Channeling Mom

This afternoon, I went to a twin play date at Kika's. She has twin boys and a older son Parker's age. When we arrived, someone inside was crying. We discovered it was Miles and he was having a tough time. Kika, who forgot she had to go pick up her older son from preschool, took Miles with her as he was still feeling grumpy. Liam, who was fine when we arrived, became immediately upset when Kika left. He went to the door and opened it. I went to shut it, which he did not like. He started crying, screaming "Mommy! Mommy!" This continued for a bit as Leslie (Isaac and Owen's mom) tried to talk to him or ask him he if wanted to play. Liam was having no part in this and became very upset, tossing over a big basket of shoes angrily.

That was when I got involved. I stood up, walked over to him, knelt down and without thinking channeled my mother. I said in firm, but not mean voice, "Liam, that is not ok. You are sad your mom is not here, but it's not time to cry right now. We can play or read books, but we are not going to cry. Your mom will be home soon. Let's go do something." And with that I took his hand and got up.

Amazingly (or not depending on your perspective), he took my hand, immediately stopped crying and walked with me willingly to the room where he read books with me until his mom came home. He was happy as a clam the rest of the time, playing stickers with Leslie in the living room.

I'm not sure why I did it. But I'm glad I did as Liam and I got a little closer today because of it.

Kiddo

Today Miranda asked Elizabeth something and Elizabeth said, "Nope, sorry kiddo."

I gotta watch everything I say around here.

More Watch Nonsense

Parker is now intentionally setting his watch to the wrong month and day and then calculating what day in the future it will be to correspond to actual dates. For example, his watch is on August something right now. So he said, the date will be January 29th when Miranda and Elizabeth turn 3.

I can't even keep up with it, so I just nod and smile.

What Elizabeth just said...

"Remember when I barfed at the dinner table?"

Which was followed by...

"Mommy, remember when Mickey heard a racket and shouted Quiet Down There?"

Lyrics

Before I left for Los Angeles, Michael made me a CD of a variety of songs from my iPod. Some Billy Joel, Priscilla Queen of the Desert, Elton John, Liz Phair and soundtrack from Juno. Parker likes the Juno tracks and requests them over and over (1, 2, 10, and 13). I just give him the remote (yes, my car stereo has a remote) and he can listen to whatever he wants. I don't really care as long as he listens to whole songs at a time.

So this weekend, I took him and a new neighborhood friend Fin to The Jungle about 20 minutes away. Parker requested the remote and even offered to share it with Fin (who could not have cared less). After a few minutes, Parker says, "Fin...did you hear that part? It said "If you want to burn yourself, if you want to cut yourself, if you want to kill yourself..."

Holy Shit! That is what it really said! I mean I had heard the lyrics about 100 times, but I never thought much about it...until another kid was in the car. I jumped in before he could discuss it more..."Oh that isn't very nice to say, is it? Let's change the song, Parker."

Thank god we didn't get to the part that goes: "Fuck Bush and and fuck this war." I'm sure Fin's mom would have loved that.

Needless to say, we switched CDs on the way home.

Miranda

The day we got back from Los Angeles, we started potty training Miranda again. We had put the whole thing on hold after all the pooping issues at the recommendation of the doctor. This killed me as she was basically potty trained for pee. She said, give it 6 months of no pain during pooping before you start again. So I waited, growing nervous by the day that she would not be potty trained by September and therefore could not go to preschool.

She seemed excited about being "potty trained" like her brother and sister (finally). She only had one pee accident on that Friday (at the park) and since then has not had one accident. She was still having poop accidents though, either in her underwear or in her diaper at naps or at night.

4 days ago, we all went to target for something and she saw a baby doll she wanted desperately. I bought it and told her she could play with it when she pooped in the potty. She completely understood this, but then did not poop for 3 days. We were really worried that the poop that was bound to come would hurt her and set us back another 6 months. But then we remembered that she was not feeling well and didn't eat a ton so perhaps she just didn't need to go.

