Julia Turns 3!

Today was Julia's Birthday party. Amy had invited 4 kids from her preschool and had set up some pretend cooking. She had little aprons for all of the kids and they all immediately starting "cooking". It got pretty messy, but not nearly as messy as it could have been and I think I'm going to lobby hard to have this at the girls' preschool one day soon.










The parents snacked on fruit, delicous salads, bagels and toppings, as well as home made scones. Then it was time to open presents. Many of the other kids wanted to help Julia with the unwrapping, but Julia wasn't having it. She also didn't want them to play with her new gifts. Amy said something magical to her in the kitchen and then all was well and more gifts were open. I gave her a photo book of her first three years. Amy gave her some puzzles and animal masks which were a big hit. Grandma Judy gave her some gardening tools. She also got a little purse, a crayon/zoo thing, and some legos.














After presents, it was time for cake. Of course, Amy made a fabulous strawberry shortcake cake that was enjoyed by parents and children alike. The girls were tired after the party and went to sleep easily...the true sign of a good party.

'Pumpkin Patch'

After non naps yesterday we took the kids to a local pumpkin patch. And when I say pumpkin patch I mean a roped off area in a supermarket parking lot where they had all manner of fall/pumpkin/kid activity.

First they enjoyed the tiny hay maze.




Then we took a walk through the pumpkin field.





Then the girls visited the animals where the baby goats were a hit and the big goats scared the crap out of them.






Then a pony ride where they always seem slightly stunned.






And the grand finale (other than the cotton candy I got) was the jumpy house where the five cousins played as if they were best buds. Elizabeth continued her lovefest for Peter and the two of them went down the slide over and over together with Elizabeth hanging onto Peter's shirt or leg.

The sleep training that never ends.

On a fairly regular basis, I get emails from new twin moms on our twin club listserve asking questions about nursing twins, schedules, what kind of formula to use, sleeping, and much more. Experienced twin parents respond with their opinions and past and usually end with something like, "Hang in there. It will get better."

Lately, I haven't been responding to many of the sleeping emails because in three years, it really hasn't gotten better and I feel like a hyprocrite telling them otherwise. Sure, at times, it has been better and perhaps the overall line if graphed would seem better, but in the big picture, it still sucks. A new singleton mom recently asked me after her 5 month old started nap strikes...please when does it get better? I told her I thought 8 months was a good age. I should have said 8 months is good, but 10 months sucks. 12 months is good, but 14 months was crap. 16 months was decent, but 17 months was a nightmare. And so. Because man does month 37 suck.

I'm in a particularly foul mood about this right now because I just went upstairs to deal with screaming kids. I'm in LA and the girls are sharing a room. The first time there were no problems. Last night, Elizabeth woke up needing water. Amy, not knowing it was a ploy, tried to find the water, and in the process woke up Miranda. Then she woke up Julia who was not a happy camper that Elizabeth was "drinking" her water. After all was settled, Miranda had three more screaming fits about water or whatever and on the third one I took her downstairs because I didn't want to deal with that bullshit again. She had a good nights sleep after that, but I sure didn't.

So tonight, I gave them both a big speech about the screaming and crying and how there wouldn't be any water and did they understand and that they needed to go back to sleep and not get out of bed, etc, etc, etc. "Yes we get it mommy."

They went to sleep easy at 6:30 as they had no naps today, but at 8pm Elizabeth woke up screaming at the door "MOMMMMMYYYYYYYYY! MOOOOMMMMMMMMMMYYYYYYYYYY!" I got up there and say "What do you need?" Before she can even finish her "I need water" sentence, I remind her of the situation and put her back in bed. Meanwhile Miranda has woken up and in her way starts screaming about nothing. Absolutely nothing. And of course she wakes up Julia. Since I can't get Miranda to stop, I drag her out the room, toss her in Amy's room and leave her there to scream for a bit. I return to discuss the situation and tell her she can go back to bed when she stops screaming. She can't just stop, but I do see some efforts in that direction so I give her a big hug and tell her not even to think about pulling that shit again and walk her back to bed where Julia and Elizabeth are awake and staring at me.

I was so pissed off. It drives me frickin' crazy and makes me think that I'm going to have 9 year olds that scream Mommy in the middle of the night about nothing. It makes me feel like a complete and total failure.

