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

Stickers

This morning the kids put stickers all over themselves. They kept saying they had a "bad case of the stripes" which is the title of a book we got out of the library.

Three Blonds

Another successful and fun morning with the three blondies. Ava always brings out the best in the girls. Ava has come a long way since school started in September last year (when I first started hanging out with her) and it's been interesting to see her verbal and motor skills advance. I can pretty much understand everything she says now which was not the case 8 months ago. I'm sure my girls have advanced the same way, but it's harder to note when they are your own kids.

Really Real.

For the last several days, Parker has been talking about all the things that will happen with Ted, Lion, Fred, Ed, and Bob become 'real'. He says they are going to go swimming, take naps, play with numbers. He said it would happen in 100 weeks (which I was pretty pleased with since I'm guessing by then we will think differently.) But then he said it was 98 weeks so I think we are talking about Parker time and not real time. I wonder if he actually thinks they will become real or if he understands this is not possible, but likes talking about it anyway.

280 Quarters

Parker will be happy to tell you that this equals 7000 cents. He's been doing this math all morning.

Allison gets into the leotard action.

After a few weeks of watching Elizabeth and Miranda run around in their leotards, Allison was thrilled to wear hers today at gymnastics class. Fiona is still a hold-out, but I'm guessing she gives in soon.

Boxes, Boxes

More boxes equals more fun. Here they are watching the shower dvd (the dvd they watch when I take a shower.)

That's Dangerous!

I was reading the kids a book called "That's Dangerous" for naps today. Every page is a little kid doing something dangerous like juggling knives or standing on a swing or playing with plastic bags. It's actually quite a scary little book since it shows kids exactly all the dangerous things to do (that they might not have actually thought of on their own.)

Anyway...one of them is, "Jumping off the roof." Parker then says, "It's ok to be on the roof if you are walking to the chimney to go down it."

I said, "Who does that?"

All the kids yelled, "The big bad wolf!"

"Anyone else?" I ask?

"A fox?" Elizabeth says tentatively..

I said perhaps, but who else?

Parker then says, "SANTA CLAUS!"

Amazing.

Parker swam half the total length of the pool by himself today without flippers. He took about 4 breathes to get there. His teacher was so excited, she looked up at the observation area and gave me a thumbs up before she gave him a high five when he reached the wall. Another mom said, "Wow, that was impressive. How old is he?" Her daughter is in the same class and looks to be about 6 years old. Impressive indeed!

2 ducks and a goose

The kids, on their own, and without any management from me, started and played a very nice game of Duck, Duck, Goose before naps. Too cute.

Papa, Mama and Baby

Ever since we started reading Goldilocks and the Three Bears everything in the house has turned into Papa, Mama, and Baby this, that or the other.

For example at dinner last night, Elizabeth ate a baby broccoli. Then Miranda asked for a baby broccoli to go with her Mama broccoli.

Parker and I saw two ducks swimming with a bunch of ducklings at the park the other day and he exclaimed, it's a mama and papa duck!

This morning, Miranda was playing with letters and numbers of the fridge and said, "Here is a Papa 7, a Mama 7, and a Baby 7."

And then Elizabeth said she had to go poop and then afterwards explained to Miranda that it was a Baby Poop and not a Mama or Papa poop.

Thinking.

When I was with Elizabeth at the zoo the other day, someone was having a birthday party. They had a big 4 balloon which both me and the other mom we were hanging out with commented on. While we were in the line for the airplane ride, the balloon got loose and flew away. It was quite a sight to see that big 4 floating up higher and higher.

When we got home, we told Parker the story of the balloon that floated away and he was very interested for a while and then got back to doing whatever it was he was doing.

Today, two days later, Parker, before naps, looks at me and says, "Mommy, I don't want my 5 balloon to float away so we have to be very careful not to let it go," and he started crying. It was so sad. Sad that he has been thinking about this since I told him and sad that the thought of it actually happening was so upsetting to him. I reassured him that I would never let this happen. A promise I hope I can keep.

