Kiss and Tell

My kids spend a good deal of time antagonizing, annoying and abusing each other, and at least as much time telling me about it.  I have been trying to teach them which things they should be telling me and which things are just obnoxious tattling that I just don't need to know, but they have a hard time differentiating.

Need to know:

"Moooooom......

...Isaak is playing with the candle lighter!"

...the twins are pouring honey all over the floor, adding oatmeal and rolling in it!"

...Alexandra is throwing eggs at her window!"

Don't need to know:

"Mooooom.....

...Alexandra is dancing!"

...Alexandra is singing girly songs!"

...Alexandra is sitting near me!"


These are all from Sebastian, who pretty much finds the existence of his sister to be a grave annoyance - unless they are playing the "puppy game", in which case they get along very well.

...Sebastian is making stupid faces at me!"


...Isaak is telling on me!"

...Sebastian won't follow the rules of the game that I made up!"


By far, the most horrendous and unforgivable offense that one of my children can perpetrate on another is to kiss them.  This is probably the offense that gets the least satisfactory response from mom upon tattling.  I get that one is kissing the other for the sole purpose of irritating them, but I just have a hard time taking it seriously.  Some of my most common responses to "Moooom, so-and-so kissed me," are:

"Awww, how sweet!  He/she must really love you!"

"What?!  That's terrible!  How dare he/she do something so awful!  Are you going to need a bandaid?"

"Was it like.....THIS?!"  *Mom proceeds to smother tattler with kisses.*

These responses generally result in the child stomping off grumbling, vowing to kiss the kisser back at all costs, which starts the cycle over again. 

Kissing aside, I'd like my kids to learn self-directed conflict resolution.  I try to explain to them that they can't control anyone but themselves.  If they have a problem with a sibling's actions, faces, breathing patterns, etc., the onus is on them to walk away, ignore, get over it, etc.  Except I've never used the word "onus" with the children.  Perhaps I will add that to their next vocabulary list. 

Speaking of crimes against each other, the twins are by far the most brutal when it comes to their attacks on one another.  They bite, kick and punch without mercy.  It really is quite distressing to see my little three-year-olds with bite marks and bruises all over.  From what I understand, it's a fairly common twin thing though.  Last night, Dominic came to me looking like this:

He was delighted, by the way.  He announced proudly, "Dante made me bleed!"  He insisted on looking in the mirror before we cleaned him up, and so, like any good mother, I took a picture so we could immortalize the happy occasion.  Dante was jealous of course, so he tried hitting himself in the face a few times in order to qualify for a photo op, but no such luck.

I took a picture anyway, just to be fair.  It was blurry though, so I'll post this one instead:

I can't think of a good conclusion for this post, so....The End.

The Fickle Heart - A Tragic Love Story

I have had a serious phobia of ants for as long as I can remember.  When we moved to the Grand Junction area, I had to face my fears head on, daily.  I'm fairly certain that our house was built upon what might possibly be the largest most insidious ant-hill in the whole world.  We had a large variety of ants, too.  There were some that were so tiny they couldn't be seen without looking very very closely.  I called those ones butter ants, because if there was a dab of butter on the counter they would line up all the way around the outer edge of the butter spot, and at first glance they appeared to just be a grease ring around the butter, but upon closer inspection you could see that they were moving.

I learned a few things about ants while I lived there.  For example, they they like dog food but not cat food.  They loooove peanut butter, but honey, not so much.  They seem to love a freshly mopped floor.  If left to their own devices, they can clean up copious amounts of peanut butter in about two weeks.  I know this, because one time the children smeared copious amounts of peanut butter all over the master bathroom.  When I went to clean up I found that the ants had already arrived.

 I was so traumatized by the swarming, undulating, writhing black river of ants traveling back and forth from the vent in the floor to the counter and back that I just slammed the door and decided Josh would have to take care of it when he got home and I used the kids bathroom instead.  When Josh returned home I sent him to deal with it and miraculously, the ants and the peanut butter were all gone.

