Done

I am officially done with winter.

I am done with hats, gloves, snow boots, and scarves.
I am done with worrying about colds and flus (and the yucky strep infection that seems to have attacked several adults in my neighborhood).
I am done with washing my hands ninety times a day to prevent spreading germs.
I am done with sniffles and runny noses that the older kids are all too willing to pass on to the babies.

I'm ready for fat babies in swimsuits, sundresses, and shorts.
I'm ready for the kids to play for hours in the backyard (and not track snow into the house afterward).
I'm ready for family walks in the evening.
I'm ready to leave the windows open all day long.


Are you done, too?

Entitlement

I think often about my children and their sense of entitlement. They always seem to think they need dessert with dinner, a treat when we go shopping, and so on. The fact that we rarely give in to their demands doesn't seem to stifle their whining requests.

The other day while I was getting the boys their lunch, I came across a treat I had stashed away from prying eyes. All of a sudden, I realized that maybe, just maybe, the kids aren't the only ones in the house with entitlement issues.

I love treats, as evidenced by my post a few weeks ago. And I need to accomplish very little, it appears, to feel like I deserve a treat.

Get the kids in bed without losing my temper? That's worth a handful of M&Ms.
Get the kids in bed and only lose my temper once? Two M&Ms.
Survive a long day with the kids? Two cookies.
Survive a long day with the kids while my husband's out of town? Two donuts.
Lose five pounds? Get a new shirt and a fun treat. (Losing weight is big news--especially with all the treats I'm consuming.)

When I found the treat I had stashed away, I flashed back to when I bought it. I had taken S with me to Wal-mart because she desperately needed new snow boots. The whole time, she was, of course, asking for things. "Can I get a shirt with a heart on it?" "Can you buy me a stuffed animal?" "Can you get me some new lip gloss?" My answer was "no" on all accounts. I also remember saying to her, "I brought you with me so you could try on new boots. What makes you think that means you also get a treat or a toy?"

The shopping excursion took quite long, compounded by the fact that I had to drop off and then pick up a prescription, and also get a sandwich for A at the Subway in-store. Then, I realized S had held a present for a friend all through checkout and I hadn't paid for it. When we went back into Wal-mart to pay for the toy, I looked at the impulse buy treats next to me, and picked up a few. After all, I had survived a long and frustrating grocery trip. I deserved it, right? Right?

And no, I didn't offer anything to S.

I really shouldn't wonder why my children have such entitlement issues. They learned it by watching me.

Also, I'm starting to think I need to examine my treat addiction...

Here comes A2

Either my post last week about N's adventures in crawling embarrassed A2, or else he got tired of his sister climbing over him.Whatever the reason, A2 has begun moving a lot faster in the past few days. I used to be able to put him down and know that it would take him a while to get anywhere, but now those days are gone. This morning, I found both of them, in just their diapers, exploring semi-problematic items in my office. Oh joy. We're in for it now.

A2, the best eater in the whole world.

Sitting up like a big boy.

My sister inspects this bathroom every day. I must go and see it for myself.

Isn't it time to sleep?

When the T-man needs to sleep, he sleeps. Love that about him.

My name is Tennille and I am a sleep nazi. My sleep, my children's sleep, and my husband's sleep (well, I don't worry so much about him--he can fend for himself) are very important to me.

I love that feeling when you first snuggle under the blankets. I love reading a good book whilst snuggling, and finally--finally--relaxing after a long day. I love waking up in the wee hours of the morning and realizing that I get to sleep for another two hours. And I love sleeping in.

When I was applying to college, a survey was included to help them pair you up with roommates. Under hobbies, I wrote "sleeping."

My mother: You can't put sleeping as a hobby.
Me: Why not? I love to sleep.
My mother: You can't do that. You'll get weird roommates.
Me: I don't care.

When I became a mother, I quickly realized that at least some of the things I loved about sleeping had been ripped away from me. Sure, I still actually get to sleep, but the length and quality of the sleeping is sometimes severely diminished. Since I haven't technically slept late in the past eight and a half years, I try to pretend I'm sleeping in on weekends by at least hanging around in my pajamas for a few hours. It's not really the same since I'm still feeding babies, breaking up fights, fixing breakfast, and cleaning up the house, but I like to pretend it is.

Because sleep is important to me, it's even more important to me that my children sleep well. When they sleep, I sleep. We've sleep trained all of our kids, and it's always gone really well. A few nights of crying, and then things calm down and everyone's getting the sleep they need.

