lights took much longer than I thought it would. I’d love to be Clark Griswold one day, but for now I only have a few strands to hang. Those strands have been in the basement for 11 months, where they fused with each other in a mess of tangles that dwarfs Abbie’s hair by bedtime. I must have spent an hour total pulling on the wires, yanking them, trying to dislodge one solitary strand.

When I finally had a loose strand to hang, it didn’t work for some reason. I went down the line, replacing broken and missing bulbs. I plugged in the strand and found a third of the bulbs dark. I sighed, looked at the broken light strand, looked at the several strands tangled together, listened to my screaming children, and did the only thing rational: I opened a new box of lights and hung those. I should’ve done that in the first place. I could’ve been done a week ago, saved the kids and myself a couple hours of frustration, and kept my fingers warm.

Piecing it Together

Childcare is like a good mystery, and I don’t just mean uncovering who broke those Hummel figurines. When a child acts in a certain way, you have to put together the subtle hints to discover why, especially when that child can’t talk like all three of ours. I think I know what’s going on in our house now. I’m kind of slow, so I have to walk through the clues.

Ian has been crankier than usual recently. He’s usually a mellow little guy. Just set a bowl of Tasteeos in front of him, and he’ll entertain himself for a long time, at least until he slams his fingers while playing with the toilet seat. His been whining a lot over the last couple of days, ignoring the piles of Tasteeos in front of him, or even whining while stuffing his face with Tasteeos. He’s been the worst in the evening, when we can expect him to whine from suppertime to bedtime. It’s excruciating listening to him complain inconsolably for a couple hours straight; just ask last night’s babysitter, assuming we can ever finagle another babysitting session. It even carries into bedtime when, instead of falling right to sleep as usual, he’ll sit in bed moaning for several minutes like Abbie is taunting him from the floor, which she may be, but he’s usually so good at ignoring her. So something is making him uncomfortable.

The kids don’t want to eat as much as usual. Ordinarily, I can set a sippy cup full of milk in front of any of them, and they’ll drain it faster than our bank account at Christmas. This is especially true with Tory, who’s gotten adept at working around the protruding valve to leave an amount in the cup best measured on the molecular level. The past few days I’ve had to chase the kids around the house up to an hour after mealtime to encourage them to finish their milk. Goldfish and Tasteeos still disappear quickly, so I know they’re not terminally ill, but they don’t seem as interested in milk. I know I just switched the boys from formula to whole milk, but there seems to be more at play. So something is ruining their appetite.

Sleep schedules seem off as Abbie has been fighting her nap, and the boys are more likely to wake at night. I’ve written extensively about Abbie’s nap difficulties, so I’ll summarize by saying she’s not napping. The boys have woken up in the middle of the night, but not with the screaming I expect when they suffer a baby nightmare. Instead they wake up vaguely complaining, then moderately complaining, then outright complaining until I rescue them to offer the best reassurance I can give at 3am. So something is making at least the boys uncomfortable over night.

Then there’s the big clue. My throat is scratchy. I’m not real uncomfortable, but my throat feels off, my sinuses feel off, and I feel generally worn. Suddenly I notice that the kids are snottier than usual. I saw the nasal rivers flowing recently, but I attributed it to their increased crying since snot flows when tears run.

So it all comes together thanks to my realization that I’m sick, but not so sick as to trap me in bed. The kids must be just sick enough to be miserable, but not sick enough to show blatant signs of illness. Since diseases run up the age ladder in families, I must have caught it from Abbie, probably while we were sharing a plate of broccoli, or specifically when she grabbed a floret, put it in her mouth, realized it was too hot, and put it back on the plate. Mystery solved.

NappieUpdate

Abbie didn’t nap again yesterday afternoon. She’d better not be trying to drop her afternoon nap; she’s far too young. Reference-less articles I found on the Internet say she shouldn’t drop her nap until at least age 4. It’s important that she continue napping for her mental development, to keep her in an agreeable mood, and to give me a chance to nap.

I’m bouncing around different ideas to try to keep that nap intact. In yesterday’s comments, Becky explained that her oldest has dropped naptime, and in turn her shower time. Instead they have “quiet time,” which isn’t a term I’m familiar with. Is that when only one child is screaming? That’s usually as quiet as my house gets.

I believe the idea behind quiet time is you put your child in her room, explain that she needs to play quietly for 30-60 minutes even if she doesn’t want to nap, shut the door, and then knock back a few limoncellos in the ensuing peacefulness. Unfortunately Abbie is a bit young for quiet time. I can and do still lock her in her room, but it’s not quiet. It’s kind of like the gentle roar of a moderately sized waterfall as she constantly bounces around the room, punctuated by the occasional thud of books being swept onto the rocks below.