The most horrific thing I discovered about ants by far, however, was that my daughter loved them.  She could sit for hours playing with her little ant friends.  My typical method of dealing with ants was to suck them up in the vacuum hose.  When I would do this Alexandra would rush around trying to save as many as possible screaming "NO!  Don't kill my friends!"  One time after sucking a pile of ants to their doom I heard her comforting a survivor, "I'm so sorry baby ant.  Your mother is in the vacuum.  My mommy killed her, but I will take care of you now."

Moving back to Arvada was such a relief.  I can now pick up the floor with my hands instead of tongs, it's so much quicker this way!  We occasionally get a few ants in the sun room.  Prior to the Grand Junction experience, I would have been paralyzed with fear, but I guess you could say that my condition has improved somewhat.  Alexandra, of course, was delighted to find new "friends".  I told her she could play with them in the sun room or outside, but if they come in the house they are getting squashed.  She's been known to tell people that her friends are not allowed in the house because her mommy will kill them.  I always rush in to explain that she's talking about ants, and of course their daughter could come over to play without mortal fear.

A couple of things my daughter has told me about ants:

"When my ant friend crawls on my arm it tickles and it makes my heart pump with love and joy."

"Mommy, my ant friend just spelled out a letter to me on my arm!  It said that it loved me so much and would even love me when I'm dead!"

*sigh*  That's nice dear.

She has passed along her love for ants to her very impressionable little brothers.  They build little houses for them in the back yard and take turns standing guard to protect them from their mean older brothers who will kill them without mercy.  They cry when one runs away.

Until last week... 

They caught a caterpillar last week and put it in an open jar with some leaves.  They were planning on keeping it to see it make a cocoon and become a butterfly.  Of course I made them keep it outside.  The next day Alexandra went to check on the caterpillar and discovered that it was dead and covered in ants.  She was devastated.

She called the twins out to show them the travesty and declared "Ants are NOT our friends any more.  We HATE them!  They KILLED Snow White!"  The three of them proceeded to grab their shoes and went out back to perpetrate a brutal ant massacre filled with vengeance.  For about an hour I could hear them: *WHACK WHACK WHACK*  "Die ants!" *WHACK* "We hate you!" *WHACK*  "Kill them all!" *WHACK*  "How DARE you kill Snow White!"  *WHACK*

I had mixed feelings about this.  On the one hand, maybe I should have explained to them more about nature and the ecosystem, and it not being the ants' fault they were just doing what was natural to them, and perhaps they hadn't even killed the caterpillar, perhaps they found it dead and were simply cleaning it up.  On the other hand, I really hate ants. 

The downside, is now the twins freak out whenever they come across an ant outside.  Despite totally relating to their reaction, the complete 180 is a little hard to take seriously.  I tell them that they are silly and of course they aren't scared of ants.  They tell me quite sternly, "Ants scary, ants kill Snow White."  So now I have to carry them past any ants in the driveway getting in and out of the car.

Freaking ants.  One way or another they are always causing me trouble.

The Big Cover-Up

We spent the last few days of Josh's time at home painting the upstairs bedrooms.  We are getting a brand new wood floor up there, courtesy of my very generous parents, and we wanted to get the walls painted ahead of time so we wouldn't have to worry about getting paint on the floor. 
When we first moved in I let each of the three older children pick two colors for their bedrooms for the wall and the trim.  Isaak chose blue walls and orange trim, Sebastian chose blue walls and yellow trim, and Alexandra chose pink walls with purple trim.  Overall it was a little gaudy, but I had this idea that they would love and cherish their rooms with the colors they picked and it would make for fun kids rooms.

The plan seems to have been doomed from the beginning.  While I was painting one room, my sweet Alexandra (then three) somehow managed to pry open the can of bright orange paint (which had never been opened before) and poured it all over our living room carpet which had just been professionally cleaned the day before.  Frantically we called George, the carpet cleaner, and begged him to come back.  I wish I'd taken before and after pictures because it really was amazing.  He got it completely out.  Of course, the carpet was subsequently mercilessly destroyed by the very presence of our family.

A few weeks later, Sebastian decided he needed to cover up a spot that I had apparently missed, and got the blue paint out of the garage and did this:

I only took this picture a couple of days ago.  At the time it was a much "cleaner" blue.