Sleep training the twins was a little trickier. They slept in their cribs for naps, but I didn't want them to wake up their siblings at night. I couldn't figure out a way to put them in separate rooms, so we put them in the toy room in separate portacribs. After a few nights, they were sleeping great, and all was as it should be in the 'bee house.

Then one day, my husband said, "Don't you think you should have the twins sleep in their actual beds at night?" What? Why would I want to disrupt the lovely sleeping by putting five kids in two rooms? I know that's the actual plan we set in motion a month and a half ago, but I wasn't sure I was ready for babies to wake up older siblings, and vice versa. And definitely not ready for all of it to wake me up. N must have read my mind, because every time he said that, she would randomly wake up a few times that night and cry, and I would say, "See, they're not ready."

But after a month and a half of setting up two portacribs every night, taking them down every morning, and dragging two monitors and two noise machines up and down stairs every day, I was finally ready to try it.

We've done it for the past week or so and it's gone ok--a few baby cries here and there and a few instances of older brothers thinking their baby brother should wake up and play just a touch earlier than I had planned. (Sunday night, A2 seemed completely unwilling to sleep anywhere but next to me, but that's hopefully an isolated incident.) The real problem is the effect on my sleeping. Every time I hear a sound, I pop my head up--first, to figure out which monitor the sound is coming from; and second, to decide who is making the sound and if the sound warrants action. I turn the monitors down pretty low so I don't hear every movement that five little people make, but I'm still waking up a ton.

I know they'll get used to sleeping together, and I'll get used to the noises, but part of me keeps thinking, "It's not really that big of a deal to have the twins sleep in the toyroom. Maybe I should do it for a little while longer--say, until the babies are a year old. Or maybe two." Cause the sleep nazi in me wants everyone in the house to sleep well, including me. :)

She may be small...

but she's definitely dangerous. N has been crawling for a few weeks now, and already, she's causing problems everywhere she goes. Crawling into the bathroom, crawling into corners, and attempting to crawl up the stairs. On the other hand, A2 will move one leg, then the other, and inevitably, see some small toy or pattern on the rug that he'll inspect for the next 10 minutes.

Don't get me wrong, A2 gets around. He's doing well with the army crawl, and he rolls all over the place. And normally, I wouldn't encourage an almost seven-month-old baby to crawl, but when your pint-sized sister is literally crawling over you (and scratching your face in the process) then it's time to stick up for yourself, buddy.

Taking Superman down.

What? What did I do?

N would like to watch a show, please.

Day of Love

For most of my life, I have not been good friends with Valentine's Day, perhaps because I almost never had a boyfriend on the so-called "day of love."

It started back in high school with the carnations. Everyone could buy carnations that would then be delivered to people on V-day. Red for love, pink for secret admirer, and white for friend. Usually, I'd get one or two white carnations, but never anything else. The cheerleaders were in charge of it, and they usually had bouquets of flowers to parade around with. (My sister was a cheerleader and told me certain girls just took the extra flowers as their own. Nice.) I hated not getting any "cool" carnations, and being reminded of the fact that once again, I didn't have a boyfriend. One year, my friend and I decided to buy each other pink carnations just for fun. It was amusing to have my guy friends pretend they were my secret admirers. Pathetic to know that my admirer was actually my friend April, but whatever.

My apathy toward the holiday continued in college. I would usually spend the day eating candy and hanging out with my roommates (wait--that's what we did every day). I remember that one V-day, we stood in the college bookstore, watching employees blow up those balloons with teddy bears in them so they could be sold to some schmuck who actually thought it would make a good gift for his girlfriend. (Apologies if you have received such a gift and loved it.)

The worst was the year after I graduated. It was the beginning of February and I thought, "Finally, I'm going to have a boyfriend on Valentine's Day." Not so fast. He broke up with me the day before. I think he ended up giving me a card anyway, but I was so ticked about that.

Obviously, I've gotten good gifts from A since I've known him, but there's still a bit of resentment deep inside me toward the holiday, which is probably why I rarely do much in the way of celebrating. Whenever A asks me what I want for V-day, I tell him, "chocolate milk and treats." Yep, my fondness for cheap things extends to every part of my life. He doesn't even need to spring for roses--just a variety of chocolate and my favorite beverage will do just fine.

So, in honor of my least-loved holiday, I thought I'd go through my all-time favorite treats:

DonutsI know, I know. They're about the worst things you can eat, but I don't care. Glazed, sugar, sour cream, cream-filled, fritters, cinnamon rolls--Mmmm. I'm getting hungry for one right now.

Chocolate milk

My favorite is chocolate milk from the store, but Hershey's syrup or even the mix will do in a pinch. Best treat combo ever? Donuts and chocolate milk, of course.

