A Parental Mis-step, but still funny

You know how little kids taunt each other on the playground?


Kid 1: You're a Boogerface!
Kid 2: NO, I'm not! 
Kid 1: Yes, you are! Boogerface!


Due to a slight verbal slip on my part, we had a funny version of that happen today. Let me preface this by saying I'm trying my best not curse in front of the kids, but I've not hardly left this house for three days, which I've not done since the little-baby-sleep-deprived-phase. I'm of the creative (read: easily distracted) type that does not do well with working from home. So today, as the boys are eating dinner and I'm cutting celery and carrots, I start to notice that Cole is showing pre-#2 bathroom signs. After months of dealing with this, I can spot the signs a mile away. I sigh, put down my knife and rib of celery, and mutter "dammit." Before it even registers in my brain that I let it slip, the following exchange happens:


Grady: (micking me and muttering) "dammit."


Cole: "dammit?" (seemingly just trying on the word).


Grady: "dam-mit" (still mimicking me)


Grady: "Dammit!" (having explored the word and having decided he likes it, uses it as a noun in an accusatory tone directed at Cole. He might as well be saying Boogerface)


Cole: (to Grady), "No, I not Dammit!"


Grady: (now following me as I carry Cole to bathroom): Yes, you IS Dammit!" His delivery is perfect, and I wasn't looking back, but he may have been bobbing his head and snapping his fingers at his brother.


I don't even know if that translates as funny in blogland, but I was laughing so hard tears rolled. I'm actually still laughing.  Making a mental note to file "yes, you IS dammit" away for my and Keith's next argument.

A few thoughts

That stomping of feet you just heard was me doing my happy dance. Today, my work is again closed due to snow & ice. And again, they sent us an email telling us to work from home. And again, I wondered exactly how the hell they thought I was going to get that done. I tried to work during naps and after bedtime, but not a whole lot was getting done because naps are not that long and there's food to be made, boys to watch while they sleep (so cute), some show about Alaskan bush pilots Keith got me sucked into, laundry to be done, birthday parties to plan, etc. 

But today preschool is open, so we're shipped the boys off to go have fun. There were a few mighty crocodile tears because after four full fun days with both Momma and Dada, the boys were not that excited about leaving us. But they do love their teacher and once we packed up some of those cookies they made for them to take to their teacher they were quite excited to leave the house.

So the happy dance was due to me being able to get work done today. You see, one week from today we are leaving for the happiest place on earth, and this momma has several, oh several big projects that need to get done before we leave. 3 days of snow were not taken into account when I created my workflow calendar for January. (deep breaths)

It'll all be fine, right? Right.

But I wont get any work done before I purge some thoughts.

First, I miss our Christmas tree. With all this snow and ice, it would have been nice to have its warm glow. 

And this picture is from Christmas night. The boys stayed at Nana's so we could have a little break and they could play with their cousins, so when we came home from Christmas celebration we snapped these photos. Oh, if only we knew this dusting was nothing compared to what was coming. 

Our TV has shown this character a lot lately. Do you recognize Teacher? S/he is from my the boys' new favorite show. If you haven't seen it, do yourself a favor and watch it. You don't need toddlers to watch it, it's just funny. Of course, having toddlers helps because you see that the animals' mannerisms are so very close to what toddlers really do. Watch this clip. 

Baahhh! Ahahahaahahaha. That Timmy. He sooooooo suunny.


A while back GG gave the boys more stickers than they needed for one day. And since I was not in the mood to scrape them off my walls, I hid them. And then I dole them out one sheet at a time. A few days ago I gave the boys each their Dora stickers while we were sitting around before bedtime, and I discussed where stickers may and may not be placed. Since walls were out, Cole found an alternate canvas.

Have you sent me pictures of yourself yet? You should. Pictures, until they become too "loved" and need to be thrown away, go on the fridge. And then, when we're playing with the alphabet and the oven mitt, we talk about you. 

Here we're talking about Grady's baby Aidan. We also talked about baby Lorelai and JC, Mike, Julie and Madelyn, but Grady claimed Aidan is "his".

I've been slowly organizing our photos. Well, not really organizing, they're already organized. Culling the herd, I guess. Deleting bad pics, duplicates, eyes-shut, etc. And when I opened November 2010's folder, I found these big eyes staring at me. .

