The Balloon

When Owen turned 3 last year, we got a Lightning McQueen helium balloon that made its home on our ceiling for almost two months. It became a fixture when it lasted week after week. At almost two months, it started floating around the house, following me wherever I'd go --- eventually.

This birthday balloon has been hanging around our house since February 26. We decided to see how long it would last. After hanging on our living room ceiling for almost two months, this week it decided to follow us upstairs. Now it's in hover mode, dancing from room to room. It's a little creepy but I've kind of grown fond of him.

A photo posted by Erin (@fitbottomedmama) on Apr 22, 2015 at 6:46am PDT

It was an interesting study in the air currents in our house. It made it all the way upstairs to the bedrooms and we discovered the ceiling fans were not friendly to our friend. It floated by me as I sat in the kitchen one day and eventually disappeared into the basement where it hovered for a couple of more weeks until we finally said goodbye.

This year, when Owen turned 4, we got the identical Lightning McQueen balloon and another one. Lightning made it even longer than his predecessor and it was only a couple of weeks ago that we bid him adieu. The second one was still hanging solid on our dining room ceiling a whopping four months later.

Emery has been sleeping phenomenally since about April. Not a peep overnight; it has truly been bliss. I wasn't aware that she has just been saving up for a rough night. And of course she waited for the ideal week to strike. A week when I was dealing with pink eye, a sinus infection and an ear infection. I go for the trifecta when I get sick. It's just not worth it if I can't get every single one of the toddler diseases at one time.

So I wasn't feeling especially awesome the night she decided to wake up at 3 a.m. I'd already woken up to take Owen back to bed after he'd snuck in with me. So I laid Emery back down and was trying to get her to fall asleep when I heard Owen yelling "Daddy!" Alan goes in and finds Giraffee. Helps Avery go pee. In the meantime, I've left Emery's room and hear Alan go in to try to soothe her because whatever I did didn't do the trick. She was still highly unhappy with life, so I went in and made the mistake of bringing her in bed with me. I couldn't breathe, my eye was matted shut and I just wanted sleep. But in Emery's mind, it was 8 in the morning and she was ready to party. I dozed a little and Em would beam at me whenever I'd open my eyes. At 5:45, I'd had enough, and I knew she'd be miserable if she didn't sleep longer, so I threw her in bed, and of course she cried for 2.4 minutes before passing out cold and exhausted. Kicking myself for not putting her back in bed sooner, I tried to settle down and fall back asleep even though the sun was already shining in my face.

Just as I was falling asleep after three hours of bullshit, I'm jolted awake. THWACK THWACK THWACK. I bolt upright to find that our friend the helium balloon has chosen that moment out of more than FOUR MONTHS OF MOMENTS to make its way upstairs and find its way to our ceiling fan. Have you ever heard a ceiling fan hit a balloon on repeat? It sounds like a helicopter is landing in your bed but more violent.

Alan, bless his heart, was in deep slumber, and because I wasn't, I was able to more quickly assess the situation, grab the stupid balloon and throw him in the closet.

It's a testament to how sick I was and my level of dedication to sleep at all costs that I managed to fall asleep again after that. This balloon didn't get the freedom to roam around the house to find his own resting place. I found his damn resting place in our closet.

Good Intentions, Poor Execution

Alan and I learned a long time ago not to bite off more than we can chew when it comes to outings with the kids. We go for frequency over duration in almost everything. We buy season passes to nearby attractions --- the zoo, Sesame Place --- so that we can go all the time but don't have to stay long. Outings are much more successful if, for example, we hit the train, the sea lion exhibit and the touch tank and maybe a few other animals at the zoo as opposed to doing all the things and dealing with getting exhausted kids back to the car. At Sesame Place, we show up soon after it opens at 10, hit a few attractions, maybe an Elmo Live Show if we're feeling crazy, and let the kids nap on the way home in the car. It's so much better than having to fit a year's worth of action into a single day, even if it feels like sometimes we're driving an hour just so Avery can ride a carousel. (That girl has never met a carousel she didn't like. We've tried them all. She still contends that the carousel was her favorite ride at Disney World.)

What I'm saying is, when they're done, they're done. Stick a fork in them, they're through.

Besides the bigger events like that we do, I try to do fun little side trips now that it's summer. We'll hit the pool or the splash park, maybe the little nature center to see dead animals and live snakes and nearly empty fish tanks. Today at camp they made handkerchief parachutes and I thought, hey, it'll be fun if I take them somewhere really high where they can throw them off. Like the high school bleachers. Then we can bike in the big parking lot. Simple but fun!

As soon as Emery woke up from her nap, we loaded the bikes and a toy shopping cart in the car, grabbed two water bottles and headed to the high school. What fun this would be! An empty lot for us to ride to our hearts' content.

Owen literally crashed his training-wheeled bike within 20 seconds. So fast that I hadn't even gotten Avery on her bike yet. And when Owen gets injured, it's done. There's no shaking it off, no moving on. It was tears and trauma and screaming and not letting me touch him for the next 60 seconds. I know it was 60 seconds because that's how long Avery decided to ride her bike. "I'm done." Swallowing my fury and frustration, I load the bikes back into the van and decide we'll at least go on a walk, with Owen dramatically limping along the way.

We walk up to the high school track, climb the bleachers, throw the parachutes off. They were not super impressed.


via GIPHY

We continue our walk, around the football field. Around the baseball field. Owen limping along. Avery expending all of her energy rolling down hills. Emmy being herself, being super happy and agreeable despite the 85 degrees. We round the outfield and we see two fawns staring us down, so I had to get a little video as we scared them into crashing baseball practice.


Even through his injuries, Owen was asking to go to the playground that is near the high school, so we made the trek back toward the car and then another football field length over to the playground. We found a bouncy ball, so we hit the blacktop and Avery and I fought each other for it. Avery trying to capture it is proof she takes after me.

It didn't take long for us to be done with the playground after our long walk, so we were headed back to the car when I realized my keys were missing.

What's one thing you don't want to lose when you've got all three kids out on a hot day when you've walked a mile around in the grass and all over tarnation? Your flipping KEYS that's what.

I patted my pockets about 50 times because surely I couldn't be so stupid. My phone and a wet wipe filled with Owen's tears were all that remained. We get to the car and I'm hoping that surely they're in there because that really was the best case scenario: Alan would come home about half an hour earlier than planned and rescue us, and we'd sit and wait and drink our bottles of water. But then I distinctly remembered having my keys in hand, beeping the car locked as we headed off on our walk.

I call Alan alerting him to the possibility that I lost my keys, thank God that we'd grabbed our water bottles out of the car, and we set about the task of retracing our steps. With three kids who, remember, were ready to get in the car and go home. Whose faces had been red and flushed for like a day already at this point.

We head all the way back to the playground because maybe the bouncy ball chasing had jarred them loose? That would be second-best-case scenario. Then we wouldn't have to do that whole mile-long walk again. Ha! Because that would be crazy! But deep down I knew I'd have heard them fall on the ground on the blacktop, and sure enough, they were not there. I cry a defeated internal cry and remember: the deer.

