Spiders

Did you know that I'm afraid of spiders? It's a true phobia. I know it's completely irrational, but I am afraid. I have realized that my fear is in direct proportion to a) size b) movement c) positioning of said spider. Bigger is worse. Creeping or (YIKES) climbing down a strand of web in the middle of a room is awful. (I'm breaking into a sweat right now, I kid you not.) As far as positioning, the ceiling is worse than on the floor. The top part of the wall is worse than the bottom.

Two spider related stories. In one, I am a conquering hero, in the other, a scared wimp.

Let's start with the conquering hero. There was a huge disgusting spider (more sweat) crawling toward Violet's play mat. I could not stand the thought of that thing crawling onto such a safe and sweet place, and certainly could not stand the thought of it being there when Violet was playing there. (She wasn't at the moment.) So, I took a lot of deep breaths, rolled about approximately one whole roll of toilet paper, and said the following mantra to myself "It's for Violet, for the kids, I can do this for the kids. I am saving the kids. I can SAVE my KIDS!" (Overly dramatic? Yes. Effective....YES!) Quickly I smooshed that spider and even more quickly ran it to the toilet. Shaking, I flushed the toilet, knowing that I had done what a good and courageous mother does for the sake of her children.

Note the big and disgusting spider was on the lower part of the wall.

Then comes two days later. Yes, the scared wimp story. I am reaching for the peanut butter, which means that I am straddling a baby gate and reaching over some steps into our pantry, perpendicular to the back door and sharing a space with the only way to get down to the basement. Suddenly, to my horror, I notice a spider in my eyeline. No, NOT on the wall. (Sweating again!) But hanging from it's stupid scary single strand of web right in the middle of the entry way. AGH!! Heart pounding I take the peanut butter (which is needed for the sustenance of the children) and back away.

Then it occurs to me: MY DIET COKE! It's in the basement. I have none upstairs. It's before 9:00am, and it's about prime Diet Coke time. Cautiously, I look for the stupid spider. I don't see it. Where is it? This is terrible. I know it's there. I just saw it. It's a bold, unflinching, out-to-get-me kind of spider. Now it's hiding somewhere waiting for me to venture down the stairs to get my Diet Coke. Well, I'm not that stupid.

I didn't get my Diet Coke that day, my friends. I waited until Adam came home, and I texted him to pick me up a fountain Diet Coke, which is really the best kind of Diet Coke there is, anyway.

I am scared of spiders. Now you know.

A Great Day

On Tuesday we had a really great day. Not because the kids slept in. Not because we left the house. Not because no one cried. Not because everyone had great naps. In fact, none of those things happened.

But it was a great day.

It started as many days do. Sebastien was up too early, and I pulled him into bed with me. I often do that. I do that almost every day. Adam leaves for work around 6:00am so his side of the bed is empty. Not being much of a morning person myself, I don't love it that Sebastien follows in his daddy's footsteps and wants to get the day started as early as possible. But, I do like cuddling with my son for about a half-ho ur before the girls wake up. And on this day, he and I got up and the girls kept sleeping, so not only did we get to cuddle, but we got to play for awhile. Just us.

Later that day, Eden and Sebastien were just drifting off to sleep at naptime, when Violet woke up, ready to eat. After she ate, the kids were still asleep. So she and I oohed, cooed and laughed at each other for about 45 minutes. Just us.

Just as she was going down for a nap, Eden woke up from hers. Yes, it was earlier than usual, she had only been asleep for just over an hour. But she was awake and smiley, so I let her get up. She and I played together for almost an hour. Just us.

So, why was this a really great day?

I was able to spend one on one time with each of my kids, all in the same day. Do you know how rare that is? Very.

p.s. The following pictures have nothing to do with this post. They're just cute.

Little bits of twin stuff

I have started to write down stuff that Eden and Sebastien say and do. But before I started keeping track on paper, I jotted some down here in a draft, intending to create this post, but I never did. So, just for fun, here's stuff that happens in my house, some of them recently, some of them quite some time ago....

