Oh Blakey....

This afternoon, Blake was a handful. First, he learned to pull his sister's hair. She would scream; he would laugh, laugh, laugh. We've had our baby fence for 3 days now, and it has already proven to be less useful than we had hoped. The plan was to have a SAFE place to let the kiddos roam while I made dinner and such. So much for safe. If I don't want to have a bald baby girl, I can't leave the two in there together.

During dinner, Blake surprize attacked me, knocking an entire bowl of baby food under the table, splattering a good 6x3 foot area. I have tried to clean it all up, but you know how there are those messes that never get fully cleaned up because you always seem to miss a spot. It's one of those.

And, after bath while I was diapering his sister, Blake found a tag from his new pj's and took a bite. Shame on me for letting it lay on the floor in the first place, but I am not a wonderful housekeeper. Seems like I could spend my entire day cleaning just for the house to be a complete disaster again five minutes later. I'd rather spend my entire day doing something more important. Anyway, I tried to pry his mouth open and find the piece he'd eaten. I tried to do a finger sweep. He's got two new top teeth now to match his bottom two, and man can he bite hard! Ouch! Blaker Bear just kept gnawing away at that piece of paper. I couldn't see it, couldn't find it, couldn't get it out of his mouth, until eventually I guess he must have swallowed it. I wonder if that's on the "okay" list of foods for a 9-month-old.

As much as I had those "pull your hair out" moments today, I also had some "melt your heart" ones. That's what's so great about being a mom. There are so many little things that make you smile every day: Blake's chuckle when I tickled him, his banana filled smile during breakfast, his interaction with Owen and Sadie while they played a new game called "All on-the-board". Owen meant to say all aboard as he drug his giggling, squealing babies up and down the hallway on his blanket. And now as Blake sleeps so sweetly, all of my frustration over today's chaos has gone, and I can't help but smile down at my sweet baby boy.

Too Stinkin' Cute

Tonight there was a little moment that I want to remember. There are actually several of those little moments everyday. After a long day of working outside with dad, Owen took his bath, put on his pajamas, and snuggled into our bed for a little quiet time before he went to sleep. I said, "Owen, you're just too stinkin' cute."

He stuck his little foot up to my nose and said sincerely, "No, I'm not. Smell. I just took a bath." Oh, I just love you so much Bubber Bean.

Story time at the Library

This morning, I decided that it was time for a little outing since I could feel the house closing in on me yesterday. Could a mom do anything more wonderful for her children on a Tuesday morning than take them to the library for story time? It sounded like a great idea.

True to character, we arrived just a smidge late (2 minutes) for the preschool story time. All heads turned to watch me struggle to reach over the double decker stroller to grab the door and clumsily steer my way in, banging on the door frame, using my elbow to hold the door open enough, asking Owen over and over to move forward so that I did not run over his toes. Eventually, we got situated. While the librarian continued her routine of songs and stories, we continued to draw attention because every 30 seconds or so, one of the babies would squawk loudly and smile. Cute? Yes. Embarrassing? Yes. The theme of the day was Father's Day which included a book called "My Dad" and the song D-A-D-D-Y sung to the tune of Bingo. It was a nice presentation, and we will attend more story times, however we need to work on our blending-in-with-the-crowd skills.

Now, Central Library happens to have a very inviting area filled with toys, and I am greatly mistakin' if I think I can get away with leaving before we spend some quality time playing underneath the artificial oak tree. I should have known. But, hey, the babies weren't hungry, wet, or needing to sleep right then, so why not. This is where I stretched my luck. See, the sweet, well-meaning librarian informed me that my twins were adorable (thank you) and the perfect age for the baby story time program that was going to begin in five minutes. I knew I was tempting fate, but I've been feeling like I need to step up my game with them. I feel like I don't do as much educational play with them as I did when Owen was a baby. It probably boils down to having three kids clamoring for attention and a household of five messy people to tend. Nevertheless, they don't get the nightly book reading time, sing-song eye-to-eye play time as often. So, yes, when the librarian invited us, I would have felt extremely guilty if I just left and neglected to afford Blake and Sadie the same opportunities as their older brother.

