Uh…um…cough-cough…is this thing on?  Anybody still here???  Hold on just a sec while I….

Wipes off the dust….clears the cobwebs….does a few shoulder shrugs…

Sorry about the silence but….TWO KIDS!!!??!!!?!?!!!!??!!

That is all.

Okay, I’m ready.  Let’s do this!!

Does anybody remember this toy telephone pictured above?  You either played with it or bought it for someone that was short, yes?

Well, one day I walked into the kids consignment store way back when Avery was just 6 months old and I immediately grabbed it.  I mean yes, I understood that Avery would have absolutely NO idea what the heck this was besides slightly creepy with those weirdo-eyeballs….but I remembered playing with this phone when I was a kid and that was 95% of the selling point that day.

The other 5% were made up of:

1% it makes jiggly noises

2% he could drag it around the house when he started walking

and the last 2% would be me dialing trying to dial all the numbers I could remember and showing Avery how a “real” phone worked way back when I used to walk uphill both ways in the snow on the way to school and had to do my homework by candle-light…sigh…those were the good ol’ days…

So, fast forward a couple of months and the kid was walking and dragging the phone around behind him – full of jiggly noises.  When he would take a whole five seconds to sit still, we were dialing numbers left and right – (well, we were dialing my number and the hubby’s number and possibly my grandma’s as that’s all I could remember) – and picking up the red handle and talking into it and having our little imaginary conversations.

Dialing went like this:

oooooooonnnnnnnnneeeeeeee……

ssssssseeeeeeevvvvvveeeeeeeennnnnnn….

oooooooooohhhhhhh………

sssssssseeeeeeevvvvvvveeeeeeennnnn….

and that was just the area code.

Twelve minutes later we actually finished dialing an entire phone number.  Heaven forbid we would dial the ninth number incorrectly and have to start over at the beginning…hills both ways in the snow….

Well, as all toys do, this toy phone ended up at the bottom at the toy pile – pushed down by the cars and stuffed animals and whatever else was new and fun at the moment.

I would see the telephone in the toy box every now and then, and think about the fun times we had fake calling our friends and family.  I knew that the phone would show itself again – once Whitney was old enough to play with it – creepy eyeballs and all.

So yesterday (after Whitney made it quite clear that she was “bored” of her current selection of toys) I went into Avery’s toy drawer and pulled out the creepy-eyeball phone and set it in front of her.  She looked at me like, “Seriously?  This is SO 1974 mom, gawd!” but watched closely as Avery swooped in and started playing with the phone.

He pushed it back and forth and it made jiggly noises and Whitney smiled.

He spun his finger around the dial and it made some more jiggly noises and Whitney smiled some more.

And I had hope that we could all just play along….I mean, in the snow, uphill both ways….

But just when I thought he was going to fake call someone on the phone, he reached over to the blue section on the phone there on the top and poked it with his pointer finger and said, “boop.”

“Boop?  What the heck part of the phone game is ‘boop?'” I thought, but I just watched for a moment more….

Then Avery followed up the “boop” by picking up the handle and saying, “Hello?  Grammy?  Yes, yes, we are playing with Whitney.  I miss you!  I love you!!  Okay bye!”  And then he reached over to the blue part of the phone again and said, “boop” and then hung up the handle.

He did this about four more times with the rest of the grandparent line-up before I realized what the “boop” noise was…it was the noise that my cell phone makes when we call someone…with the blue button.  Dang, this kid is 5% mommy and daddy and 95% sponge.

Past and future crashing into each other.   Poor Whitney, she will be so confused.

After working out at the gym I picked Avery up from school.  He gave me a big hug and then said, “mama, you smell bad.”

Thanks bud.  At least you’re honest.

**************

Avery:  Mama, can I eat?

Me:  Yes, you have cheese and crackers right here.  Eat those and then we can talk about eating more.

Avery:  Mama, those aren’t crackers, those are fish! (goldfish)

You say fish, I say crackers.

***************

Avery:  Mama, it be my birthday soon?

Me:  Yes, after Christmas comes your birthday and you will be four years old.

Avery:  And then I’ll be five, and six, and seven, and eight, and nine, and ten, and eleven…and keeps counting.

Me:  trying not to sob thinking about how the years are flying by – yes babe, but let’s celebrate your fourth birthday first.

