An Announcement...

And, finally, new for March 23, 2011, we'd like you to meet, our newest addition to the zoo:

We hope you'll stay tuned to find out more about this little one with us as we anxiously await his (or her!) arrival.  There's quite a bit of preparation ahead of us yet, of course, but we've made plenty of room in our hearts already! 

5Q Friday...

Alright... I'm feeling pretty uninspired.  I'm working on some super-dooper awesome posts for next week, but I'm being an annoying perfectionist, so they'll have to wait... Buuuuuut, I need something to distract me from browsing through Gymboree's awesome sale online and drooling over all the freaking adorable fall clothing for littles.  So, enter Mama M.'s Five Question Friday.  I LOVE Mama M.'s blog.  I don't know why I don't end up commenting more on it.... but she's so genuine and so funny - I feel like I'd want her as an aunt.  Or a L&D nurse.  Definitely for an L&D nurse.  (And sometimes reading her stories of being an L&D nurse makes me want to have more kids.  That's how you KNOW there's something wrong with me.)

Anyway, head to her blog to play along OR leave a comment and let me know what your answers would be - fun!

1) Do you feel guilty spending money on yourself?

Um, YES!  It kinda gives me cold sweats to buy myself stuff.  Or eat anything that's NOT on the dollar menu.  I mean, the last time I paid someone to cut my hair was in Georgia.  Jack was 18 months old, and the twins had yet to be conceived.  THAT is intense.  (No, my hair is not super long... I got sick of it about 3 months ago and used some Fiskars to lop off about 6 inches of it on my back deck.)  My wardrobe gets refreshed when my sweet and super fashionable little sis brings me hand-me-downs as she cleans out her closet.  Sigh.  It's not like we're in dire financial straits or anything, but I'd so much rather see my kids in new clothes that fit or reading a new book or put money in a piggy bank for my Dyson or something.

2) How well do you know your neighbors?

We've only lived here for about 4 months, but we LOVE having a sense of community around us, so we're certainly trying to get to know more people.  We lived in college dorms, followed by an apartment with our best friends surrounding us, then to a military base where everyone was friendly, to a fantastic neighborhood in Georgia where we'd have regular "driveway gatherings"... to Virginia where that started to go away and now we're here and we're putting forth a HUGE effort to learn people's names and a little about them.  The people across the street are swingers, though, so I don't really try too hard with them.

3) What age are you looking forward to being?

I like Mama M.'s answer... but I don't really look forward to being any particular age because I'm much more focused on enjoying each minute of every day.  It's not easy... but I've got no guarantee that I'll get to be any other age than what I am TODAY, so I try to relish that instead of looking ahead too far in case I get too busy dreaming about some future time that I stop appreciating now.  Does that make sense?  However, if someone could tell me I'm going to win the lottery at a certain age, I'll pick that.

4) Do you get excited when the mail comes?  Why?

Yeah, I do... a little bit... not every day, but pretty often.  I think it's a combination of a) me having an excuse to leave the kids in the house and walk to the mailbox alone for a second of fresh air and freedom (that's so sad and pitiful, I should delete it so you don't all know how pathetic I am) and b) the possibility of there being something cool in it... like Disc 3, season 7 of Entourage.  I was thinking about the whole "mail" thing and marveling that my kids will probably not really "get" what it's like to be excited about the mail... and if they do, my grandchildren certainly won't.  So weird.  They totally won't understand "film" or "corded telephones" either.  (Sorry, I digress!)

5) What is your earliest childhood memory?

Hm, I'm not sure of timelines, so I don't know what would be my earliest... I have tons and TONS of very vivid memories from being very young - before my sister was born, certainly.  I'm 4 years older than her, so I can recall things from earlier than that, at least.  I remember once staying with my dad's parents, Grammy and Grandpa, and eating dinner from a kiddie-plate shaped like a train (pork chops, potatoes and veggies) while Grammy baked bread (delicious bread full of holes and very buttery tasting) and then heading to a local store called "Duckwall" to buy thread so Grammy could finish sewing a dress for me.  I remember going back to their house afterward (in their giant blue Cadillac station wagon) to take a bath (in which I got to play with a plastic shape-sorter ball) and I can even recall the smell of the soap which was slightly floral and light pink-colored.