Even when she doesn’t sleep I leave her into her room for about 45 minutes, or about how long it takes the boys to get ticked off that they’re stuck in their cribs while she’s free to pull books off the shelves. The idea is that the removal of stimulus will help calm her and give her the refreshment she needs to last until at least suppertime without melting down. We’re in good shape as long as she doesn’t suffer any unexpected rebukes, such as the one from her giant stuffed dog when he refused to ride her Little People train.

I’d like to try putting her down for a nap sooner, thinking maybe she gets overtired staying awake until late afternoon. An earlier nap doesn’t really work for us, though, because she has other things scheduled for mid-afternoon. Mostly I hate to change her naptime because that would rob me of that glorious time when all three children nap simultaneously. Instead I’m setting them down at night a few minutes earlier to compensate for the 90 minutes of sleep she loses without a nap. That change I can easily do since it creates extra simultaneous sleeping at night.

I’m also trying to wear her out earlier in the day. Ideally this would involve putting shoes on her feet and sending her in the backyard to chase the dog while I give a semblance of supervision by looking up from my newspaper every few minutes. Unfortunately we live in Iowa, and as I write this it’s 10 degrees outside. The dog barely wants to go outside, and I’m not about to sit out there reading a newspaper, so there’s no way she’s going outside unless she sneaks out with the dog, which she only does a couple times a day, sometimes even while wearing a shirt. Instead I’m wearing her out in our cramped house. Mostly this involves bouncing. She bounces in my lap, we bounce from room to room, and, in a particularly stupefying display of parenting, I encourage her to bounce on the bed.

I’d like to cut sugar from her diet, but I don’t know where. Her breakfast cereal is Kix, which is mother approved, and since mothers inherently know more about parenting than I do, I can only assume that it’s low-sugar. Her snacks are fruit, which are high in sugar but it’s natural sugar so it’s the good kind, and Goldfish, which may lead to hypertension but not hyperactivity. She drinks very little juice. Sure, she eats a quarter-bag of marshmallows everyday, but she’s learned to snitch those when I’m not paying attention so I don’t know what I can do to prevent that. Besides paying more attention to her of course, but I’d need to take a nap to increase my attentiveness, and obviously I have no free time for that.

The Naptime Grind

My second favorite time of day is when I first fetch the kids in the morning. Everyone is refreshed from a full night’s sleep, and smiles abound as I whisk them into the kitchen for breakfast. The kids are happy to start the day, and I’m happy to see them, anxious to see what they’ll discover today, and deliriously optimistic since they haven’t misbehaved that day, yet.

What’s my favorite time of day? Naptime.* I love my kids and wish we could spend every hour of every day playing and enjoying life together, but we don’t. They cry, scream, and howl for much of their wake time. Sometimes their displeasure is caused by me not feeding them fast enough, or daring to change a diaper. Other times their displeasure is merely directed at me because their Tasteeo dish is empty, someone fell down, or a dust bunny under the couch looked at them threateningly.

Sometimes, specifically 3:00pm every afternoon, we need a break from each other, or to put it another way, I need a break from them. I go through a detailed naptime routine, shut their bedroom door, and slink away to enjoy my first moments of quiet since the instant before the day’s deceptively joyous beginning.

Usually I take a nap, followed by detailed Internet research into spreads on sporting events until Abbie wakes up. Then I return to parenting, though only halfway since it’s just the oldest one. She gets a fruit snack and plopped in front of the television while I continue recharging until the boys awake. On some days, both or one of the boys, usually Ian, wake up with Abbie and I have to resume full-fledged parenting sooner, making supper while making sure no one plays with anything excessively dangerous. On other days, also known as “good days,” the boys keep sleeping and I keep doing my research.

Abbie is threatening to ruin my system, though. She usually takes some time to fall asleep, screaming at the closed door for a minute before retiring to bed in defeat. Then she sings, giving us both a chance to drift to sleep over the sound of her melodies as I listen over the monitor. Two days ago I drifted to sleep over the sound of her screeching, as she did not want to take a nap. I lost consciousness for maybe a couple minutes in between shouts. Around 3:30, I gave up and entered her room, taking her through a song-heavy condensed version of her naptime routine. It helped calm her down, and she was asleep a few minutes later.

Yesterday she again refused to fall asleep, and I again didn’t get much of a nap. I went back in her room about 3:30, and took her through the same condensed naptime routine. I left the room, shutting the door behind me, and listened to her scream while pulling on the knob as I walked away. By 4:00, it was clear she wasn’t going to nap, and she was going to keep the boys awake banging around the room. I let her out, plopped her in front of the television, and did some Internet research. This time I was trying to figure out how to force a two-and-a-half year old to nap. I didn’t have any luck finding forced-naptime information, although she did fall asleep in the car for about ten minutes while running errands last night. I hope my new favorite time of day never turns into the suspiciously quiet daily commute to and from the mall.

*Now that I think about it, the time after I set my screaming and exhausted children down for bed at night is pretty sweet too, so knock that morning thing down to number 3.