What was I thinking?

Baby loves his siblings. He watches their every move and laughs hysterically whenever Tweenie or Rascal does anything funny or naughty.

I suppose it was just a matter of time.

He's outgrown the baby bathtub and is thrilled to now be allowed to use the big tub with everyone else. The joy on his face is echoed by ear-piercing shrieks and frantic flailing with all four limbs in the water, drenching the entire room in Johnson&Johnson.

One problem with all of this is that our tub has a textured floor and the bathseat that I bought back when Tweenie was that age is made for a smooth surface. There is no way to use the seat reliably despite multiple attempts. Also, because of the aforementioned flailing, I can't really hold him safely and soap him up at the same time.

There really is only one solution, and that is for me to get in there with him. When Rascal saw this, he wanted in. Things started off pretty well. The two boys splashed each other and laughed; they splashed me and laughed harder, especially when I scowled at them. This continued for a few minutes.

Then Rascal upped the ante.

He farted a loud, smelly, bubbly fart (all the more so because of the soapy water). Baby stared, stunned for a moment. Then he shrieked with delight, and Rascal squeezed another one loose. Even I thought that was kind of humorous.

I was just about to put an end to the antics and finish up with our bath when Baby farted too. He had this look of concentration, and as soon as he felt success whooshing between his fat little legs, he looked over at Rascal for approval.

Rascal clapped and whooped with laughter. Baby giggled and then farted again. This time it wasn't just air.

I scrambled up onto my feet, holding Baby at arm's length.

"POOP! POOP!" yelled Rascal. "Yucky!"

They both giggled and snorted while I called for Husband to come help. When he arrived, he took stock of the situation.

"Well, what did you expect?"

and a partridge in a pear treeeeeee.....

On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me - one digital camera (yay!)

On the second day of Christmas, my true love gave to me - 2 new sets of dishes (to replace the ones Rascal broke)

On the third day of Christmas, my true love gave to me - 3 fashionable Barbies (as if Tweenie needed more!)

On the fourth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me - 4 musical toys (grrrrrrr)

On the fifth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me - fiiiiiiive half-eaten candy caaaaaaaanes stuck to the floooooor with hairs and schneeblies on theeeeeeeeem (you have to sing that part)
________________

Ok, so the song could go on and on, but the bottom line is that everyone got what they wanted and asked for, the carpet needs shampooing, the recycling pickup guys had a lot of work this morning, and we need a vacation from our Christmas vacation.

Also there's the teeny outstanding issue of a large amount of fancy chocolates consumed with several bottles of Zinfandel and Arbor Mist (Tantie helped a little)... so the treadmill will now come out of storage, and I should be my svelte self in no time.

Y'know, except there are a few more goodies still in the freezer that didn't get eaten, and we wouldn't want them to go to waste. After all, that's what hideous bulky Christmas sweaters are for, right?

O Tannenbaum, O Tannenbaum...

I always knew Christmas trees and little children wouldn't mix. That's why when my stepdad offered us his hand-me-down artificial tree, I figured it was the cleanest and sanest choice despite personal misgivings about the whole idea of a fake tree.

This year Tweenie had a big hand in helping decorate it. We first laid out all the decorations on the coffee table and floor and decided on a method. I have many different pieces, lights, garlands and ribbons, non of which truly go together, so finding a cohesive scheme was a bit of a challenge.
This is what we came up with. Two strings of mini multicolored lights, several ropes of gold beads, a gold star on top, small gold balls for the top half and medium gold balls for the lower half. To finish it off, we chose all the ornaments that had a story or meaning (there are quite a few as it happens). We used the rest of the decorations elsewhere in the house and on the front porch. There was one sorry little 6 ft. string of green mini-lights that didn't otherwise find a spot, so we thought we could arrange them among the other lights on the tree.

We were quite proud of ourselves! The finished product was properly oohed and aahed by Husband and Rascal. Twit and Baby couldn't care less, of course.

Now it's 1 1/2 weeks later. Let's see where we're at.

At last count, we are down 4 medium gold balls because Rascal likes to climb on the kitchen counter and let them fall onto the tile floor. They make this jingly jangly sound when they crash, which must be just way too cool. The lowest-placed ornaments were used by Twit for batting practice, and some of them were carried off into her bed for future use but were rescued by an indignant Tweenie. Rascal tugged on the lights and bead garlands, and bent all the twig parts in weird directions.