***************

Another day of birthday talk…

Avery:  Mama, it be my birthday soon?

Me:  Yes, after Christmas comes your birthday and you will be four years old.

Avery:  And mama, you be five years old?

Me:  Yes, my favorite son.  I will be five years old, just for you.  (insert three heart emoji’s here)

****************

After faking very loud hiccups to get my attention….

Me:  Avery, please stop – that’s so loud.

Avery:  But I WANT to have the hiccups!!!

Honesty again.  How do I argue with that??

****************

Avery:  Mama, I smelled baby Whitney.

Me:  Oh yeah?  What does she smell like?

Avery:  She smells like tofu.

Me thinking to myself…does tofu even have a smell???

****************

After putting up lots of balloons for the daddy’s birthday, Avery and I talked about how we were “blowing up” the balloons for daddy’s birthday party.

The next day, Avery noticed the balloons were laying on the floor after losing their air.  He looked at me with great sadness in his eyes and said, “Mama!  The balloons are blowing down!!”

*****************

Driving by the elementary school in our neighborhood one day, Avery asked what’s that?

Me:  That’s the elementary school.  You might be going there in a few years, but right now you are in preschool.

Avery:  Mama, I’m not in preschool, I’m in the car.

*****************

And my favorite one…

Me: Avery, you are a silly goose!

Avery: I not a silly goose, I Avery!  🙂

It’s been a rough couple of days.

I’m not sure if it’s because it’s cloudy, because we only have a few more days left of being good for Santa, or because it’s a full moon (is it really? it feels like it, I have no idea) but these kids…these kids…let’s just say that it’s been less than stellar these last two weeks.

Whitney is a baby so I can’t be too tough on her.  But just last week she finally (!!!) gave me three days in a row with a two hour solid nap and I thought we were in the clear.  Then, boom!  Right back to only cat naps (20 minutes) every four hours.  Ugh.  Talk about deflating the balloons.

Avery, of course, has been a model big brother, not.  Testing and throwing tantrums and pushing the mommy envelope just as far as it will stretch before it needs a big red wine sealant…  He’s decided that he doesn’t want to listen anymore when we take our dog walk/Avery bike ride and just shoots out into the street at a daredevils pace not paying attention to me whether I’m having a screaming fit or a heart attack.  Talk about the drama….

Today, like yesterday and the day before, Avery was hungry but wouldn’t tell me what he wanted to eat – was extremely tired but wouldn’t take a nap or even sit still for a movie – and bossed me around all day like I was the staff…and I’m sure you can imagine how that went down…

It was a trying couple of days.  There were many text messages to the hubby like, “There is not enough vodka in the world to make today better” … “Can you please come home so I can run away?” … “grrrr….” … “Please talk me off the ledge – these kids today!!?!”  And etc.

And then tonight.

Everything was pointing to another “fantastic” (sarcastic) and wonderful (yay, right!) night with just the three of us and Marlee when all of a sudden I found myself in the rocker with Whitney on one leg and Avery on the other.  The kiddos had their legs all entwined…Avery was holding one of Whitney’s hands while she sucked on her pacifier…and both were listening to my cracked voice sing off-tune Christmas songs as we rocked the night away.

Then all of a sudden they both fell asleep – holding each other’s hands and each laying on my chest and I thought to myself, “My goodness, this it.  This is why I work so hard for these kids everyday.  Just for this perfect moment of lovely bliss and sleepy happiness.  Hurry!!!  Someone hit the pause button!!  Anyone??!!”

And then I power-lifted the kids into Avery’s bed to tuck him into the blankets made by his Aunt Diana and his Mimi and with his Daddy’s favorite blanket when he was a kid…and then tucked Whitney into her crib with her blanket made by Debbie K and her fox blanket from Aunt Debbie and realized this is it – the moment where I cannot be more happy – these kids are so loved by me and surrounding by so much love – they have no idea.

Pause.  Pause.  Pause.

Pause this moment.

As most of you know, I grew up on a farm.  And just like Old MacDonald, we had all kinds of animals – pigs, chickens, cows, ducks, guinea hens, horses, and even dogs and cats.  We were busy feeding and taking care of these animals, pretty much 24/7.  Well, my parents were really the busiest, but my sister and I tried really hard to help and loved to take care of the dogs and cats the most – feeding and petting and even dressing them up in doll clothes and driving them around in baby carriages.

