Today is the day….my butterball is one.  My giant baby is uno.

Where did the time go?  Can it be reversed?  This little guy is a real dream come true.  After years of infertility battles I thought I was done with my pals and I could not have been more thrilled.  2 kids, one of each….perfect.  Then it happened, you always hear about it happening but never think it could happen to you.  I was pregnant with what turned out to be the world’s best baby.

Abbott Grayson Walter.  You are my smiley guy who I dream about. I have been tempted so many times to go get you up when you are sleeping because I miss you.  You are my tiny owl and you have an energy that lights up a room from the inside out.  Your smile is contagious and your love of cabinet doors is pretty impressive.  Open and close, open and close…..all day long my friend.  Today is your day.  I will unlock all the baby safety thingies and let you just go to town.  You can even empty the Tupperware drawer and I won’t stop you.  Want to go hang out in the bathroom by the toilet?  I won’t stop you today.  Tomorrow may be another story but you can take your toys in there and just stand by that toilet all you want.

Just please don’t ever stop wearing that ear to ear grin when you see me first thing in the morning.  Don’t ever stop putting your head down and doing that aero-dynamic crawl over to mommy to get there faster so I can pick you up.  Don’t ever stop watching your brother and sister play with such excitement.  You will be there soon enough.  Too soon for this mommy of yours.

When I was pregnant with Abbott, I spilled the beans to my mom that I was nervous that I could not love another baby as much as I loved my pals.  It was an honest fear.  I truly thought there was simply no way.  My mom told me that it was just like magic, it happens.  She did it 7 times and was nervous every time but every time she loved us just as much as the one before.  Holy shit.  She was right…..just like magic, your heart grows.  Mine may explode after this one.

Every day when I talk to my mom she says, “how’s my guy?”  My answer is always the same – “the best”. He truly is the best.  As my brother says, the part of his brain that says “I am not happy” or “I do not like this” must be so tiny because he is happy all of the time, rarely cries and likes to just peek around, talk and smile with the world’s most contagious smile.  He is my guy and he is one.  Here is to many more….and if you grow up and live in my basement, I would love it.  I will build you a kitchenette but you cannot have your own entrance.  This way I can force you to come up and visit with your dear old mother who will likely still be embarrassing you.

My Eden Barbara Anne.

I tell her that we are the only girls so we have got to stick together.  The boys outnumber the girls in this  house.  Even the dog has a wenis…..a gross red one that likes to pop out every few months and make me vomit in my mouth.  I shudder just thinking about it.  Blech…..

She has is my sweetest of sweethearts and one of those kids with a kind old soul.  She is shockingly thoughtful for a three old and this makes me so proud.  She gives her last cookie to her brother when the thought would never cross his mind and she knows it.  She nearly smothers her little brother on a daily basis with hugs because she just “loves him the most.”

Her favorite thing to pass out are “surprise hugs”.  When you least expect it, you will see a tiny lightbulb go off over her head and she will just come racing over and hug you with all of her might.  These are my favorite kind of hugs, a close second is the “holding hug” which involves standing up and holding them along with a super squeeze.

She is my wearer of bows and all things girly.  She loves her accessories and most importantly lip gloss, ahem, chap stick.  One of her favorite people around, my niece Manny Moo, gave her a tiny tub of pink lip gloss that she carried around and slept with until she deemed it the perfect time to use it.   Movie time.  We were getting ready to go to the theatre and as I am yelling at everyone to put their shoes on, go to the bathroom, get ready or we are not going and there will be no popcorn!  I turned around and here she was, all ready to go…..with just the right amount of lip gloss.

She is named for my mother (Barbara Anne) who is one of the most amazing people that ever walked this earth and one of my very best friends.  I talk to my parents every day, usually multiple times a day.  My mother is a saint with 7 kids and 17 grandkids.  She selflessly ALWAYS puts us first and has for her entire life.  She is amazing and I love, love, love her.  If my Eden Barbara Anne turns out anything like the original Barbara Anne, she will be set for life.  I realize how lucky I am to have both of them in my life.  What could be better than one Barbara Anne?!?!  How about two?