I'd taken my phone out of my back pocket to get video of the deer. Surely that was where they had fallen out. I wouldn't have heard them land on the grass, and it was the only thing that made sense. Just guess where we saw the deer? Pretty much at the opposite end of the complex. Around the football field and almost all the way around the baseball field. This time around, I had the added fun of carrying Emery the whole way.

Sleuth Avery declared it The Case of the Missing Keys, but she is a poor Sherlock because when we got to the spot where we had seen the deer, she walked within a foot of the keys and didn't see them. She was distracted by the deer, who we'd seen again in the outfield and managed to scare back to where they came from.

I've never been so happy to push the buttons on my keys and have the doors of the van slide open. It's always a little bit magical, isn't it? Or maybe that's just my dehydration talking.

Tiny Miracles

By 12:29 a.m. yesterday morning, I'd already been woken up by all three kids. Actually, Owen and Emery had woken me up, and then I ran into Avery on the way back to bed and she scared the bejesus out of me. All was fine until 3:30 a.m. I had been vaguely aware of Owen crawling into our bed, but while he kicks Alan, I barely notice him. So 3:30 hit and Emery was crying so I went in to check on her. The back of my shirt felt wet, so I thought I must have been sweating a lot as I slept. It wasn't until I got back to bed that I realized it wasn't sweat at all. What clued me in was a giant puddle of ice cold pee all over my bed. Emery was still crying as Alan was returning Owen to his own bed and I vaguely remember saying something like, "Why does life suck so bad?"

We dealt with the urine-soaked bed and managed to make it until our alarm went off without the kids needing more assistance or spraying us with more bodily fluids. We even managed to hit snooze. And then Avery came in, mad that it wasn't Friday.

So we handled the morning routine, and I got the kids all off to school and got home to work for an hour or so before I had to head out to pick up Owen. Parent teacher conferences have ensured four half-days of school in a row. And when a "full day" is three hours, well, the half day means I'm spinning around to pick him up as soon as I drop him off.

After we picked up Avery from school later that afternoon, I decided we'd go to Michael's crafts because I needed a zipper to fix Em's winter coat and I needed paint for a project I've been needing to do since September. So off we go to Michael's. Owen brought his giraffe lovey along for the trip. I warned him, really I did. But when someone says "...but he's my best friend..." you stupidly give in on occasion.

Giraffee. The one, the only.

Let me back up. We went on vacation this summer to Newport and Boston. Alan and I aren't sentimental about a lot of things --- we're not "stuff" people, we don't buy each other fancy gifts (except for the occasional 10th anniversary ring, #omgisnthethesweetest?). But when it came time to check out of the Great Wolf Lodge and we discovered our umbrella stroller was missing, we were bummed. It's just a stroller --- we bought it for $15. But we felt like we were leaving a man behind. We knew where and when we'd seen it last and couldn't fathom how it got left somewhere. So as we were about to drive off, I walked the property in a quick search. I checked lost and found and filed a report, knowing it was probably a lost cause and not worth the shipping anyway. But we felt defeated.

I later got a call from the security officer and lo and behold, they had found it. Nowhere near where we had left it, but I can't even tell you how happy I was when it landed on our doorstep. Ridiculous, right? Sentimental over a stroller.

So, Giraffee. Owen's giraffe lovey. He's had it since he was a newborn and he's slept with it ever since he turned one. He would rub its little ears to his nose as he was drifting off to sleep and it's been his security pal for a long time. He's left it outside and I've gone out to the sandbox to find it at bedtime. He's left it out front, in a tricycle storage compartment and I've tracked it down. We've gotten damn good at finding the thing --- trapped in the Bat Cave elevator; stuffed in the bottom of the Lego bin. I can feel around in the dark and know the instant my hand bumps into it that I've found Giraffee.

Giraffee, as much loved as he is, rarely leaves home. He'll bring it in the car occasionally, but we don't let him take it in anywhere. We've had a couple of close calls, but Alan and I are vigilant: Giraffee must stay safe. Giraffee must stay in the car. But this day, Giraffee slipped by me. Giraffee made it into Michael's.

We bumbled around the store, getting what we came for and a few things we didn't. Herding ourselves around a craft store is like herding bulls in a china shop. Or trying to direct tornadoes. We got to checkout and I had two packages of buttons that I didn't put in the cart, so I was telling the store clerk that I was glad that at least he didn't put them in his pockets when I heard Owen say, "Where's Giraffee?"

I had a panicked, physical reaction.

MAN OVERBOARD.

First, the basics: Did you have Giraffee? Did you really bring him into the store?

Owen (hopeful): Maybe he's in the car...

Logic: That is not a possibility when you brought him in the store!!

Avery is certain Giraffee is in the store. She holds her hands out, like, "wait, I'm thinking," and says "I know where Giraffee is! I'm remembering where he put him! I think by the buttons..."

I breathe a momentary sigh of relief, but I know that is only half the battle: We must actually get Giraffee back into Owen's hands.

Owen knows this is serious.

We retrace our steps, me, glancing at the Christmas decorations that we had been looking at to make sure it wasn't hiding among "Joy" and "Noel" signs. We get back to the zippers and Avery points to a shelf: "There. It was there."

The shelf was empty.

I take a deep breath. I'm thinking. Store manager. Lost and found. Retracing steps. WE WILL FIND GIRAFFEE. NO GIRAFFE LEFT BEHIND. As I'm thinking, Avery is putting it into words, out into the world.

"HAS ANYONE SEEN MY BROTHER'S GIRAFFE LOVEY." Arms spread out as they were when she had her epiphany at the checkout. A woman down the aisle says, "Oh, did you lose your animal?" and I'm about to tell Avery that we need to keep retracing our steps when an older lady turns the corner from the next aisle. She's holding Giraffee.

I almost hugged her. Instead, I thanked her profusely as I explained that it wasn't the baby's but it was Owen's and it would have been tragic had we lost it. She hadn't known what it was when she found it --- and I don't know whether it was on a shelf or if she found it on the floor --- but one thing is for certain: this lady was a miracle. A saint. Saint Michael's. I love her dearly. I want to be friends with her.

Disaster averted, we head to Target. Let's press our luck right? Just kidding --- Giraffee stayed in the van and we went in to buy the one thing I needed --- sunglasses, because I'd found mine face down on the kitchen floor with a scratch on them. So we get sunglasses first thing, then grapes and cleaning supplies and body wash and a new coffee pot. Then we get to checkout. I pull out my credit card. Where are the sunglasses? The conveyor belt was sunglasses-less. The one thing I went in for.