Cole was sitting with me and immediately said "oooh, we go feed cawwots at Aunt Karen's!". Uhhm. Sure. 

That's all I've got. Now, work. 

Birthday Snow Day

Mother Nature gave me a gift too. Several inches of snow. My work was cancelled, Keith's work was cancelled and pretty much all of Atlanta shut down. Which sounds like a lot of fun, but let's think about this from the perspective of parents of toddler twin boys who are very active: what are we going to do all day?

For two hours, we heard "wets pway in da snow". And we'd say "when the sun comes out". What we really meant was "when the temperature goes above freezing", but I don't think they're ready for the phases of the water cycle talk yet. I mean, they're gifted and all, but I'll wait till they're at least three.

Then finally it was time to go outside. After 20 minutes of bundling them up, we went outside.

We tried making a snowman, but there was already a thin layer of ice on the snow, and the snow just wasn't right. We were so disappointed that we couldn't make a Rusty the Snowman.

And those mittens. Oye. So cute, but they come off so quickly. This is what I did most of our time outside, put mittens back on. Until Grady ordered me inside to go make hot chocolate. I was more than happy to take the excuse to get out of the cold. I'm from Africa you know, I grew up with summer birthdays, and this snow nonsense is not cool. 

And the little ones can only spend so much time inside. So we built tunnels! We=Keith. I was likely making one of the many meals of the day.

And we baked cookies, 'cause that's what Keith and I needed, more goodies.

The boys got to put their own sprinkles on the cookies. They both focused on one area of the sheet. Some type of abstract post-modern interpretation, you're probably thinking. Actually, the sprinkle jars have really big holes, and I didn't micromanage their sprinkling, I'm all for them doing things on their own. 

Look at that two handed technique. Watch out, Betty Crocker.

Cole's approach of redistributing the sprinkles was more precise. As are all of his movements.

And then the agony of waiting to eat the cookies. 

People with little ones, take note. When you're going to bake something with the kids, have an activity ready, otherwise there are meltdowns and general ugliness when the very-hot cookies come out of the oven. I'm fairly laid back about parenting, but giving them steaming hot food is something I am not a fan of. So we put coins into the piggy banks BellyMomma gave us. 

And then we ate cookies while watching a movie. All of us sat and watched this movie. Not all at once, thank you TIVO, but this is amazing because its the first movie we've all completed together. 

And we took a little wagon ride to work off a little bit of those cookies. 

Keith got tired and I pulled the wagon for most of the walk. Hehehe. I kid.

And we ran around the backyard for a while before the nightime dinner-bath-books-bed routine started. 

Even Madam Fannie got into the action.

All in all yesterday was a great birthday. Thank you snow. 

Now, if we are stuck in the house more than today, things could get ugly.

Atta Bir'tay to me!

Today I turned 32. In honor of this, I pretty much ate my way through the weekend. I kid you not, and I'll tell you all about it. While I tell you about it, I'm on the couch with Keith, the two dogs and we're watching the National Championship. War eagle, I guess, but not 'cause I mean it, it's just the lesser of two evils and it is SEC, at least. So if my thoughts are random and change direction, it means Keith yelled something football related and/or made me look up from the laptop to see a play. 


So Friday I picked the boys up from work to learn that they had made me a very special card at school. What's not to love here? They were very proud of their work.

The card came with a stylish necklace. So stylish that Grady would not let me wear it and has claimed it as his. 

When Dada came home a little while later, he was so excited about the gifts he and the boys got me that he insisted we opened gifts right away. I'm not one to poopoo his ideas, so my helpers and I dove right in. 

WHOA. A dress and earrings from one of my favorite online stores for me, and bubble wrap for them. Score. We all remember the pure joy that comes from taking a big ole sheet of bubble wrap and stomping all over it. Or squeezing the bubble until it popped. And these were the big bubbles, too. Those pops were good and loud.

Friday night we put the kids to bed and watched the worst movie I have seen lately. WOW. We did not watch the whole thing, and now I wonder why we watched as much as we did. I think we were just waiting for it to get better, but it didn't. It's supposed to be about soul searching and some other sappy sh*t, but I think it would make for a fine alternative to waterboarding. Someone send a copy to Gitmo.