Culver City Morning

Our flight yesterday to LA was uneventful, which I consider a smashing success. I learned a few things to prep for our Hawaii flight like no need to bring jackets for the kids, bring something for Miranda to chew as her ears hurt, and they can't hear the DVD player so a earphone splitter will be necessary. But all is all, a good trip.

This morning we found ourselves with a block of time, no car and no one else home (julia and amy went on a fieldtrip with her preschool.) So after breakfast, we took a nice walk to the local strip mall. We stopped at Target for coffee and croissants, went to the pet store to say hi to the cats, birds and fish which Miranda always enjoys, and visited Toys R Us where the girls picked out presents for Julia whose birthday is Monday. They each wanted to give her the same thing...a baby doll. When I outright refused to get two babies, Elizabeth picked a stuffed animal and then Miranda wanted to change her mind and get a stuffed animal too. Since I refused to get two stuff animals, we had some unhappy girls for a moment until Miranda decided the original baby doll was better than no present. Smart girl.

On our way back home we enjoyed some campos lunch (i love their tacos!) and then on a complete whim, stopped in the nail salon next door and got the girls' fingernails painted. I was surprised how well they did as I expected a total melt down from one or both. But no, Elizabeth held out her hand as if she got manicures every other day. Miranda was more cautious but liked hers nonetheless. Elizabeth picked pink and Miranda orange and they each got little flowers painted on them (which was not requested by me, but given by the Vietnemese nail folks because I don't think they had ever seen two blond blue eyed twins before so close to them.)






Then we head home for a nap, which they actually took, even though it wasn't too long. A good morning.

Chatty Kathy

I went into Parker's classroom today to tell the teachers that he would not be at school Thursday. The lead teacher said, "yes, we know, he is going on 2 airplanes to Little Rock Arkansas with Michael and it will take 5 hours and his sisters are going on one airplane to Los Angeles with Rachel and it will take one hour." Then she added, "You better watch what you say, cause he tells us everything."

Nice.

TPS...a new series

Things Parker Said will be a new series where I can simply document the interesting, funny, factual, and sometimes downright strange things Parker says without much explanation.

Today...

"Mom, 3 times 4 is the same as 4 times three, right?"

"Mom...what is half of 50 and a half?"

Morning blocks

The girls made some beds this morning with the blocks. Here's one with quite an impressive headboard.



Here's a single bed for someone. I've seen Parker make this kind of bed a hundred times, but he always puts a bunk on top of it.



This one looks a bit like something out of the Spanish Inquisition, although I'm sure Pink Baby is very comfortable.

More blocks

Here is Parker's latest, which I really love.





He often makes bunk beds for his buddies. He likes to use the thin boards as blankets, and he usually includes rails on the top bunk and some kind of ladder. Here is tonight's bed for Bob (top bunk) and Fred.

Elizabeth gets in on the action

Both the girls are getting into the blocks lately, but Elizabeth has taken to building towers. The other day she built one so tall she had to bring in a step stool to get the top built. And then it fell down and smashed her foot.

Parker's Latest

Parker's two favorite number related topics of conversation these days are maps and money. He has to know which freeways we are taking to every destination we go. Then he likes to tell random people about it. He said to a preschool kid's mom the other day, "We are going to an amusement park and to get there we take the 580 to 238 to 880 to 101 to 152!" "But to get to Los Angeles, we only have to take 580 to 5 to 405, even though it is much longer to get to Los Angeles. Like 5 hours!" He even told my doctor, "When I am talking about the number 580, I say 5 hundred and eighty, but when I am talking about the freeway, I say five eighty."

With money, he has this book 26 letters and 99 cents and yesterday he added up all the money in the book, for fun. Twice. And he is very interested in prices at the store. "Mom, that one is $2.89! And that one is $4.62!"

After he starting asking me why we couldn't just buy anything at the store all the time, a gave him a chore chart of sorts with each chore equaling some amount of money. So he could earn his own money. Like bringing your dishes to the sink = 1 cent. Getting dressed quickly by himself = 10 cents. And to get a dollar, he has to eat his dinner without complaining. We thought he would never do that so having it such a high value wasn't an issue. But then, we had a dinner he did not like at all. He looked at me. He looked at Michael. He ate it all (and actually seemed to like it) and said, "I get a dollar!" I though this approach would help him learn money and would help him do stuff he didn't like to do. I was right on both, but I'm sure I'm causing some sort of other damage in the process. My guess is he'll get bored with all this soon and forget all about it.