Alexandra covered her walls in permanent marker.

Due to all of the brilliant colors of paint and marker we started with 2 coats of grey based primer.  The permanent marker was still quite clear.  Then we did 2 coats of "Butterscotch", which turned out to be much more yellow than we intended, but oh well.  After that I used the paintbrush and specifically went over the marker spots again. 

It's faint but it's still there.  Poor Alexandra.  After every coat of paint, we called her in there and lectured, "Do you see this??  This is after 1/2/3/4/5 coats of paint and we can still see the marker!  You must NEVER do this again.  If you destroy your walls again, you will be in sooooo much trouble!  Major consequences missy!"  She appeared quite remorseful.

So now with freshly painted walls, and a new floor to come perhaps we will turn over a new leaf.  Hopefully the destructobots will see how nice everything looks and decide they just don't want to be the kind of people who destroy everything they breathe on anymore.  Alternatively, I'm contemplating turning the basement into a dormitory and individual children can earn the privilege of having an upstairs room by demonstrating that they know how to inhabit a space without completely destroying it.

Inadequacy at The Gym

Today Dante and Dominic and Jane and I went to "Pint-Size Playtime" with Aunt Gina and Emma.  It's in a big gymnasium used for gymnastics with all kinds of equipment for all sizes, a rope swing, and big soft wedges and blocks and things to play on.  We had gone before and had the entire place to ourselves, and the triplets (nickname for the twins and cousin when together) had a blast.

When we arrived, I sat down with Jane in the area with all of the soft climbing and playing things and nursed her and let her cling to me until she gained enough confidence to explore on her own.  Gina helped each of the triplets with a few turns on the rope swing and then sent them off to do other things.  I was perfectly content to sit there with Jane and watch them play while promising to help them with the swing when Jane was ready to let me go.

Quite honestly, I'm having a low-energy day, and was quite happy to use Jane as an excuse to sit in one spot without moving.  I'm perfectly capable of being energetic.  When we go to Pump It Up, I think I might be more active than the children.  I'd like to say that I'm normally very energetic and today was an off day, but really it's just random.  Sometimes I'm very high-energy and sometimes I'm utterly lethargic.  Occasionally I find a happy medium.  In my mind, I was doing a great thing for my kids by taking them for some active self-directed play time when I was so low energy.  Apparently this is not what other mothers have in mind when they take their kids for Pint Sized Playtime.

Shortly after we arrived, another mom showed up with two little boys.  Immediately she was climbing all over the equipment, standing, jumping, balancing and running.  She went and got out jump ropes and started running with the end trailing behind her while her boys chased her.  She was all over the place, and the only thought I could muster while watching her play was, "Huh.  Well good for her I guess."

Enter mother number two, and her little girl.  She's wearing spandex work out clothes, and is in great shape.  Now she starts playing.  She is swinging on the rope swing.  She's picking up and rearranging the little kids' equipment to maximize the fun experience for her daughter.  She picks up a huge foam circle thing and puts her daughter inside and rolls her across the gym like a hamster in a wheel.  They are just go go go non-stop!

Another mother arrives with a little girl.  Quite honestly, I don't recall exactly what extraordinary mothering feats she was accomplishing because I was too busy trying to decide if I should get up and pretend to be just as athletic as these other women, or if I just hated them all, but I know she was doing something energetic because at one point she ran up to us out of breath and said, "Don't you wish you had that much energy?!" before running off to play some more.  At first I thought she was bragging about her own activity level and that of the other moms, but then I realized it was just one of those cliche statements that adults always make about children.

I was forced to get up when Dante and Dominic began trying to kill each other over whose turn it was on the rope swing.  It turned out that Jane didn't need me sitting right there next to her anyway, she smiled and wandered off when I got up, so my cover was blown.  I gave the triplets all some turns on the rope swing, and then Dante and Dominic decided that I should engage in some of the games that the other mothers were playing.  They grabbed jump ropes and demanded to be chased, so halfheartedly I complied.

