Tag Archives: Oliver

Another Stakeout (but without Emilio Estevez)

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Like many other mothers, I experienced the first day of school yesterday. The only difference is that my son is three and this will be his second year going to full time school AND his second year taking the bus.

I wrote about our first experience with the bus a couple of months ago when I started my blog. Oliver did not love it at first – and I can’t blame him since I share his aversion to change (and it’s not like it was a little van or anything…it was a real school bus – the same one that older kids take). The transition wasn’t easy, but within a very short period of time, he LOOOVED the bus.

In spite of this I still worried that enough time would have elapsed for him to forget about how much he loved school and how much he loved “MY BUS.” So I decided that it would be best for me to head over to daycare that day and do a little surveillance from across the street.

If you read my post regarding my first stakeout, then you will understand why I wanted to be there to offer assistance as necessary. Oliver is a big boy (about 50 lbs. now) and the sweet older ladies that take care of him are used to the little pod person he becomes when he enters their domain. He follows directions and is apparently “a delight.” They have not had to wrestle him into submission (i.e. make him put on pants in the morning) and don’t have the experience or upper body strength required for this kind of activity.

Last year, Oliver planted himself on the ground (in a puddle) and refused to get on the bus. Gordana couldn’t hoist him off the ground and the bus driver said that they wouldn’t be able to take him in his soggy condition. I had to come get him and drive him to school myself. Gordana and I agreed that the following day, I would hide nearby and be ready to manhandle him onto the bus if it came to that.

It did (come to that) and I did (manhandle him). He would have to learn that the bus was a now fact of life with no opt out feature. And he did (learn). So we conquered the bus. And within a day or two, he was the happiest little boy riding a bus EVER.

Then summer vacation came. And I worried that he might forget about his beloved bus. That he would sense another change and take butt to pavement action yet again.

So I decided to have another stakeout. Which immediately brings to mind the Richard Dryfuss/Emilio Estevez sequal. Which reminds me of how Emilio was always my favorite brat packer. I loved him in St. Elmo’s Fire. Rob Lowe was just too much of a pretty boy and Judd Nelson had those enormous nostrils that I found incredibly distracting. And I always thought Andrew McCarthy was gay. Apparently he’s not – but I never understood his appeal… Then Emilio kind of faded away into movies that I never saw, making a brief comeback in Stakeout. I remember liking it but being perplexed by that awful mustache. I mean, were they trying to make him look like Richard Dreyfuss? I don’t get it… At least it was shaved off for Another Stakeout, which I also liked (because at the end of the day, I’m an easy audience).

But no Emilio – with or without bad facial hair – for this stakeout. I was on my own. And I was prepared to leap in and save the day. Just like a superhero. Just like last time.

And when the big moment came? It was a total non-event with Oliver dutifully trotting up to the bus and climbing up the stairs without prompting. I watched in a daze as he was whisked away to his second first day of school. Then I felt a little ridiculous for wasting the gas to drive over there. It was a bit of a let down after psyching myself up for a big display of mommy power.

But I did get one thing out of my stakeout (aside from fond memories of Emilio in his prime). I got to see Oliver – my big boy – off on his first day back at school. Even if it was from afar.

I won’t be the mom who waits with the school bus this year. I won’t be the one to greet him when he returns and give him a hug and a snack. I won’t be able to ask him about his day until an hour or two later when I pick him up after work. I may eventually be able to do those things. (who knows what direction my career may take). It just won’t be this year.

But I do have that image to replay in my mind every day at the time the bus is scheduled to arrive. My Oliver – walking to the bus on his own – with his back to school haircut and his Superman backpack. I’m so proud of him.

Who’s Big Idea Was This Anyway?

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What do you mean, “who’s big idea was this?” It was my Uncle Dick’s idea. Haven’t you read my posts from Monday and Tuesday? No? Here’s a quick recap. My Uncle Dick called me while I was half naked in a Target dressing room to tell me that I should write a Dear Abby style column for children. Oh right – and we are Covenys, and think we have better ideas than anyone else. I think that sums it up pretty nicely.

To conclude this three part series, I will now attempt to execute THE IDEA. The following letter is based on the experience of my oldest son when we tried to ruin his life by bringing newborn twins into our house – allegedly to be his siblings.

