Raspberries and Memories

Aunt J and I let us tag along for the (tractor)ride today while they went raspberry picking. S and A got into it a bit in the beginning, but 4 minutes in the boy was drenched in sweat, requesting juice and pretzels and to be picked up and for a ride on a choo-choo and to go to the playground, you know the drill, right? It was hot and dirty. But I loved every second, because when we got home, I nestled the Salad all snug in their cribs and now visions of raspberries are dancing in their heads.

As I wiped the dirt from S's knees in the van, it reminded me of something that happened about 2 months ago.

Memory Part Triplet

During the first heat wave of the season, I took the Salad outside with pots and containers and watering pails and spoons and old sippy cups and let them go crazy with water. While we played, R was doing some yard work and found an earth worth. He put it on the patio to introduce it to the trio and before I could stop her, S bent down and kissed that dirt-covered, squirmy earthworm.

My sweet, blond haired baby girl is seriously kickass.

Me and my Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad 9 hours

How cliche of me. I think every good mom blog must have a post titled this though, so really I consider it a rite of blogging passage.

My day started dark and early this morning at 4:35 AM, when R called me down to tell me the front door had been wide open all night. I watched him leave, locked the door and crawled back into bed, happy for 2.5 more hours of sleep. And then it happened. The air conditioner kicked ON which occasionally kicks OFF the dimmed light in the Salad's room. 1/3 of them screamed immediately. The other 2/3 followed suit.


And then we were all wide awake. S asked me to read her the Bible and falsely told me that she had pooped. A cried for the pacifier that Aunt J "broke" and for a blanket that had escaped crib confines. M realized his "monkey" (Curious George) band aid that was covering a fictitious boo-boo on his arm had fallen off during the night and was stuck in his hair. After I took care of all of those things and once again crawled back into bed, the cries kept coming. It was too dark. The batteries on S's aquarium didn't work. I hadn't said goodnight to Coolio (M's Build-a-Bear). Wasn't A's stuffed Sweet Pea cute? Another hug. Another kiss on the lips through the rungs on the cribs. A fallen pillow. A misplaced frog. Finally at 7:30 AM, I gave up and we went downstairs to eat breakfast. More crying. S wants the pink bowl today. A takes this as a personal offense. M wants peanut butter, not regular butter on his blueberry waffle! Milk?! They want juice! A wants to stab her waffle and eat it off of a plastic butter knife. Oh, the humanity!

And so on and so forth until I decide we need to get dressed and get out of the house. I think "Won't I be a nice mommy if I walk them down to the neighborhood park?" Approximately 1 minute into our leisurely stroll, S trips while she is holding A's hand and drags her to the ground. More crying. A bloody arm, a skinned knee, a head bumped on concrete, a wounded ego. M and S crowd around trying to console her with hugs and kisses and gentle patting, but she'll have none of it.

We make it to the park. We see a bunny. He runs for the woods. More crying. Where did the Easter bunny go? The Salad takes off to chase him into the brush. They stomp through and slip in mud. It's more than S can handle. There is more crying. She thinks it's poop. It's on her knees. Her Converse need to go in the "washing maclean". We have to leave. A wants to be carried the whole way home. It's 1000 degrees and an uphill walk.

We make it to our house. They need water to drink. They need tubs. They need lunch. A cries for 30 solid minutes. I'm not sure why. M pees in the potty and in his excitement to show me, he trips. Pee spills down S's legs. More crying. I settle everyone after lunch and sit to read them a story. M pulls A's hair for the first time ever. She screams. I reprimand M and he throws his sippy cup. It hits S in the left eye. She screams. They both want to be held. I try, but A wants no parts of sharing me with S. My head is pounding. I've had more than I can take. I put them in their cribs for naps. A screams. She needs to hug S. I tuck everyone, remembering to say goodnight to Coolio and take my leave.

Silence.

All this, and me without a

Big = A lot of

This is new for the Salad. They all have said it in the last few days and it cracks me up. It's so interesting that they grasp the concept but just don't have the proper grammar yet.

I was in the kitchen when A asked me "What r u do-ning, Mommy?" I told her what I was do-ning was filling their cups with water. She went to the fridge and pulled out the V8 juice. I said we could put in a small splash and she questioned me with "big juice?"

During a torrential downpour this evening, M looked out the window and pointed to the "big rain." M promptly shouted, "Go away, raining!" (his version of the "Rain, rain, go away, come again another day" song.)

When I praised M for eating all of his mac & cheese at dinner, S sadly looked at her full plate and told me she still had "big mac & cheese left."





Hmmm? What's that?
S has big stickers covering her belly button?
Huh. I hadn't noticed.

Afore- Mentioned Number

10 - Number of diapers I have changed since 7:45 AM.

9 - Number of chicken fries in the Salad's Burger King lunch.

8 - Number of minutes it took me to load up Salad into cart at Babies R Us, walk into the store, walk out of the store in the midst of A's monster-sized tantrum because M sat on her untied shoe, and reload Salad into minivan without having purchased anything.