The final result is this: all surviving ornaments are clustered on the top half of the tree, the lights are skewed off to one side, exposing the little line of green lights so they look like runway lighting, and some of the bead strands were bunched up in my hand and literally thrown at the top of the tree (I was in a hurry to rescue the next thing from Rascal's naughty little hand, ok?).

It is a pretty sorry sight...Now I wait until the latest possible moment to rearrange everything for the last days before Christmas so that I don't have to do this all over again! I'd post a picture of this beauty, but I don't own a digital camera and frankly, it's a little embarrassing.

Playing CSI

I always know who to blame for the messes I find around the house. Some examples, just off the top of my head...

-Fingerprints on the coffee table. Closer examination revealed Dorito particles embedded in the Nutella ridge detail. Conclusion: Tweenie!

-A hair print in Husband's car. Yes, you read that right. The oily residue was identified as Vaseline. Something triggered my memory there...

-Little dots of (pardon me) barf on the carpet. Due to the even spacing roughly 1 meter apart, I must conclude that Baby spit up while I was burping him and pacing. This was at some inconceivable hour of the night, so I must not have noticed the stinky matter dribbling off the back of my shoulder.

-Unidentifiable biological tissues. Twit's been hunting again and apparantly raw vole doesn't sit well on the stomach. Who knew?

-Items stolen from refrigerator of a junk-food nature. It seems that labelling such articles with "Do not eat - for Tweenie's school party" is not an effective deterrent. I'd like to blame Rascal, but I'm sure Husband was in there like a dirty shirt aiding and abetting.

This all plus stinky diapers and snotty noses; what's a mama to do? Why do YOU think they invented coffee and donuts?

A very hairy pedicure

Husband loves Tweenie very much. This is how much...88

On a recent trip to Toronto to visit Tantie, the long hours in the van must have fried Husband's brain and given Tweenie certain ideas.

The evil Tantie and her sidekick concocted an "Ambush Makeover" plan that was to include the family members most opposed to such, um, beautification.

"Papa, I need your help with something," Tweenie asked in a falsely angelic voice, fluttering her eyelashes and twirling her fingers in her hair.

"What?" grunted Husband from the couch.

"Oh, you'll see!" she simpered, trying unsuccessfully to smother an impish grin.

So Tantie and Tweenie locked Husband in the bathroom and fixed him up real purty. I wasn't in the room at the time and I'm not sure what recriminations were promised, but everyone is still in one piece, so I guess I should be happy for that.

The funniest part is that it's now been over 2 weeks and Husband is still walking around like this. He knows I have nail polish remover somewhere in my cosmetics drawer, but he won't go in there (girl germs I guess). Actually I shouldn't be surprised that Tweenie did this. I've been "What Not To Wear"ing in Husband's closet for years...

and I'm... too sexy for my shirt... so sexy it huuurts...

Our extended family has been having a run on boys - 5 in the last 2 years. Tweenie is not impressed; she really wants a sister. Unfortunately I don't know that I can do 4 kids!

I recently sat down with her to discuss this.

Tweenie: "The boys are taking over, mom! Please pleeeease can't you have another girl baby?"

Mama: "I think I'm all done with babies, honey. And besides, you might end up with another brother."

T: "Even if you think you might be done, you might even be pregnant right now."

M: "Well sweetie, that's pretty unlikely because we're being very careful."

T: "I think you could really be pregnant though."

M: "Why do you say that?"

T: "Well, for one, your tummy is kinda sticking out, like, roundish. Plus your butt is looking a bit squooshy."

M: (splutter, huffy breaths)

T: "I'm not trying to be mean or anything, because you only look a bit fat, not very really."

So there I stand in front of the mirror, sucking in my gut while Tweenie looks on curiously. She's got her elbows on the vanity and is making fishy faces while I pose. Eventually she starts to leave the bathroom but stops for one last thought.

"You know, even if you make me have another brother, you could just try again until you do have a girl. I would be willing to wait."

Good thing she's on board.

Monkey see, monkey do

We were at church today, something that doesn't happen as regularly as we plan for the very reason of what happened this morning. We had on this occasion made an extra effort to go because Tweenie's junior choir was performing 2 songs during the service and she had a solo.

It started out with singing from the hymn books. Rascal made it through 1 1/2 verses and not a beat more. Shockingly, despite frantic shushing, bribing and pleading by this mama, he would not settle down. So, I took him out of the main sanctuary into the foyer.

He screamed even louder because now he was away from his beloved papa. Now, Rascal has the loudest voice I have ever heard. In fact, we never have used a baby monitor for him; it was never necessary. Unfortunately, this church is quite small so the deafening shrieks were only slightly dampened by the sanctuary doors. I hauled him down to the Sunday School rooms.