Chocolate-covered cinnamon bearsI never tried these until I lived in the West, but they are divine. Chocolate and cinnamon doesn't sound like the best combination, but oh my goodness, it is.

Peanut M&MsWhile I love all M&Ms (except for the dark chocolate ones--yuck), I love the peanut ones the most. I recently started buying the huge bag when I go to Costco once a month. The first time, it lasted about three weeks. The second time, one week. Oops.

Starburst jelly beansMy mother loves jelly beans, but I could never get that excited about them growing up. Who knew if the green one you picked up was tasty lime or yucky mint? (The same goes for conversation hearts. So few actually taste good.) Then I discovered these little gems. All of them are so delightfully good. They're usually only in stores around Easter, so it's important to stock up when you see them.

Cadbury mini eggs

These are also only around during Easter, and they can get pricey, so you have to shop around. When you find a good deal, stock up. Also, never mistake the Cadbury creme eggs for the Cadbury mini eggs. Big difference. One is good. One is not.

Another set of twins?

No, not another set of actual twins around here (thank goodness!) but when T got his hair cut recently, we realized that we have two boys who look a ton alike. With T's usual mop of hair, we hadn't noticed it as much. Now, I call them by the wrong names even more than I did before. :)

Oh no you didn't!

Yesterday, after taking H to school, I brought the twins inside and deposited them (in their carseats) on the kitchen floor. I told T to finish his juice from lunch while I brought the empty garbage can back inside the garage and got the mail from the mailbox. I was gone for about two minutes total. When I came back inside, T was sitting in a corner of the living room by the piano, as if he was hiding. When I asked him what was wrong, he said, "My pants are wet." I asked him if he had peed or just spilled juice on them. He said he had spilled. When he stood up, I saw that it was a tiny spot of juice. "No big deal," I said.

While N was still in her carseat, I tried to get her to drink the last of her bottle (a common occurrence around here). I noticed there was a small stain on her blanket. Then I realized I was standing in a puddle (luckily, I didn't have socks on--I hate that). I quickly surmised that my darling three year-old boy must have drunk his juice standing next to his sister and then spilled (most likely while leaning into her seat to "talk to her"). There was juice on two blankets, all over her clothes, the floor, on the carseat fabric, on the carseat itself, and leaked through the cracks in the carseat onto the floor.

Now, if it had just been water, it wouldn't have bugged me. I would have still had to change N's clothes, but water dries. Water does not stain. Water is not sticky. But he wasn't drinking water. He was drinking juice (a rare occurrence around here). So, after sending T to timeout, I stripped N down to her diaper, and then stripped the carseat fabric off the base, all the while lecturing T that his poor choice (not sitting down at the table) meant more work for me.

Perhaps I'm the only one, but taking off the carseat fabric, washing it, and putting it back on is one of the truly annoying tasks in my book. Usually it's a puking incident, so I can't get the fabric off quickly enough. Fast forward to later when it's clean, and I'm suddenly staring at a seat that I have no idea how to put back together. I'll pull out the not-so-handy manual and spend forever staring, pulling, and maneuvering, until it seems to be right. There are seats that I don't think have ever been the same after a puking episode.

Luckily for me, I have a matching set of carseats--given to me by my wonderful family before the twins were born. Incidentally, have I ever mentioned my love for these seats? I've never had cute carseats before, and I love how pretty they are.


Anyway, when it was time to put N's seat back together, I just used A2's seat for a much handier guide. :)

Because I said so

When I was growing up, I hated it when my mom didn't have a reason for saying no. Or, as it seemed to me at the time, a silly reason. I remember promising myself (I think I even wrote it down in my journal) that I would always explain my reasons for saying no to my kids. If I wasn't going to let them play with their friends or watch a movie or whatever, I would have a good reason for doing so.

Umm, yeah--not so much.

When asked the question, "why?" I often find myself saying, "Because I said so!" It really is a pretty terrible reason and doesn't do anything to explain to your kid why they can't have a friend over or another cookie. But what I realize now (and failed to realize as a child) is that after telling your child fifteen different times why he or she isn't allowed to do whatever it is, and you're still met with resistance, whining, and quite possibly screaming, the only answer you're left with is, "Because I said so." Other times, my reasons sound lame in my own head ("I'm tired and I don't feel like watching you and your friends right now") and so I just go back to the old standby. Basically what we're saying as moms is, "That's the way it's going to be and there's nothing you can do about it and I'm the mom and you're not and I make the rules, so there." It just sounds nicer to say, "Because I said so."

Sorry that I didn't get that sooner, Mom. I do now.