Then I get home, and try to fix the zipper. After doing a victory dance around the house because I'm so awesome, I can fix zippers, I discover that --- womp womp --- I am not a zipper fixer. And Emery needs a winter coat ASAP because they take morning strolls at school. And it's 9 p.m. So off to Kohl's I go. I get the coat. I try on boots where I discover that I'm now officially so old that I'm like "hell to the no I will not wear boots that aren't super comfortable" (but not too old to say something like "hell to the no"). And then I found $10 in the parking lot.

That $10 was not a storytelling trick to redeem my story, Nikki, although it has gone off the rails. But to say: Some days start with pee puddles, end with exhaustion, and have tiny miracles sprinkled throughout. 

Working on Our Team Spirit

A few weeks ago I started singing the Rock Chalk Chant, thinking Emery would like it. Crazy me. She didn't like it. Not only did she not like it, but she'd get a pouty lip, tear up and cry every single time. I did it a few times testing to see if it was a fluke, and she'd get upset each time. So the other day, I decided I had to capture it on video. She usually doesn't make it through the very first "rock chalk" but this time she held strong until the second time through. It's both so cute and so incredibly heartbreaking.



It makes me tear up too, so maybe she gets it from her mama.

Bleachable Moments

One of my favorite things to do with all three kids is to go to public restrooms.

No, I'm sorry, I got that wrong. What I meant to say was that going to public restrooms with three kids under 5 years old is enough to give me a heart attack. Yes, that sounds more correct.

It was a beautiful day recently. We hit a park and got Alan to join us for a picnic. And because I didn't want to go home (the house stays cleanerish and there are fewer toys to fight over), we decided to stop at another of our favorite parks on the way home. Pretty soon after we got there, Owen started to do the potty dance. So off to the bathroom we go!

Emery is in the stroller, so we carefully maneuver into the restrooms. Luckily, at this park they're fairly well maintained, but they're still public park bathrooms, so I bark my standard, "Don't touch anything!" orders. I park Em outside of the stalls. Stall door open, I line toilet paper on the seat for Owen and hop him up onto the toilet. "Don't touch the toilet!" I implore, as he puts both hands down on the toilet to steady himself.

Owen starts squirming, scared of the automatic flush. It flushes despite my best attempts to keep it from doing so, Owen hops down and we pull up his pants. It's about this time Emery starts crying. Because nothing lessens the good old blood pressure like a baby crying.

Avery's turn! Baby's crying, let's get this going! Here comes Avery with sticks in both hands. Because if sticks are one thing, it's helpful. I throw the sticks to the ground. Avery gets going on the toilet, and I vaguely hear Owen talking to Emery. Oh, that's sweet, I think. Avery wraps things up and we come out of the stall. I see Owen, bless his heart, helping Emery get her pacifier to her mouth.

Scenes flash before me: Hand. Toilet. Pacifier. Baby.

I remove the pacifier while thanking Owen for helping and try to lower my blood pressure back to normal. We head over to wash our hands (and the pacifier).

I don't know if most of you know this, but hand washing time isn't just time to get clean. No. It's the time when tiny humans get to start stressing about the hand dryers. Because warm, blowing air is the stuff nightmares are made of, according to both of my children. So we soap up, and luckily Avery can be convinced to dry her hands in the Devil Air Dryer. Owen, however, cannot. He's like, "No, I'm cool, I'll just drip dry." He shakes his hands as if to demonstrate that they're basically pretty much already dry and no loud dryer is needed. I wash my hands and the pacifier and turn around. To find Owen with toilet paper in his hands drying them. Toilet paper of unknown origin.

We wash his hands again and head out.

No sooner do we hit the play area than Owen starts to potty dance again. "Owen," I say. "Did you even go to the bathroom?" Like I even needed an answer.

Off we went again.

Green Bean Horror Show

Emery recently started eating solids. Here is what she thinks of green beans.

I think she could be teach a class on facial expressions. Each one has a distinct vibe to it. There's horror, disdain, repulsion, gah!, meh!, ugh, and blah. She is seriously one of my favorites.

Grocery Store Throwdown

Alan and I went to the grocery store together some time ago. I can't remember exactly when it was; occasionally we'll take the kids to the store with us, but in this particular memory, there is no rambunctious kid(s), nor is there grocery-kid-stress. (Grocery-kid-stress is a legitimate thing; I took my mom to the store with the kids when she was visiting and she said she felt like we were sprinting. It's because I do because you never know when the kids will melt down, and it's always a race against the clock.) So if I had to guess, it was a trip to the store when it was just us and Avery --- so a few years ago, maybe?

Before I get to that, let me tell another tale. It adds depth to the story because it'll let you in on some of the Jersey flavor I get at the grocery store. I was at the store with Avery and Owen over the summer, pregnant at the time with Emery. I had the two kids in the car cart, and that thing is unwieldy. It occupies the kids with the fun steering wheel and race car, yes, but damn if that thing isn't impossible to steer. So I steered right into an endcap of baking chocolate. I knocked at least a hundred of them off, leaving my cart and tons of chocolate blocking the aisle. The kids and I started to pick them up and put them back on the shelves, and this older gentleman, I mean, man because he was not gentle, came upon the scene. He looked at us, gave an audible sigh, and headed in the other direction to go down another aisle. Now, he was in no way obligated to help me, but he didn't have to be so put out and such a drama queen about it. After all, I was the one picking up all the chocolate; all he had to do was walk around.   

Anyway. Alan and I were grocery shopping. I was pushing the cart. I came to the end of an aisle and a lady was parked with her cart perpendicular to the aisle so that she was completely blocking my way. I said excuse me and while she didn't say anything, the hostility was palpable. And the look she gave me...it was an event. And she took her sweet time moving out of my way --- like 15 seconds, which, when you're having a standoff at the end of a grocery store aisle, is an eternity. It was so long that I actually considered the possibility that she might not move, which is just a Seinfeld-type of thing because people aren't that crazy in real life. So Alan and I had a moment of "What in tarnation just happened?" and then we went about our day.

So the other day I was grocery shopping. I had gone through the baking aisle for flour, but had forgotten Bisquick so I had to head back. A woman's cart was in the middle of the aisle, so I couldn't get by on either side. I said excuse me like a normal human, and the lady goes, "Are you actually going to buy anything on this aisle?" Only yelling. She was yelling. Taken aback just a bit, I gave a half-laugh-scoff and said, with attitude and a frown, "Yeah, it's right there, why?" She went on to yell at me that I'd already been down the aisle THREE TIMES. (False. She was a liar.) I said, "Yeah, SOMETIMES PEOPLE FORGET THINGS AND HAVE TO GO BACK."

After I'd procured my Bisquick and gotten safely to the next aisle, I could still hear her ranting and raving. I was wondering what I had done to piss her off so severely on my first pass down the baking aisle, but I don't think her craziness was about me. Because I remember her dropping swear words as I'd walked by the first time and thinking I was glad the kids weren't with me, and that time I'm pretty sure she was cursing about a product not being in the right location. Plus, she had bright blue eye shadow and it was applied in triangle shapes, so I think the crazy ran pretty deep.

