Instant Karma

I have dozens of stories about my girls rattling around in my head, so you'll have to forgive me if the story doesn't quite fit into the current time - I know I'm writing about Halloween and it's almost the Fourth of July. However, I go back to my earlier statement that if I don't write some of these memories down, I'm going to lose them. With that being said:

Life lesson: Do unto others as you'd have others do unto you.

Last Halloween a friend & I decided to meet up for a little play day to get the kids together and get the heck out of our respective dens. We thought, "Hey, the play area over at the Roseville Galleria looks fun. Let's go there."

The outing was not quite the relaxing/fun for the little ones/catch up with an old friend time that we thought it would be. The pluses to the play area at Roseville Galleria are these: the entire area is fenced in with a gate that has a high latch; the entire area is padded (the ground has that spongy rubbery mat stuff & EVERY structure is covered in a 6 inch think layer of foam) and lastly, there is a silly kangaroo statue with an upraised hand (~40" – about first grader height) at the entrance with a sign that states "You may play in this area if you are below my hand" or something to the effect & "Parents must supervise their children at all times". Apparently we weren't thinking very well as it was Halloween, late enough in the day where some schools had let out, and the area has quite a few people who need their parental privileges revoked. Do we see where this is going?

The play area was literally SWARMING with about 50 costume-clad, sugar-filled children. First off, let me say many of the children were NOT below the kangaroo's hand. People, I want my children to be happy and have a great time just like every other parent, but what does it teach your child if you disregard clearly posted rules just because you want to. The rule is not "to be mean" to older kids, it's for the SAFETY of the younger ones. Go take your FIFTH grader - yes, FIFTH GRADERS WERE THERE - to the park to run off some energy.

So, my friend & I spent the entire time trying to keep track of our children in the herd and make sure they didn't get hurt. Let me say we were the exception, not the rule, when it came to active parenting. I watched a lady - on a cell phone, mind you - gesture her third grade "little princess" toward the play area and not even slow her step toward the Starbucks. Wow Lady. After watching your little terror interact with the other children, I'll tell you this: you'd better get your face out of your cup before you have a lawsuit or two on your hands. About 15 minutes later, Ms. Starbucks came back out to sit on the benches in the area - cell phone still firmly attached to her ear.

Coincidentally, it was about this time that "Little Princess" decided that Caleigh was in her path and with one sweep of her wand-welding arm this 8 year old knocked my 3 year old face-first to the ground. I gritted my teeth & waited for a moment. Caleigh looked to me to check what her reaction should be so I said "Up, up! Brush yourself off!". Caleigh got up and continued on her way. Ms. Starbucks decided- about 2 minutes after the incident - to put her caller on hold and shout at her terror, "Harmony (I kid you not- ironic isn't it?)! You need to tell that baby you're sorry!" Harmony threw a quick mumble over her shoulder in our general direction from across the play area and Ms. Starbucks gave me a shrug as well as a "kids will be kids" look before going back to her call. I was so angry! Not that her kid knocked mine down, but at her non-parenting. I wanted to yell, "Your utter lack of interest in anything going on around you infuriates me Woman! Besides, your child is WAY TOO BIG TO BE IN HERE ANYWAY!" I didn't, but I quietly hoped that I would never EVER get her child in one of my classes.

Why am I telling you this? To get sympathy for my Caleigh? Heck no! She's fine - she can take it, she's tough! The reason I'm telling you this is because of what occurred at the very next moment. As Harmony turned her head back the way she was going after the "apology" mumbled in Caleigh’s general direction, a fifth grader inadvertently stepped out in front of her - effectively becoming a wall. Harmony landed flat on her pink tutu - unharmed mind you, remember, the whole thing is padded. The fifth grader shrugged and kept going. Harmony sat there for a moment with lip quivering before sweeping over to her mother in a fit of sobs.

As the late John Lennon once mused, “Instant karma’s gonna get you”…

A Vocabulary Lesson From 3-Year-Olds

Life lesson: Try to use a new word every day.