Mother's Day

My day started off well and ended even better. I got to sleep in the back house without even having to get up at 5am to work out. When I rolled out of bed at 7am (crazy sleeping in!), I was rewarded with hand made cards from the kids. Parker also made me a gift at school (he stitched it himself) and a nice number (39 of course)





I took Miranda to the store as we were out of milk and let her take the new shopping cart. She pushed it all around the store and even filled it up with milk, yogurt and bread. It was beyond cute.

Back at home, we decided to head up to Cull Canyon (a man-made lake that is filtered so it's like a swimming pool.) for a picnic and swim with some friends. We were the first one's there and after a few minutes of confusion, went in and enjoyed the whole place to ourselves. It was the ridiculously beautiful. After getting lost, Susan, Roy, and their kids joined us and everyone played and hung out for a couple hours. Roy was a trooper in the water with the kids even tossing Parker and splashing the girls over and over.

Michael enjoyed the shade most of the time, but did take a brief dip with me while Susan kept her eye on the girls. We decided to forgo naps so by the time bedtime came, they were all beat and fell asleep fast. The best mother's day present ever!



He swore he didn't have to pee.


The girls love Susan. She and Ebba are like second moms to them.




Elizabeth relaxing.



Fletcher


Sebastian

11 miles.

Enough said.

Falling

We had our first "falling out of the bunk bed" incident yesterday. It was during naps. I heard a big thud. I expected to hear crying immediately after but there was none. I looked on the monitor and Parker was still in his bed. I opened the door and there was Elizabeth on the floor climbing back into her bed. She said, "I fell off the bed." I said, "I know, let me help you back up." And then she went back to sleep for about 45 minutes.

That was it.

Doubly sweet

The girls came home from daycare the other day with Mother's Day present. It was this poem about growing up with girl's hand prints in a nice frame. It was very sweet and the kind of thing most mothers would love and cherish forever. (Not me of course, but I understand the sentiment.)

What seemed a little odd and which took away some of the fun of it was the fact that there were two of the exact same thing. Had there not been a name on it (Elizabeth 2009 and Miranda 2009), they would have been seemingly identical. Seeing both of them with the same cute poem made it seem really lame and even more silly than it would have seemed had there been only one. As if it shouted, "I'm just a photo copy that has been around for years and doesn't really mean anything!"

Even still, they are both on our fireplace mantle right now as the girls are really proud of them.

Not a performer.

We were at the park today after gym classes with Ebba and her kids. One of her friends (mom of Lincoln's classmate) was there too. They were chatting and then Parker started making numbers out of the pretzels. The other mom said, "Wow you made a 6!" as if this was the most amazing thing she had ever seen. Ebba sort of chuckled and then stepped in to explain that all on scale of things, this was actually pretty lame. (she said it nicer.) The mom seemed surprised at the least. Ebba tried to demonstrate his abilities, but Parker was more interested in his pretzels. Towards the end of the time at the park, he was making a 64 and talking about varies properties of that number and who was 64. I asked him, trying one last time to show this mom, what half of 64 was and he told me wasn't playing that game now. I just smiled. Ebba laughed.

At home, after naps, I said to him, "Hey Parker, you know at the park when I asked what half of 64 was and you didn't want to play? Did you know know the answer?"

He said, "You remember when Peter was doing that math on the board and he wrote

1 2 4 8 16 32 64 128? Well, that means that half of 64 is 32, Mom."

I guess he likes his audiences small.

More Gross

I worked at the preschool Monday and Wednesday this week. It just worked out that way and it was my last work day this year.

On Monday, Parker was climbing on the outside of the play structure in a place that was not meant for climbing. Another kid tattled on him so I came over (as I was on yard duty*) and I told him it was dangerous to climb there and he should get down. I then took hold on him and told him to let go. This upset him to no end and he started crying (like I just told him his pet dog died) and telling me all about how I was wrong to do that and how the teachers tell him Great Job when he does it. This surprised me, but I apologized and then, when all the kids were inside, let him do it again.