By the time we got down there, he was weepy and contrite.

"Are you going to be mama's good boy?"

"Yeth", he lisped pathetically.

"No more shouting?"

"No." The big blue eyes won me over, and I carried him back to papa.

Seconds later, he forgot his promise and I hightailed it out of there with him in tow back to the rear of the building.

"I good! I good!" he howled.

Once again, his sad little face won me over and I brought him back to papa.

Of course he acted up yet again. This time, during our backstage pep talk, he turned the tables.

"You, go! OK? No dat! Go carcar! OK? No good! OUT! GO!" He berated me with all the force in his 30-pound, 3-foot tall body. I made the fateful mistake of cracking up with laughter.

"No DAT! 'Top! What doing?! NO!"

He put his hands on my butt and pushed me into the Sunday School rooms. I managed to regain control just before he put me into Time Out in the corner.

A virtual virtuoso

I was catching up on some much-belated emailing today. Baby started to howl in his crib so I took him onto my lap and tried to type one-handed.

What a mistake! With his fat little hands, he raked up and down the keyboard like Mozart on his harpsichord, frantically punching out staccato lines of script and grunting with effort.

After a moment I realized there was a method to his madness. He kept hitting the same combinations of keys in repeating sequences, and not because he was positioned just so and leaning on places. He would actually bang in distinct areas of the keyboard one after the other.

Then he started fiddling with the 'Alt' key, opening new browser pages, reordering the icons on my desktop, Googling nonsensical words, and starting Excel. In an attempt to ensure he didn't reconfigure any of my defaults on the applications, I closed each program using the mouse. The little guy would just open it again... the same program.

I'm thinking, this dude's a freakin' genius at just under 7 months old. Today the World Wide Web, tomorrow stellar domination! I sat there dumbfounded for a few moments, trying to decide if any of his behavior could actually be deliberate.

Just as I was about to dial "Ripley's 'Believe It Or Not"', he picked up the keyboard and jammed the corner into his mouth. Within seconds that half of the board was completely covered in slobber.

He stopped, looked up at me, smiled, and then farted. In that moment of hilarity I could feel the drool seeping through my jeans.

A freakin' genius, I tell ya.

Is nothing sacred?

This mama really tries to provide her kids with nutritious snack choices. I like when they watch PBS because of the (near) lack of commercials.

How shocked was I to see this label pasted onto some bananas I bought. Sure, it's only a movie ad, but what's next, Barbie? Lego? Or heaven forbid, McDonald's?

Leave my fruit alone, advertising schmucks! I'm just waiting for the day when, if you buy a sack of Granny Smith apples and send in the UPC, you can get $1 off at Pizza Hut.

There, that's my rant for the day!

Snapshots of life

There are some quintessential moments where my children's personalities are so completely revealed; I must write them down so that I won't ever forget.

Tweenie was on the phone with BFF last night. She was slouched on the couch, one ankle resting on the knee of her other leg. She had a lock of hair in her hand and was twirling it around her finger as she chatted. I could hear her sweet innocent voice from the kitchen:

"Yah, and, like, then she's like, "I'm so wearing this for the Christmas concert" and I'm like, "no way!" and she's like...."

Rascal found out about horsie rides. Tweenie was only too happy to oblige. They played that game for at least an hour yesterday, with Rascal shouting "GO GO!", digging his heels in her sides and she responded with neighing enthusiastically. Mama participated for a little while, but then they wanted to both be on my back and I proceeded to undo all the work my chiropractor had done that afternoon. So now I sit here with an icepack and shake my head at what sort of 30-something moron would allow 80+ combined pounds of children on her back.

Baby is teething we think, because he drools and chews on everything. Yesterday it was Rascal's huge remote-controlled racecar. This thing is about 18 inches long, 10-12 inches wide and 5 or 6 inches tall. In other words, nearly as large as Baby himself. So there he lay, trying his darndest to cram the rear bumper into his mouth. Rascal wasn't upset at all about this; he sat on the couch watching and laughing hysterically.

Twit watches all of this with cat-like disdain, only to jump in like Tigger when the squealing gets too loud and she realizes she's missing out on something.

Husband sits on the side, impassive as always. You wouldn't think it was possible, but sometimes the children's antics are enough to distract him from his Blackberry. Then he jumps into the fracas and starts tickling thrashing body parts.

No one got to bed on time yesterday, but at least we all slept like logs.