7 - Number of gray hairs produced by afore-mentioned trip to Babies R Us.

6 - Number of barrettes I had to buy at Target (that I didn't want/need) because M tore the packaging into little bits. Truth be told, I really only walked away with 5 barrettes because one fell down the rabbit hole through bottom of cart.






M slid down the rabbit hole!



5 - Number of minutes I debated hiding afore-mentioned barrettes in the toothpaste aisle so I wouldn't have to buy them.

4 - Number of times I have prayed to God today, asking him to help me be patient with afore-mentioned Salad.

3 - Number of toddlers comprising the afore-mentioned patience-draining Salad.

2 - Number of Minnie Mouse big girl undies purchased at the request of S, after stating this morning she no longer wished to wear diapers. Which is good, I guess, considering no diapers were purchased during afore-mentioned trip to Babies R Us.

1 - Number of times I have counted my use of afore-mentioned word "afore-mentioned". 7 to be exact.

I so happy!

I love when the Salad is excited.

As A polished off the last of her cheese/cherry tomato/spinach nugget/organic chicken burger/peach dinner, she squealed in her ultra feminine, high pitched voice, "I so happy!" Was it the food or my 100th rendition of Down by the Station I had sung? I wondered, so I asked.
Me: "And why are you so happy?
A: "I happy for Mommy"
Why, thank you very much, little lady. I happy for you too.

S is much more physical with her excitement. And it usually has a soundtrack. If there is music of any kind playing, S breaks into "her" dance - always with a giant smile and bright, blue, laughing eyes. One arms winds up over and over like a softball pitcher, and while her right leg propels her in a circle, her left leg stays straight as a pirate's peg.

My baby boy wants to share his joy with me. What brings my baby boy joy? Buses, mostly. But really any heavy machinery - dump trucks, UPS trucks, tractors, fire trucks, trolleys. Heck, I've seen him nearly burst when a mail truck happens into his view. A boy, through and through, I tell ya. It makes me smile each time I hear his deep, excited "Ma!" from the back of the minivan. It means "Wow, Mommy, look at this trash truck that we stopped next to at the red light!" or "I've spotted a school bus! It's 2 miles away and turning almost out of sight, but it's there!" But that's a lot for a 28 month old to say, so "Ma!" it is.

I so happy.

Life Lessons

Life Lesson #1
Always check the roof of a minivan before driving, you know, for coffee mugs, babies/toddlers, planners that are so jam packed full of your life, you can't even zipper them*, lest they fly (unnoticed) onto a busy street.
*Thank you, Ian and J for risking life and limb to pick up photos and magazine clippings and post-it note lists and coupons and lab slips, etc.

R took the Salad out for a walk when he got home tonight. When they returned, S and A immediately told me that they too had been taught Life Lessons today.

Life Lesson #2
Be nice to dogs and in return they will hopefully be nice to you.

Life Lesson #3
Do not touch poop. Although, I already had that one covered. Remember this post?

I asked R if these were lessons they had learned the hard way. Had they actually touched poop again? Were they nasty to a dog they met along the way? Nope, I was told, he was just saying.

Good to know they'll always be safe in Daddy's hands . . . . .

and clean, I guess.

Random reasons why

I adore my husband.

He let M shove a diaper down the back of his pants to stop a
HE
temper tantrum. To spare any embarassment on R's part,
TOOTED
the reason why M thought Daddy may need a diaper shall remain unsaid.
But come on people, let's read between the lines.



<---This is the best picture he took of our Memorial Day outing to the Morris Arboretum. "What's that?" you ask? Why, it's a hot dog riding along a train track, silly.



I took the Salad to Build-a-Bear this rainy morning. They each got to make a $10.00 and pick one accessory. Several times during our bedtime routine tonight, I heard R asking them if they were going to take their new bears to sleep in their cribs with them. He may have been more excited than they were.

I received a rather unusual text from my brother-in-law at 8:50pm. It was a photograph of what appeared to be a 9 foot chef statue, the message asking if we wanted it. I furrowed my brow and continued watching Bottleshock, but looked at the image one more time to be sure I had seen it correctly. R asked what I was looking at and when I showed him, without hesitation, he told me he wanted it. He was only slightly disappointed to find out that it was a 3 foot statue of a baker, rather than the larger-than-life chef, we had originally thought. On Saturday, we welcome the newest member of our family.

Today in my house, you will see

a pile of A's wet clothes dropped at the front door. She slid down the slide at the park into a puddle of rainwater and cried embarrassed tears until I changed her.

29 shoes in a basket next to the steps. That's 14 pairs and 1 lone Winnie the Pooh sandal.

a little boy with pink fingernails and toenails.

a Mike's Hard Cranberry bottle in the bathroom trashcan.

5 black bananas, waiting to be made into Pinkalious muffins.

a train table where my coffee table used to live.

3 Burger King crowns and 3 pet rocks on said train table.

2 Easter baskets.

1 guitar.

and some of this silliness . . .