I would show you a picture, but I did not bring my camera with me nor would I have had the extra appendages needed to point and shoot, so picture this: around 15 mommies with their hair and make up fixed sitting in a circle with their baby on their lap, playing Where is Thumbkin and Open Them, Shut Them. Meanwhile, I am struggling to keep Blake on my lap, doing one handed motions because my other hand is holding the back of Sadie's dress as she tries to crawl away, looking like she's on a crawling treadmill. Then I drag her to my knee, enlist the help of Owen to sing to Blake, try to keep squirmy wormy entertained while she screams to go explore, and sit and watch helplessly as Owen picks up Blake by the underarms and heaves him out of the center of the circle to which he has escaped. Horrified/empathetic faces from the lovely mommies with one baby nicely on lap.

I keep switching babies for quite sometime to the point that I can feel myself literally break into a sweat. Owen continues to sing in a silly voice, replacing the occasional lyric with the word tooty - not exactly charming. Blake crawls over to Sweet Librarian who picks him up during Ring Around the Rosy and soon after sits him back on the floor. I'm not above accepting help from total strangers in this situation, so I was actually kind of bummed that she put him down after only one song. When he crawls back, I realize that he has crusty gunk all over one side of his face, so she was probably a little grossed out and decided to be hands-off with the groady baby. Apparently I didn't wipe faces thoroughly enough after breakfast because, remember, we were running just a little late. I let Sadie Jane crawl over to eat one of the lovely mommy's flip flops so that I could dig for a wipe and clean up my dear Blaker.

My personal fiasco finally comes to an end when the song part is over and they dump a mound of baby toys into the middle of the circle. 15 babies crawl to the middle and commence playing. This was interesting to me. A study of natural tendencies. Several times, Blake crawled to a toy, then batted and scooted it to the outskirts of the play area while he experimented with it on his own. Sadie went from one lovely mommy and baby to another, greeted them with the squawk and smile she practiced during Owen's story time, swiped the toy from the other baby's little fists, waved it around, sat it down, and moved on. She just had to be involved in whatever anyone else was doing. My babies have their own personalities and have from the start. I enjoyed watching as Blake sought out some alone time and Sadie charmed the masses with her social performance.

In the middle of all this I realize that someone needs a diaper change. Now, if you come to an event like this with one baby, it's no sweat. Excuse yourself, find a bathroom, do a quick change-a-roo, and return. For me, this would have meant buckling both babies into the stroller, asking people to move out of my stroller's way, and getting that darn thing out of the heavy door with Owen in tow. At that point I would just leave. But after having survived the chaos that was structured story time with crawling twins, I was still regaining my senses and really, really didn't want to leave without giving them a chance to play freely. So, I let my stinky baby play for quite a while until enough people were gone that I could manage to get my stroller to the door without disturbing anyone.

We checked out our books, buckled everyone into the van, and babies fell asleep before we hit the first traffic light. Lesson learned: Do not underestimate the effort a mother will exert in order to let her children attend story time at the library. The library was exhausting, but well worth it. I did turn on some Yo Gabba Gabba (then Little Bill) to entertain Owen while I snoozed on the couch after lunch. I don't know how the "no t.v." moms do it.

Kicking It Off...

Here it is. My first post. It took me a while to do this mainly because I don't like the word "blog". It just sounds crude to me. But, alas, I just haven't been holding myself accountable enough for writing down the memories I want to preserve for my children, and perhaps this format will keep me motivated.

