Coming Soon

I totally plan on writing about their 3rd birthday. The problem is that since I have no dishwasher, it takes me freaking forever to do the dishes every night. By the time I'm done, its very late and I'm too tired. I'll get there eventually.

The Aftermath

Cami and Cadi's adventures in Water World have wrecked havoc on our kitchen. We have paint bubbling up and peeling from the wall, the trim around the cabinet bases is warped and separating at all the joints, and corners. The wood laminate floor is warping and starting to peel. The flower Madilyn gave me for Mother's Day is a gonner. The shelving inside some our cupboards got wet enough that they have wrinkles. If the weather was it's normal arid self, this probably could have been avoided. But due to a freakish presence of clouds and palpable moisture in the air, things aren't drying out quickly, and therefore, everything is warping! Most annoying of all, due to water seeping into the control panel, our dishwasher is broken. I now have a very expensive, under the counter dish drainer. Yes. I'm scrubbing dishes for a family of seven the old school way. Although I don't understand how an appliance who's sole purpose is to cycle a large volume of water around and around, and in most cases is installed next to the kitchen sink can have a control panel that is so easily penetrated by water. That's faulty engineering in my book. After all this I came downstairs yesterday evening from putting the baby to bed and found them standing in front of the sink spraying water all over the place again! Arrrg! I had to spank them on their birthday.

Water World

I've been trying to be more focused on fitness as of late. I usually get up early and hit the treadmill or go on a walk outside. Sometimes it is really hard to get out of bed at the crack of dawn! Today was one of those days. I was just so tired. On days like today I squeeze my workout in while the baby takes her morning nap, and the twins get their fill of "Dora the Explorer". I did just that and got 3 miles in this morning (I won't say how long it took me)!

After my run I walked up the basement stairs and noticed water dripping from the chandelier over my dining room table. I reached the landing and saw my twins sitting in the kitchen sink full of bubbles, buck naked, water spilling over the rim onto the floor (I wish I had a picture. Darn camera)! There was about an inch of water all over my kitchen and dining room. I didn't even know where to start. I got there just in time to grab a towel and stop the water from rushing under the pantry door, soaking the sacks of flour that reside there. There were bubbles and water everywhere! The crown moulding, the cupboards, inside the drawer I keep towels in. They'd flooded the plants in the window sill (relieving the flower Madilyn gave me for Mother's day of it's soil). An entire bottle of liquid dish soap was emptied. They'd put liquid dish soap (the kind for the sink) in the dishwasher and turned it on, so it was now spewing bubbles. There were puddles in the stove, the dining room table was soaked. The stack of the older girls' school work for the end of the year was now soggy. Everything was sudsy and dripping.

I wrapped them in the only towel I had left and stuck them in the family room. I didn't want their "help" this time around. I found a towel and wiped down the cupboards, counter tops, and the table. Next I got out my handy, dandy, Floor Mate to suck up all the water. I had to empty the canister every couple minutes. I estimate that for every 5 square feet of floor, I collected a half gallon of water.

By the time I'd cleaned up it was lunch time. The baby was awake. I had to kiss my shower good-bye. What went wrong? My kids are champion TV watchers. Usually I have to force them away from it. Don't they understand that I'm trying to be a good example for them?! I guess I can't hit the snooze button anymore.

We moved on to lunchtime activities, eating and such. Once tummies were full I told the twins to go the bathroom before we left to pick the big girls up from school (last day!). While I cleaned up the baby in preparation for our trip, I was serenaded with fighting and screaming in the bathroom. Cadence emerged with hurtful tears and angry bite marks. Camden emerged victorious and very proud of her accomplishment (#2 in case you were wondering). I went into the bathroom to help her finish and found that they'd been playing with the plunger and there was water covering the bathroom floor! I think I better invest in flood insurance.

To top it all off, while helping Cadi in the bathroom, Camden found several tubes of lip gloss, removed the roller balls and dumped their contents out all over her hands and the sofa. Maybe Act of God insurance would be better.

B Goes 2

It's worth announcing Cadi's big accomplishment. After a week of potty training Cadi has managed the big number 2! Yea! I am soooooo excited!