Okay, that's enough nonsnese for one morning - the girls are jail-bird style rattling their crib bars and squaking "Mama"! so I'd better go scoop them up and get a-snugglin'.

Potty Language

I love, apparently, to talk about poop.

Not that I get all giddy and gleeful like: "Poop!  Oh, poop! I can talk about it! Yay!" but in that I do it so often.  Not do poop, that is - talk about poop.  (Seriously, this post isn't THAT gross.)  I must find some sort of foul enjoyment in the discussions because they permeate my conversational repertoire.  The situation has gotten so bad that I can't even tell if other moms are like me, or if I just engage them in doo-themed discussions because I am such an avid poopophile.

It's beginning to worry me.

I can recall being younger, sitting at my grandmother's kitchen table listening to her describe a bowel movement to my mother as if she were talking about a recent rainstorm that produced the most brilliant rainbow.  I was appalled.  I swore that I would never ever talk about # 2 (go ahead, say it like Austin Powers... you know you want to) to the extent (ahem, or at all!) the way she did.

(In my defense, I am certainly NOT at the point of discussing any of this as it relates to the things I do in the ladies' room.)

Just last night, not only did I laugh to the point of tears at a "poo-dicament" involving Jordan and a bathtub, but I went a step further and posted about on Facebook.  (Not friends with me on Facebook?  You're missing out... er, maybe not.) See, she has this tendency to drop a deuce in the tub after dinner. Well, she has the last few nights, anyway.  And it's usually as I'm rinsing shampoo out of Addie's hair, so Jordan announces she's done her deed by screaming and crying in a horrified way (the turds scare her... do I even say it?  ..they scare the crap out of her.  There. I did it.  Forgive me.) as the product floats away, disintegrating quickly and making for a nasty clean-up job.  Yesterday, when I realized what was going on, I hollered, "Just, help!  Poop!  Poop in the waaaa-ter!" and he came running, to find me fishing squirmy, slimy toddlers out of the tub and passing them to him to towel off before they realize what's going on or have time to try to dive back into the bath (as they're prone to doing).  As Jordan got passed off, I said, "Please, get a dipe on Miss TubDump! I don't know if she's done!"  Well, the nickname kinda stuck for the rest of the evening, so I couldn't stop laughing, even as I scooped, bare-handed, the poo from the tub, wiped the floor, the tub, the toys, with bleach (for the third time in a row this week).  I couldn't get her terrified facial expression out of my face... like the toddler equivalent of staring at Jaws.  I couldn't stop laughing.  I mean, what's WRONG with me?

And I heard recently that Twitter conversations are getting logged in the Library of Congress and archived now.  What if they do that with Facebook feeds?  Will my kids be able to look up these status updates years from now, and use them to torture one another (that is, if I haven't already tortured them with it personally...)?

Yikes.

But it doesn't stop there.  The other day, one of the girls waited until AFTER the bath to leave a little surprise for me.  I had to chase one girl down (who has a habit of piddling when the cold air hits her wet skin) to diaper her and ran back to find her sister with a diaper in my hand when I noticed a particularly bad smell in their bedroom.  Thinking it was just a fart, I grabbed the naked tot and realized she had "fart" smeared all over her backside, feet and legs.  And then I found the pile.  Or three.  So I wiped the child down, diapered her, put both girls in the crib to keep them away from the mess and took a picture of the biscuit with my cell phone.

Yeah, I'm that gross. Love me anyway.

Then, when Justin was walking into our bedroom about 20 minutes later and roared with shock at the log that one of the girls had "baby-trapped" the doorway with, I lost it.  I was nearly sobbing with laughter.

Now, am I seriously that insane?  Or am I laughing because it's better to sob with laughter than to just plain sob?  Or am I really a 6th grade boy trapped in a 28-year-old woman's body?

