Goofballs

As my kids start to go to school, classes, camps, parties, and playdates, I am starting to get feedback that gives me a sense of how others perceive my kids. People view some kids as smart, some kind, some funny, some pretty, mean, athletic, creative--you know what I mean.

So what do they think of C and D? They are funny. Their teachers at school tell me they are the funniest kids in the class--they have the teachers and other kids laughing all day long. Their gymnastics teacher calls them "the Giggle Girls" and their swimming teacher has been known to remind C that "You can't laugh and swim at the same time." Other parents often tell me that C and D "crack them up."

Sometimes the Alpha Mom in me worries that they need to be a little more focused at times (I was watching them in gymnastics one day and D was running around being the goof of the class. in the middle of one of her antics she stopped, turned around, grinned at me and yelled, "Hi Mommy!" For a second I considered pretending I didn't know her). But I have asked their teachers if their goofiness makes them disruptive and--maybe they are lying to me--but they generally say that they are very well behaved, that they are just being 3 year olds, and at most they sometimes need a little redirection. And if being goofy makes them enjoy things like swimming, gymnastics, soccer, etc. then I'm all for it.

So, while I don't think you can read too much into anything your kids do at this age (good or bad), I've decided that being funny is a pretty good thing. I mean who doesn't want to be funny?!

And unlike other things, funny lasts a lifetime.

Then again, maybe people just think that the girls dress funny.

Overheard

C and D are playing "Oski basketball." In this game, one person is the band, one person is the basketball team, and one person is the cheerleader. When I join they usually ask me to be the band and they switch off doing the other two positions. This morning it was just the two of them, and D was the team and C was the band. They were playing for awhile when I hear C run down the hall. As she's running she yells,


"I'm sorry Dylan, but the band has to go poop."

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C and D were sharing whatever toys they were playing with...

D: "We make great sisters Charwotte! Because we share. And sisters share with each other and take care of each other." (That's the sound of my heart melting)

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I had asked C and D to give me some quiet time in my room while I fed L before bed. D cracks the door open and yells in. I can't tell who it is--I just see this big grin.

Me: (angry) "Who is that?!"
D: (huge devilish grin) "It's Charwotte."

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Our apartment is very long and C and D don't really like to go back to one end by themselves. C had to get something in her room. I hear her go up to D:

C: "Do you love me?"
D: "Sure."
C: "Then will you go with me to the back?"
D: (with a sigh that sounded a little too much like me) "Charwotte, I love you, but I really don't want to go back there with you."
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C and D are goofing off in their room. I go in to see what is going on. They didn't like the interruption.

C: "Mom, don't deal with me!"

Youth Trip

Last night Andrew and I went to see Tainted Love with the Glotzbachs. (If we ever hit the big time we're hiring this band for an event). It was awesome---so fun to actually remember what it is like to go out and dance all night long. I felt like I was back in Pinecrest with my family, when my sister Roey called everything "nasty" and thought she was the bomb as she listened to Madonna's first album on her Sony Walkman. She thought D, M and I were so lame, and we thought that only made her cooler.

Although Andrew was like 7 when most of these songs came out, he seemed to enjoy it just as much as us old folk (maybe it was the Jack).

Good times.

LBD: 5 Months: Roll Baby Roll

Lila B is five months old. We all call her "Chubu." At 16lb, 13oz she is still 90th percentile for weight. That being said, I think her growth is slowing a bit. It is so weird to have all the comments about your child's size be about how big she is. (And for the record, it feels better than when people say how tiny your babies are).

Lila is: sweet, cuddly, easygoing, happy, smiley, easy, friendly, and just plain scrumptious. Maybe it is having just one baby or maybe it is just her, but 90% of the time she is a pleasure. She is just so happy to get attention that she smiles and gurgles right back at you, yet she is also pretty easily occupied by other things. About the only thing about her that isn't always easy is nighttime sleeping--for a fat baby she really should be more consistent with her nighttime wakings. But we are working on it.

She rolled over for the first time at about 4.5 months. I didn't even see it--I just came back in the room and found her on her stomach. She did that maybe two more times until a few days ago. And for the past few days it has been rollmania. I put her on her back and she almost immediately rolls herself to her front. The only problem is that she doesn't like tummy time. So she kind of gets this like "what the #$&*? Not again!" look. It cracks me up.

Other tidbits about LBD: She loves it when you sing wheels on the bus to her (especially the "doors" phrase). She also loves "the lady's horse goes trot trot trot"--it makes her giggle. She spits up A LOT. And she is fascinated by her sisters. (And yes, I need to take better pictures of her next month).