Eden falls, hurt her bum, asks for a kiss. Adam says "Oh, honey, Daddy isn't going to kiss your bum" and Eden start crying loudly and yelling "Kiss my BUM!!! Daddy, KISS MY BUM!!"

Eden: "Violet has tiny little ears...and a big BIG face!"

Putting Eden to bed, my stomach growls. "Mommy, you tooted." Me: "No, mommy's tummy just made a noise." Eden: "Sounds like a monkey toot."

Eden and Bash are playing Baby Eden and Baby Sebastien a lot. When they do this, they call me "Baby Momma."

Eden looks at my arms, which is covered in freckles. She says, "Mommy! You have nipples all over your arm!"

(There really isn't a picture to represent Eden saying funny things.)

Sebastien is the king of creativity. Taking toys away from his is futile, because he just uses his fingers, or any thing around him. Examples:

Cheerios on his finger become the peddler selling caps (from the book "Caps for Sale") but his finger with a raisin on the side, suddenly it is Rudolf with a red nose.

At supper, his bowl is a boat, but with the fork in it, it's now a sailboat. But his fork is also Super Grover.

Pretzels are a lot of fun. Sometimes they are people, just they quickly can become horses, cows, dinosaurs. Train tracks held just right in his hand are T-Rex's.

He plays different characters from TV shows, mostly Dora shows. For a long time he was Baby Dino. Late ly he is Dora and he makes Eden be Boots.

His toast bitten in certain ways becomes monkeys, dinosaurs, humming birds.

(Bash repeatedly put together blocks like this over the period of a couple weeks, and every time, it was a cow.)

There are a million examples of things like this. This is really just a taste.

Violet, 3 1/2 months

Time for an update!

Oh, our little Violet. Violet has acquired several different nicknames in the last couple of months. They include the Baby Champ (or the Champ), Peach (or Peachy-Keen, as Eden and Sebastien call her), and Angel Baby. From these alias', you can guess what we think of this little Peanut. She is fantastic.

Violet started solidly doing 12 hour nights at 10 weeks, and had been doing 10 hours nights for several weeks before that. Not only this, but also Violet is a great little napper. A typical day with the Champ falls perfectly into the routine of eat, be awake for about an hour, then nap for anywhere from 2 to 3 hours. Then she wakes up and repeats this cycle. When it's time for a nap, I can tell by her yawning or just sort of squirming a bit. At that point I can swaddle her, put a paci in her mouth, rock her for a verse of "Be Still and Know," put her in her crib with some white noise and she's off to sleep. It's amazing. We are constantly shaking our heads and marveling at her.

Violet is turning into quite a talker, as well. She loves to coo and talk. Sometimes she sounds like she's reading a novel to us, she'll go on so long. She wakes up talking in the morning, and she greets me with a smile when I go into get her up. Violet was doing social smiles by four weeks, and it is a beautiful thing to see her smile. She also recently started to laugh, which has brought even more joy to our days. Violet is getting very interested in watching her brother and sister run around, and she often can be found smiling in their direction.

This all being said, the girl is of course not perfect. She has off days, she has gas like any other baby. But the majority of days she is just so content. We are so eager to watch her grow and continue to show us what she can do.

Potty Training: Day 1

For weeks now, I have been intending to start potty training Eden and Sebastien. Every week I say, "Next Monday, I'll start." But there has always been one reason or another to put it off. But this is my last week of maternity leave, so we decided it was time to bite the bullet.
We've had potty seats for about five months now, and so far we've really only used them if the kids asked, and then every night before baths. We also have had a supply of pull-ups at the ready. Really, all we've needed was a ready mommy.

So, today, Day 1. Upon getting up, I announced to the kids that from now, "No more diapers" and I led them in a little cheer. They sat on the potties four different times by 9:30 am, with no success. But we talked a lot about it, I did a lot of encouraging and they didn't seem to mind. However, by about 10:30, Sebastien was getting a little tired of hiking over to the potty, and he began to complain. Not being one to battle my kids when I can avoid it, I gave him choices when I could.

