Grammar

Is there no one left who cares about grammar? About comma splices, colons, and who vs. whom? And the all-important apostrophes (so very rarely used correctly, even on billboards and signs)? And while we're at it, it's "I could NOT care less" not "I could care less"—I can't tell you how many times I've heard that and inwardly cringed. I've even heard it on TV shows and movies!

I know the group of people who honestly care about using correct grammar is rather small, but sometimes, I seriously feel like I'm the only one in the bunch. On Saturday, I went to see "Disney on Ice: Princess Classics" with S and my two sisters-in-law. The play itself was somewhat long, but we had a really fun day overall, especially since we wore princess crowns the whole time. Watching S's face light up at every new thing in the production was well worth it. When asked which part was her favorite, she said, "All of it!"

But back to grammar: During the Snow White segment, the evil queen was doing her bit in front of the magic mirror. At one point, the magic mirror said, "Snow White is more fairer than you."

I immediately looked around to see if anyone else had noticed the grammar snafu. Anyone? Anyone? Just me, then?

*Sigh.* I can't even count on Disney to use correct grammar.


Oh well. At least we looked awesome in our crowns.

Night-time Snuggles

When you have twins, chances are that on occasion, one of them will wake up in the middle of the night. Even though you've sleep trained both of them, it doesn't work for every night, all night long. Especially when one of those babies is a light sleeper. And the other baby is a loud sleeper. It happens.

The other night, I had N in bed next to me. She woke up crying and I (against my better judgment but who has good judgment in the middle of the night) got her out of bed. It's a bad decision with N because once she's out of bed, she doesn't go back to sleep for hours. She'll lay in bed next to you, stare into space, babble, and poke you, but never sleep. And don't you dare try to put her back in her own bed or she will commence sobbing, which will most certainly wake her brother up. As she lay in bed next to me, staring wide awake into the darkness, I snuggled up to her and tried to doze myself. I felt her little hand reach out and touch my shoulder. Most likely, she was making sure I didn't try and leave her, but my heart swelled up so huge just then. These are the moments, I thought to myself, however exhausting they may be right now, that you will miss when they're gone. When these two precious babies are even just a little bit bigger, and they start talking and jumping and going to preschool and everything else.

These are the moments you'll miss.

Halloween

I've been thinking about writing this for a while now. I told my husband that I was going to do it, then I chickened out, and then I decided to go ahead with it.

I don't like Halloween.

Before you Halloween lovers rise up in alarm, please let me clarify.

Growing up, I thought Halloween was fun. As a lover of all things candy, the thought of going door-to-door and getting it for free was pure heaven. But that was where my fondness for Halloween ended. I am not a hugely creative person, unless you count writing. I don't come up with elaborate Halloween costumes for myself. We will probably never be the family that dresses up together in a theme. As one of five daughters in my family, we had several costumes we just rotated between us every year. A cat. A rabbit. A baby. (I can't remember the rest.) We picked what we were going to be, pulled out an old pillowcase to hold all our loot, and off we went.

To add to this, I hate being scared. I hate watching scary movies. I hate haunted houses. I even hate mildly frightening music that might hint of something scary to come. So a holiday that delights in all things scary was probably never going to fly with me. (Now, lest you think I hate all holidays, I adore Christmas and Thanksgiving. Favorite time of year, hands down.)

Of course, I married into a family of Halloween lovers. Every year, my poor husband will want to think up a cool costume for Halloween, and maybe even something we can be together. We always head off to the local Halloween store, and while he peruses the aisles in search of the perfect costume, I walk behind him, aghast at how much costumes cost. This year, he saw a Bigfoot costume for $100. For one night?!! Thankfully, he didn't get it. I even talked my kids into mostly recycling costumes from years before. We only had to purchase a Hannah Montana wig for S and a Captain America costume for H. I wore my Japanese kimono from six years ago.

This past Halloween, I generally grumbled under my breath about the annoyance of this so-called holiday. Then, that evening, I went trick-or-treating with the kids while A stayed at home to hand out candy with the babies. As I watched the kids sprint from house to house, exclaiming over all the loot they got (including a can of Root Beer!), I got a little of the love back that I used to have for Halloween. I may never wear the awesome costumes or even have Halloween decorations up at my house (I prefer a Harvest wreath and a few pumpkins), but it's still a holiday with free candy involved. And anything with candy can't be all bad.