Then today, he was doing it again and he called over to me to watch him "drop". I turned to the teacher who was standing with me and said, "Parker said you allowed this. Is that true?" "No," she confirmed and went over to tell him to get down. Before she was even done telling him, he was crying again saying "But I don't get hurt when I do it!" I helped him down and then we went over to the teacher to discuss it more. Her reasoning was "kids get hurt when they do that so don't do it." Parker's was "I'm not getting hurt so I can do it." We discussed it more and I brought up the "copying" aspect of it and he seemed to get that, but still wasn't happy. We went inside to calm down.

At first, I felt annoyed that he had played me telling me the teachers said it was ok knowing perfectly well that wasn't the case.

Then, I felt annoyed that he was crying about the two things the teachers said in the parent teacher conference he should do: 1) work on his gross motor skills and 2) get in trouble more often. His gross motor skills were outstanding as he was essentially rock climbing with no harness or net. And he certainly did get in trouble for it. Twice.

He's got another whole year at this school and to not be allowed to climb on the structure the way that he wants is going to drive him crazy. I just know it.

Boobies.

With Miranda potty training (again) these days, I realized how short we are on girly underwear. Today, both girls wore Parker's tighty whitys.

So we went to pick up some panties at Target. As we walked down the little girl undergarment aisle, Miranda said, "I see some boobies," as she was pointing to some little girl bras. I said, "those are bras." She said, "I need a bra." I said, "No, you don't need a bra yet, you don't have boobies yet." She raised up her shirt and said, "Mommy, I have boobies right here." I said, "But they aren't big enough to fill a bra yet. Don't worry, they will be one day."

Michael's Birthday

We celebrated Michael's birthday quietly* at home yesterday.

The kids all picked out one present for him at the toy store and he was thrilled to get a new monkey alarm clock, pink baby, and shopping cart. I'll let you guess who gave what.

Then we enjoyed some ice cream cake. Later, Michael had his now traditional (yet not home made) lemon meringue pie.

Then I went to a parent teacher meeting at the co-op (where I will president next year) and Michael watched some t.v.












*When I say "quietly", what I really meant was celebrated despite Miranda's most amazing tantrum ever. She literally went crazy and screamed non-stop about nothing for a very long time. This was after she hit me several times and wouldn't say anything else but "No!". Even for her, it was unbelievable.

The Weekend

This weekend started off good and ended nicely too.

On Saturday morning, I did another 9 mile run. Then we all hung around the house until Jenna arrived in the evening for an overnight baby sitting. Michael's birthday is tomorrow, so we did our now annual tradition of getting a hotel room for him (and me). He took off around 3pm and I waited for Jenna. The kids were thrilled she was coming and even more excited when she actually showed up. When I left around 6pm, they pretty much could not have cared less.

Michael and I enjoyed a casual sushi dinner, a visit to the hotel hot tub and then a movie in our room. We decided against a movie out mostly due to being tired and thought we could just 'rent' something in the room. Turns out, their system was down so we had to make due with HBO, which was still fine with us. I finished a Steve Martin bio (Born Standing Up) while Michael read some giant book by someone recently on The Daily Show. I don't think it was even 10pm when we fell asleep.

After a delicious (yet unpleasant) breakfast at Betty's on 4th street, we went home. All had gone well with the kids and Jenna and she left looking happy, but tired. Michael left for a run, Parker went with his new neighborhood friend Fin to Lawrence Hall of Science, and then the kids' new bunk bed showed up. I got one with a trundle so all three kids could sleep on it, but after naps we quickly realized the trundle would not work for daily use so we set up Parker's old bed for Miranda and she seemed extremely pleased with that solution. They were all damn happy about the bunk bed and seem, so far (knock on wood) to be following our most basic bunk bed safety rules (no standing on top, one kid at a time, no one under 4 years old on top without mommy or daddy in the room, and no jumping off).

Since Parker didn't have a nap, I put the all three kids down together, still smiling, at 7. They went to sleep almost immediately and no one fell off the beds all night long.

A good weekend.

Complete Stops.

I got my first moving violation recently. It didn't come with blaring lights or scary policeman. It came in the mail. Apparently, I didn't stop at a right turn on a red light. Who does, really? They got it on video. Damn City of Emeryville. Some employee had to watch endless videos to catch little old me not come to a complete stop.

So I finally got the ticket amount and it's $436 or $490 with traffic school.

Shit.

Morning Reading