As funny as it is, I was really bothered by the whole situation. I mean, I knew people in Jersey like to get seriously outraged for no apparent reason, but I dislike confrontation to a fault. When I get to do the shopping by myself, it's peaceful. I'm not supposed to be yelled at. If I wanted to be yelled at, I'd just go home and take away Halloween candy or something.

Alan did make an excellent point though as I was recounting the story. "Why was SHE in the baking aisle for so long?" I'll insert the joke about her being around the nuts here, but I have a feeling she is a Chronic Aisle Blocker who tries to stir up trouble. She simply has to be the same lady who blocked the aisle for me so long ago. There cannot be more than one of these people around. One thing is for sure though: If she makes a habit of that blue makeup, I won't forget her face again.

Emery's Arrival

My kids like to make their arrival in style. With Avery, I barely made it to the hospital. With Owen, I labored happily until they broke my water and he was born about five minutes later. I felt like Baby 3 might have fun tricks up his/her sleeve — and I was mostly afraid of my water breaking and the baby falling out as soon as it did, whether I was at the grocery store or on a New Jersey highway. I had three wishes: 1) a healthy baby 2) not having the baby outside of the hospital and 3) if I was lucky, making it to 37 weeks and avoiding a week-long NICU stay.

When 35 weeks came and went — Avery day and Owen day — I started feeling impatient. I'd never gone past 35 weeks, so it felt like my due date had passed, even though I still had more than a month to go. (May the Lord help the women who go past their due dates. I cannot imagine.) When I made it to my 36-week appointment, I started having nightmares of a pregnancy lasting 41 weeks and inductions.

When the Tuesday after Labor Day arrived — two days shy of the 37-week mark — Alan was getting ready to head back to work after a four-day weekend. But I woke up with mild cramps and told him to stick around to see what happened. I'd woken up with cramps the previous two mornings to no avail, so I didn't think too much of it. But they were about 15 minutes apart, and when they got just a bit closer we decided to call the doctor and head to the hospital because I didn't want to deliver a baby in the car.

The doctor fails to call me back. Which is awesome. You'd think, "Hey, I may be in labor" would be enough to get a return phone call from your OB/GYN, but alas, I lost more faith in the medical community that day. So Alan and I sat in the hospital lobby for a couple of hours. Just monitoring contractions and playing Words with Friends. I was feeling a little silly about being so paranoid — what if it was just false labor? — but Alan kept reassuring me that I'd never had a false labor before and to chill out because something was clearly going on.

I finally called the doctor's office back, and they had me drive over to get checked. Sure enough, 5 cm and clearly in labor. Hurrah! We were having a baby! So we headed to the hospital to get checked in.

And then we waited. And waited. Watched some Real Housewives of Atlanta because isn't that the most zen thing you can think of? Turned it off when it started being annoying. Made Alan go get lunch for himself so he'd have strength to pull through for me. The attending physician introduced himself. When he came back to check me after laboring for a couple of hours — I told him contractions weren't fun any more — I was at 6 cm. Six! And I was pissed. All of that pain for 1 lousy centimeter? He told me they'd probably break my water in a bit to speed things up.

So after suffering a bit more — like 20 minutes, maybe? I can't remember — I tell Alan I need to push. But that seems impossible because the doctor had JUST CHECKED ME and I was a 6. But I hit the nurse call button and tell her I need to get checked because I need to push and she tells me I'm still a 6. She gets on the phone to my doctor telling her to get her rear there and then she tries to coach me into not pushing for two contractions. Which is maybe the hardest thing I've ever done. I "hee hee hoo hoo" through those two contractions — and I ask if it's too late for an epidural because I'm thinking, "How will I survive the pain of not pushing when pushing is the only thing that's going to help?" And she asks me if there is any music that will help me not push. And I want to punch her in the face. Because, no. No, there is not music that will stop this STRONG PHYSICAL URGE.

And then the attending physician is standing there, along with other nurses. And everyone has this look on their face like "This is the first time I've ever done this." And I want someone to look or act like they know what they're doing. And I want someone to tell me I can push.

And then my body is like "screw you guys, I'm pushing." So I did. And my water broke. And Emery Claire was born one minute later.

I saw immediately that she was a girl — it didn't matter, but I had felt it all along — and Emery was placed on my chest and got to hang out with me rather than being whisked away like my other two had been. We snuggled while they wiped her down and she peed all over me. It was really amazing.

My 6-pound, 4-ounce, 19-inch-long baby girl continued to be amazing. Because she was "near term" they tested her glucose for 24 hours and passed every test. We skipped the NICU. She stayed in my room with me, and we busted out of the hospital two days later. Jaundice wasn't an issue, and she's started gaining weight even though she's so sleepy that I have to wake her every time she needs to eat. (Who is this kid!?)

My kids have all come early and crazily, but I'll give them credit for timing things just right. Alan has always been home for me, and they've been born either on a weekend or the morning after a weekend and caught him before going to work. Plus, we've got a 9/2 baby, 8/7 baby, and a 2/27 which is pretty cool.

Dimples have been spotted but you can't see them here.

Eight days old and very worried.

I'm over feeling stupid for waiting in the lobby, obviously. And I'm now pretty convinced I could be IN THE HOSPITAL and still have Alan end up delivering my baby. But barring a major, major oops, we won't need to test that possibility. The sense of being complete now that Emery has arrived is immense; my family is here.

Does This Baby Make My Belly Look Big?

Here I am in all of my glowing glory at 35 weeks, 3 days. Anyone who has been keeping tabs knows that this is THREE DAYS longer than my longest pregnancy. I'm having to remind myself that I'm not actually due for another month. But each day that ticks by has me hoping that we'll avoid the dreaded NICU stay with a preemie. And each day that ticks by also has me worried that I'll go to like 41 weeks, which...would just not be acceptable. I'd honestly prefer that to a preemie and wallet-clearing NICU stay, but I'm not saying that once I hit full-term at 37 weeks I won't be pulling out every labor-inducing trick in the book.

I'm mostly feeling fine, except for annoying reflux and sore throat I've had off and on since May. And you know, stabbing pain in my pelvis and left thigh isn't exactly fun. I can barely heave myself out of bed, and then once I do, I'm gimping like a 90-year-old lady until my lower limbs start working a little.

People say that the baby must be very comfortable to have beaten my old pregnancy record. I say that this baby is probably terrified of the chaos he or she is about to meet! (I know I am. We'll get through it together, baby!)

My Fancy, Funny Four

Avery turned four yesterday. Where did four years go, etc., but the better question is, when did she get so funny? And where did this larger-than-life personality come from? And where did she get her sense of fashion and fancy? Because this girl is hilarious, personality plus, and puts my fashion sense to shame.

This year she really got what the birthday was all about and started putting in requests months in advance. Her list changed several times, but we narrowed it down and all of her gifts were a hit. I think Alan and I were about as excited as she was about her birthday. I wish this picture was clearer, but it really sums up her excitement about getting Sofia's Amulet of Avalor.