5/20

If I could talk to my dad tonight, I'd tell him that his granddaughters know this about him:

• That he used to do "up, down, all around" to dry me off after a bath when I was a little girl (now they like me to do it to them).
  


• That once, when he was little, he went searching through the cabinets to find apple juice. Since he couldn't read yet he gulped down cider vinegar instead.



• That Uncle Mikie and cousins Michael and Charlie Michael are named after him.



• That on weekends he sometimes made me pancakes with chocolate chip smiley faces.


• That Uncle Daniel looks a lot like him.



• That he loved football, especially the Raiders.



• That he liked to watch the Kentucky Derby.



• That he used to sing "Sweet Baby James" and "Sloop John B" to us when we were little.
  


• That he lives in heaven, and that before they were in my belly, they 'played with Grandpa Michael' up in heaven.



• That he got to heaven by being really kind and good.



• That I miss him very much.

I might also tell him that the older I get the younger he died.

C's winning horse, with a "blanket of roses" on him.

Girl Time

This past weekend I got to escape up to Sonoma with my college girlfriends. I took Lila and Andrew hung with the 'big girls.' Although it wasn't a complete escape from parenting, it was A) so great to hang out with such amazing women, and B) wonderful to have some alone time with Lila. Lila was overjoyed to get so much attention. I had never spent so much time with one child before, and I have to admit, it made me a little sad I never got to experience the ease of parenting one child.

Here are some pics of us girls and a few of Lila enjoying herself on the swing.

And here is a pic of D and C at Train Town with their favorite person.

C being Me

Occasionally C or D gets preoccupied with something the other one is doing. Lately I've had to say things like: "Don't worry about Dylan, just take care of yourself"; "Charlotte can make her own choices and it doesn't affect you" or some other annoying phrase that I hated hearing as a kid. You get the point.

This morning I was going through the typical (and endless) routine of getting us out of the house. Since D still has occasional accidents I always make her use the bathroom before we leave.

Me: "Dylan you need to go to the bathroom before we leave."

C: (With characteristic hand motions sort of like a symphony conductor) "Mommy, it's Dylan's pee. It's not your pee. So you can't worry about it."




"It's her pee.

Current Family Favorite

With a little prodding (and a few tears) Miss Lila B has gone from waking up every 1.5 hours to sleeping 10-11 hours a stretch. Her wake up time is slowing creeping up from 6am to 4:30 last night, but hey, Rome wasn't built in a day. I don't mind one wake up, in fact I kind of like the one on one time I get with her. So I'll probably wait a bit before I really push her to sleep 12 hours each night. But I desperately needed more sleep, and now I feel like I have a new lease on life.

And (drum roll please)....she rolled over today!!

At least she's honest

Usually preschool is like a black box. I try to get something out of them in terms of what happened during the day but most of the time it remains a mystery until I talk to one of the teachers.

Today I got a little information...and a nugget of truth.

C: "David threw sand in my face."

Me: "Did you cry?"

C: "No, but there was a lot of whining."

Motherhood Musings

In years past I think I was still settling into the idea of motherhood. Maybe it is the third kid, maybe it is the pending minivan purchase, or maybe it is the 'boyfriend jeans' that I have been living in that sometimes look a little like "mom jeans" (thank you Mrs. Cruise, btw--fabricated though you may be, at least you gave me an excuse for wearing jeans that allow me to hide my birthing butterfly wings for a bit), but for some reason this year I felt like it was made for me. Not in the "I'm a great mother and so you should thank me" sense, but more in the "I need any excuse to slack off for a day" kinda way.

In the end though, I didn't slack off that much. I got to sleep in, even though C and D woke up for some reason at 6, because Andrew slept on the floor with them for an hour!

Then I got to go to a Bar Method class, which is a huge treat for me as I never get to go anymore (and thank you A for the gift certificate there!). After that we actually split the girls up to do some errands. In the afternoon Andrew and I hired a babysitter and went to see a movie. Yes folks, that was what I wanted to do more than anything else...sit and veg in a movie. We had actually had a full 3 nights of socializing prior to that, which is probably a record for us. So a day of relaxing a bit was great.

But I did think a little about motherhood. And while there is nothing I can say that hasn't been said already, let me just say that the words that kept coming back to me were "amazing, exhausting, frightening." Lately I am so frightened about whether or not I'm actually doing a good job. And I'm not looking for reassurance, I'm just being honest. How do you find the balance between surviving the day and shaping individuals while at the same time keeping yourself sane and married? Sometimes it just seems like too daunting of a task.