That's when I turned around to discover that MY OWN SISTER was jump roping and crossing the jump rope doing fancy tricks.  I stood there with my mouth agape, dazzled and impressed and only the tiniest bit resentful.  I weakly tried a few jumps, but it looked more like I was half hop-skipping with a gimpy leg and I couldn't stay in one spot.  I decided I'd better quit, lest I trip and flatten a child.  She says her mad skillz were the result of public education, and homeschooling was to blame for my ineptitude at jump roping.  Oh well.  I will have to make sure to get my kids some jump ropes. 

I glanced around the room again, and I saw a mother doing push-ups.  I'm not kidding.  She was doing push-ups.  Then she did some cartwheels.  Another mom was walking across the high-beam.  Another mom started jump roping too.  That was when I decided to just give-up and went back to "taking care of Jane".  Fortunately play time was up right about then so we packed it in and headed home.  In the future I will have to make sure to really psyche myself up for Pint-Size Playtime.  I swear, I'm going to be so active those other moms are going to go home and cry at their own comparative inadequacy.  Really.

Family Road Trip Itinerary

Yesterday we went on a family road trip to get our new puppy in Lander, Wyoming.  Theoretically it is a 5.5 hr. trip each way.

4:45 - Wake up.  Rush around like crazy trying to get everyone ready, locate missing shoes and dress children in other children's clothing because we can't find theirs.

5:20 - Start loading kids into the car.  Discover that Jane is bleeding profusely from the forehead.  Get towels and bandaids, clean her up and find a small cut on her forehead that nobody knows where it came from.

5:32 - Josh grumbles that we are 32 minutes behind schedule.  Silly Daddy.

5:40 - Starbucks.  Remember that we forgot to have the big kids go to the bathroom before leaving the house and take them all in.

6:00 - 9:00 - Driving

9-ish - Sebastian and Alexandra desperately need to go pee.  There is no rest stop for miles.  Pull off the road.  Try to help Alexandra position herself so as not to pee on herself.  Discover that no amount of positioning will help if the pee just dribbles down her leg.  Put Alexandra's wet pants into a plastic bag, wrap her up in a blanket and hit the road again.

10-ish - Dominic starts screaming that he wet his pants.  Parents are confused since he has a fresh diaper on.  Mom risks her life to check it out and discovers that he has indeed wet his pants.  Throw his pants into plastic bag with the others, give him a fresh diaper and start rethinking our picnic plans since we now have 2 pantsless children.  Alexandra needs to pee again.  Give her a diaper.

12:30 - Puppy time!  He is soooo cute!  The kids all love him and fight to hold him and brush him.

1:00 - 2:00 - Picnic on a blanket in the car to accommodate pantsless children.

2:00 - Embark on completely unintentional side trip in the wrong direction that adds an extra 80 or so miles to our trip.

3:30 - Back in Lander, hooray!  Start heading home.  Make many stops to try to get puppy to go to the bathroom, nurse Jane, change diapers, etc.  Decide to name the puppy Bear.  Sebastian has a melt down because he had his heart set on Dexter. 

6:00 - 7:00 -  Rest stop.  Carry Alexandra inside wrapped in a blanket because I don't really want her using a diaper.  Kids go to the bathroom.  Diapers get changed.  Jane gets nursed.  Puppy gets walked.  Josh takes a short nap.

8:30 - Arrive in Fort Collins and go on a Starbucks hunt.  Lament the stupid town that has no Starbucks.  Call 1411 and find out that Fort Collins has multiple Starbucks, and apparently *we* are the problem.

9:02 - Find a Starbucks.  Rejoice!  Find out they closed at 9:00.  The opposite of rejoicing.

9:30 - Buy bottled frappuchinos from the gas station and get back on the road.  Sebastian decides he can live with the name Bear. Mom allows him to monopolize the puppy for the rest of the drive because she is so relieved that the name will not prevent Sebastian from ever bonding with Bear.  Other children complain about the unfairness.

11:00 - Home again, hooray!

*Note - Obviously, the pictures weren't taken in the car.

Two for Two

Mothering twins regularly puts me into a dilemma of "fairness".  It is pretty much impossible to do all things equally all the time.  Instead, I try to be in tune with their individual needs so that even if they are not getting the same treatment all of the time, hopefully, they are each getting what they need most.