Then yesterday, while I was running (9 miles again!) she sat on the potty and pooped the, according to Michael, biggest poop you've ever seen. Michael said she was so happy and proud of herself and thrilled to get her doll, which she hasn't put down since.

Elizabeth is having a hard time with all of this. She doesn't understand why she doesn't get anything. Luckily she so enjoys doing things by herself, I don't think the sadness will last. In fact, yesterday, she opened 4 band-aids by herself and put them on her and the new baby. She even helped Miranda do it when Miranda couldn't ge them open. Hopefully I won't squash all of her intrinsic motivation.

Watch and Parker

Parker has been wearing my watch for the last month or so. He likes the light feature and enjoys being able to press it in the middle of the night or under water. I've been wearing an old one of Michael's that is suppose to be for triathlons.

Over the last few days, the watch hasn't been working. (Or so I thought.) Every day it was a different time than the real time. I would take it off his arm, correct the time and give it back. Every day.

Then yesterday, I noticed again that the time was off (about 20 minutes slow as usual) and started to take it off his arm. He said, "I can do it!" and then proceeded to set his own watch. Not only did he understand what buttons to push, but he could actually push them properly even though they are tiny. It was unbelievable. I mean, come on. Setting a digital watch with all those modes and timer and features is hard for an adult.

Then today we were talking about how Daddy's birthday is next week. He immediately started messing with his watch. Then he showed me how it said "May" as the month. He said, "Look, it's the month of his birthday. I'll put it back to the right month now." And he did.

When we were about to read books before naps today, he was putting together the reading list. He put the last one on top saying, "This is the 7th to last one." Then he added, "Mommmy, when there are only 7 books, the 7th to last one is the 1st one."

Duh.

Bubbles

The family car

3 is the magic number

The kids watched school house rock today. Parker was mesmerized and the girls didn't like it much.

Parker at School

He is very proud of himself that he can go down the pole like Pickles the Fire Cat.

Yeah, I know.

The dad working at Parker's preschool today said, while exiting the school, "Parker was teaching me about how many isosceles triangles it takes to make a hexagon today. Seriously."

My response, "Sigh."

How the hell do they know????

In general, Parker is not a terribly picky eater. Strangely, he doesn't like normal kid things Mac and Cheese or Pizza, but he'll eat fish, veggies, and other things fairly easily. His favorite meal is breakfast, which I respect, so lunches and dinners are often very light. I think he takes after his cousin Oliver in this way.

Anyway, tonight, Michael was working out late so I did dinner alone and just stir-fried up this Trader Joe's pasta, chicken and veggie thing. It had all the ingredients that he would eat and it looked totally normal, but as soon as he came to the table, he started making his unhappy sounds, announcing he didn't like this dinner. After I tried Mom's trick of saying, I don't want to talk about it and he kept making sad crying sounds, I asked him what the problem was. He said he didn't want dinner out of a bowl and asked for a plate. So I dumped his food on a plate and surprise, surprise, he still didn't eat it. Turns out, the delicious sauce that made the meal edible to me was the exact thing that made it gross to him. It was essentially garlic and butter and cheese and despite the fact that he likes butter and cheese, the sauciness of the entree was just too much for him.

He literally wasn't going to eat anything so I gave him some plain pasta which he ate happily.

Mom...I'm so sorry I was a picky eater. Thank you for not giving me sandwiches all those years and my apologies for not liking rare meat.

Fine vs Gross

We all know Elizabeth is advanced with gross motor skills. She can run, jump, and throw balls like a 4 year old.

But we also learned that she is damn good at fine motor skills too when she pulled a chair over to the counter, took a tangerine off the counter, peeled it and ate it. We only found out when we found the peel in her shopping cart.

Preschool = High school

I worked at Parker's preschool this morning and it's amazing how early some of the behaviors with kids start.

For example...

There are already clicks. 2 girls and one boy hang out together constantly and say things like, "No more room here!" to other kids.

Two girls walked hand and in hand making snide comments about the other girls whispering and laughing as they were doing it.

Parker wanted to sit next to this one girl, but she wanted to sit next to this other girl. They kept moving and Parker kept following. I told him she wanted to sit next to someone else. Parker said, "But there's room for me too," as the girls made sure there wasn't. So mean.

