There's an app for that.

Parker couldn't find Ted tonight in his bed. Michael used his iPhone as a flashlight to locate the lost bear who had slipped down to Elizabeth's bed.

Gotta love those Macs.

Oh Shit.

Tonight at dinner, Elizabeth, without any apparent reason said, "Oh Shit." I immediately started laughing because she had the completely correct tone with it. Michael was not amused. He became even less amused when Parker and Miranda joined in saying, "Oh Shit. OHHHH shit. Oh shhhhitttt." And on and on.

I finally said, "That is something that adults say, but it's not for kids to say so when you are 39 years old, you can say it too. Until then, don't say it."

Parker immediately started calculating how old I would be when he could say shit.

Elizabeth said, "Sebastian and Fletcher's mommy says 'Oh Shit'. And so does Roy."

I could not keep from laughing.

Chabot

After a day of doing nothing but me running and then relaxing while Michael tended to the kids full time, he needed to get some work done. So I took the kids to the Chabot Space and Science center again this morning. Since they opened an hour after we arrived, we first played at Roberts park. The last time I took the kids there, it was too dangerous for the girls, but now, they were pros. Back at the Center, we played in one room for a while and then tried to do a movie again which terrified Miranda so we left. The Discovery Lab opened at noon and we played there for a while. They could have stayed all day. Literally.

The big run

Rachel ran her race today, and the whole family turned out to cheer her on. Here, the kids wait patiently at about the 7 mile mark.




Sure enough, Rachel came by, and despite all the practicing we did, the kids were too caught up in the moment to say Hooray a single time. They were very pleased to see her, and a bit confused when she just ran off.



I was using my iPhone, and I had the kids to mind, so most of my pictures look like this.



This was the best action photo I was able to get, about 100 yards from the finish line.



Go Rachel!

I did it!

13.1 miles. Yay me! Pics later...

That, I would like to see.

Parker said this morning,

"When we go bowling with Grandma Judy, she is going to say, 'that's the way, Parker'"

I didn't realize bowling and Grandma Judy could be in the same sentence.

Class Picture

My friend Kika scanned this for me today. It's Parker's school photo. Times Two! He kinda looks like my brother did when he was younger...

Mama Mia!

I'm making a CD for Parker's preschool of all the kids' favorite songs. I've burned all the CDs, and we are going to make the cover tomorrow. Then I'll distribute. It's a great variety of songs on the CD. It ranges from Twinkle Twinkle Little Star to Bon Jovi. From Black Bird by the Beatles to the theme song from the Transformers Movie. There are songs from musicals, toddler CDs, and even some House music. Parker selected Billy Joel which made me very proud and Michael very distressed.

Parker has already started listening to the CD in the car. He likes all the songs, but his favorite are Abba's Dancing Queen and a song from Wicked called Popular.

How fabulous is that?!?!?

For Susan

Block Ramp

New Photographers

I think they are pretty good.

Elizabeth took these with no help from me at all.





And Miranda took these.

Twister

Twister is big in our house right. The girls are playing naked. Parker is playing. And Parker's buddies are playing.

Busy Morning

This morning was action packed.

It was 'bring your kid to boot camp day' so since Michael was out of town, I took all three kids. I thought they would last about 5 minutes, but all of them did the whole class running, jumping and crawling with the bigger kids. And with the girls in their leotards and pony tails, they pretty much won the cute contest hands down. They got snacks and medals at the end of class.

Since I thought they wouldn't last in the class, I brought some bread to feed to the ducks at the lake, which was really close to class. So we went down there, but the geese were so aggressive, it freaked out the girls too much. After a quick stop at the playground, I was hungry. We went to Lakeside Cafe for some pancakes. Throughout all of this, the kids were exceptionally well behaved (minus some knife banging while waiting for the food.)

As it was still early (10am) we went to Chabot Space and Science Center, where I have never been before. Parker recently went there on a class field trip and kept talking about it. At Parker's request, we went to the movie first (planetarium style), but the darkness and loud music scared the shit out of the girls and we high tailed it out of there. We ended up in room for little kids that we could have stayed in for hours. They had everything: marble runs, lego, magnet letters, animals, computer for little ones, art projects, blocks...you name it! Leaving only twice for Elizabeth requested bathroom breaks, we stayed there until 12:30 when we had to get going home for naps.

As you can imagine, the kids were plum tuckered and fell asleep for naps very quickly.

Sunday Potluck

On Sunday, I took the kids over to Ebba's house for an small, but thoroughly delicious Memorial Day Weekend brunch potluck. Kika's and Susan's family came too. The menu was fancy and outstanding and I couldn't stop eating. The kids entertained themselves with the jumpy house (making it's first set of rounds to the co-owners), the air hockey table, trampoline and everything else at Ebba's house. The older boys (lincoln, aidan and parker) holed up in lincoln rooms to play drums and build train tracks. Everyone behaved extremely well, there were no potty accidents and all in all I got to relax. Who could ask for anything more? Max, Kika's husband took these great, if not snotty, shots. There were a few nice ones of Eli too, but Shutterfly isn't being nice to me right now...



Enjoying looking at the score on air hockey.


Four moms relaxing.