Miss Eden has one obsession and it is slowly taking over.  Minnie freaking Mouse.  When she grows up she wants to be Minnie Mouse.  She has been Minnie Mouse for the past 2 Halloweens.  After we say our prayers at night and she blesses people, Minnie many times is the first one.  She would prefer to only wear clothes and pj’s with Minnie on but since laundry is not my strong suit, sometimes she has to wear clothes that do not involve Minnie.  These days always start out a bit rocky but she comes around.  We have yet to take her to Disneyworld mostly because I feel that she may stroke out if she ever got the opportunity to come face to face with the real live thing.  Someday we will get them there, after we rob a bank and get a prescription for extra strength valium.

She also has an obsession with cheese (who doesn’t).  She prefers Munster cheese which she refers to as “flat cheese”.  She will only eat the kind from the deli and don’t you dare try and give her a piece of cheddar and tell her that since it is flat it is the same thing.  My dad learned this lesson the hard way.  He could not for the life of him figure out why the half an inch chunk of cheddar he cut from the block was not cutting it.  He said it was flat after all…..not even in the ballpark Papa. So close but no cigar.

This is actually a photo I snapped of her after I broke it to her that we were indeed out of flat cheese.

So this is my partner in crime….my wearer of tacky bows and lover of dairy products.  She is a mini-me and I love it.  As I say, “Eden Barbara Anne, mommy could not love you more if I tried.”  Boy is that the truth.  You are my dream come true Eden.  I.  LOVE.  YOU.

I have a hairy son.  His name is Arno but we call him L.A. for “Little Arno” as it happens to be my husbands name as well, along with his father and grandfather.  He has had several nicknames already in his short 3 years here on this earth but more than anything he lives up to the one my husband calls him – “momma’s boy.”  My kids are my absolute life and I am not sure how I functioned without them and the hairy one makes sure I am aware of this.  On a daily basis, just out of nowhere he tells me “Mommy, I love you.”  It melts my heart EVERY. Single. Time.  Yesterday while we were watching the Wizard of Oz he squeezed me real tight, looked right into my eyes and said, “Mommy, will you always keep me safe?”  I may have teared up with that one.  He also tells me that he can’t go to school because he will miss me too much.  I have been tempted way too many times to keep him home and snuggle all day when he whips this one out but then I wise up real fast after he bonks his sister over the head with a matchbox car for no reason.

Not only is he about the kindest and sweetest hairy little thing you ever met, he is also a little shit.  The really naughty kind that is at times, mind boggling.  He has redecorated nearly every inch of our house with a Sharpie and clogged every toilet at least 32 times with everything from poop to a roll of toilet paper to Lightening McQueen.  The other morning he crawled into our bed about 5 am, opened up the bottle of water that I had next to my side of the bed….stood up and made sure his aim was just right dumped it right on my head. He was aiming for my “earhole” he said.  I knew something was about to happen but I certainly did not imagine my earhole being doused with a pint of water.  The best part as that as I was jumping up in a foggy sleepy haze he was already telling me that “Eden (his sister) did it”.  Keep in mind she wasn’t even in the room.

He regularly tells me, “Mommy, I am so cool.”  He is pretty cool, I have to give him that.  I also regularly tell my kids all the reasons why I love them so sometimes out of nowhere they will walk up to me and say, “Mommy tell me all the reasons.”  Eden sits there and listens patiently with the sweetest smile on her face as I tell her she is nice and kind and pretty and shares and listens and loves while he gets mad if I don’t tell him that he is awesome over and over.  “But mommy the reason you love me is because I am awesome…..and cool”.  That is one of the reasons but there are so many more.  I love him because he taught me what it feels like to have my heart run around outside my body.  A third of it anyway.  He also taught me not to take life too seriously and to dance.  Always dance.

The other day I walked into the dining room to this and I loved it.