My husband, getting ready for his night bike ride on October 30. (No, I'm not sure what gorillas have to do with mumus. And there are also glow sticks all over the mumu that you can't see.) The next day, he dressed up again as a gorilla, went to a cyclocross race and handed out bananas.

A ladybug, a SWAT team guy, a cow, Captain America, and Hannah Montana. Sorry about the bottles, but there was no way these babies would hold still otherwise. Also, notice A2's new shoes.

We're good parents... really

As parents, I feel like we're pretty attentive to what's going on with our kids. We try and notice the little things they need, their changes in mood, the small quirks that make up their personalities. So, it's all the more depressing when something like the following happens...

Last Sunday, we headed up to a birthday party for my grandma. I didn't have time to put the babies' shoes on beforehand, so as we were getting out of the car, I hurriedly tried to shove shoes on A2's feet. He was curling up his toes and arching his feet (I hate it when kids do that) so it was a little difficult, but I got them on.

He seemed fine for most of the time we were there, content to putter around with his sister and eat the homemade pumpkin bread that my aunt made. As we were getting ready to go, A2 suddenly lost it. He started whining and crying and nothing seemed to help. "Well, that's our cue to leave," we said. We both figured he was tired or hot or something like that. Figured that as soon as we got him in the car, he'd calm down and take a nap.

Not so. He kept crying most of the 30-minute drive home, frequently elevating his crying to screaming. I even gave him a bottle of milk, the sure-fire way to get A2 to be happy. He wouldn't drink it. That's when we knew something was wrong. "He's probably sick." "Maybe it's an ear infection."

We got home. My husband immediately got A2 out of the car and sat down with him on the couch. He happened to look down at A2's shoes and thought, "I wonder if his shoes are too tight." He pulled off the shoes and socks to find two cramped and scraped-up feet. Almost instantly, A2 stopped crying and was perfectly happy from then on.

Oops. Perhaps I should have noticed something when I had to jam his feet into his shoes. Poor kid couldn't take his feet being squished like that anymore.

Nine

I can't believe my little girl is nine. She's growing up too fast. Pretty soon, I'll have a preteen. But for now, she's still content to play dress-up, Barbies, and fairies, read about Ramona Quimby and Harry Potter, and giggle to her heart's content. And, she wants to be a writer when she grows up. (Yeah!)

We started the celebration on Friday with a special dinner with her best friend and her friend's mom (who just happens to be my best friend--how handy!). Then, I brought both girls to our house for a sleepover, complete with a movie in S's bedroom and sticky buns for breakfast in the morning.

Happy birthday, S! We love you!

Who's afraid?

I'm a hotbed of phobias and fears. Illnesses. Semi-scary TV shows and movies. Accidents of any kind. Natural disasters. Roller coasters.

One of the things that I've had to work on as a parent is not letting my own phobias become my children's problems as well. During our trip to Disney World in May, I found myself sitting on a roller coaster with S, telling her that it was fun and not scary at all, when really, I wanted to throw up. I even had to fight the urge to scream during the Haunted Mansion ride with T, since he was very nervous and certainly didn't need to see his mother scared, too.

Our new city is apparently known for being windy, which does not thrill me at all. I hate wind, or actually, I hate windy nights. I worry about our new trees and bushes, my wreath flying off the front door, and debris flying through the air and breaking windows. A few weeks ago, I woke up in the middle of the night to a horrible windstorm. I couldn't go back to sleep, so I ended up working from 4 am to 6:30 am. Figured I might as well do something productive. :)

The other night, we had another pretty bad windstorm. Driving home in the car, leaves and twigs were flying all over the place and the kids started freaking out. The wind didn't let up as we were getting the kids in bed, and H became rather upset. He couldn't sleep and wanted to be with Mom and Dad.

We told him all sorts of comforting things. "It's just the wind—it can't hurt you." "I know it's loud, but just try and relax and fall asleep." As I was saying them, my own mind was filling with all kinds of awful scenarios, not the least of which was the wind somehow making our double-pane windows break, and glass flying everywhere.

Even though I suffer from a plethora of phobias, I'm grateful that I have children who need me to be strong and give them comfort (however weak I may feel at the time). As I say the things that I don't necessarily feel, it does end up calming me down a little. I haven't figured out how to make the phobias go away completely, but maybe someday...