Dear Mrs. Hood,

I am a one and a half year old boy living in the DC metro area. Recently, my mother disappeared for several days, and then returned with two little things that she calls babies. They do not look like babies, and I am worried that she may have suffered an injury during her absence that is making her delusional. These “babies” do not coo or giggle, they do not have chubby arms and legs to tickle, and when I do try to tickle them, they scream. Then I have to sit on the naughty step for being too rough with the “babies.” My father is no help. It seems that he has lost his mind as well. At first I thought he may just be playing along while he tried to get my mother help, but I lost hope when the neighbors started showing up to “see the new babies.” It appears that these creatures have the ability to brainwash grownups. Everyone leaves our house talking about how adorable the “babies” are. They are in fact, not adorable. They look like turtles without shells. I like turtles – but not without shells. How do I make my parents understand that they are being brainwashed by shell-less turtle creatures, and that they should return these so called “babies” to the pit of hell from whence they came?

Sincerely,
Reviled in Reston

Dear Reviled,

First, I would like to compliment you on your advanced vocabulary and writing skills. Most 18 month old children are just starting to put two to three words together, so you are an exceptionally gifted young boy. But remember – you are a young boy, and your parents have a lot more life experience. They are not delusional, and they were just as thrilled with you when they brought you home as a newborn shell-less turtle. All newborn babies are small and twins tend to be even smaller. You may not believe it now, but they will quickly grow and gain those rolls that you would like to tickle. They will also start smiling when they are about six weeks old, and this too will make them more recognizable as babies. The reason that your parents send you to the naughty step is because they have not slept since the minute they brought the twins home; and when the babies scream, it makes them want to buy wigs and fake passports and hop on the next plane to Brazil. This is not your fault, but they are not exactly reasonable at the moment. While you are awfully young for this responsibility, you will have to be patient with them and understand that it takes a while for parents to adjust to a new baby in the house. Even more so for two new babies. You will be surprised at how quickly they adapt though, and in a few months they won’t even remember a time when the babies weren’t part of the family. And by then, you will be happy to see that your twin siblings will be cooing, giggling, ticklish, chubby babies that don’t look like turtles without shells. Until then – keep your chin up and watch a lot of TV. This will make your parents very happy. Guilty – but happy.

Sincerely,
Mrs. Hood

Hey! Not bad right? I will try to come up with these every once in a while. And in the meantime, feel free to send me any questions that you would like answered (either real or made up). You see – not only do I have really great ideas….I have answers for everything.

Sincerely,
Mrs. Hood

Weird on So Many Levels

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(Now with Eleanor update at the end.)

I was planning to post this quick sound byte from our weekend (already written below) but I need to do a little venting first (and I’ll TRY to keep it short since don’t want to be an online whiner).

I sometimes really wish I just wanted to (okay – that’s 50% that we could afford for me to) be a stay at home mom. Sometimes this is just too hard. Work is incredibly stressful right now. We have a seminar taking place tomorrow and the President is speaking. She’s notorious for finding SOMETHING wrong every time she does a seminar, and I’m just bracing myself for this one. Too many things were going wrong at the last minute today…

THEN at 4:00 I got a call from daycare that Eleanor had a temperature. Not too high – just 101 – but she has been having this off and on for the past few days, and it was up to 103 on Saturday. I only sent her to daycare because she seemed fine this morning.

When I picked her up, I planned to leave the boys there and bring her to the store to pick up a few things before the regular 5:15 pick up time. THEN while I was getting details about her day from our daycare provider, she threw up ALL OVER ME. The good news is that while it drenched my top, it somehow missed my skirt and I had just picked up the dry cleaning this morning. The bad news that there wasn’t one of my own tops in the dry cleaning. So I ended up wearing one of Chris’ dress shirts.

By the time I got Eleanor and myself somewhat cleaned up, it seemed ridiculous to leave and come back, so I packed everyone in the car. We carpool with Chris, so even though I called and told him to leave early, we had to circle the metro for almost 30 minutes. Thank god for portable DVD players, and Curious George, and the fact that my kids didn’t feel like watching the WIggles since their songs are already haunting my dreams.

Fast forward an hour – we decided that we wouldn’t wait until tomorrow to see a doctor since she gave us a 105.2 temperature scare last summer due to a UTI. I had a feeling that this might be another one and I’d rather not relive waking up at 3:00 a.m. to find my daughter having a seizure. We agreed that Chris would take her to our local urgent care center since the boys are both convinced that the world comes to an end when I leave the room (and because we naively thought that it would only be a couple of hours).

Now it’s 9:30, they’ve been there almost four hours and it will probably be another two. Eleanor has an IV, a catheter and has had blood taken for testing. Poor Chris has a phobia of needles (he passes out when he gives blood) and has had to be there for all of it. I did it last time and it was hard enough for me!