When I was pregnant with Jane, I encouraged them to wean.  My main motivation was that I felt I couldn't handle nursing three babies.  I had done it before and it was exhausting.  Dante was already weaning himself.  He only really thought of nursing when he saw his brother doing it, and even then his sessions were quite short.  Dominic took a little more persuasion.  Had it been overly traumatic for him, I would not have forced the issue, but for the most part he was disgruntled yet accepting.

After Jane was born they both wanted to try nursing again.  Sucker that I am (literally), I allowed it to help ease any jealousy of the new baby.  I was relieved that they had both forgotten how to latch.  From there on, I allowed them to "nurse" whenever they asked, once every other day or so, initiated by Dominic and copied by Dante.  It was a 2 second event and an easy way to reassure them that they were still my babies.

One day, Dominic got a latch and man was that kid thrilled.  Now he wanted to nurse all the time, so we had to establish some boundaries.  He is allowed to nurse during the night - because I am to tired to do anything about it - or first thing in the morning if he hasn't already nursed all night, but during the day time they are sole property of Jane.

When Dominic started nursing regularly, Dante asked a few more times.  He still could not latch, and almost never tries anymore.  On the one hand, I'm relieved - nursing two kids is a piece of cake, 3 is just a bit much - on the other hand I feel terribly guilty about the "unfairness" of it.  Dominic naturally snuggles more because of his nursing time.  Dante is missing out on all of the benefits of breast milk that Dominic is getting.  (As a side note, I think they would make wonderful candidates for a breastfeeding study on the effects of long-term breastfeeding. If you know anyone who would like to pay us lots of money to observe the differences between the twins I would be happy to exploit that.)

To make up for the disparity, I make a point to invite Dante to come have snuggle time all by himself every day, and I feed him raw unpasteurized milk from an organic free range goat.  Just kidding.  I don't give him goat milk, but I do try to give him extra snuggles.

Last night I slept in my recliner chair and Dominic nursed all night.  Early this morning I was awakened suddenly by the feeling of flying, falling and thudding.  Naturally I was alarmed and discombobulated and I shrieked with terror.  Apparently Dante had tried to climb up the head rest to sit with me and tipped the chair over backwards.  Dominic had already gotten up, so I was the only one overturned.

Overall, the ordeal was more traumatic for Dante than it was for me.  Between the chair falling over and my screaming, he was quite startled.  He stuck out his sad little lip and said, "I'm sorry mama, I help you!"  Getting up was an ordeal in itself.  I lay there, halfway upside down and floundering, kicking my  legs and trying use the the banister behind me to pull myself up with my arms. 

Once righted, Dante was still pretty distraught and asked to nurse.  Since Dante doesn't actually know how to nurse, and misses out on all the nursing that his brother does, I readily agree to "nurse" anytime he wants, which is almost never.  He gave it quite an effort, squeezing and pulling, but as usual, was not able to manage a latch.

Dominic came along and saw the activities and demanded to have the "other mamas".  I gave him a big smile and reminded him that he had already nursed all night, and now it was Dante's turn.  He climbed up to sit next to me and pout.  Of course I felt guilty that this was unfair, because Dominic didn't understand why Dante was not subject to the established nursing schedule.  I whispered to him that Dante wasn't really nursing, that he was only pretending to nurse because he didn't know how.  Far from appeasing him, he first suggested that he also pretend to nurse, and then, helpfully offered to teach Dante how it's done.

I resisted and he sullenly lay his head on my shoulder.  I watched Dante's antics some more and when I turned back to Dominic I was startled to see that he was nursing.  I'm not sure how he managed it.  It was through the neck hole of my shirt and his approach must have been in super-stealth mode because I never felt it coming.  Dante didn't seem to have any reaction of "Hey, he nurses all the time and I don't even know how, why can't I just have this to myself??" and I figured that I could probably make the stipulation to Dominic's nursing schedule that he could nurse at night or first thing in the morning OR when his brother is pretending to nurse without totally blowing the established boundaries, so I just let it go.