A Compilation

It's late, and I'm tired, so I don't have much time for clever wording (I'm only typing until the washer is done so I can switch the laundry to the dryer), but lets just say the twins have been busy.

Water Works

Yesterday I took the twins and Wrigley on my morning walk. Pushing my big double stroller loaded with nearly 100 lbs. worth of children on a county road was pretty good resistance training. My arms were working just to keep it out of the irrigation ditch. We got to see the cows on our trip. They did really well until the last 15 minutes or so.

When we got home it was past the baby's nap time. I hurried and set the twins up with some yogurt for a snack and turned the cartoons on to keep them occupied while I put the baby to bed and ran through the shower. After I put Wrigley down, I sat on my bedroom floor to stretch out. Once thoroughly limbered, I headed for the shower, but decided I should check on the twins and take them to the bathroom before I hopped in.

When I walked into the living area I found Cadence standing on a chair in front of the sink with the sprayer aimed at the dining room, and Camden walking towards her saying, "I want to try that!" Uh, no! What the heck! She had sprayed (and had been spraying for a little while), all over the kitchen and into the dining room. The dining room curtains were wet, the counters were covered, the crown molding was dripping, water was sliding down the inside of the cupboard doors, the blinds were watery, the window spotty, the window sill pooling, the cabinets misty, and everything was puddling onto the floor. Honestly! Does my house look like a water park? I'm beginning to wonder.

Salt Looses its Savor

Later that same morning, after I'd showered (can you believe I dared to leave them for 5 minutes? I was smelly), I was getting lunch ready and nursing Camden's wounded elbow, when I look over to see Cadi sitting on the counter pouring out the contents of the salt shaker. Seriously?! What are these kids thinking?

Peep Show

This morning I was in the front yard working on weed control while the girls rode a bike and a scooter around. They were quite interested in the kids across the street cruising around in their Hot Wheels Barbie cars and such. They called to them, and got little response, but remained ever fixated on their mad driving skills. After some serious observation time had passed I looked up from my weed patch just in time to see Camden, naked from the waist down calling, "Hey guys! I'm naked! Guys! I'm naked!" I guess just calling to them wasn't getting the response she was after so she felt she needed to up the ante.

Later that same morning, after I'd made sure my little nudist was dressed, they asked if they could go into the back yard and jump on the trampoline. I opened the gate so they could bounce away. After about 15 minutes had passed I went into the back yard to check on them and found them both naked as jaybirds swinging on the swings! I guess we're going for an all over tan in this house.

Antibacterial

It was post nap time for the twins and the baby, and I was really tired from weeding most of the day. I gave the twins some graham crackers and turned the TV on (again, I know.) so they'd be occupied for a few minutes while I nursed the baby in peace. My solitude didn't last long as Cadence soon followed my footsteps to my room where she quickly became a nuisance to my feeding attempts. I had just finished with Wrigley when Camden appears in my doorway with some kind of clear goo all over her hands. A few inquiries revealed that she'd gotten into the first aid kit (for the second time today. She's a band-aid nut.) and relieved a tube of Neosporin of a good amount of it's contents. What a thing to get in to! What an expensive thing to wash down the drain. Ugh! Do I want to know what they'll think of next?

Success!

After three weeks of cleaning out poopy panties every day because of complete refusal to even attempt pooping on the potty, Camden announced out of the blue, "Mom, I need to poop on the potty." What? Okay, run to the bathroom. She sat, and voila! Number 2! Followed by, "Can I have gum?" Of course you can! Gum has been the bribe, along with stern warnings that we can't go to the park until they stop pooping and peeing in their panties.

I can't tell you how excited I was. How excited I still am! Oh how I hope that she's not teasing me, that it wasn't a fluke. Now, if I can get Cadi on board...

Aw !@#*%

I hate potty training. I mean really hate it. That is probably why my twins are almost three and I've just begun. Camden's been in panties for three weeks now. It's going okay. Cadence is currently wearing her last diaper, and since I'm not buying anymore she'll start potty training today. Cold turkey. Probably should have started earlier in the day, but we've had some obstacles.