I’m not worried about Eleanor for anything more than her immediate discomfort. I know that this is another UTI. It’s not the end of the world. I certainly know people that have experienced worse – but it doesn’t make it any less scary for her. It doesn’t make it any less disturbing for my husband. And it doesn’t make it any less frustrating for me. I want to be there. I want to hold her and comfort her and let her know that I will ALWAYS be there if she needs me. That’s my real job. I’m the mom.

This time I will have to go to work. I’ve already exceeded my current vacation time by making the last minute trip to Key West. Chris can stay home with her as necessary tomorrow and I can’t. It’s just not a good day. I hate even thinking that. How can it ever be a bad day to take care of my children. If Chris was traveling for work, I would have to rearrange my schedule. But he can manage taking the day off – so there is no reason for me to stay home. Other than the obvious reason that I WANT to.

Don’t get me wrong – on good days, I like having a job. I won’t go into the history of that because I’ve gone back and forth on the subject. But I don’t want to give the impression that I don’t want to be a working mom. It’s just not working for me today. And I’m feeling a little sorry for myself. And I’m feeling guilty for that since I know that I have so much to be thankful for.

I just wish I could trade for a minute. I want to be at the urgent care center right now. I want to be home with my daughter tomorrow. And I want to feel like I’m giving 100% of myself to my children.

Okay that’s it. Sorry – didn’t keep it short. I did try though.

Back to our regularly scheduled program. This is some dialogue from this weekend that I found “weird on so many levels”:

Conversation over lunch at Chipotle:

Oliver (3 years old): OFF! OFF!

Me: No. Boys don’t take off their shirts off at Chipotle.

Chris: Yeah – what do you think this is? Your mother’s favorite gay bar at the beach?

8/12/08, 10:00 p.m. Eleanor Update:
Okay – so she’s fine. We have no idea what was wrong with her – but she woke up this morning like, “psyche!” (I’m feeling very 80s). But she really did seem to be very sick last night – so we don’t regret the ER drama. I mean they hooked her up to tubes and all…so it wasn’t like they were just humoring us. Anyway – it doesn’t seem to be a UTI like I thought, she hasn’t had a fever in 24 hours and she was tearing around the house causing as much mayhem as ever up to the minute we put her to bed. So for everyone that has been sending words of support – all is well. One last thing. Chris told me that when they were in the ER, she kept asking for her twin brother, “where George?” How cute is that?

Late Breaking News from Our Bathroom

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On Saturday, something incredibly exciting happened in the Hood residence. Oliver didn’t just “go potty” as directed by us, he did so of his own volition.

He walked into the house after running errands with his Dad, beelined for the bathroom, took off his pants and hopped on the toilet. Okay he actually took off his shirt as well, but the point is that he pulled down his pants BY HIMSELF (and anyone who has seen the size of my sturdy son’s “backyard” knows that this is no easy feat). Then when he was finished, he flushed the toilet, found his father and asked for help in putting his pull up back on.

Now I know that mothers of potty trained 2 year olds (i.e. girls) are thinking, “so what – isn’t he now a few months past his third birthday?” Well , yes – but the concept of potty training has not been all that well received, and we’ve been making very slow progress over the past few months. Steady progress – but slow progress nonetheless. So this is big for us. BIG I tell you!

Not sure what to make of the needing to be naked thing (my own little George Costanza) – but at least he no longer requires a snack while he’s taking care of business.

World Wrestling Champion

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Oliver is very strong. And he’s been that way since he was a baby. I remember in those early months after getting him dressed for daycare, I’d feel like I spent the morning wrestling gorillas. Not much has changed.

He was over 9 lbs. at birth and has continued to be a very big boy. So between his size and his strength (and his force of will), he’s almost impossible to overpower in a struggle. ALMOST impossible. You see, while he’s been growing and getting stronger – I have been getting stronger myself. All of this lifting/hoisting/carrying/immobilizing of a now 47 lb. boy has developed upper body strength that I never dreamed I’d have. I honestly think that I could join any high school wrestling team and lead them to the state championship.

But that doesn’t mean it’s fun. Every day is a work out. When Oliver was first showing signs of this, I used to make jokes about how I envisioned myself grappling with a giant two year old in the mall. Now he’s three. It’s not funny anymore.

And to make things even more complicated – he has delayed speech, so we’re not really at a point where I can try reasoning with him. For now, all I can do is keep up my strength and enjoy the look of my arms in a tank top.

Really – he’s a good natured kid. And as his teacher always says to me, “there isn’t a mean bone in his body.” He’s just really physical and he loves to play very physical games. Running, throwing balls, rolling around on the floor, being tickled…it all thrills him. Unfortunately, he just doesn’t know his own strength. He never means to be too rough with his much younger, MUCH smaller siblings. But he really needs to learn when it’s just a little “too much.”