Where that movie was boring, Saturday was not. We happened to join the local aquarium last year on my birthday, and we loved that membership. I was tempted to talk Keith into renewing it, but we decided to explore a new place for this coming year when we need an indoor excursion. 

I have such mixed feelings about children's museums. I work in a museum. I feel confident that I can identify a museum or informal learning center when I see one. And I don't see "museum" when I visit this place. Educational playcenter? Sure. PlaceWhereParentsDontSuperviseTheirKidsEnough? Definitely. 

Don't get me wrong, we had fun, and we'll enjoy this membership, but be warned that I'll be complaining about rude kids and ruder parents a lot.

 You know what is almost as fun as playing the drums? Just sitting there, working up the energy for a temper tantrum.

I meant to crop this photo below, but I forgot. See the kid to the left? Cole threw him an elbow and I can't say that he didn't deserve it. Share the platform, Rubbercoat! 

And yes, I realize that I'm letting my other kid just splash around in the water. He's using an "alternate approach" to fishing. His creativity knows no bounds.

 The place was crowded, but we had a good time. Note to self to arrive earlier next time.

I dont even remember the rest of the afternoon. A blur of playing, cleaning house, and other things. Who knows. Maybe I'm not remembering because we had a lot going on, or more likely, my brain is only focusing on our birthday dinner date night. We had the foresight to take a quick picture before we left. 

And I'm glad we did, because the few pics we snapped outside the restaurant are way too blurry. If you're in the Atlanta area, you have got to consider this restaurant for your next special meal. The decor is great, the food insane. And actually reasonable. Keith nailed it with this selection. I love the wine, I loved the glass the wine came in, I loved the over-sized light fixtures, the menu, the  2 small plates, cold plate and entrée we shared. I did not really care for the closeness of the tables on either side of ours, but at least we now have funny stories about someone's ex girlfriend getting knocked up by a rodeo clown and we witnessed an awkward first date-type joke that went wrong. The things you hear and see when you're only 2 feet from a complete stranger. 

And after a day of playing with our boys and a great dinner, I didn't think the weekend could get better. But it did, with a visit to see our newest nephew. Welcome to the Fourth Bandito! Logan Reece arrived Tuesday the 4th, with a bit of drama. His momma was not in the best shape and while we'll share more details of that later, we're so relieved that Logan was in good shape all along and his momma is now home and resting. We headed over to the best damn college town to see him and his momma.

But wait! On our way there we saw a Hot Now! sign, and if you know what that means, then you know you have to stop when you see that. The boys loved the "circle treat". Hmmmm. 

 These two are so funny about their hands getting dirty. The original glazed is delicious when hot, but once that glaze dries, it's forms that dried crust on the hands. We, the children with unexplained OCD, do not like this.

But the circle treat fueled us and kept us in good spirits the rest of the ride.

Awwww. What is sweeter than a new baby?

He's perfect. Cute little face. Here I'm pointing out his features. Or at least I remember pointing out his features. Why am I pointing at my own lips? I dunno.  The boys were a little unsure of the baby at first, but then grew intrigued. And earlier today Cole claimed Logan as "my baby Wogan". 

And seeing a new baby will make a person hungry, so we went to another favorite place of my and Keith's for lunch. I wasn't kidding when I said I ate my way through my birthday weekend. 

And we went home and had shared a little cake from a favorite bakery and sang and did puzzles. A great end to a great weekend, I thought.

But wait! Mother Nature had other things in mind. And soon I'll tell you about that, but this football game is actually sounding interesting, so I'm going to watch. Same place, tomorrow?

Welcome 2011

Hello people! And happy new year to you. We rang the new year in as we've done almost every year...quietly and at home. And we're totally OK with that.


The new year always makes me want to get a few lingering projects done, so I'm taking just a wee blogging break to focus on getting the family healthy, Christmas packed up, finishing the boys 1st year albums, writing captions in our Peru vacation album, and training Keith to properly pack the Tupperware into the Tupperware drawer. Squares go into squares, circles into circles, etc. I was wrong to assume it was intuitive.


See you in a few days.