While in the kitchen stirring up powdered milk (eew) to mix with real milk (gotta stretch it) and prepping to make some much needed bread Cadence calls out, "Mom! I pooped on the floor and on my finger!" What?! I go into the front room and sure enough there was poop dripped across the floor. Her diaper was on funny and it'd pretty much missed it completely. Thankfully she was on the wood floor. Unthankfully she thought she needed to touch it (what goes through kid's heads?).

While cleaning up that mess, with the baby trapped on the other side of the gate to keep her out of the ickiness, we discussed where we're suppose to go potty. In the midst of this discussion Camden pooped in her panties. ARRRRRRG! Not once in three weeks of training have I gotten this kid to even try pooping in the toilet. Not one, single, solitary time! Everyday we're in the bathroom sloshing out icky underpants. Everyday I'm having to wipe up the aftermath of having her take care of her own mess. Every flippin' day we go through half a box of flushable wipes while she cleans herself up. I send her into the bathroom to take care of herself. Which she did not do. I caved in my frustration and ended up cleaning most of it up for her.

While this was going on Wrigley decided to join the potty party and made a messy diaper herself. Fortunately that one was easy to clean up. Not to mention no one expects a 10 month old to use the potty. But she kept crawling into the bathroom where Camden was creating more of a mess than we started with. I finally stuck her in the walker to keep her out to the way.

Finally the majority of the bathroom mess was taken care of. I gave Camden some clean panties and went on a sanitation inspection of the bathroom and catch what she missed. Yuck. I'm so tired of poop! I hate it getting all over the place. I hate it getting on my hands when I have to double check her cleaning job. I hate cleaning it off everything every day. Am I really going to add a second potty trainee today?

Ugh. Damage control complete I walk back into the kitchen with a crying baby following behind me to see the twins have ripped open packets of Cream of Wheat and scattered their contents across my newly cleaned kitchen! That was the last straw. I was so mad! I sent them both to time out. I couldn't have them in the room to clean it up themselves. So with an unhappy baby constantly running into the back of my bare heals with her walker, I swept up the mess and tossed it into the trash. I put the baby to bed, threw some clothes at the twins, and finally sat down to eat my now cold oatmeal. I'm still fuming.

The twins are upstairs doing who knows what at this moment. I don't even want to go up there to find out. I'm totally uninspired to do anything now. Can the bread wait?

A New Use for My Sofa

This afternoon I was sitting at the computer reading and eating my lunch, while the girls had their cartoon time. When I finished I got up to put my dishes away and take Camden to the bathroom. Much to my surprise I found her sitting on the couch, pants down around her ankles, sitting in a puddle as she peed on the couch! What the heck was she thinking?! She knew she had to pee. She took the time to pull her pants down. Why didn't she run to the bathroom? She knows to do that. She frequently tells me when she needs to go. Ugh. I hate potty training!

Pass the Mustard

My girls are always begging me to play in the front yard. Usually my answer is "no" because I don't want them out there unless I can be there to keep an eye on them. This morning I thought they'd be really excited to go outside to ride bikes and scooters while I worked on reclaiming my yard from over a year of unchecked weed growth.

Much to my surprise, they kept sneaking into the house to watch cartoons. It was a beautiful day! How could any two year-old choose "Dora the Explorer" over racing down the sidewalk on a princess trike? After an hour and a half of weeding (minus the 20 minutes spent cleaning up Camden's poopy panties) and a half a dozen retrievals, I decided to let them watch while I finished up. I had less than two feet of garden space left to clear, and then I'd take a lunch break.

That foot and a half of flower bed took me a little longer than I anticipated since it was so jam packed with weeds. When I finished I walked through the garage door to find the fridge open, and the pantry raided. Empty Capri Sun's littered the kitchen floor (they drank every one I had). I closed the fridge and walked over to the open back door. I looked outside to see the twins on the swings, covered in mustard! Camden was naked from the waist down. Cadence grinned at me, "We poured mustard on the yellow couch," she taunted. Ugh! Not again! It was then that I noticed the yellow streaks across the lawn, grazing the door frame, and dotting the floors. What is this obsession with mustard?