So I stopped thinking about that because it made my brain hurt, and I decided to start thinking about my mother. And how grateful I am to have her--the most selfless person I have ever met-- as my mother. And how much I appreciate her now--all that she does for me today and all that she did for me way back when. And how much my girls adore her. And at the very least it gave me a little hope that my kids will appreciate my attempts at parenting someday.

Since it is technically "my day," I thought I'd post my current favorite pictures of each member of my family.

Here is C. She's headed back for another run on the slip n slide in Houston. I love this picture because she has her face and chin jutting out and her shoulders are a little slumped. It is a very "C" pose and to me it shows a mix of determination and goofiness. The little bum sticking out is how she walks--with a little feminine bum sashaying.

Here is D, all dressed up to 'swim' in her room. As her preschool 'review' said, D has a certain "joie de vivre" about her. And this pic gives a little hit of it I think.

Here is Lila B. I like this recent pic because I imagine all the thoughts that might be going through her developing brain. It has a sort of "oh the places you'll go" feeling about it, at least for me. And I love the spit bubbles too.
And last but never least, "Daddy Waddy." This is a self portrait A sent to C and D because he forgot to wave to them from the street as he left in the morning. I like it for more reasons than I could explain without getting sappy, so I'll just give two: because he was even willing to do it just to make C/D happy, and because when C saw it she waved excitedly back at my iphone for 3 minutes.

The post that will horrify MacKenzie

C in a Peeps shirt/mermaid/Raiders get up

C

Yes I let them go to school like this (D in full giraffe look, including the shorts you can't see)

For some reason, D thinks that this is the way she is supposed to wear this giraffe headband. I can't bear to tell her otherwise.

D in a rare dress that isn't a giraffe
D in the ever-present fish shirt
Thanks for the Raiders outfits Uncle Mikie!!
Classic D
D is all ready for the senior shuffleboard tournament on the top deck

I am not sure I really ever thought about how I would dress my daughters if I had them. Now that I have them, I have to admit I look at the way my girls dress with some combination of surprise, embarrassment, and pride. Surprise because I don't know how it all really happened, embarrassment because, well, the pictures speak for themselves, and pride because I feel like somewhere along the way I am allowing them to be themselves and holding off conformity for as long as possible. Depending on the situation a different emotion wins out.

I'm guessing that if I saw my children and they weren't my children I'd think they were disasters. But since I can make a lot of things I do feel like the right thing, I'll tell you the justifications I've concocted so far. They are as follows:
-- They dress themselves--that alone makes it worth the outcome.

--They get to support their teams. I want them to be sports fans (even if they aren't my teams). See below.

--They are never self conscious about what they are wearing, and they don't judge other people's clothes either. I'm sure they will do all these things someday, but why rush it? You are only 3 once.

--They get to develop personal styles. I keep hoping this is how Gwen Stefani or Vera Wang started out. : )

--I've got 3 girls. I want to push off the princess phase as long as possible.

--I've got 3 girls. One of them usually looks kinda cute.

--I've got 3 girls. I can't afford for them to be clothes horses.

--Have you ever seen that chick from the real wives of new jersey? With the 3 girls that she dresses up like show dogs? I've never seen the show but i saw a preview once and it was enough to scare me.

Then again, maybe I'm just lazy. That or I've become too crunchy for my own good. Only time will tell.

P.S. There is one thing I know though---if it weren't for my family my girls would be naked and unhappy. Thank you to my sister for all the things she has bought them and made them...yes made them. From the peeps shirt to the skirts to the big sis shirts, you are our personal Rachel Zoe. Uncle Mikie gave them the Raiders outfits that make them fit right in at IHOP, and of course D would be naked w/o all the Cal stuff my mom and chris have bought her. And that's just to name a few things. Seriously, thank you family!!

PPS. MacKenzie raises a great point... I absolutely will FREAK if they go goth when they get older. Punky Brewster I can handle, Kelly Osbourne I cannot. And they layering thing may also be the result of living in a freaking cold city. Like today--they want to wear shorts but have to wear leggings underneath because it is so cold! They are so used to wearing long sleeve shirts and leggings, etc. that when the weather is warm they don't know what to do with themselves.

Beach Blanket Babylon

C and D love to swim. They even love to swim when they aren't in the water. One of their favorite games to play is "swim lessons." They get all dressed up in their swim gear, go into their rooms, and "swim across the pool." They often ask me to be Kyle, their teacher. Witness the fun (and I know, their room looks like a prison cell. I didn't decorate it because I'd planned to give them big kid beds, but since I know with twins that means the end of the nap, I'm holding out as long as I can). At the pool (c in purple)
At home (D in blue)