Poor pets.

I always loved having my own pet – my dog who smiled when he saw us (no joke, he learned it from a stray we took in), and my cat who would follow us on our daily walks/exploration missions just like a dog would.

When I got older I was given Chester the hamster as a birthday present and boy was I excited!  My very own pet to feed and clean up after and take care of.  And then I was really excited when Chester (previously named so as my hamster was a BOY) had a litter of little hamster babies and I got to take care of them and find them all good homes with all my friends who couldn’t wait to take care of little hamsters too.

All my life I’ve had pets.  Stray dogs that have come into my life just when we needed each other; Myrtle the turtle that actually made it across the busy highway (how??  I still do not know) but only asked for a soft cardboard box and a crunchy lettuce leaf or three before his re-release into the pond; and tons and tons of toads and frogs that if they stayed still long enough…well, they became “pet of the day” whether they liked it or not.

But the only animal I never wanted as a pet was a bird.  First, I always felt sorry for birds in a cages.  I am one of those people that would go rushing into an aviary if allowed, ripping all the doors open while screaming, “be free! be free!” like some sort of crazy person.  Second, bird poop.  Yep, no explanation needed there.  But the third reason I never wanted a bird as a pet is because my goodness they are SO loud!!  Chirping and squawking and flapping and just making all kinds of racket.  I mean, you can train a dog to be quiet.  And you can let a cat outside to howl at the moon.  But a bird?  You just have to deal with it.

Fast forward and now I have a bird of my very own.

Well, I have a cute and adorable baby girl that somehow has turned into a bird, complete with squawking that will pierce an eardrum.

This one, seen here:

So cute, yes?

Well, she’s cute and very dangerous because this little one has found her voice.  And after her reasonable coo’s and gaga’s all of a sudden she started squealing.  She would squeal to say “good morning” and she would squeal to say “it’s mama!”  She would squeal non-stop and so much that finally the little boy that lives here and can make the most amount of noise in a very short amount of time whipped his head around one day and yelled “stop squeaking Baby Whitney!!!”

And she stopped.  For a second.

And then back to it she went.

Driving the dog outside to seek shelter, sending the mama to the store to buy earplugs, and getting the daddy to place a large pillow over his head in the middle of the night as this adorable little girl was squealing, squawking, and squeaking her way through all of our brain parts and making our eardrums rupture on a daily (and nightly and 3am) basis.

I’m telling you right now…it was like fingernails on a chalkboard.

And the only thing that would make it go away was putting a dang pacifier in her mouth.  Oh, and time.

It took multiple binkies and multiple weeks for this “phase” to depart our household and return our adorable baby to us.  That is, until last night when I went into her room for her 3am bottle and she squealed so loudly that I promptly dropped the bottle on the floor, had a heart attack, and possibly bit my tongue in half so I would not scream “stop squeaking Baby Whitney!” but instead asked, “Polly wanna pacifier?” and promptly popped a binky in her mouth and we all went back to sleep.

Some months ago, we transitioned Avery from his crib to his big boy bed.  Knowing full well that once he had the freedom to roam at anytime he pleased, we began to talk to him about the difference between night and day.

Me: Okay, little man, it’s time to go to bed.

Avery:  Why go to bed for?

Me:  Because it’s night time and night time is the time for sleeping.  When you wake up tomorrow morning it will be day time, and day time is for playing.  So you need to stay in your bed all through the night so that day time can come and play with you in the morning.  Do you understand?

Avery: Okay.

And it worked for the first few nights in the new bed.  But then he was up at all hours of the night – creeping into our room and standing near our bed so silently that you couldn’t even hear him breathe…but then you would get this weird feeling that someone was staring at you in the middle of the night, would wake up suddenly, and try not to scream the rest of the house awake.

So creepy.

And back to the toddler bed we would go – talking about the difference between night and day again.  And again.  And, yes, again.

After about 64 nights of discussion, it finally clicked and we were all able to sleep the whole night through – yay!  However, thanks to the obviously “very knowledgeable” staff at the seasonal time change department, as the summer days progressed…well, day time came earlier and EARLIER each day.  So what was once a great night of sleep became less and less so as our very smart toddler (who listens to everything we say) would wake up at day time which was the same time the gosh forsaken sun came up.  I’m telling you, all he was missing was the rooster crow.