I use cloth diapers.  That necessitates scraping the solid waste from the diaper into the toilet, flushing it, and laundering the diaper.  What do I use for that job?  Why, a plastic picnic spoon, kept in a plastic cup in the kids' bathroom (on a high shelf... after I found Jack drinking out of the cup and Jordan chewing on the spoon a few months ago, I learned that higher is always better [this is a statement of distance from the ground, people, not a life-style endorsement]).  What do I call the contraption?  My sPOOn.  Yeah, it's labeled on the cup... I even pronounce it like that.  "sssssPOOnnnn"

We use poop themed nicknames occasionally... "Daisy Duke", "Miss TubDump", "Pooo-rincess", "Deuce Nukem" and so on.  Different kinds of bowel movements get their own category from "stealth poop" if it doesn't smell so you get set to change a urine diaper and are surprised with a more complicated job, "faux poo" if you're prepared for a dirty diaper and there's nothing to be seen, and then into the more descriptive names that I'll spare you.

But ("butt"? ba-dum-chhhh) I have to wonder - is this motherhood?  Is this how I know I'm a mom first and a mom forever?  Have I degenerated from my super-educated, want-to-save-the-world-and-effect-positive-change-through-academic-achievement-self of old into a fugazi, mundane, even disgusting drain on society with nothing meaningful to contribute?  Have I become "Idiocracy"?  Am I "doomed" to a life of bad puns, embarrassing discussions and sounding like I've got an IQ of about 60?

Or does this pass?

I suppose all things doo.

Ask Jordan.

The Last Two Weeks: Photo Collage Edition

So, before my dad came, this was the state of my house.  THIS, and worse.  And for each step forward, I took to backwards... you know how it goes with us...

Grandma Gallagher sent down a care package that included awesome dress-up stuff for the girls and Jack, and dolls from their Uncle Jon and his fiancee, Amy!  So that was awesome, because it kept the kids occupied for about 30 seconds while I started a load of laundry...

And, luckily, the kids are adorable enough that I don't mind TOO much when they interrupt me, or worse - make a bigger mess to clean up in the middle of my cleaning.

Somewhere along the lines, I realized Addie has become a toddler.  She's a real, honest-to-goodness toddler, with two-piece jammies and who likes to wrap her dolly up in a blanket and give her kisses and rock her while she sings to her.  So I probably took about a day or so in the last 14 to spend time marveling at how quickly babes become kids become moms watching babes become kids. 

Then my dad got here!  The kids took to him right away (it was the first time he'd met the girls and maybe the 3rd time with Jack!) and we had a phenomenal time enjoying one another's company!

We went to our aquarium, of course, and loved every minute of it!  It was Dad's first experience at any aquarium, so it was really cool that we could take him there!

Jordan decided to ham it up for the camera...

 We also visited the Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum to take a ride on a real steam engine.  Also a first for my dad and he absolutely loved it.  I let Jack have his own camera and he happily snapped away, photographing his favorite subject matter in the universe!  It was a tremendously cool experience and again, I'm beyond thrilled that we could introduce Dad to something so awesome.

That afternoon, we all went to the Southern Brewer's Festival in downtown.  Talk about fun!  There was beer, food, live music and general fun to be had by all!  I can't believe that we got lucky enough to have his trip down here coincide with the Festival.  Score!

We went for walks, ate an incredible amount of food, watched football, played with the kids, went to Mass, drove around the area and just really had a blast.  It was certainly a whirlwind of a week and I am so grateful that Dad made it out here!  He's never been this far east in the US OR south, for that matter, so it was certainly an eye-opener for him... There's just a different feel to life in the South than there is in his native Colorado, and it was really neat to see him learning so many new things and to introduce him to the way we live our lives.

But, things are calming down a bit and I'm getting back into routines and whatnot.  I've got a few blog changes that might be coming up, as well as some fun stuff to post about AND if you haven't noticed down below, I've got a blog button now!  I have no idea what to do with it or why in the world you'd want it, but if you do, it's yours for the taking!

I'm off to go get a very cry-y Jordan out of her crib and start dinner before the hubs gets home, but I hope you enjoyed my collages!