The twins absolutely egg him on of course. He can be happily playing with blocks, minding his own business, and they’ll come over and start poking at him. At first, he’ll ignore them, but once they really get his attention, you can just see his eyes light up. And then he’s all, “Welcome, to another edition of Thunderdome!”

The irony is that I’m almost positive that he’s not going to be a big man. None of the men in my life are tall (my husband, father and brother are all around 5’ 8’’). And even the tall men in Chris’ family are more in the 6 foot range. So my guess is that sometime in early high school, everyone else will catch up.

But I do think that he’ll continue to be strong. Even if he’s short (or “not tall”), he’s a solid kid and those muscles make him a match for children twice his age. This can help him in any sport, and we’re thinking that will probably be the best channel for all of that energy he has. Maybe he’ll be a wrestling team champion. I have little experience in this area, but I’m sure that I can help. Now that I’ve developed this upper body strength and perfected my “holds” – I can probably help with the training. Because you know – I can take him.

Parenting Skills at Their Best

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I try to limit the potty training references since I have some readers without kids – and one of the perks to not having children is NOT having to spend your day talking about poop. So I’ll warn you now that it IS going to come up in this one. And it’s not going to be pretty.

On Monday evening, I arrived home alone with the kids. Chris had to drive separately that day, and as usual, he had metro problems delaying him by at least an hour. Now, I am home with alone with the kids quite a bit since Chris has to travel for work. But I’ve been finding it increasingly more complicated since the twins ceased to be blobs (that’s right all you Angelina haters – babies do start out as BLOBS) and have joined their older brother in his daily mission to make me a lunatic.

Actually, it’s been a while since anyone would call George and Eleanor “blobs” – but in the recent past, they were far more sedentary. Approaching their second birthday, they are now a force to be reckoned with, and taking your eyes off of them for more than a minute can result in nothing short of global thermonuclear war. Or at least a toilet paper trail from the bathroom that circles the first floor ten times.

The first half hour was a whirlwind of the usual chaos – a blur of kids playing, crying and climbing on furniture while I tried to make dinner, get the daycare bag emptied and start lunches for the following day. It’s impossible for me to remember the exact sequence of events up until the first minor crisis – but that that pretty much sums it up.

Once everyone was busy eating dinner and watching (surprise, surprise) yet another Wiggles DVD, I ran downstairs to change a load of laundry. Suddenly, I could hear Oliver calling to me, “Mommy! Mommy!” But it didn’t sound like he was upset, so I yelled, “just a minute” a few times until I was done. When I came upstairs, I realized that he was calling me to let me know that he had to go potty. He is really only 75% potty trained and still needs help getting through the process. So all I could do was hustle him into the bathroom as quickly as possible and hope that he could at least “finish” on the potty.

Though I was fairly sure he was done, I settled him on the toilet anyway and then ran to answer the phone. It was Chris. He was calling to let me know that he was still stuck on the metro and would get back to me once he was in his car. At this point, my half naked son walked into the kitchen to announce that he wanted ice cream. I asked if he was finished on the potty and then realized that not only was he finished, but he had the subject matter smeared all over his rear end (must have happened when I was pulling down his pull up). I instructed him to “stay right there” (which he didn’t) while I ran for the wipes. Then the phone started ringing again. I ignored it.

While I was cleaning off my three year old, I heard little voices coming from the bathroom. Great! Now the twins were in there, and most likely throwing things into the toilet. After another directive for Oliver to “stay there” (which he didn’t) I ran to find the twins and was relieved to see that they were only trying to climb onto the sink and not anywhere near the toilet. “Okay – everybody out!”

Once I got Oliver clean and busy with an activity, I saw that it was time for the twins’ bath. They raced up the stairs yelling “water!” and happily scampered into the kids’ bathroom. While simultaneously running the water, getting the twins undressed and blocking them from the tub until they were in fact naked, I saw that I was going to have a big problem on my hands… George must have run into his bedroom at some point, and was now clutching his blankie.

George is obsessed with his blankie, and I spend quite a bit of time tricking him into letting go of it so I can throw it upstairs while he’s distracted. I thought I had accomplished this when we got home, but my efforts were foiled by his wily reconnaissance. Now “Linus” wanted to bring the blankie into the tub with him. He is a toddler, and neither willing nor able to listen to reason. And since his current vocabulary consists of “car, truck, train, bus, more and thank you,” there was no point in trying to engage him in discussion about it. I had to forcibly remove the blanket and put him into the water kicking and screaming.

