love and statues

We're at the lake, and boy, do I love the lake! The boys and I have been here all week, and let me tell you, it's been a good week. We've been going for walks, going for boat rides, relaxing, playing outside, riding our trikes, getting a tan and visiting with family and friends.
The boys love their "boppa" (grandpa) and they also love St. Francis. Weird. I know.
For those of you that may not be Catholic, St. Francis is the patron saint of animals and the environment. My dad received a statue of St. Francis that is also a birdbath for a gift from teaching confirmation classes for many years at church. The statue/birdbath is in the middle of their backyard. It's weathered and recently suffered some destruction when on Mother's Day the twins were running around the yard wielding sticks and knocked a bird right off St. Francis' shoulder (a plastic bird - not real). So began the relationship with the statue of the saint.
I made the boys apologize to the statue for hurting it (me trying to be a mother who teaches compassion - also to distract them so I could take away their sticks which were on the way to poking out an eyeball).
Now when we go outside, we have to go up to the statue and kiss his head, the squirrel on his shoulder and the fawn on his lap (which the boys yell "puppy!!" at and bark at - we're not getting into all that right now).
So, St. Francis, sorry for your shoulder, sorry for dumping you over to get the water out of the birdbath, sorry for the spit on your head. Forgive us in Jesus' name. Amen.
We'll try to keep a safe distance.

hop, hop. roar. roar.

We have this frog puppet washcloth. (We also have a shark, lion, and tiger, but more on those later).

I thought it was funny to "hop" the frog all over the tub one night - entertaining Lucas and scaring the crap out of Andrew. I ate his hand with the frog, and it was all over. Crying, "no, no hop", and needing to get out of the bathtub immediately. (what a terrible mom!) I honestly didn't know it was going to freak him out so much. Whoops!

So, Andrew has been trying to be brave. The first week or so, he would see one of the puppets and just walk very much around them, but the other day he actually picked one up! It was the lion. I decided that since I was such a terrible mom before, I should rectify the situation and I kissed the lion. MMMMMWHA. So, Andrew kissed the lion. MMMMMMA. He even put the lion on his hand. All is right in the world. Except that he said "hop hop" with the lion. So, being such a good mom, I said "no honey, it's roar". He walked around for a little bit "roaring" with the lion (and kissing it too - so that's good). He said "bye bye roar", dropped the lion and moved on to the next thing.

Since then, he's been finding any of the washcloth puppets and saying "hop. Roar" and "bye bye hop roar" and "no no hop roar".

Now tonight, in the tub, Andrew was playing with dinosaurs. Adam was "roaring" the dinos at the boys, everyone was having fun, splashing, squirting the dinosaurs. Then Andrew picks up a dinosaur and says "hop".

What have I done?

experts

We have twins. Did you know that? That means TWO kids. And, our twins are 18 months old. That means they are absolutely nuts! Like running around - diving off furniture - leaping down stairs - climbing on the oven - opening the doors - messing up the living room - putting toys away in the pots and pans cupboard - nuts.
And it's double what you're thinking. I promise.
So since my life is actually insane, I've had to do a lot of calling doctor's, poison control, googling, etc. to find out everything I need to know. I thought it might be fun to compile a list of 25 things that I am now an "expert" on due to having my children. Feel free to quiz me on any and all entries. Here goes:
1) Cloth diapering
2) Breastfeeding/Pumping
3) Black eyes
4) Making baby food
5) Organic gardening
6) Veganism/Vegetarianism
7) Head injuries
8) Natural cleaning
9) Money-saving
10) Asthma
11) Sleep Apnea
12) Baby CPR/Choking/First Aid
13) Poisonous Mushrooms
14) Dave at poison control
15) Vaccinations
16) Sleep Schedules/Schedules in general
17) Baby sign
18) Tornado spotting (ok, this isn't from having kids, this is due to my fear of storms)
19) Lost (the tv show)
20) Rashes - reactions of any kind
21) Medicinal uses of herbs/essential oils
22) Blocking out crying at night (ooo, I've gotten really good at this one :) )
23)1,2,3, Magic
24) Putting snaps on
25) Marsupial Sue

Maybe I should share the knowledge...

puppy head?

