Quote of the Day

I was at Target today with Jack and Jesse. We were returning to the van and I was loading them in. Jack pointed at a nearby tree and asked, "what are those momma?" He was pointing at the spikey seed balls fell from the tree. There were bunches of them on the ground from today's storm.

I said, "those are the seeds that fell off the tree."

He immediately replied, "You have to put the "beads" back on the tree and fix it momma. You have to fix it."

He was genuinely concerned for the tree. In Jack's world nothing should ever be broken. It really upsets him.

Cutest Moment of the Day

Todays cutest moment came first thing this morning. Jesse woke at 6:30 this morning so I brought him into bed with us. Jack came in shortly afterwards and climbed up on the bed and jumped up and on top of me with a thud. This single action gave Jesse a fit of the belly laughs. He laughed about as hard as I've ever heard him. So Jack decided to do it again, and again, and again, and again. Each time making Jesse laugh just as hard. I had to just sustain the pain of him jumping on top of me because it was just too darn cute to hear them laugh together like that.

How did I do it?

Somehow today, between all the bottles, laundry, poopy diapers, 20 little fingers trying to type on my keyboard and playing thomas trains, I was able to complete this digital layout.

It was a good day!

Cutest Moment of Yesterday

Jack didn't want to take a bath, so we let him slide rather than put up the fight. He climbed up on the bed and laid down next to me. I asked him why he didn't want to take a bath and he replied, "I can't sweetie. It's just too hard for me."

Funny, funny little boy.

Sunny Days Ahead

The fog has lifted. Yeah! We are out of our flu infested funk. Dare I say that we are all healthy once again. I hope we stay this way for a while. Life has returned to normal- laundry, picking up stuff off the floor, breakfast, lunch, dinner and doing the corresponding dishes, diapers, diapers, diapers, etc. etc. Ah everyday life...

Dark Stormy Days Ahead

It's been one of the rougher weeks. I was going to skip writing until the fog around here lifted, but since I did intend to write about the good, bad and ugly, I should stick to it. So here goes...

It's 6:30 am on Sat. morning. I've been officially awake with Jesse since 5am after being up with Jack 5 times last night. I don't know what was wrong. He seemed to have a lot of bad dreams or something. Tom is sick now too, which means there's a lot of moaning an groaning coming from our bedroom. Maybe that's it. Jack's little world gets shaken very easily. If anything goes off course we are doomed for an awful night. I'm barely over the flu myself. Someone told me that this flu lasts a week. If only I had the luxury of being able to be sick for a week. As the mom I don't get that option. 24 hours is all I get at best. You know it's pretty bad when you are wishing you had more time to be SICK.

I'm having one of those times when I wonder just how much more I can take. I'm feeling very down about the whole parenting thing. I remember an Oprah show about 2 years ago when she had a female author on who wrote a book about post partum depression and tried to tell the truth about parenting. I remember her statement was that "it sucks 90% of the time." I remember thinking then that she was crazy and how could she feel that way. The audience had the same reaction. Well I can say now that she probably wrote her book after a week like I've had this past week. That's exactly what I feel right now. In fact maybe it's more like 95% of the time.

Not that I would ever drive my car over a bridge or anything, but I could definitely have some empathy for those mothers who chose to do that. They were depressed and didn't know how to talk about it and no one took the time to notice how depressed they were or took the time to offer any help.

I'm not depressed. I've been depressed and I know the difference. And don't worry, I won't be driving my van into any trees or anything. It's just been an incredibly hard week with all this sickness and lack of sleep. It feels like we won't come out of the fog, but I know it will lift. It always does.

Cold and Flu Season- again.

We're in germsville once again. Jack and Jesse both have colds and on again, off again fevers. It just breaks my heart when they have a fever. I don't even have to get the thermometer out to know. You can just see it in their little eyes. Jack's are the worst. Maybe because his eyes are so light blue. They get all red and watery and his eyelids hang at half-mast. His face gets all red and blotchy too. On the plus side, it's the only time he really stops moving and just lays on the couch. He also asks to go to bed. That's when I KNOW he doesn't feel good. He would never ask to go to bed under normal circumstances. Jesse just wanders around in circles blurting out little crabby cries. His eyes get watery too.