Eleanor splashed happily while George wailed and tried to climb out. I just washed him off quickly and then set him free to reunite with the blankie. Knowing that he had left the bathroom and could, that very minute be peeing all over the second floor, I rushed through Eleanor’s scrubbing. George and his blankie returned within minutes and I was just in time to stop him from throwing the paperback that he was aiming at the water. This was the final signal for bath time to be over, and against Eleanor’s vehement protestations, I pulled the plug. Within seconds I had two naked toddlers in Oliver’s room (where we have all of the bedtime books). One was crying (Eleanor) and one was trying to sneak out the door (George). I closed the door, placed myself in front of it and started stuffing them into their pajamas.

At this point, Oliver decided to come see what all of the commotion was about and tried to open the door. After a few seconds, I realized that he couldn’t get in, and that’s when it hit me: the door was LOCKED. The previous owners installed the door knob to Oliver’s bedroom so that it locked from the outside. I gratefully took advantage of this when we moved Oliver to his toddler bed, and found it comforting to know that I could lock the door and not worry about him wandering the house while I slept. But it never occurred to me that I could get locked in with him on the OUTSIDE.

Never one to panic, I responded to Oliver’s increasing anxiety with comforting promises that I would “fix it” and a lot of the ever popular, “in just a minute.” All the while, I was running through possible action plans. Climbing out the window was not an option since it would be a three story drop, but I thought a neighbor might be outside. So I opened the window and started calling for help. No dice. Everyone was inside their air conditioned homes.

Meanwhile, Eleanor sensing the terror in Oliver’s cries to get in, started crying even louder – which in return increased Oliver’s anxiety. George was furious that I had closed the window (because, you know – that was so much fun), and started crying as well. Great – now I had thee screaming children.

I considered trying to break the door down, but after one half hearted attempt, accepted the fact that I was not the Incredible Hulk. Then I remembered that there were a few wire hangers in Oliver’s closet. DUH – all I had to do was to use the end of a wire to poke the little hole in the door knob and spring the lock. Chris showed me how to do this in our old apartment when I used to worry about Oliver accidentally locking himself in the bathroom.

Within a minute, I had a red-faced, hysterical Oliver in my lap and equally upset twins climbing all over us. Once I had everyone somewhat calmed down, Oliver started dragging us out of the evil room that had kept us away from him for the TEN MINUTES that this drama probably took to unfold. I knew that only one thing could snap everyone out of their hysteria. So I asked, “hey – who wants ice cream?” And then all was golden.

While the twins should have been settling down to sleep and Oliver should have been preparing for his own bath, we sat around the kids’ table exclaiming over the miracle that is ice cream while traumatic events quickly disappeared from our blessedly fickle short term memories.

Good times.

A Different "Meme"

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Meme is a term that is new to me. It’s what people call lists of questions that are passed around in a blog game of tag. It’s never been defined for me, but my high school French dictates that it simply refers to giving the “same” list of questions to different people. If this is wrong – please correct me in comments. I won’t be embarrassed since I’ve pretty much passed the point of no return on that front.

There have been a few that looked fun, but I haven’t tried one yet. I did consider a meme that required one word answers to all the questions… Nuff said – not happening here. And I forgot to keep track of where I saw others that caught my attention. So even though I want to try one out – I don’t actually have one…

My good friend Nancy (who really needs a blog by the way), pointed out that one of my advertisers, Tea, will be launching their own blog this Fall, and they’re looking for “writers interested in conversation about raising little citizens of the world.” As someone who has always loved to travel (one of the highlights of my entire existence was a business trip to Beijing), I really like this idea. I want my children to be citizens of the world. I want them to have interesting cultural experiences. I want to visit the countries of our great great grandparents. I want to take my family to restaurants that offer both traditional and fusion cuisines from around the world. But there is one problem. Actually there are three, and their names are Oliver, George and Eleanor.

Oliver is three years old and George and Eleanor are still a few months away from two. So they’re not really the best candidates for intercontinental travel and fine dining. There were six questions posed to us as writers for subject matter in potential blog contributions. I found that I could not only NOT answer them, I couldn’t really imagine how ANYONE with children small enough to wear Tea designs could possibly contribute to such a discussion.

So I’m creating a new meme. It’s called Citizens of the World. Here are the questions and my answers:

Q: Do you know great places to travel abroad with kids?

A: We have no experience in traveling as a family outside of the U.S. but I believe my husband’s take on our flight to Boston for a wedding was “never again.” I don’t think that Paris will be our next destination.

Q: Do you remember what your child thought the first time he/she tried sushi?

A: My children don’t eat anything that isn’t breaded and/or doesn’t involve cheese. So unless someone can come up with a sushi grilled cheese combo – I just don’t think I can answer this question.