There is a mirror propped up at one end of the dining room and he was watching his sweet moves.  I love you L.A. and I love your sweet moves.  I love that I waited years and years to have you and your sister and through the miracle of science you are mine.  When I was struggling with infertility it pained me every month for years that it did not work.  My wise sister Sarah, who also happens to be my best friend would tell me that this was all happening for a reason.  This was very hard to understand at the time.  She said the perfect kid/s were just waiting for me and timing wasn’t right just yet.  I had to just be patient.  I was patient and it was heartbreaking but it was so worth it because I got this hairy guy and my sweet Eden from it all.  As I tell my kids, “I couldn’t love you more if I tried.”  It is the truth.  And how can you resist someone this awesome?

Ok.  This polar vortex has done me in.  I need fresh air and I am crafted out.  I have tried so hard not to give into watching 87 hours of cartoons a day and I have tried to be the mom that Pinterest was made for.  I was doing a pretty damn good job until about 4:00 pm today….then the wheels fell off.  They rusted and snapped right off.  The fighting over the tiny empty jumping bean box pushed me over the edge.  I guess the real question should have been, “where the hell are the jumping beans?”

So this is what I made my pals for dinner.

To add insult to injury, I didn’t even give them their own.  I made them share.

Then my pals took at bath at exactly 6:32 and went to bed at 6:56.  The earliest my pals have EVER hit the hay.  Now Arno and I are having a glass of wine and a Tombstone pizza for dinner…..I give up, at least for the day.  I have officially checked out until 6:50 tomorrow am.  And for the record – it is a rising crust 4 meat pizza.

It is literally four degrees BELOW zero right now.  Below.  Zero.  Four.  Degrees.

I cannot figure out why we live here sometimes.  Chicago happens to be the coolest place in the summer and about the worst in the winter, well this particular winter.  I actually do not despise winter but I despise the cold when it runs your life.  It is too cold to be outside for fear of immediate frost bite so they cancelled school.  Again.  You know what that means?  More kids crafts because I cannot take anymore TV.  Dora can kindly see her way right out the d-d-d-door.

January and into February tend to be very slow in the Real Estate market so I try and enjoy all this time I have with my pals but we are slowly running out of things to do.  (On a side note, if anyone is looking for an awesome Real Estate broker, I am ready and I may even bring you your very own bag of homemade play-doh.)  I am currently play-doh’d and crayoned and 3:00 bathed out.  So today we did something new…..and fairly messy as a fair warning.  I guess the messiness factor all  depends on your kids.  I have one “neat as a pin” pal and one pal that resembles a human tornado of hair.

We made our puffy paint then “baked” our masterpieces in the microwave oven.  Pretty cool rainy day or below zero day project.

Start with 4 ziploc bags and put 1/4 cup flour in each bag along with 1 teaspoon baking powder.

Then add enough water until it gets to the consistency of pancake batter….maybe 1/4 cup?  I just eyeballed it.  Then throw a couple squirt of food coloring in there and give it to your pals to mix up.

Then snip a tiny corner off of each bag and let them go to town on some white paper.  I used a thicker paper than your standard printer paper and it worked very well.

Then put the paper in the microwave individually for about a minute and the stuff puffs up and turns fairly hard so the mess is gone once you get to this step. This was also a fun step to watch.  We scooted a couple chairs up to the microwave and watched it grow into our final masterpieces.

I bet you cannot guess whose is whose……the hairy tornado made the one that resembles a hairy tornado and my neat and precise little angel took about 15 minutes to make the other.

So there you have it….polar vortex puffy painting.  Now what next?  Do I dare break out the finger paints?  My problem is that the paints never stay contained to the “finger”.  They tend to be full body paints at Camp Gerbrecht.  Oh well, here goes nothing.  Finger, er body paints it is.

Do you remember when we were little and we had  “snow days” where they cancelled school because there was too much snow and they were worried about buses, transportation etc?  Well, now we have some polar vortex taking over the midwest so we have “cold days”. It is too cold to literally get the kids from the car to the school and then back out.  That my friends, is cold.  My current temp on my phone is -6. The high today was -4.  This does not even seem possible but it was so we had some cabin fever today and we were stuck inside all day.  This is very frustrating for me as I tend to go stir crazy being in one place and need to be doing stuff.  I will take my pals anywhere to do stuff.  Generally, if you invite us to come to something, we are there….half dressed, usually a bit late with a shitty diaper but we are there.  So you have been warned.  We even cross state lines.