I want my happy little mischievious mess-maker boys back.

Way Cutest Moment of the Day

Driving to the park today (before tandem bike riding disaster- see below), I was playing the new CD I made of Disneyland Music and the music from the Tiki Room was playing. You know the one... In the Tiki, Tiki, Tiki, Tiki, Tiki room. In the Tiki, Tiki, Tiki, Tiki, Tiki room... I look back and Jack is singing along with the music and Jesse is moving left and right in his car seat to the music. So I turned up the volume and we all "sang" it together.

I was so happy singing along with my little Disney buddies.

Simple Honesty.

Tonight before Jack went to bed we were sitting on the couch watching Dancing With The Stars. He loves to applaud after each dance. He turned to me and looked straight at me and said, "Mommy, you need to get a hair cut."

Damn that Lisa Renna and her cute hair.

At least he didn't tell me that I need to go to the gym.

Are we having fun yet?

Here's just one example why having 2 under 3 is really tough. Today I decided to be super cool mommy. Why? I don't know. I must have had a sudden burst of energy. I only got 5 hours sleep last night, so I don't know where this energy could have come from. Anyway...I decided to bring the tandem tricycle to the park- see photo and entry below. This was a different park though with nice paved walkways, but with some slight inclines. Uh oh. This one small factor changed the whole tandem riding experience. Ok, so we get to the park, I set up Jack with his helmet in the front seat of the trike, set up Jesse in the back seat with his ever so cute Pooh Bear helmet, buckle him in and off they go. They get about 10 feet and Jack heads up his first SLIGHT incline. He can't pedal hard enough and starts freaking out. He starts SCREAMING at the top of his lungs. (for those of you who know Jack, you know what this sounds like). I give him a push from behind to help him along and just as Jack stops sreaming, Jesse starts screaming- picking up on his big brothers emotions all too well- and starts squirming out of the seat. Ok, this is not going so well. I take Jesse out of the bike seat and put him back in the stroller. He is still screaming because he doesn't want to be in the stroller now. Meanwhile, Jack has peddaled along and hit another SLIGHT incline and now he's screaming again. By this time all the other mommys at the park, who wisely chose to be regular ol' mommys and just let their kids play in the playground, are staring and glaring at me as if I am poking my kids with red hot sticks.

We no sooner get halfway around the walkway and another toddler approaches Jack's bike and Jack starts yelling at him, NO! MY BIKE! NO! MY BIKE! What flashes through my mind?, 'Oh my God. I have the spoiled brat kid at the park. How did this happen?? I used to loathe kids like this and now I have one.' Meanwhile, just before this new outburst, I let Jesse out of the stroller to walk around and of course he wants to walk everywhere EXCEPT in the playground. He's walking across the lawn, down the hill, towards the bathrooms, back towards the car. No matter how many times I turn him around to walk towards the playground, he walks in the other direction, like some weird gravitational force is pulling him away from the playground. Which direction do I go in? towards the screaming 2.5+ yr. old or my 1 yr. old escape artist??

Don't try this at home!

The Cleaning Blackhole

I've discovered the 8th wonder of the world. How can it be that when you are living with two toddlers, the more you clean up, the messier the house is?? This is a complete phenomenon to me. I swear I will pick up all the toys, various doo-dads the kids toddle out with from other rooms, like one sock, a VHS tape, the scotch tape, a pen, a toothbrush, one snow boot, a stapler, a towel from the bathroom, etc. etc. not to mention all the little plastic toys. And just as I put the last item away, I turn around and there's a whole selection of new doo-dads and toys laying all over the house. This happens everyday. Little Jesse now follows me around the house as I pick things up and right behind me is redistributing various items all over the house.

I could spend the whole day doing nothing else but picking things up off the floor and it would still never be clean. Amazing isn't it?

Cutest Moment of the Day

Today's cutest moment came first thing this morning. As I was getting Jack dressed for preschool. He looked at me and with his cutest squishy smile said, "how about I stay home and you go to school?" and kept smiling and nodding like- yeah, yeah, how about it? I just started cracking up.