She's wearing her Queen Elsa dress, and got two pairs of "fancy" sleepwear. Now, she never has to be wearing something less than sparkly perfection. The girl is dressed up from morning to ... well, the next morning.

Her typical walking attire:

Of course, Owen isn't immune to Avery's fancy influence either.

She's never met a carousel she didn't like...

...but even though she's carousels and princesses and fairies and dresses, she's got the ability to get down and dirty. She collects rocks and leaves and sticks and digs in mud puddles ... she just does it while wearing a dress. One day the neighbor kids were outside playing with a Super Soaker --- the giant squirt gun that is practically as big as she is. I thought there'd be no way she'd be able to work it. Instead, she not only figured it out, but went around terrorizing all of us with her super soaking abilities. We all got drenched.

This one sums up her joy for life:

And seriously, she couldn't be more beautiful...

...but in reality, she'd discovered that she can burp on demand and was cracking herself up by belching as much as possible during this photo shoot.



Mom! You need a highlight! (Seriously, just got one this week and my stylist didn't even know I was pregnant...)

She aged overnight, and I'm feeling very, very excited about what four will bring. Don't change a thing, funny girl.

Signs

Things are getting better, slowly. I'm finding my new pug-less normal, which let's be honest, being down a pug really sucks. The kids have been distracting me from my grief, which is both good and bad. Sometimes I just want to be alone and cry, but then someone will be peeling off all of his clothes and another someone will need help getting her Barbie dressed, and I’m forced to deal with the reality of my day, in my face, rather than the tears.

I miss the little thing so much, and I feel her absence everywhere. I miss the “thuh-thunk” of her hopping up on the bed at night, as she needed to jump on a trunk to get up there. I miss her immediate presence when something is dropped on the kitchen floor. I miss her clean-up duties, as I now have to get out the broom after every meal and I knew she cleaned up the crumbs but oh my God did she clean up some crumbs. I kicked a kid’s soft rattle in the basement, twice, and the first time I had to turn around to see what it was because it must have been something Marti rattled around.

Days go by without me opening the back door. I can vacuum without having to worry about Marti freaking out. The fire alarm started beeping its low-battery warning the other day during Owen’s nap. He slept right through it, but he wouldn’t have slept through Marti’s barking at it every two minutes. Someone throws a Kleenex on the ground, and I don’t jump up to wrangle it out of Marti’s mouth.

In the mornings, the kids test me. Owen refuses to get diapered and dressed without a fight --- a literal punching and kicking fight sometimes --- and depending on which side of the bed Avery woke up on, she can be unruly too. There was no wrong side of the bed with Marti. Doors would get slammed as I’d wait for the kids to run off some energy before coming to cooperate with me (particularly as it became harder for me to heave myself off the floor to chase them), and Marti and I would be left looking at each other like, “Kids these days.” I could always count on her to be nice and not slam the doors.

The kids break my heart too. Avery was very upset the first day after she saw how upset we were. It wasn’t until days later that Owen noticed, asking, “Where Marti go?” when I picked up her collar in the car. He’s still saying “Marti all done doctor?” which sets off a wave of tears each time. I’m trying to be as age appropriately honest as I can be, trying to explain the permanence without it being scary. It’s hard, and it’s definitely new parenting territory. I can’t say that it’s my favorite part.

I still get the panicky waves of grief --- the ones that crash over you when you realize you’ll never see someone or something again. When you realize how permanent it is. They’re fewer now, but they’re still crushing. I’m trying not to question the “what ifs” and “could we haves…” We did the best we could have done with the information we had at the time. When Marti starting getting sick, it really wasn’t that far out of the norm. She dropped a little weight --- but she had been 26 pounds in December, so I had tried to dial back her food because of all the crumbs I knew she got from the kids. She threw up here and there and would skip a meal or two, but that was pretty normal. When her vomiting became more frequent and the missed meals added up in April, we headed into see the vet. The X-ray appeared normal; bloodwork was great. An anti-nausea shot, four anti-nausea pills and a bland diet seemed to clear things right up. Her appetite and enthusiasm returned.

So when a few weeks later, she started her once-a-day puke and skipping meals, we hoped it was once again minor. I headed back to the vet, another doctor in the practice just to get another opinion. He noticed her bloodwork from April was slightly off --- possibly indicating Addison’s disease or pancreatitis. We got another anti-nausea shot, pills and another blood test that showed had her electrolyte levels were still off, so they brought her in to perform a 4-hour blood test to see if it was Addison’s. Addison’s seemed to fit --- and it was treatable. I was crushed when the vet called and ruled it out. He said to see how everything went and let him know how Marti was doing --- but Marti had stopped eating after three enthusiastic days and hadn’t eaten the previous night or that morning and was throwing up again. He had me come in for another few pills to get through the weekend, and she’d have an ultrasound Monday to see what they could find. By Saturday morning, she was throwing up a lot more. She’d bark and throw up a little liquid. We’d pick her up, the same. She was down to 18 pounds and we were just starting to get worried about her making it through the weekend. I got into the vet --- the original doctor from April --- and she gave Marti another shot and some cat food to tempt her appetite. When Marti worsened, we ended up going to an emergency vet that afternoon. They took an X-ray, which showed something worrisome and a thickening of the intestines, but couldn’t say for certain what the problem was. They administered fluids, and showed me how to do the same for the next day.

I was relieved to drop her off for the ultrasound on Monday --- and worried when they called saying they’d found a blockage in Marti’s intestine. It could be a tumor, it could be scar tissue. It was hard to say without doing exploratory surgery. He laid out the scenarios, but I just couldn’t fathom it would be the worst case. I was sure they’d find scar tissue from something that she’d eaten; I was sure they’d find actual toilet tissue because she ate it all the time. I was sure a tumor of any sort would be benign, after all, her bloodwork was always great, all other digestive issues were fine. I was crying as I came to pick her up after the ultrasound, and the doctor said he couldn’t say for certain it was cancer. I thought, well, of course it’s not.

Marti had a great night her last night. She had more energy than she’d had in weeks; acted interested and ate a few bites of cat food. I turned the AC on to cool her down and I snuggled with her on the couch for hours. When she hopped off --- which she’d been doing as she got uncomfortable or nauseated --- I moved down to the floor to be with her. I’d pet her, stop, and she’d scratch me to get more pets. We loved her all night long. She got in bed with us per usual, and Alan came to bed with potato chips. We hadn’t seen Marti interested in food for awhile, so when she perked up at the potato chips, she got a special treat.

I didn’t make a big deal of the goodbye in the morning --- I really didn’t think it was good-bye --- but I did have a special snuggle with her as she was at the foot of my bed. I told her that they were going to try fix what was wrong, and that if for some reason they couldn’t, she could go find Rosie (my pug growing up) and my dad and they’d take care of her. Alan took the day off to help me out and we all went to drop her off. I joked that if it was cancer, I’d have to buy ribbons for canine cancer awareness --- not thinking that would be the case. At the vet, they gave me her collar; I joked that she didn’t need it because they definitely knew who she was by now --- and as she walked off, I said “Good luck, Marts.” I was sure my biggest worry would be getting her enough rest and recovery time when I picked her up later that day.