Q: Are you celebrating cultural traditions with your family?

A: Well…unless you count doing take out pizza for dinner every Tuesday (HEY – I’m ¼ Italian), then no.

Q: Do you have a funny or memorable story about an international adventure?

A: YES! Where do I start? Oh wait – you mean with the kids. Yeah – no.

Q: Is your child learning another language?

A: My children can barely speak English at this point. But Oliver can count to five in Spanish thanks to all of the TV watching. Yeah Dora!

Q: What are your favorite children’s books that feature images or stories from around the world?

A: Okay – this is a little more in the realm of possibility for us. An all time favorite book in our house is one from my own childhood bookshelf: Come Over to My House written by Theo LeSieg and illustrated by Richard Erdoes. An American boy visits children all over the world and gets to see where and how they live. It’s adorable, surprisingly inoffensive considering that it was written over 40 years ago and has great illustrations and memorable rhyming text.

The truth is – I’m just being snarky. These questions are perfectly reasonable for people who have to travel frequently as a means of visiting family, people who have one child, people who have really well behaved children that are great at entertaining themselves for long periods of time (it could happen), and people who may not travel but do a lot of cultural things within their cities and really make the effort to teach their children about other countries and cultures.

I would like to be this person – but I’m usually such a mess trying to keep up with our daily routine that I’m lucky if I can get everyone to eat one bite of a vegetable. Exotic foods are out of the question. And like I said – air travel with three toddlers is exhausting (for everyone). Small children tend to prefer routine and my kids are perfect examples of that. Sleeping in a new room in a new place translates either to them sleeping in my bed with me or me sleeping in their beds with them. And neither is particularly restful.

But the idea of this is actually very interesting and also motivating. I do want to expose my children to other cultures and encourage them to be inquisitive and curious about how the rest of the world lives. I want them to travel and have those once in a lifetime experiences that I did. I’m not willing to pack them all up for a once in lifetime trip to Beijing right now (that would definitely be “once in a lifetime” since I don’t think any of us would survive the trip). But I can take them to Chinatown. Hey – we used to take Oliver out for dim sum all the time before he decided that he wouldn’t anything that wasn’t covered in melted cheese. So maybe I do have some stories to tell.

I’m challenging myself on this one. I’m gong to come up with a post to submit. Even if it’s not used, I’ll feel more inspired to try new things with my kids and contribute to their illustrious future as citizens of the world. Everyone is invited to join in – I’d love to see the posts you submit. And also feel free to use my meme. It’s not exactly what I had had in mind – but sometimes you have to get out of those same-old same-old patterns and try something different.

More Star Wars Underwear, an Entire Chocolate Chip Pound Cake and Various and Sundry Extras

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Since the Darth Vader underwear was such a big hit (and surprisingly drove some traffic to my little blog – wonder what those people were expecting…), I thought it would be a shame not to give Yoda the spotlight.

After putting the twins to bed, I came downstairs to find Oliver, post-potty, sitting at his table, pantsless and playing with Play-Doh. I immediately put some underwear on him and then got inspired to get my camera when he was leaning over. I mean, I’m sorry but a chubby heiney (excuse any misspellings – but this word does not seem to be in spell check) displaying an image of battle-ready Yoda is just screaming to be photographed. Clearly, this can in no way match the black Darth Vader underwear – but it’s pretty awesome nonetheless. Poor Oliver – what did he do to deserve this?

I also thought I’d fulfill my cake related topic for the week by admitting that I have consumed an entire chocolate chip pound cake from Whole Foods over the course of two days. I don’t know what is more disgusting – the fact that I ate the equivalent of a pound of butter or that that I’m wishing that I had purchased two of them…

In case you are doing some online shopping, I thought I’d announce that two companies in my “market place” (i.e. ads for which I get a sales commission – which really just translates into discounted shopping pour moi) are having some good sales right now. First, Tea Collection, one of my favorite baby/kids clothes brands is having a Summer Sale with up to “75% off select items” through July 31. They will also be offering an “Every Day Deal” through the end of July in which one full price item is discounted for one day. And the Pink Olive Boutique is offering a “surprise gift” with a purchase of $50 or more through July 30. Why not July 31? I’m not sure – personally I would have rounded out the full month. You can access both sites from my side bar, and if you feel strongly against me getting a commission, not to worry – you can still get the discounts by going directly to their websites.