Here are a few words that my girls use on a regular basis.

glitter poop - GLIT - ter - poop - n. - litter box
"Daddy went outside to throw away the glitter poop."

lasterday - LAST-er-day - n. - anything that has happened in the past
"We looked for eggs lasterday." "Lasterday when it was Christmas we saw Santa!"

nexterday - NEXT-er-day - n. - anything that will occur in the future
"Nexterday we're going to be flowergirls." "We're going to Disneyland nexterday."

hugantous - hue-GAN-tus - adj. - a word to describe an object when "huge", "gigantic" or "humungous" just doesn't cover it
"That tree is hugantous!" "We saw a hugantous bulldozer!"

toebear - TOE-bare -n. - a creature without shoes or socks
"Mommy, I want to take off my socks and be a toebear."

magnet flying glass - n. - an instrument used to enlarge items being viewed
"We found a bug! Can we have the magnet flying glass?"

Down At The Car Wash

Life lesson with twins: Everything will now take you about 3 times as long to finish.

Deal with it. It's a fact that having twin "helpers" makes everything exponentially more difficult/time consuming/complex... and exponentially more fun as well. For example:

4:00 pm - I decided that today was an excellent day to wash the minivan. When the girls were let out of their room...er, woke up from their nap, I changed them into soakable clothes, gathered the necessary "stuff" to wash the car & headed outside with my 2 ducklings in tow.
4:15 pm - I sprayed down the minivan and filled the bucket with soap & water. The girls were fascinated by my sponge and decided that the old washcloths I had given them to "help" with just wouldn't suffice. Back into the house, dig up 2 old kitchen sponges from under the sink & trek back outside.
4:30 pm - Actually begin to scrub the van in earnest this time as the girls "help" me by washing the other side.
4:35 pm - Console a soaked & crying Caleigh while trying to explain to Alessa that if she's going to spray her sister, then turnabout is fair play & she needs to think about if she wants to get wet. Caleigh edges closer to the hose. :::sigh:::
4:45 pm - Break up a sponge and suds fight. Yes, they were both laughing at the time, but boy does the car wash soap hurt if it gets in your eyes.

5:00 pm - Shriek in dismay as my entire back is soaked by my water loving, hose-wielding Alessa. Convince Alessa to give up the hose because "Mommy has to wash off the soap"...for the dozenth time.

You see, when washing a car on your own, you don't worry about the other side drying because it's usually such a short amount of time or it's just water. Not so with "helpers" - I had to constantly rinse the opposite side of the van to keep their soap from drying. In addition to the added "drying soap" aspect of having twin "helpers", there's also the height aspect. Three and a half year old children seem to see only what is DIRECTLY in front of them. No higher, no lower.

Do you see where I'm going with this? Needless to say, washing the van took me 1 1/2 HOURS.

I Never Thought I'd Actually Do It...

...I never thought I'd start an actual blog page - yet, here I am sitting at my computer wading through questions like "does this color go with my blog theme"? :::sigh:::

I'd like to thank my friend Robin for unknowingly inspiring me to start it up. I go to her blog almost daily in hopes of reading another tale of John :) I realized that virtually every day my girls do or say something that brings me to the verge of tears - sometimes from frustration, sometimes from laughing so hard - and if I don't write them down, I'm liable to forget.

This brings me to my first written life lesson for raising twins: Don't sweat the small stuff - and it's all small stuff.

I know it's terribly difficult to look on the bright side of things when one child has just upended your entire cup of cranberry juice and the other is screaming because the cup was unintentionally upended ON them. I know it's tough not to look at spot cleaning the carpet as yet ANOTHER thing being added to the never-ending "To Do" list. I know how hard it is not to scream when you've finally put down one child and you get no more than 20 minutes of slumber before the other is suddenly awake and sobbing. However, in the grand scheme of things, it's nothing. The seemingly endless diaper changes, midnight feedings (and 2am...and 4am...) and mind-numbing sleep deprivation all too quickly turns to 2 indignant preschoolers with arms akimbo stating, "I can do it MYSELF." :::sigh:::