Before lunch, we had our first potty-going success. Eden went pee pee on the potty! She got a sticker, we did a little song and dance, it was all great. This made Sebastien want to try as well. No go, but at least he wanted to try!

Then after nap, Sebastien was making familiar grunting sounds and concentrating. Recognizing what was happening, we hurried him to the potty. Adam sat with him, and when Bash stood up, there was a tiiiiiiny little bit of poopy in the potty! We celebrated like crazy for this little pebble. He got an M&M and a lot of dancing about. Of course, within ten minutes, the rest of his load was in his pull-up. But still! I call it a success.

Eden also discovered that her pull-ups are quite easy to pull down. She ran around bare-bottomed for a bit this morning before I could convince her that she should wear pull-ups as well as her pants. Then tonight, while she was monkeying around (supposed to be sleeping) she asked several times for someone to come in and put her pull-up back on. When we went in to check on the kids, Adam noticed a stray pull-up on the ground, and sure enough, Eden was bare-bottomed.

We gently rolled her onto her back and slid her pull-up back on. She stayed sleeping, but she automatically lifted her little bottom as she always does when we change her diaper. Talk about muscle memory!

So, that was day 1. Keep your fingers crossed for more little success stories.

Ernie

Sebastien and Eden love Ernie from Sesame Street. We have a little Ernie figure. I don't do a great Ernie impression, but I'm willing to give it a go, because my kids just love it. They ask to hear Ernie's voice all the time.

What I don't quite get is whether they think Ernie is really talking to them or not. They come over and show Ernie things: "Look Ernie," "here, a baby Ernie," "do you see that Ernie?" They want Ernie to play their games, tickle them, fly through the air... They love Ernie.

Here's the dilemma. I have discovered on a couple of occasions, that if Ernie asks them to stop doing something, they will stop. When I ask them to stop doing something, I get about a 50/50 response. So, do I turn Ernie into a disciplinarian? Do I use him and his amazing power to get what I want? Or does that rob my children of their innocent love for this character? Eventually, will Ernie asking them to quick turning the lights on and off get as old as me asking the same thing?

Stories From Today

Here are just a few things that happened at my house today, starting with the youngest and moving on up.

Violet had her 2 month appointment today. She weighs 12 lbs 2 oz (85th percentile) and is 22 3/4 inches long (70th percentile.) The girl is growing like crazy! She did alright with her three shots at the office, had a crabby afternoon, but has been sleeping this evening away like you wouldn't believe. I did get a couple of smiles before she went down for the night, so I think she'll be just fine.

Eden, the little smartie pants, loves looking at letters, trying to figure out words, listening to different sounds. So today, I was doing her hair, and she said "Pah-pah ponytails... Pony tails start with 'p'!" Impressed, I said, "Wow, honey, that's right, good job!" She smiled, and then as we were talking about her sister, she started saying "sah-sah-sister." I said, "Yep, s-s-sister. What does 'sister' start with?" And Eden looked at me and said "CAT!" Hmmmm.

Sebastien... oh dear, I could tell 85 different stories about this boy, but none of them would have the impact I want them to, because you sort of have to experience Sebastien in person. His imagination is just unbelievable. But so is his memory. He has a video that tells different stories for different colors. Today he spent about 15 minutes reciting one of the stories again and again and again. He does that with songs lately too. Today was also a day of singing "This old man" again and again. Sometimes he just picks one line from something, like from Veggie Tales "God made you special, and he loves you very much" and he'll just repeat that again and again.

Adam decided to be ambitious today. He started and completed the back splash for our kitchen. Here's how our kitchen "renovation" went. In February, he painted the cupboards. In July, he tore off all the old counters and re-did the countertop. Now, here it is October, and we have a back splash! WOO! I've said it before and I'll say it again: What a guy.

Me. Um. I got my hair cut. And I took care of my family. Not a great story.