My dad would always pick up spare change. Always. And after he died, I started doing the same. No matter what, when I see a penny, I pick it up regardless of if it’s heads or tails. It’s my dad saying hi, always. After I dropped Marti off, I headed to the park with the kids and Alan went to work from home. As I was walking up to the park, I found two pennies.

The surgery was set to happen mid-day. So when I got the call before 1 p.m., I was surprised --- it was early. And I could tell from the doctor’s voice that it wasn’t good news. There was a tumor, about the size of a walnut, blocking her intestine. He thought he could remove it and reconnect her intestines, although there was a size discrepancy on either side. The bigger problem was that he could see spots --- visible spots --- that could only mean cancer had spread. Certainly he could finish the surgery and we could do chemo, but told us that it was honestly probably best not to wake her up. It was the worst case scenario.

It’s hard not to question what would have happened had we finished the surgery and done chemo. But we just couldn’t fathom having her fight a painful, losing battle just so we could see her fuzzy face again. While sometimes I think it would have been worth it for us, it wouldn’t have been worth it for her. I know that, even though it's hard.

That night Avery picked out a movie from a bag of about ten DVDs her older neighbor friend gave her. Some of them are good --- Disney movies and such --- but some of them are junk, like Barbie movies that just make you roll your eyes. But she picked this one out, and a pug was throughout:

And that weekend, I found two more coins together.

And then in what is the surest sign of a Marti hello, I read a book that I’d had for weeks that I’d never read to the kids before. A dog eating a potato chip.

Then yesterday, we went to the library and grabbed some books. Of all the books, Avery grabs "Sally Goes to Heaven." And of course there's a pug on a couch saying hi.

I know, it sounds kooky. But it makes me feel better. (Well, the book made me cry like a baby, so I was glad I prescreened it before even attempting to read it to the kids.) But what I know of grief is that you take the moments and the things that make you feel better and you hold on tight, much like you hold on tight to the ones you love while they’re here.

Marti

Right after Alan and I got married, I instantly got the hankering for a dog. And while I was nervous about the commitment --- checking out books on dog ownership and various breeds from the library, even though I knew I wanted a pug --- Alan was much less gun shy. So when one day he said, “Let’s just stop talking about it; if we’re going to do it, let’s do it,” we did it. I called the breeder and we got lucky that there was a female fawn pug that would be available that weekend. It was meant to be.

We went to pick her up from her one-eyed mom, and as I was whispering that this place seemed slightly sketchy, Alan was cradling a tiny pug in his arms. There was no way we were leaving without this member of our family. On the way home, I remember looking over. Alan was asleep in the passenger’s seat, Marti snoozing comfortably on his lap. They were already fast friends.

As Marti was Alan’s first dog, he’d never had a living being dependent on him. He had a slight panic attack about it, but I assured him that we’d be fine; we’d be great puppy parents. And we were; she became the center of our little family.

Marti proceeded to be both an adorable puppy and a total beast. She’d eat my shoes. Bite my hands. She was nonstop puppy energy, no matter how much I walked her or played fetch. She’s the only puppy I know that wasn’t a napper --- because she didn’t want to miss out on anything. She always had more to dish out for me, especially those first two years. I always laugh because she would bite me with her sharp puppy teeth and make me cry with her incessant nipping at my hands. I remember wailing, “All I do is love you!” always hoping that she’d turn into the sweetness that she eventually turned into.

When Alan left to go up to Chicago for his internship the summer after we were married, Marti nuzzled her way into our bed. Pugs are the perfect cuddlers, and she snuggled right in with me during Alan’s absence. Once he returned, it was nearly impossible to implement the “no dog in bed” policy that we had previously followed; she was too snuggly to kick out and pretty soon we learned to work around her bed demands, whether it was to let her under the covers, to let her lay sideways while we made room for her or to sometimes just sit on me to show me who was boss.

When I started working from home, she became my full-time friend and best little pug buddy. She’d sit behind me in the chair, and I’d make way for her. She’d get up in my face and paw at my arm when she wanted a walk, a pet, nothing at all. It drove me mad trying to figure out how to appease her, but never mad enough to kick her out of the chair, God forbid.

We hit up pug meet-ups for laughs, hit the dog park every day. We’d laugh because she always proved she was the most submissive dog in the park, lying down to prove she was no threat to anyone, even dogs half her size and ---ahem --- presenting herself. If she was on a leash or across the street from a dog, it was a different story. Fierce, she was, and thought she could take down a Doberman. When we’d travel we’d do our best to find pet-friendly accommodations. And if that wasn’t possible, we spared no expense on pet hotels; some of her hotels were nicer than ours.

She went from Kansas to California with us, and California to New Jersey. She visited Lake Tahoe and Yosemite. She was a well-traveled pug, and traveled so well for us.

When we had kids, I knew Marti wouldn’t be the center of our attention any more. But she was still the middle of everything. Whether I was nursing or dealing with two kids battling for precious lap space, she’d always want to be right in the thick of it; I’d always accommodate. She was my little shadow and my most loyal friend. Always, always by my side. Coming upstairs with me even if I was simply grabbing something really quickly. Coming downstairs as I moved laundry, the never-ending chore. Under my feet always at dinner time, ready to snag anything I might drop, but mostly keeping me company. I was with her all day, every day. Waking hours, sleeping hours. Considering I worked from home, calling her a constant companion is practically an understatement.

She added to the complete chaos in the house --- barking like mad and driving me bonkers when we’d leave the house, always a fun accompaniment to kids who are screaming and not cooperating at all. Grabbing tissue out of the trashcan or ripping apart wet diapers I hadn’t tossed out of reach. The kids would splash in the bath and it would worry her --- so she’d bark to alert us to the fact that they must be in danger, even if we were right there. A constant watch dog, we always knew when something was amiss outside --- whether it was the mailman, a clap of thunder or a dog barking. And if the doorbell rang? Pure chaos. I’d have to chase Marti down to grab her; she got to greet everyone at the door from the safety of my arms. Much like at the dog park, she was only tough when she couldn't see who was on the other side of the door.

Marti went from being a non-napping puppy to the best napping companion one could have. During my exhausted first trimester this time around, she’d nap with me every day. It was our ritual --- get the kids down and go grab a snooze, either on the couch or in bed. She’d snuggle next to me; always fitting like a puzzle piece wherever she lay down, usually right behind my knees. She puzzled her way into all kinds of sleeping arrangements, and our lives.

And now, she’s gone. Gone in the blink of an eye; with one phone call from the vet that changed everything. They could finish surgery, but it wouldn’t help; it was best to let her go. So we made the easiest and hardest decision we’ve ever made. No suffering, but peace.