So then we talked about him staying in his room in the mornings, and playing quietly until mommy or daddy told him he could come in our room.  There was another 32 days of this teaching plan that was on repeat and then he seemed to understand and play in his room for about an hour until one of the adults could peel open an eyelid at around 730am.

At the same time we were teaching him to stay in his room, we were teaching him all the rules and regulations that go into potty training.  (side note: Let me tell you right now – if anyone had told me what really goes into potty training I probably would not have kids right now because…GROSS.)  So potty training comes with an open door policy because you have to actually show the kid how to do certain things – good thing daddy is a boy and I’m not – and so doors were open all over the house to help teach the little squirt how to uh…squirt.

Then the light came on, the diaper came off, and those doors were finally able to be closed again.

But Avery didn’t understand why the door had to be closed now when the door was always open before.  Grab your towel and close the door behind you on the way to the shower…turn on the shower…get in the shower and hear both the door open and the little man ask, “mama? what you doing?”  Dang.

Me:  Avery, when doors are closed, we must ask if we can come into the room before we open the door.  And the way we ask if we can come in is by knocking on the door.  So if you see a closed door you need to knock first.  Does that make sense?

Avery: Yes.

And then like the good little student he is, he did exactly what I asked him to do.  He would see a closed door, knock, and then open the door and walk right in.  Yes, that’s right, mama forgot to teach the part about waiting until the person in the room says that you can come in.

So then we had a couple of weeks of the following:

Daddy goes into the bathroom and closes the door.  Avery runs over to the door, knocks on it and waits.  Daddy asks, “who is it?” Avery opens the door and excitedly screams, “It’s Avery!!!” like some sort of Vegas showgirl and I quietly giggle from my perch on the sofa.  Daddy calmly explains that Avery needs to wait until he says, “come in” and Avery nods.

So they try again.

Daddy goes into the bathroom and closes the door.  Avery runs over to the door, knocks and waits until Daddy asks, “who is it?”  Avery says, “It’s Avery!”  And then silence.  The very patient Daddy says, “And then what do you say?”  Avery happily answers, “Who is it?” and then bursts through the door with the biggest smile on his face.  I laugh out loud and Daddy starts again, “No bud, you ask ‘can I come in?'”

And time and time again until it finally all clicked.

Now we are on to the next teaching moment in which I start off by saying, “no, you may not poke your finger in the baby’s eyeball…”

Avery is one of those kids who has never wanted to sit still long enough to eat.  So in order to get him to eat, we took a cue from his preschool and read stories to him while he eats.  Avery is a bookworm and would read stories all day, every day, so it works well to distract him with reading while he shovels food in his craw.

As a bonus, Whitney really enjoys looking at the pictures and hearing us talk, so she is part of story time.  Usually I hold her in one arm while holding a book with the other arm and turning the pages with my nose…cue circus music here…

So during lunch this week we were reading our way through a Wildlife Federation book which has various things in it all related to animals…like an eye-spy the bird in the tree page, a little rhyme about squirrels, and a letter page, for example.  It’s a very interactive book which makes Avery think for himself and come up with answers for the questions I ask.

When we got to the letter page, we read that the letter was “s” and there was a picture of “six seals sleeping on the sand.”  So we talked about the fact that sand started with the letter s,  and seals start with the letter s, and sand starts with the letter s…

Then I asked Avery, “what other words start with the letter s?”  And as Avery thought about his answer…Whitney, as if on cue, filled up her diaper.

Of course.   S is for………….   Sleeping.  What?  The seals were sleeping on the sand.

My goodness, you guys have dirty minds.

************************************************************************************************************

The two shorties and I were playing on the bed the other day.

Avery was doing his usual “butt drop” move in which he goes from standing to sitting in one second just by throwing his legs out and landing on his booty – Whitney was smiling at the whole show – and I was there to make sure that booties stayed on the bed on not on the baby.

After a few hundred jumps – and a lot of laughs – Avery promptly stood up, got really quiet and looked very serious.

I immediately worried he hurt himself somehow and asked him, “What happened?  Did you hurt yourself?”

He still looked very serious and replied, “I tooted outside and I tooted inside.  Do you want to smell?”