Oh if only I could leave them home alone, I'd gladly go to preschool for the day!

Cutest Moment of Every Day

Jesse's big wide smile just melts my heart. Every day.

I'm HOT?

I can't believe this happened to me tonight and since it's kind of awkward to tell this story outloud, I had to rush to my laptop to write it here.

My sister and I were out to dinner tonight. My husband watched the boys at home- so great of him. I haven't been out with my sister in I don't know how long. Heck, I haven't been out to dinner without my kids in I don't know how long. Anyway... I wore a new outfit that has been sitting in my closet for months collecting dust waiting for the moment it might actually get worn out in public. Nothing fancy, just a green sweater and funky green plaid pants and a pair of matching green mules. Yes, I like to follow the trends and green is in right now. We're having a very nice dinner and chatting away about all kinds of things non-kid related, which was refreshing to say the least, when all of a sudden this man comes up to our table and says to me, "excuse me, but I know the owner of the restaurant and we were just talking over there and he said I shouldn't say this to you, but I just had to say it. You are HOT." I couldn't believe my ears.

I said, "me? really?" and he said it again, "yes, you are so HOT."

In embarrassment I started to laugh as I casually looked around for the hidden cameras as I was sure this was some sort of prank or something. Then in my laughter I realized he was serious and I replied, "wow! thank you so much. I'm a mom of 2 little boys and I just don't hear that at all. Well my husband tells me that (had to through the "my husband" line in there to make sure he didn't decided to pursue hitting on me) but I never hear it from anyone else. Thank you so much, you really made my week."

He said, "well they (pointing to his friends at the bar) told me not to say anything, but I just had to."

I said, "thanks again. You really don't know how much I needed to hear that." And off he went. That's all he said.

I'm not telling this story because I have an enflated ego or anything. It's just that when your a mom doing the mom thing day in and day out and you're exhausted because you haven't had a decent nights sleep in weeks or years, and you've wiped spit off from your sleeve for the hundreth time and taken the used kleenex's out of your pockets, you start to feel like just another mom in sweat pants, a pony tail and bags under her eyes. That since of self, looking at all attractive, that feeling that you could catch a man's eye if you wanted to, is just so foreign and far away. You're not a woman, you're a mom.

That stranger doesn't even know what he did for me tonight. It was a simple gesture and I believe he meant it and maybe he was hoping to hit on me, but he has no idea how his words affected me. For one moment I was reminded that I am a woman. And I don't know if I'm Hot, but I do clean up well. It was a good feeling to be reminded of who I was before sippy cups, diapers, temper tantrums and gold fish crackers.

Thank you kind stranger.

And now I hear Jack crying in his room. Back to being a mommy.

Okay so I get both kids down for a nap and I'm really tired too, but instead of napping myself, I decide I'm going to try to get a little scrapbooking done. I'm sure I have at least an hour before one of them wakes up. I've been trying to start this cool accordian folded Valentine's card idea - a surprise gift for hubby. I get all my tools out on the table, I get my paper out, my various embellishments. I have my design idea worked out and ready to go. I get half way through the first panel of the card and it's looking really nice. I check the clock- still at least a half hour to go. All is quiet down the hall. I'm into this project and I like where it's going. I can't believe the kids are still sleeping and I'm actually going to get something done here. When all of a sudden I hear the electric garage door open up. What?! Oh no. Tom is home early from work. It's only 3:30! What the heck is he doing home. I frantically rush around the kitchen table, like a woman caught cheating with the pool boy, scooping up paper, pens, ribbon, rub-on letters, as fast as I can before he comes in. I get enough of it put away that he has no idea what I'm working on. He walks by me and as calmly as I can I say. "Hi, you're home early." He says, yeah, I don't feel so good." and he walks right past me without so much as a glance to the kitchen table. I'm sure that I could have left everything out and he wouldn't have even noticed. Makes me wonder...if a handsome yet scantily clad pool boy were next to me, would he have noticed that??
Oh well, so much for trying to get something creative done around here.