Now, I miss the chaos that drove me crazy. It’s too quiet. No claws and paws padding around the tiles and hardwoods. No pug snores at the foot of my bed, long sighs that were the most contented sound in the world. No pug coming up to my face at 3 a.m. to burrow her way down to my feet; how many times we’ve woken up over the years to make sure she had air to breathe, it’s too many times to count. No one greeting me at the door, with a stuffed animal always, to welcome me home. No one tackling the kids for their snacks --- she was a relentless beast and was notorious for stealing food from toddlers like candy from a baby. No half growls when she heard something outside but didn’t have the energy to get too worked up --- a little half puff of air to let us know she heard. I do headcounts now --- Avery, Owen, Marti --- and come up one short. Now, when the kids are tucked into bed and it’s quiet time for me and Alan, it’s just too quiet because there is an empty space at the end of the couch.

Even writing this, it doesn’t feel real. My writing feels forced, empty, as if I can’t possibly convey what that lovable little dog meant to me. A post isn’t enough. My Martikins. Marti Bean Soup. Gracious Beans. My Sweetness and Light. And my heart feels so heavy.

I’ve cried countless times over the years in preparation for this. I’d even think about it and be a blubbering mess. She was our first baby. I’d rub her fuzzy little muzzle and always say, “Don’t you go dying on us, Graysh.” And now it’s here, and we weren’t ready. You’re never ready. I wanted at least four more years, but I know had I gotten them, I would have wanted 10 more. With dogs, it’s never enough. Why do we put ourselves through it? Why do we knowingly jump in and fall in love with someone whom we have such limited time with? Why do we put ourselves through the heartbreak and tears and emptiness and quiet? Only because that unconditional love and friendship makes it worth all of the heartbreak.

 

Knock Knock

Knock knock.

Who's there?

Two kids.

Two kids who?

Two kids who don't know how to tell a knock-knock joke.

Seriously, there is almost nothing funnier than trying to teach a 2- and 3-year-old how to participate in or tell a knock-knock joke. I told them the "orange you glad I didn't say banana" one recently, so in the retelling, it goes something like this:

Owen: Knock knock.
Me: Who's there?
Owen: Banana who?

Or this:

Owen: Knock knock.
Me: Who's there?
Owen: Orange.
Me: Orange who?
Owen: (Throws mic to the ground, walks out. There is no need for a punch line with skills like these.)

And just forget about them telling each other jokes. It's comedy, just not the way it was intended.

Owen's vocab has exploded lately, much later than Avery's did. It seemed like his single words were in the thousands, and then overnight he started stringing them together. Now, he can tell jokes (haha), and start requesting "Mommy tuck me in" as early as 3 p.m. His favorite book is Demolition, which he calls "demolicious" because Avery's favorite book is Pinkalicious. He's proud of all of his newfound accomplishments, proclaiming "I did it!" when he does extraordinary feats like pulling his pants off and running around naked.

Speaking of naked. So, one day recently I was making dinner. I do "cardio cooking" wherein I put them in front of the TV, pray they watch it, and run back and forth checking on them and making sure they're not getting in much trouble. Well, my motherly instincts told me one day that it was too quiet, so I ran out to find Owen half in the fireplace playing in ashes, and ashes strewn around in front of the fireplace, which Avery was happily smearing around. After a moment of "What the....WHAT!?" I cleaned it up, thankful it could have been oh so much worse than it was. Anyway, like an hour later Owen is running around sans diaper, so proud, and I'm like, he had better not even think about pooping without a diaper on. Because, hey, maybe it's happened before. So I do a visual sweep of the living room and my eyes land upon this sight:

And for a moment I'm like, "Is that POOP!?" And then I realized that it's just a log from the fireplace that I somehow missed in ash cleanup.

They're hilarious and crazy and maddening. They can be so sweet and cooperative one minute and devilish and contrary the next. They can say and do the cutest things ("froggit" for a frog (ribbit!)), and then punch you the next. Avery can make sure Owen has his favorite toy, and then say something like "I just want to throw him away" or "I guess we'll just leave him here" when we're on a walk and he's slow to catch up.

I asked Avery what we should get Alan for his birthday recently. Her response? "A deer costume, muddy shoes and a brand-new car." She could be a future game show host. She wakes up in the morning and immediately puts on a princess dress. She'll change outfits several times a day, and it's hard to find her without butterfly wings or a tiara or plastic princess shoes on. I cannot take credit for outfits these days as I have no say anymore. She'll tell me: "You have to pick your battles!" And she's right.

She's given up napping, which is fine until it isn't. And it usually isn't at some point before bedtime, between the hours of 5 and 8, when the horns and claws and fangs appear and the sweet child of the day has disappeared and morphed into a demon who cannot be convinced to cooperate. Once in the middle of one of her fits of exhaustion she told me she just wanted to cry on my shoulder. That, of course, makes the crazy worth it.

The other day I asked if I could get a hug and a kiss. Her response was "And some hearts!" "Hearts?" I asked. "We have hearts above our heads because we love each other." And seriously, heart nearly exploded with the sweetness.

And then when I told her to look at my belly and how big it had gotten, she responded with, "Did your butt get bigger too?"

21 weeks

Probably, Avery. Probably.

Knock knock.

Who's there?

Baby 3.

Baby 3 who?

Baby 3 due September 25!

Maybe they get their joke-telling skills from their mother.

Train Wreck

Betty Crocker lied to me.

I planned to make a train cake for Owen's 2nd birthday yesterday. So like a good mommy of a train-obsessed boy, I searched for "easy train cake" on the internet. Up popped Ms. Betty Crocker with a train cake that looked manageable. I knew not to get in over my head because I recalled Avery's second birthday in which Alan stepped in and saved the day with her butterfly cake. Hence googling "easy train cake" and not "super difficult train cake."

So here's Betty to the rescue, complete with a video detailing how to make this "easy" train cake. I watched the video twice. Felt confident. I got this train cake, I think. Owen is going to love it.

The video starts off saying, "You really can do this!" to boost your confidence. This is where the lies begin. They should not tell people they can do this when they have no idea of the LACK OF CAKE ABILITY of viewers.

I've got a cake mix and two tubs of icing. I bake the cake. I get out my food coloring and color the frosting. I finally give up on getting my icing to turn red when I've used half of the red food coloring and have only gotten it to a pinkish hue. Dark pink is good enough, I think.

I follow the steps in the video. Mostly. I mean, I didn't refrigerate the cakes quite as long as recommended by Betty C., so, okay,  maybe that's where the trouble started. I also took some liberties with the design of the engine train because I wasn't a fan of how Betty did hers, but more on that later.

I start to frost my little train cars with the first "crumb coat," named because you cover the cake and crumbs before you do the "real deal" smooth ice job on top. And whoa. I realize my "crumb coat" is so-named because my cake is crumbling like ancient ruins. What's going on here? I keep going, determined to get this worked out, and the cake just keeps falling apart. More icing goes on...but no matter how much icing I load up onto my knife (because I'm using a knife, who has a fancy spatula like they said to in the video? Only the pros!), my cake just keeps crumbling, the frosting refusing to stick.

