Express Yourself

Remember in school when they said you should not wear hair-dos, clothing, shoes or accessories that might distract other students or be disruptive to the school program??

Wyatt wore this to preschool last week:

four beaded necklaces

one scorpion necklace

two green sweat bands

one Batman pin

two friendship bracelets

one Superman/Batman cape

one green CTR wristband

I'm not sure. Do you think this would count??

Nicknames

If someone was to ask me if I had a nickname, I’d probably have to say “Twiny” or “Twinner”. Nothing super imaginative. It probably originated simply from somebody not knowing what twin I was. Austin’s nickname is “Dawg”. He was called that all throughout High School and on all his sports teams. I’ll have to ask him how that came about. His dad still calls him that and all his high school buddies. It's kinda cute to see him get together with all his buddies and hear them call him that. You might catch us calling Dax “Daxy-pie” or “Daximus”. Wyatt we like to call “Wy-man”. Again, nothing too creative or special, but fun nonetheless. However, Quinn by far wins for best (and longest) nickname in our family. She was nicknames by Dax and it caught on in an instant. You can hear the boys call her this many, many, many times a day. Here she is...
Quinner-Winner-Chicken-Dinner-Had-A-Wife-Who-Couldn’t-Keep-Her-Put-Her-In-A-Pumpkin-Shell-And-There-She-Kept-Her-Very-WellSee? Pure awesomeness.
Side note: Her hair is still as wild as ever. The first picture just cracks me up to see it all spread out.

Baths

I am going to make a confession. Please don’t judge.

One of my New Year’s resolutions was to bathe the boys at least three times a week. If I use the words “at least” three times a week, you’re safe to assume that I was not bathing them prior to the New Year three times a week. And, I’d probably have to correct you if you thought I was bathing them twice. See? Embarrassing. Prior to the New Year the boys were more often than not once a week bath takers. Gross, I know. Without a doubt they needed baths more than that. But I hate bath time. We don’t use the word hate in our house, but for this one time only, I’m allowing it. I. Hate. Bath time.

Most moms probably love it. The kids play and it might give them a chance to put laundry away, finish dinner, do a quick clean, really anything. In our house, this was not the case at all. The boys fought me on getting in the bath each and every time. Once I would convince them to get in, one boy would complain the water would be too hot, the other boy would complain it was too cold, one boy would take up too much room, the other boy couldn’t stretch out, that boy had the toy the other one wanted, this boy would splash that boy in the face with water…and on and on and on. If I would leave the bathroom for five seconds I would come back to a pool of water on the tile floor. They hated (oops, used that word again) to get washed and they disliked getting their hair washed even more. So, we moved to taking showers. That was a disaster. Then we moved to one boy in the bath and one boy in the shower. I was running back and forth like a mad woman while Quinn laid in the middle of the floor wondering what the heck was going on and why I wasn’t holding her. Bath time always lead to fighting, tears and someone getting hurt. Too much drama for me at the end of the day and right before bedtime, so I basically gave up. Ridiculous.

And so I had little, dirty boys who may have got a “wet-wipe” wipe down at the end of the day if they were lucky. Austin was appalled. But he wasn’t here to give them baths and so he couldn’t make me.

But the New Year brought about resolutions, so I set mine within reach. Three baths per week. I am happy to report, so far this has been obtained. And in some cases, exceeded. What?! I don’t know what happened. It was like a magic flip was switched on in 2012. They even ask for baths now. There is no fighting, no complaining and minimal water on the floor. And best of all….clean, handsome (funny-faced)boys.

Rice Not So Nice

In my baby album I have a classic baby picture. It's the one where there is food, probably some form of chocolate, pudding or cake (or who knows; maybe all three), all over my face. In my hair. In my ears. Covering my orange terrycloth bib. I can picture it perfectly. I couldn't have been more than one. And I looked a hot mess. A total raggamuffin. To say my blonde hair was no longer blonde would probably be an understatement. I'm sure some intense washing and bathing were required to get me clean. I'm sitting in an 80's style highchair, in a brown and orange kitchen all alone. It's really quite sad to think about it. Where were all my sisters? I was never far from my twin. Where was she? Or my mom? Come to think of it, Jamie probably has the same picture in her album somewhere too. My mom was big on making sure every picture she took of us as baby's we weren't always together, which in retrospect was good thinking. But that created a problem in and of it self because we still have a pile of pictures to this day that we can't tell which twin is which. I am positive there are pictures of just Jamie in my album and pictures of me in hers. Regardless, I laugh every time I see this picture (whether it's actually me or not). The story goes, that my older sister Nicole was feeding me/us that day. A super nice gesture to serve her younger sisters. But let's remember, if I was only about one, she was only about three. And my mom had let her loose with a spoon to feed us. What was she thinking??

I guess as a mom with three of my own, I understand now. When I told the boys that we were able to feed Quinn rice cereal, they were ecstatic. They didn't want my help. They wanted the spoon. So I grabbed my camera. She wasn't impressed with the mush. They only got about three bites in her mouth which she promptly pushed right back out. We haven't been successful since. I think I'll wait a few more months and let them have another go at it. In the meantime I'll check with my mom to see if she can remember what that chocolate goodness was. That'll be fun to recreate. Oh, and lucky for us, grandma is close to do the baths.

Day To Day

I told Austin the other day that I was going to start a quote book. By the time I see him at the end of the day, I can hardly remember all that has gone on, let alone the things the boys and I talk about, their sweet words (or not so sweet), the way they played with Quinn and the day to day happenings in our life. You see, Austin works. A lot. This year, in less than a week, he's starting school again. It'll be an accelerated, intense 18-month program. 15 weeks on. 1 week off. For 75 weeks. Sounds brutal, right? I know it will be. Thankfully, I think the kids are small enough that they won't ever remember this stage in their life. But Austin will. And I know it breaks his heart that he probably won't see the kiddos some days. That they will be sleeping when he leaves and already in bed when he gets home. That he'll miss their funny words or tiny milestones. Or, their school performances, first steps and riding on two wheels. It makes me so sad to think about. But, I know this sacrifice he is making is for our family. It will be so worth it in the end.
So, when I mentioned a quote book, he reminded me about this somewhat abandoned blog. He said that this was the way he wanted to hear and see about our day.
Deep breath.
It's hard for me to work from home on my computer 6 hours a day, and then put even more time in to blog. But here I am. Posting a picture of Wyatt, doing what he does best. Playing Batman. It pretty much goes without saying that we play some form of Batman everyday. Every. Single. Day. Batman meets Cars. Batman meets Dinosaurs. Batman meets Trio blocks. Whatever it is, Batman is sure to "meet" us.
It might not be very exciting for you to see our every day life. In fact, things are pretty uneventful. But I know it'll make a difference in Austin's day. And that's who we're doing it for.

2012

Happy New Year! Here's to a year full of love, happiness, friendship, joy...and more pig tails!