So today we got stuck inside ALL day and I am over cartoons.  Really, if I have to do one more Dora or Mickey Mouse Club or Team Umizoomi I may jump off of the top of my house and aim for a bike without a seat.  I am over it.

We started out our day with Cap’n Crunch which set the tone for the whole day.  For the record I bought the cereal for my husband Arno and we thought we ran out until my parents rolled in last week with leftover “Christmas Crunch”!  Perfect timing.  Now instead of Honey Nut Cheerios with sliced bananas in the morning my pals wanted Christmas Crunch.  Fine.  This whole day is going to be a shit show so let’s just get the day started out with a massive sugar high to kick things off right.  Would you like a tiny espresso to go along with that Christmas Crunch?  How about a scone?

We held back until abut 10 am where we whipped out the homemade play-doh.  For the record, I have a sprained wrist and hunchback from sitting over the pot making this stuff.  Next time I am ponying up the 6 dollars and buying it pre-made.  I have a serious thrifty bone in my body so if I can do something cheaper and many times better, you better believe I am doing it.  We played  Frozen on the computer because we are now addicted to the tunes so the play-doh that is stomped into the carpet may be worth it.  We shall see.

Then we took a break from play-doh and LA decided that it was time to teach Abbott to walk.  He is almost officially ONE after all and LA said it is time.  LA did his best but we ended up with a couple bumps and bruises and he is not ready for any sprints to the kitchen for his morning bottle.

We half ass cleaned up our play-doh and recovered from Abbott’s walking demise and focused on lunch.  LA was tired from lugging his giant baby around the house teaching him how to walk and needed some nourishment.  He requested cheese dogs in sleeping bags.  Done.  Take a hot dog, roll it in a croissant  and call it a day.  Serve it with apple sauce and yogurt and then you don’t feel so bad.  My pals eat more Activia yogurt than anyone I know.

So sleeping bag hot dogs segued into watching The Wizard of Oz which for the record is Creepy, Creepy, Creepy but my pals love it.    It was a very thoughtful gift for Abs from one of my all time favorite’s – Aunt DD.  I tried my best to snooze during it but they were really not having it.  “Mommy, you can’t rest your eyes, you are not in church.”  “Papa does it, why can’t I?”  I tried.  Lord did I try.

Then to kill some more time  we decided to go dye my gray hair and we made it a whole family affair so we were all stuck up in my bathroom.  We even plucked and shaved and I made my kids look up my nose and see the tiny hairs to which they replied – “oooooooooohhhhh mommy!”  So we plucked them out and then I was the one screaming “oooooooohhhhhh mommy”.  I dare you to take a tweezers up your snoot, clamp it down and just pull down with gusto.  Holy. Balls.  You didn’t think you had hair up there and you had NO idea it would feel like you were removing a limb with a rusty axe.  Who ever knew a nose hair could cause so much pain.  Just do it.  I dare you.  Keep me posted.

Then after we used a family day to help Mommy we decided to make the Christmas Smores brownies that we bought in the clearance section at Target for 29 cents.  You cannot beat that with a stick.  We put heart sprinkles on them from the dollar section at Target so we crossed holidays….for a bargain.

Total bargain but about a million health violations.  LA likes to be undie wearing at all times and always has them on backwards.   Boys briefs always have a giant pic right on the rear and LA decided that why should he wear the back on his buns where he cannot see it?  He needs it front and center.  At all times.  His teacher has brought this up with me and I told here there is no way I can get him to change them now.  I honestly think it is pretty brilliant.

Then we watched the magic of the brownie TV through the oven……..and then I begged them to stop fighting.  We had a tiny dance party until I ran out of steam and had to change a corny shitty diaper.