Lastly – I thought I’d let you know that someone from Portland Oregon actually found my website today by searching for “how big is a piece of poop” on Google. I’m so honored that I can be found on Google by anyone who would like to know the answer to this thought provoking question. It ties in nicely with my first post about looking for a domain name. So when I’m not amusing myself with domain name searches, I’ll be checking my site’s keyword searches for new and interesting entries. In the meantime, please let me know if you find me with any other poop-related searches. And if I don’t hear from you, have a great weekend!

Kate and Oliver’s Excellent Adventure: Wrap Up

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10:30 p.m. on Sunday, the flight from Miami to Dulles
The Big Piece of Poop

So how was the rest of the trip? Really great actually. Everything was 100% better with Mom home. We had tons of time in the pool, went to see the Key West fireworks right on the water, and even made a second trip to the Butterfly Museum. That last one wasn’t my choice, but Oliver and I happened to be passing by and he got so excited when he saw the sign that I couldn’t say no. What did we have to do anyway? It’s not like we had previous engagements.

The only problem with these great experiences (butterflies, fireworks) is that Oliver doesn’t understand that we can’t do them whenever the mood strikes us – like we can jump in the pool, watch the Wiggles or rip off our clothes and run around naked (that would be him, not me – must be something about Key West, I had a hell of a time trying to keep clothes on that boy). So the morning after we went to the Butterfly Museum, he marched out of the bedroom and said, “butterflies please!” And of course, if we got into the car to do something really fun like buy groceries or pick my Dad up at the shop, he would be convinced that we were going to see butterflies. Then the same thing happened after we saw the fireworks. He just couldn’t understand why we weren’t racing down to the pier to catch the next showing.

I think that the Fourth of July fireworks may have been the most exciting event that Oliver has ever attended. And even with the crowds and last minute plans, it all went quite smoothly. Although we did have a slight delay in our leave time due to Oliver having a “number two” accident in his pull up. Anyone who has used pull ups with their kids will know that they are not engineered to accommodate much more than a pee pee accident. If the pull up isn’t positioned perfectly on Oliver’s fairly impressive backside, the coverage isn’t quite adequate. Basically, not only did I have to clean up the messy pull up, I had to clean up a little mess on the floor. At least I knew about it and handled it before Oliver could “help.” It never ceases to amaze me how someone who has zero inclination to pick up his toys will suddenly become my best helper when there is poop on the floor. And let me tell you, you haven’t lived until someone walks over and hands you a piece of poop.

Sorry about all of the poop talk, but it’s a minor miracle that I’ve managed to write this blog for the past two weeks without mentioning poop. It’s like the real theme of my life right now with two toddlers in diapers and one preschooler potty training. I should have named my blog “The Big Piece of Poop.” Okay – enough about that – even I’m grossed out, and I’ve actually let my kids puke in my hand.

Back to the fireworks – it was spectacular. Matt stayed home with Mom, so it was just Dad, Oliver and me. Oliver had never seen them in person before, so we weren’t sure if the loud noises would scare him. They didn’t, but he did seem to get a kick out of putting his hand on his head and saying “ouch – hurt my head.” Not sure where that came from – but as long as he was happy, I was content to say, “oh no – are you okay?” (which is the expected scripted response). One thing that struck us as rather odd was that he insisted on calling the fireworks “addition.” The minute they started, he was exclaiming, “Oh look – addition!” After a few questions about what he meant, we just went with it and said, “wow – addition! Look at that one!” My mother figured it out the next day – she asked if he could be saying “magician.” I didn’t think so – it would be more likely that he’d just say magic or hocus pocus. But when I asked, “Oliver, can you say magician,” he gave me a huge smile and said, “addition!” My mother is the original Baby Whisperer.

One other interesting incident from the Fourth is that as we were leaving our parking place, we were accused by the driver behind us of hitting his front bumper. My father was driving, so I would be the first one to ask if he did hit the other car, as well as become skeptical if informed that he did not. But I was in the passenger seat and can attest to the fact that I did not feel anything that resembled significant impact. Okay – here is the interesting part. When the angry man came over to our car to complain, my father just looked at him and said, “no, I didn’t hit your car.” When the man animatedly pointed behind him and said that both he and his wife felt it and he could see the mark on his bumper, my father said, “no, I did no such thing.” And then we drove away. Now if it were me driving, I would have been outside comparing bumper scratches and arguing about whether the man’s scratch was silver (like our car) or in fact white. I would be trying to smooth things over, worrying about what those people thought of me and beginning to question whether I may have actually backed into them without noticing it…. But not my Dad. He just says, “no idea what you’re talking about,” and drives away. It was just that easy. This really gives me a new perspective on my overwhelming sense of responsibility in the world. I may just adopt this novel attitude. Tell me that my membership expired last year? I’m sorry but your computer must be mistaken. Claim that I didn’t give you the full payment due? You must be wrong, since that was definitely a $20 that I handed you. Ask me why there is a big piece of poop on the floor? Poop? What poop?