I get a rough coat on the trains. And by rough, we're talking rough. Like, "Hmm. May have to chuck this in the trash and run to the grocery store later" rough.

Like, well, just here:

Two of my boxcars.

My "engine." Which looks like a cruise ship. Cannot look at this picture without cry-laughing.

So, I throw this disaster in the fridge, and throw a prayer up that after some refrigeration and some added frosting, this will be salvageable.

After a decent amount of refrigeration, I pull my trains out to try this again. Luckily, the room temperature icing goes on more smoothly-ish than the first time. But my engine-boat is so big that I don't have quite enough to really get that puppy smoothed out. Because let's be honest: it would have taken an entire THIRD tub of icing and I just wasn't going to go to those lengths. I do buy some emergency cake-decorating supplies like sprinkles and letters to hopefully disguise a little bit of the disaster I've got going on. So my train ends up looking as such:

And another angle:

And from a distance, its best angle really:

And Owen's all, what?

But then he's like, "Choo-choo!"

He totally knew it was a train, which was the most important thing. And Alan said it wasn't as bad as he thought it was going to be, although he totally raised an eyebrow at my boatish engine (I'd told him once he saw the progress picture he was going to think I was Martha for having pulled out this birthday miracle.). And wouldn't you know? The part I didn't like about Betty's engine design? The front angled part that totally make it look more like a boat than it would have? Once I started slicing the cake up and chopped that part off, it looked much more train engine than boat, thank you very much.

I'm thinking I should start practicing now if I want to make a princess cake for Avery's birthday. Heck, I should start practicing for Owen's next birthday --- even if I attempt an exact repeat of "easy train cake."

P.S. It was delicious.

Playing Defense

I play defense all day long. If the kids are awake, I'm on high alert. I have to protect them from doing anything to harm themselves and each other. You know what is referred to as "common sense"? There is no such thing. Because you are born with very little sense and parents teach kids everything they know. Seriously, they're like feral animals you're trying to tame and talk some sense into.

If I could only use 10 words in a day, I'd need these:

No.
Stop.
Don't eat that.
For the love of God.

It's not easy because they totally gang up on me. One distracts me while the other is getting into something completely dangerous. Like Avery will be getting out the front door and at the opposite side of the house Owen is splashing in the dog dish. Or Owen's doing flips off the couch while Avery is stripping down to her birthday suit. Or Avery is grabbing a bag of chips off the counter while Owen is pouring my coffee all over the house.

Because this seems like an excellent idea.

The other day, Avery let me know Owen was waving his giraffe lovey around. I thought it was an odd report, but I was trying to get dressed like a normal human being that day, a day I put on a belt for the first time in like, two years (seriously, it had a tag on it, and I don't remember purchasing it). Next thing I know, Avery is telling me, "But the giraffe is wet," and I find Owen dunking the giraffe in the toilet and flinging water all over kingdom come. That's what I get for putting on a belt, people.

I'm so busy lately; I took on another writing job, so I'm writing an additional three articles a week with I don't know what time. I'm getting things figured out, but it's been a lot of juggling and stress. Around our neighborhood we do this "Boo" chain thing at Halloween where you'll get treats from someone and have to put together goodies to pass it along. Well, for the past two years I've gotten Booed, but hadn't passed the torch on. In fact, last year I got Booed twice, the second time before I had the chance to put up the "We've been Boo-ed!" sign. So I've felt super guilty. So this year? I Booed myself. That's right: I printed off a Boo ghost from the internet and stuck it up preemptively, so as to not get a bag of treats and to save myself the guilt of not having the time to do a Boo basket for someone else. Some may think it's slightly Grinchy of me; I think it's genius.

We've been going to the gym a lot, and now that Owen is great at the child care center, it's actually hard to tear them both away from all of the toys. I use the gym for both working out and for a quiet moment to work in the café, so it's been nice. We always hit the potty when I drop them off, and for whatever reason, Avery was terrified of the toilet the other day. So she kept getting off, I kept putting her back on and explaining that these aren't automatic toilets, while Owen ran amok in the bathroom. Guess where you don't want a 20-month-old running amok? A bathroom. So I'm chasing Owen, putting Avery on the pot, back and forth, back and forth. Then we have to switch stalls because, 3-year-old. Then Owen's crawling out of the stall, and into another stall. By the time I get out of there I a) don't feel guilty at all about leaving them for an hour and b) am already warmed up for my workout.

Look closely and you'll see this is the first day of the season they wore pants.

Owen is now at a stage where he thinks it is hilarious to run from me. One of the few times I remember getting in trouble as a kid was when I was running away from my mom. We were fishing or outside, and I'm pretty sure I got a swat on the butt. Now I see why: Because it is the most annoying thing when your kid is running away from you because they're likely running directly into danger or an otherwise inappropriate situation. The kids conspire against me so that I look like a totally crazy person on the way out of the gym sometimes. Avery will be running off or heading into an open office door, while Owen is heading into the men's locker room. Twice I've had to retrieve Owen from the men's locker room, and twice I've felt like I should have shielded my eyes just in case. He gets a little faster and turns a corner, and I'm going to have to yell for everyone to take cover while I go grab him.

The only place he plays it safe: the slide.

The mission right now for both kids is to touch everything, climb everything, and destroy everything. If I'm being driven batty by the amount of laundry needing to be put away, I know I have to sacrifice something to get it done. If I block them from our bedroom, it's a guarantee that every book will be on the floor in Avery's room, every blanket will be off Avery's bed, and they'll be in Owen's closet, unfolding every piece of clothing that is out of season.

He'll either sit in it or throw folded clothes. Either way, I lose.

If I make it sound like they're heathens, it's because they are. But not all the time. They do have their delightful moments. The moments that have me doubled over because they say something funny or melt my heart because they do something totally cute. Those moments make up for toilet splashing and throwing rocks at bunnies.

 

Adorably checking out bunnies. And then Avery threw rocks. You thought I was kidding about throwing rocks at bunnies.

Can I also just say that the Terrible Twos are a joke? I scoff at the Terrible Twos. Parents keep three a secret because they don't want to scare the pee out of you as you're dealing with the "Terrible Twos." They don't want to say, "Oh, boy, you think 2 is bad? You are IN FOR IT, SISTER." Because three is a whole other ballgame. Three is opinions and language and love and hugs. But three is opinions and language and attitude and make-you-wanna-do-drugs. You'll get "I love you soooo much" followed by "You're a stupid Mommy."

She'll put a hex on you if you're not careful.

Three brings so much goofiness.

Goofball.

...but also EMOTIONS.


Post-nap, feeling all the feelings.

Another mom recently said that at this age it's like they walk around as one big raw nerve, and it's so true. You just don't know what will trigger the crazy.

Luckily for both of them, they're pretty cute. And we love them to bits. And well, there's just no sending them back.