And as I always try to set the very best example of polite behavior, I immediately burst into laughter and snorted, “No I don’t want to smell…and yuck, that stinks!!”  Which as you can imagine, made Avery roll with laughter and then follow me around all day asking me if I wanted to smell his toots.

Yes, I know.  I did it to myself.

I had a lovely story all typed up and ready to post just the other day.  When I hit the “publish” button this dear website asked me, “are you sure you want to do this?”   I, of course, ready to share my story with the world hit the “yes” button.  Apparently this website and I were on different pages (haha…ha) because when I said “yes” to publishing my post, the website was talking about deleting my entire post.  The one that took me about three days to write because there are many things needed by the short humans that live in my house.

Grrrrr…..

So like the polite girl I was raised to be, I flipped off the computer and called it a few choice names and refused to speak to it again until it apologized for trashing my beautiful work.

Real mature, huh?

But here we are with a completely different story.  A very short story so that the website doesn’t have time enough to decide to delete the post before I hit publish and post it.

Bad website.  Go to time out.

…….

At Avery’s last birthday party and when he turned three, he actually began to grasp the concept of what a birthday party really was.  Up to this point, birthday parties were just a time to play with his friends and eat cupcakes.  But this last birthday party was so much fun for him that at bedtime he politely requested that I sing “Happy Birthday to Avery” as his first bedtime song.  And every night for about two months we sang the Avery version, complete with a round of applause at the end and a very quiet “yaaaaaaaay!!”  Then a few months later his little friend Nico had a birthday party and we sang “Happy Birthday to Nico!” every night for another month.

After Nico’s birthday came a play date with his best preschool friend Hanna, so then Hanna got a few rounds of “Happy Birthday” and we followed that up with a fun time with Daddy, etc, etc, etc.

But my singing and memorization skills were really put to the test after a lovely week long vacation with a bunch of family members as Avery requested not only “baba and grammy” be sung to but also “mama, daddy…and everybody!!”  So off I went, singing “Happy Birthday” to…”mama, daddy, avery, marlee, baby whitney, baba, grammy, aunt kaka, uncle kaka and Hudson!!” which I believe must be the longest version of this song ever.

And as we are only just back from our vacation we are still singing this version of the song every. single. night.  Sometimes I might be too tired to remember every single person in the list, but guess who reminds me “mama, GGGRAMMY!!” he sternly tells me.  Geez.  Talk about a tough crowd.

I’m very much looking forward to celebrating his little friends birthday in two weeks, because although the birthday boys are a pair of twins, two names vs ten names are a lot easier to remember after a long day.

Yaaaaaaaay!!! (round of applause)

Today my little man turned 3 1/2.

I can’t believe it .

He’s the most amazing little kid I’ve ever met.

Always happy, always laughing, always trying something new.

My heart…

As I’m sure some of your remember (or have tried to forget) having a newborn is equal to no sleep.  When there was just one newborn and no older sibling, the advice of “sleep when the baby sleeps” made sense.  Up all night with multiple feedings?  Well, sleep when the baby sleeps during the day and catch up.

Just a newborn in the house = sleep when the baby sleeps and still function somewhat like a human being.

But now that there’s a three year old and a newborn, well, it’s a little harder to “sleep when the baby sleeps.”  Now it’s more like “hold on to the handlebars because we are climbing to the top of the rollercoaster again and weeeeee!”

Three year old + newborn in the house = no sleep for mama.  Period.  And now you function like the opposite of whatever a human being is…would that be a piece of dirt?

So imagine my surprise when we all snuggled in for an afternoon toddler movie time/newborn sleepy time/mama’s brain needs a rest time and instead of movie goers, I looked around and saw the following…

One cute little baby sleeping which isn’t that strange as this is what she does most of the time:

Add that to one large black Marlee-dog who was also sleeping during the movie, but to her defense we had ALL seen “Planes” 432,984 times already:

But then there was…

wait for it…

waaaaaait for it…..

THIS!!!

Waaaaat?!!?  A napping three year old who hasn’t taken a nap since WAY before he was two years old!??!!

At first I smiled at the cute snores that were being “ping-ponged” across the living room.  Then, abruptly, I stopped smiling…because, oh my GOODNESS!!!  THEY ARE ALL ASLEEP!!!