We had a lazy weekend of long walks and swimming. Dad taught Oliver to blow bubbles in the water and do a sort of underwater half swim – redeeming himself for instigating that “push grandpa in the pool” game. And we even all went out to dinner on Saturday night. I’m really going to miss everyone when we get home. We had a terrible reason to have a wonderful time. But as I’ve said before, we’re taking things one day at a time and only considering one outcome in which Mom will be well again. In the meantime, I’ll have to bring the twins down to see her since she won’t be able to come to us in August as we had planned. And I can’t wait to see those little guys! I may have to wake them up when I get home.

9:30 a.m. first morning back at home
We’d Like to Welcome You [Back] to Munchkin Land

I am SO tired. I knew that I’d need to take a personal health day to catch up before heading back to work tomorrow – but I had no idea how much I’d need it. We didn’t get in until midnight, didn’t get all of our bags (need to deal with that today) and didn’t get to bed until almost 2 a.m.

This morning I was welcomed home by George and Eleanor who appear to have aged about five years over the past week. I forgot how chaotic they make things. I let Oliver sleep in so I was alone with the kids after Chris left for work, and the twins didn’t stop moving or talking for a second. And they have both added many new words and phrases to their repetoire while I was gone.

Eleanor has been my naysayer for a long time now. The answer to any question will always be “no.” “Do you want a waffle?” “No.” “Do you want to color?” “No.” ”What are you reading?” “No.” “Why do you have a diaper on your head?” “No.” Chris said that he worked on this with her over the weekend, and every time she said “no,” he would say, “yes.” So after a while, she caught on and started to work “yes” into her answers. Unfortunately, she’s now just combining the two, and instead of saying “no” will say “no-yes.” We’ll have to teach her to be more decisive before she starts dating…

George wanted to wake up his big brother, so I let the twins run into Oliver’s room when it was time for him to get up. They just climbed up on his little bed and made a toddler pile. It’s not easy to wake Oliver up in the morning. His circadian rhythms seem to run along the lines of staying up late and sleeping late (if you consider 7:30 a.m. late) – so I often feel like I’m trying to get a teenager out of bed in the morning. He pulls the covers over he head, rolls over and whispers, “sweeping” (which means “sleeping”). But he couldn’t resist his little brother poking him in the eye. Yes – it was just too much fun. So the three had a big roughhousing reunion with joyous shouts of “Oller!” from the twins and delighted giggles from their big brother. I’m so happy to be home with my little people.

Kate and Oliver’s Excellent Adventure: Part II (continued)

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9:30 a.m. at the Key West Butterfly & Nature Conservatory
Butterfly Sanctuary

With Mom coming home and the holiday weekend, I probably won’t have another post until Monday. But I did want to get a short one in today since we did something that we ALWAYS do in Key West. We went to the Key West Butterfly & Nature Conservatory. Oliver and I make a point of visiting the “butterfly museum” (that’s what I call it – Oliver just says “BUTTERFLY!”) whenever we come down to Key West. My brother and I first went several years ago before I had kids, and it was totally surreal. We walked in and immediately started laughing. It was like we had been transported to a scene in a Disney movie, with clouds of colorful butterflies flitting to and fro everywhere we looked. And Oliver has now been three times. Last year when he was two, he called them “bah-whys” and I have video of him storming around pointing and saying this over and over. Today was more of the same – but he can actually say “butterfly.”

The butterflies are hard to take pictures of when they are flying, but there were some opportunities for still shots. I probably shouldn’t have let Oliver roll around on the ground like that – but whatever. I’ve had to stop him from licking the floor before, so looking at a butterfly didn’t seem so bad. At one point a big blue one landed on his shoulder (no good pictures of this unfortunately), and he spent the rest of the time we were there trying to coax another one to do the same. He didn’t have that much success with his technique which mainly entailed lunging at them with his shoulder thrust forward and shouting, “BUTTERFLY!”

A couple of friendly butterflies followed us out. Just kidding – they make sure nothing like that happens, but they do give you little paper butterflies to stick to your shirt. I’m not sure that Oliver made the differentiation – he was so thrilled. But then again, I hope he eventually did since by the time we reached our next destination, his paper butterfly was ripped to shreds.

Incidentally, this is what I look like when I’m in Key West. No makeup, tee shirt and flip flops, hair either air dried or just frizzy in the humidity. Okay, so that’s generally what I look like every weekend in the summer heat – but I do put in a little more effort for the office!