They actually played together for a good long while.

Blocks

Parker has started to get very creative and very complex with his block building. He's been making bunk beds, houses, and tents for all his buddies. And he gets quite frustrated when the girls knock it over.

Ice Cream Stand

Hmmm... Butter Ice Cream.

Bedtime stories tonight.

Parker likes to have books read to him backwards. Not just page by page, but word by word. I read this book Phoebe and Chub to him tonight like that and it was pretty hard to do. Your eyes naturally look to the next word. He cracked up the whole time and I sounded like Yoda. Try it.

He also likes to have books read to him all silly. You replace the regular words with silly words or slightly different sounds. We read Caps for Sale that way tonight too until the girls got really upset about it. Flaps for sale! Thrifty cents a Flap! He gets really into it making up fake words left and right.

We also read Little Quack, a story about some ducklings who are afraid to leave the nest but who, one by one, get the courage up to do so. When we got to the last duckling, Little Quack, I asked Miranda, "Do you think he will go in the water?" "No," she said very sadly, "He is just too, too scared."

4 leotards

In general, posing the kids for blog pictures is not kosher. But, from time to time, like this week at gymnastics, we make exceptions. (Elizabeth, Miranda, Allison, and Fiona)

Boys weekend.

A couple weeks ago, Michael looked really tired. He's been working pretty hard these days, coming home around 6 to only start working again after the kids go to sleep. His work days are jam-packed and his home life isn't exactly relaxing. So when it became obvious he could use a break and I wasn't up for a long drive to LA again, I suggested he take Memorial Day weekend off. So today, he and his friend drove off to some undetermined location a few hours away for a boys weekend. I hope he is enjoying his time off and gets to sleep really late tomorrow.

Susan and I and all the kids went to the steam trains and carousel in Tilden park today and even though it was ridiculously cold, the cuteness of the 5 kids wrapped up in blankets on the little train was almost worth it.

Um.

Parker has started adding "ums" to most everything he says. The more excited he is, the more ums there are. Sometimes the ums go on for a good 5-10 seconds before he starts talking. Like, "Um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, Is it Saturday?!!!!" This is a fairly recent development and I'm guessing it will go away at some point sort of like sucking on his shirt, sucking on his hands, wrapping his fingers over each other, and other little quirks that have come and gone.

The interesting thing is that Elizabeth, in her lifelong quest to be like her big brother, has started mimicking him in a very exaggerated way. Since it isn't natural were her, she really has to think about each um as it comes out, unlike Parker who can say about 5 ums in one second.

Going the distance...

I can't believe I'm referring to my 6 mile run tomorrow as "short". What the hell has happened to me?!?!

Race is one week from tomorrow. Yikes!

Naps

A couple months ago, I had to get some stuff done during nap time so rather than reading books and singing songs, I told the girls I had to "work" and I couldn't sing songs that day. Amazingly, they were silent and just went to sleep.

I tried this again and then again and still again and almost every time it works perfectly. The only caveat is that Parker can't be napping in the same room as his tossing and turning and chatting with his buddies (Ted, Lion, Ed, Fred, and Bob) keep the girls awake and then they all start goofing off. So I ask Parker to sleep upstairs in our bed (which is still considered a special thing) and he falls asleep by himself too.

Some days Parker isn't too tired so I let him have "quiet time" when he plays with the trains or his computer or whatever. Yesterday he did this and after about an hour he said he was tired and wanted to lie down. He then fell asleep for an hour and a half.

I've got some friends with twins who are having trouble with naps these days or have given them up completely, so I think I should feel very lucky my three are such good nappers still.

Tuesday

Today I...

Went jogging with a mom from Parker's preschool this morning.
Went to my first OBGYN appt since the girls were born.
Popped in for my first Mammogram (which was totally fine and I'm not sure what all the fuss is about.)
Went shopping.
Watched Ebba and Susan, who were watching the kids, show me how to use my new slow cooker that they bought me for mother's day.
Tried (unsuccessfully to fix the printer for Parker.)
Weeded the entire front yard.
Took the kids to swim class.
Took them to playplace.
Ate a wonderful roast and veggie dinner from said slow cooker.
Passed out on the couch at 7:15.
Woke up 2 hours later and thanked Michael for letting me sleep.

Not a bad day.

Essence

Somehow I got my name on the mailing list to Essence Magazine. It just started showing up here a couple months ago. As you may or may not know, I'm not really their target audience. Michael and I crack up over it every month when he makes some lame-ass joke. But this month's was blog worthy.

I said to him as I walked by him looking through it, "Good reading?"

He replied, "I'm learning how to find a good black man in Philadelphia."

Cousins

Parker drew a picture of two kids in a tree today at school. They looked like they were sitting on a swing in the tree.

I asked Parker what it was a picture of and he said Oliver and Peter on rope ladder in a tree. There was an OS and PS next to the picture. I asked what OS was and he said it was Oliver since he didn't know how to spell Oliver he just called him OS and Peter PS.

Then Miranda said, "Is that Oliver?" pointing at one of the kids in the picture and Parker said, as if Miranda was the dumbest person on the planet, "No! That is Peter!"

Brotherly and Sisterly Love