I never know what is going to happen when I'm gone for an evening.



A new purpose for the Easter baskets...

I'm a genius

My latest genius moment came in the form of a beverage. You've gotta try this.

So, you probably know what an Arnold Palmer is - a drink of 1/2 lemonade, 1/2 iced tea. Here is my version/specific way of making an Arnold Palmer - duh, you've probably made it before, but here's my way (and if you've made it this way before, don't tell me - let me think I've invented something) :)

First I make a pitcher of watery lemonade. Put in about 1/2 the amount of concentrate, powder, or lemons than you usually would add.

Then I put in my tea - and favorite new invention - Cold Brew Iced Tea bags. Really great! And again, if this is not news, sorry I was pretty excited about it

You could do the same thing with peach nectar for peach iced tea, add mint, sugar - Yum!!

sorry it's such a mess...

The "Minnesota Nice" thing is sometimes so funny to me. Everyone always makes excuses for their, well, everything! For my job, I go to people's homes and work with their kids. The kids are usually 2 or 3, and these people often have more than just the one kid. I'm typically greeted at the door with the mom saying "Sorry, it's such a mess". I smile, laugh and say "I have two little boys at home, it's not even close to what my house looks like." I'm trying to make them feel better, more comfortable, you know? But isn't it the truth?? If anyone even stops by at your house and it's not sparkly clean, (like you weren't planning a party in which your husband kept the kids upstairs or downstairs all afternoon so you could have a clean and organized house :) ) you feel bad having me over and seeing your stuff on the floor.I'm not lying. My house is worse!! Here is what I came down to after a shower today:



It looks as though everything was dumped on the floor!
Oh, it was!!
So, you see, you don't have to be nice to me when I come to your house. This is what my house looks like on a daily basis. I don't care! It's fun to dump all the toys out. It's fun to throw blocks around the house and sit on the edge of the mess playing, looking like you could not possibly have anything to do with what happened around you. None of that matters. Especially when you have good helpers to clean up after themselves.

Plug:
Luke is cleaning our hickory hardwood floors with Daisy Blue Naturals' Lavender Pine Cleaner. Non-toxic, safe for babies to help wash floors with. Ask me if you want any!! It's fantastic!!
(Really, I was washing the floors, and 2 helpers found towels and came to assist me. It was pretty cute :) )

ah...motherhood

A Mom. There is nothing in the world that I'd rather be, and with Mother's Day coming up, I'm getting all sentimental and "mommy"ish. There is nothing better than tonight.

It all started with an incident - which always seems to happen with 2 boys around my house. After baths, we bring the boys - in towels - to their room to get their jammies on. Tonight, we were short a diaper, so Adam ran downstairs to grab another one and what do you think happened? Luke disrobed, grabbed his blankie and nuk, threw his towel on the floor and inadvertantly pottied on it. It being the towel and the corner of his beloved blankie.
We tried to substitute the "back-up" blanket, but it just isn't the same, so Luke proceeded to cry and yell for his blanket. (Side note regarding twins: It was REALLY difficult for Luke to see that Andrew had HIS blanket, so we had to switch out Andrew's too. They both needed to be washed, so whatever, but what we do for one, really HAS to be done for the other.) Andrew took it in stride, looking for his blanket, but resolving to use the back-up. Honestly, until tonight I had no idea they were even attached to the darn things.

So back to Luke having a fit. I started the laundry and couldn't handle his crying; he was doing that multiple breath thing, you know, sobbing. I went in to rock him and try to help him relax. (I really take any chance I can get to go back into their room and hold them and rock them to sleep)

There is nothing better than rocking babies. Really - that's about the best thing ever. Seeing my little boy look up at me, feeling his chubby little hand touch my cheek (then dig his fingernails into it), giggling, and smiling at me, sticking his finger up my nose and trying to poke my eyes out. I really do love it all! I take a cuddle when I can get it because I know that it just won't be that way forever.

After a hard day of work, there is nothing I'd rather do than come home and just be "mommy". Mommy is pretty cool.