Brief autobiography: Grew up in Southeast Ohio. Nashport. You know, next to Frazeysburg?...Adamsville?...Dresden? Yes, the basket Dresden. My parents are both teachers at a school for children with moderate to severe disabilities. I have one brother who is nearly seven years younger than me. All-in-all, my family made my childhood pretty darn great. I went to college at Miami University, met my future husband on spring break my senior year, and began teaching 7th grade in inner-city Cincinnati. A few years later, I moved to Indiana to marry Tim and cut out that long distance relationship business. I taught several years across the river in Kentucky - about an hour commute. I even toted my son back and forth with me for two years until, surprise!, we found out we were going to have twins. With the cost of daycare and knowing I did not want to drive three young children around for nearly two hours a day, we reluctantly made the decision that I would stay home with the babies. For many people, this may sound ideal, but I never really saw this in the stars for me. I was very nervous about it. Not because I was worried about being a good enough mom, but on a personal level I was nervous about relying on my husband, companionship, financial crappiness, not liking to do chores, and needing to feel a sense of accomplishment and professional success. But, this past year, I have surprised myself with how much I like being a full time mom. It works quite nicely with my erratic sleeping patterns, my tendancy to overload, my desire to spend time with my children and soak it all in. There is nothing I cherish more than my kids, and I like being there for all the little moments.

Owen is three, almost four. Apparently when you turn four, you are suddenly a much bigger kid who will -zing- like all kids of vegetables, -bzzzz- love to eat strawberries, -pow- clean his room. I'm looking forward to all of these. I think he is charming, witty, smart, handsome, articulate, relatively well-behaved, and decently athletic. I could not ask for a better son. Currently, he is over the moon for any and all things related to space. He knows more about the solar system than I do, claims that he is going to be a scientist in space when he grows up, and plays with rocket ships and "Planet Heroes" incessantly. I think this is very cool except when I have things to do and he follows me around saying, "Mooooo-oommm, do I have to tell you 42 times?! Come. play. now!" Oh, little buddy, I wish I had the play time stamina I did when I was little. But my adult brain seems only to be able to stay in outer space for about a half an hour at a time, once or twice a day. I wish I could turn off the part that is thinking of putting the laundry away or wanting to nap while the babies are asleep. I wish that I never had to say, "Not now," because when we are on the same wave length, pushing the super-fast-hyper-blast button we drew inside of our cardboard box space shuttle, my heart is so filled with love and I am so thankful to be with you.

Blake, well he'll just melt you. His little 8-month-old self is just a solid brick of baby power, hence the nickname Blakerilla. He also goes by Blakey, Blaker, Blaker Bear, Blakeapottimus, and Big Ol' Blake. He is strong, inflexible, and has a tendancy to wollup his mother, twin sister, and baby food with his powerful, excited, baby arm flappy-ness. He also frog kicks his feet when you lift him up to the point that you feel like he may just kick his way out of your grasp. But for all his strength, he just seems to have the kindest heart. When he smiles, you can just sense his loving nature. Now that he has learned to crawl and pull up on things, he follows his sister around, looking for interesting things to bang on. But, oh, the screaming and shouting he is capable of when he is up and can't get down (or has toppled over). It's ear-splitting quite honestly. Every day he seems a little older, a little more capable, and I'm loving watching him.

Finally, Sadie Jane. Or Crazy Jane, Lil' miss Jane, Sweet Jane, Sadie Lady, Chickpea, Little Chickadee, or as Tim calls her, Princy Princess. I get the feeling that as she gets older, she will be my daredevil. Right now, she's a total momma's girl. She cries if I leave the room, scurries onto my lap whenever she has the opportunity, tries to catch my attention even when she's being taken care of by someone else in the room. She's adventurous - she started crawling at seven months and hasn't stopped moving. She tries to stick her face in the water at the pool, grabs things off of shelves from her stroller while shopping, eat anything she can find, and loves to play slightly rough - you know, tossing in the air, turning upside down, tickling, climbing onto Owen. She already thinks she's funny, and she is. She has limitless facial expressions which are enhanced by her two bottom teeth. She laughs at herself when she blows raspberries on my arms when I'm carrying her to bed. She's just too stinkin' cute. *Kiss kiss*

And there. My first post. See now, already I'm glad to at least have that written down. I can't believe they are this old already, and I know it will go by in the blink of an eye. I wish I could just capture it all.