My thoughts went something like this:

Holy cats!  It’s so quiet!

Holy cats!  No one needs anything from me!!

Holy cats!  What the heck should I do to capture the moment?

Should I run outside and spin in a circle and sing “the hills are alive with the sound of snoring toddler/baby/black dog?”  while wearing a long dress/smock combo?

Should I run out and buy a lotto ticket because this is a once in a lifetime occurrence??

Should I sleep when everyone else sleeps and lose out on really enjoying my time ABSOLUTELY AND TOTALLY ALONE?!!?

How about catching up on the neglected chores around the house?  Cleaning the toilets?  Taking out the trash?  Sweeping the floors?  And perhaps start on the ever growing pile of laundry?

Instead, I did something I have not been able to do in over a month since the cutest little baby girl on the planet joined our household…

I ate lunch.  All.  By.  Myself.

Uninterrupted.

Without having to scarf.

Did I mention all by myself?  And that I got to CHEW and ENJOY every single bite?

Yes.  It was heavenly.

Then everyone promptly woke up at the same time and the moment was gone.

Back to the dirt pile….Sigh.

Well folks, we survived the 4th of July fireworks, but just barely.  Avery’s adorable little mind was just about blown when he finally saw his long awaited firework display…

First, we went to the small town parade in which he waved his little flag as fast as possible for the whole hour we were there:

And every five minutes or so he would run up to me and ask, “Mama?  See the fireworks?”

“Yes, dear.”

What?  Not excited about the motorcycles?  No.  How about the old cars?  Nope.  And the drummers in the band?  Yes!  But only for a few minutes and then…”Mama?  See the fireworks?”

“Yes, dear.”

After the parade we headed over to the local park where there was all kinds of fun kiddo activities – like sack-races, a petting zoo, bubble blowing (which I just knew he would love, but no – fail – as it wasn’t fireworks) and face painting.  We stood in the very, very (very! omg!) long face painting line so we could get our turn at being colored with paint and glitter that will (!!!) rub off on your fancy mom’s day out clothes, the car seat and even your living room white sofa cover.  (Yes, I have kids and I have a white sofa – it must have been purchased online and after a heavy night of too many adult beverages, although I don’t clearly remember… “heay!  pass the vino!  I have a greaaaat idea…”)

So after we stood in line -and all while baking in the hot sun (pant, pant) – Avery told me he wasn’t quite interested in face painting after all.  (Grrrr…)  But then it was our turn and we negotiated (or mama just said this is how it is) arm painting instead of face, and he got a nice little firework number on his arm, as seen here:

And guess what he said after showing off his new artwork?  “Mama?  See the fireworks?”

“Yes, dear.”

So the bazillion years that passed between lunchtime and sunset the following was on repeat:

“Mama?  See the fireworks?”

“Yes, dear.”

The long awaited sunset finally came and while we were waiting for the event of the year, Avery ran around and around and around our little blanket area chanting, “fireworks! fireworks! fireworks!”

And the finally…it was time….

The sun went down…oooh! ahhh!

The lights were turned off…oooh! ahhh!

The rockets started to red glare…oooh! ahhh!

And then I totally annoyed everyone seated directly around us…boo! hiss!

Yes, I was that annoying person that was taking pictures (with a flash, in the dark, while the fireworks were going off – bad girl!) but I got in and got out as soon as possible.  I mean, this kid had been talking about and dreaming about this day for at least the last five months, so I had to record the event, even though I was only able to take these very blurry and very unrecognizable shots of the little A-man…

Here is his reaction after the first blast went off:

And then after a few more:

And after the whole event was over, I asked, “Avery, did you enjoy the fireworks?”  And he answered, (everyone say it with me….)

“Mama?  See the fireworks?”

“Yes, dear.”

PS: Whitney received the sweetest little fox blanket, fox snuggle toy/binky and fox book in the mail the other day.  Unfortunately, it did not come with a note as to who it might be from…so if this is you, or someone you know, please do let us know so we can send a proper thank you.  In the meantime, THANK YOU!!!  They are so adorable and Avery is currently breaking them in for Whitney to use here shortly.  🙂

PSS: I did record Avery’s reaction to the fireworks but am unable to upload it here.  If you want to hear his actual reaction to the fireworks, just reply below or send me an email and I’ll send the link.