Making Nature-Girls

When Jack was little, we were constantly outside.  I think the fact that he walked at 9 months and that it was much cooler weather when he was learning to walk enabled us to walk around outdoors much more.  We also had a screened porch at the house we were in.  The girls, however, learned to walk during the hottest months of summer which made it much more difficult for them to spend a large amount of time just roaming around the backyard...  Additionally, we had nice grass when Jack was younger.  Now, we've got glorified weeds and rocks.  With no shade.  It's just a pretty abysmal lot and it's not a ton of fun for kids.

So that's what I'm going to claim as my defense as to how in the world I, lover of all things outside, have managed to raise two very prissy girls who pout and whine at the mere mention of grass.  They'll do water (though, Addie much more than Jordan) and the beach, but you can forget anything else.  Last weekend we tried to go for a lengthy walk to a park, play for a bit and head back.  They wanted nothing to do with it.  This past weekend we tried a different park, and I switched my tactics a bit.  Where I had previously thought fewer clothes would be better to keep them cooler, this time I put them in (way too big) jeans and shoes to insulate their delicate skin from the offensive... air?  Grass?  Bugs?  Sun?  Whatever... I also brought towels for them to sit on and lounge in the shade of a tree.

The result?  Slightly happier twins.  Though, even still, Jordan was far more adventurous than Addie who only ventured off the towels towards the end and only then because I was holding her hand.

So I dunno... what do you think?  Can I convince them that nature really is okay?  Sigh.  I'll keep trying.

You Know You're a Mom...

I should be cleaning.  I really should be.  But we all know how that goes for me.  I knew this was how it was going to happen... I'd procrastinate and delay and make excuses until I'm facing a crunch that'll be fueled by 3 cans of Coke at 11 pm and I'll whip the house into shape after everyone goes to bed.  It's like being in college again, but with Lysol and poop smears instead of FDR and the New Deal and my highlighters and note cards.

But my kids are being absurdly cute.  And they're sitting in their highchairs and we're singing songs while I blog.  And I don't really want to be anywhere else.  The simplicity of talking about where our noses are and playing peekaboo behind the laptop screen between sentences is so peaceful.

Before they woke up this morning I was looking at some of our pictures from the weekend and they made me miss my kiddos.  So I woke them up instead of squeezing in a few toilet cleanings.

I think I'm truly a nut case... I go between being so frustrated that I can't accomplish housework because they're mini tornadoes and being so enamored with them that I don't want to waste a single second with them by scrubbing soap scum.

Though, I guess I'm a little entitled to having a bit of a split personality since I'm fairly certain all kids are at least mildly schizophrenic, right?  One second (like, two paragraphs ago) they were being cute and babbling at me about noses and asking about their other facial features and now they're throwing french toast sticks at me and thumping their be-Tinkerbell'ed chests like wee monkeys because they're apparently quite finished with breakfast.

Geez, girls.

Crazy is just part of my life now.  I've kinda accepted it, totally embraced it, and freely admit to it.  It makes it a little easier to laugh when I find the twins pretending to be little Monet's by "painting" the couch cushions with their bottles of milk or systematically crushing animal crackers and dropping them down the air ducts while I'm busy cleaning up the "soup" Jack made by mixing cream of tartar with salt and green sprinkles in a bowl full of water and then spilled when he tasted it and violently recoiled with disgust.

I mean, what kind of lunatic gleefully flounces out the door at 9 pm to go to the grocery store, sans offspring, and feels like she's been granted the vacation of the century as she peacefully picks produce and compares prices in silence, meandering down aisles that even contain toys and candy with reckless abandon because, unencumbered, she knows she does not have to barter, bargain, bribe or plead in order to escape without either a fight or an acquiescence.

A mom... that's what kind.

Hit up my girl Arizona Mamma's blog for more camaraderie!

Black and White Wednesday

You know, when I look at my husband, the father of my children, my best friend, I can't help but marvel at how stinking lucky I got. 

He's such a tender and loving father... and he's such a caring husband.  And he's a ton of fun to be around.  I am just blessed... and so are my children.  I think if I can claim credit for giving them nothing else, I'll always be proud to have given them Justin as their Daddy. 

...Well, actually, I guess I should say instead that I'll always be grateful to have been given Justin as their Daddy... Because, truthfully, I'm pretty sure that's how it works.

There are other great black and white shots (who doesn't love black and white?) over at Lisa's blog... check them out!