A dad worked today and some of the girls were literally flirting with him to get his attention. It was bizarre. Or perhaps not.

I thought I saw the future a bit with Elizabeth and it wasn't pretty.

Happy Birthday Mom!

Apparently, my mother and Lion share a birthday. Although Lion is quite older at 80 years old. I'm sure tomorrow she'll be 6 again.

Monday

It's about 85 degrees or more here today. The kids are playing naked outside with some water. I'm too damn hot to go take pictures.

Parker claims it's Ted's birthday today, but I'm pretty sure Ted has had a birthday every month this year and I need to draw a line somewhere.

The kids were all back in 'school' this morning and they all seemed pretty happy about it. As was I, even if it was only for 2 + hours.

We had a fabulous egg hunt on Saturday with my twin mom friends. It went incredibly well and it was ridiculously sweet. My camera was out of batteries, but my friend Ebba took some for us: http://casadelacolina.blogspot.com/2009/04/easter-egg-hunting-party.html

I was back to my crazy morning workout today. After yesterday's run and "sleeping in" to 6am for the past week or so, it was rough stuff. But if must be paying off as I'm down 25 pounds from the peak of my thyroid issue. I haven't decided what weight I want to stop at and I'll figure that out when I am closer to it.

The kids are now arguing about who the big bad wolf is. I always get to be the mama pig.

Speaking of mama, Elizabeth has started calling me "mama", which I find quite odd.

Michael and I are planning on a trip to Hawaii at Christmas and although it's over 7 months away, we could not be more excited about it.

The kids don't know the difference between flies and bees outside, even though they do in pictures and books. What is that about?

Just keep running.

Thanks to Susan's shorts, Billy Joel, Michael's Mantra, and my Twins by the Bay hat, I ran 9 miles today. I wouldn't say it was fun, but it was a good feeling when I finally stopped.

Some things Parker just said about math

"9 times 2 is the same one as 3 times 6."

He was playing with my iPhone, a favorite new pastime. I've downloaded a few math games for him, which he likes almost as much as he likes the skeeball game. Or the timer.

When he was done he handed me back the phone, which was in the middle of a multiplication game. It was on 8 x 5, so I asked him if he knew what that equaled.

He said, "40. Just like on the clock."

It took me a minute to figure out what he was talking about. Having spent so much time drawing analog clocks, with their five second increments between numbers, Parker can do his five times tables without thinking.

Nothing cuter than...

There is pretty much nothing cuter than two sets of twins naked in a bath.




Except maybe a little dude in a light green flower robe.



Or another little dude saying "Rachel Hold Me."

Parker just said...

"I like looking being upside down and having Cory look at me right side up."

I said, "Huh?"

He repeated it.

I thought.

Then said..."Was Cory upside down too?"

"YES!"

:)

Art?

Or just the table at McDonalds?

The many faces of Amy.

Miranda took these pics. Sort of.

Getty

Mom and I took the girls to the Getty Museum today. I had never been before (since I'm not much of a cultured gal), but she said it had nice gardens and the kids would like it. Amy took the boys to the Pier to ride the roller coaster while we were on our adventure.

The tram ride up was good, and the kids were all in good spirits for the first 10 minutes until Miranda ran down a hill, fell and hit her lip on the pavement pretty damn hard. It swelled up and she pretty cried the rest of the day. After 20 minutes or so of her crying in my arms, I was ready to pack it in and go back to the car, but Mom was a trooper and dealt with her while I went off with the other two to explore. It was quite a garden and it took all of Elizabeth's super powers to not touch everything, pick every flower, and move every pebble.
















After some snacks and more running around, we went up to a small room for kids where they a bed like one in the museum for the kids to sit on to read books and another room where they got to put big tubes in slots in the wall. They also made masks and actually wore them a bit too.










Then we had lunch and went home. Within minutes of being in the car, they all passed out. All of Miranda's screaming caught up with her. It would have been a lovely day had Miranda not gotten hurt. Oh well.