We fought until dinner while I intermittently threatened to throw them outside if they did not stop fighting.  It worked.  So then we moved onto our old standby – make your own english muffin pizzas.  We do this at least once a week and I promise you that they taste way better than you think they are going too……

Then after all of this stuff, we had to have a bit of a serious moment.  Our poor fish who we tried everything to keep alive, kicked the bucket.  Poor “Mike Mommy”.  We got you a fancy new house with a heater and filter and even plants and fancy rocks.  We feel terrible so it might be a break for us until we have another fish around here.

We ened the day with a bath….a serious bubble bath.

Then Poor Abbott said, “give me a drink, just let me be and wake me when it is tomorrow”

Tomorrow we have some lame crafts on deck and some fun sciency projects.  We are still strapped in here and with the high of -6, the only time I will be getting out is to get my annoying dog out for what better be the biggest and quickest dump and whiz.  Wish us luck.  We shall need it…..and if you are up for it, get your ass over here and join the chaos.

I just left visiting a friend with a new baby who is hooked up to one of the cruelest inventions of ALL time.  The breast pump.  When my pals were born they were in the NICU for too long to ever breastfeed so it was something I never did (the giant baby was another story) but that pump became a part of me for several months.  A part of me that I loathed. If I had not rented that damn thing I would have taken it out back, used it as a toilet and then backed over it several times with my monster truck.

As I watched my friend deal with the breast pump from hell I was reminded of the time that I ended up in the ER when my pals were a couple months old.  Nothing serious but I went to my regular OB follow-up and had a spell with terrible high blood pressure so my OB sent me straight to the ER.  I got there and waited and waited and waited only to have to sheepishly tell a nurse that I needed to borrow a breast pump because my boobs resembled two of those giant balls that weird pregnant people roll around on when they are in labor.  I think some people use them for exercise too, you know the kind – they are ginormous.  Don’t let me forget that my boobs were leaking to add to this lovely picture.  I was a sight.

Long story short, they decided that I needed to have a stress test.  Wait, what?  A stress test?  What does that entail you ask?  It entails running on a tread mill while hooked up to wires and monitors.  Oh goody.  Since I went straight to the hospital from my Doctors office I was wearing a sundress and flip flops.  How was I going to run on a treadmill in flip flops?  No worries, one of the kind nurses gave me her size 10 dirty Reebok’s to wear.  I am a size 8 so we were already off to a great start.

Of course the two tech’s monitoring the test were in their late 20’s and male.  I couldn’t get two old ladies to do the test, it had to be two relatively good looking guys who had no idea what they were in for.  I had to take my gigantic nursing bra off while they put those sticky things on.  One guy lifted ONE boob with both hands while the other one put the things under, on the side and all over my chest.  At this point I was a shade of red that resembled a pomegranate.  I don’t get embarrassed easily but this was sure doing it.  There I stood wearing size 10 dirty Reeboks, a giant pair of maternity underwear and a hospital gown open down the front with the world’s largest boobs getting ready to go through something that boobs should never have to endure.  The only good part about my boobs being so big was that when I looked down I could not see the Reeboks.

So I stepped on the treadmill having no idea what to expect.  The hotter of the two techs (who were both behind me, Thank God, so I could not see their faces that I am sure were holding the world’s largest grins) told me it would start out slow and eventually I would get up to a nice steady jog.  Ok, I can handle this.  I had not worked out in about 2 years but what was 20 minutes?  That’s nothing.  I got this.

It started out as a nice brisk walk…uh oh, I thought, this is not going to be good.  These boobs are really bouncing and we haven’t even started.  Then the pace picked up and so did the boobs.  Literally.  As I started trotting on this machine from hell, they took off.  They both had minds of their own.  This was the problem.  As I ran like a giant hippo wearing shoes made to fit an elephant, off the boobs went.  I will never forget it.  The right one just slammed up and down over and over while the left one for some unknown reason decided to spin counterclockwise, like a giant propeller.  So as one was going up and down, one decided to rebel, show off if you will and go round and round.  But wait, it gets better.  Keep in mind I am heaving like  Nell Carter right now and then it happened.  The milk.  It started coming out of the propeller boob.  It was very rhythmic.  Now there was milk on the treadmill and I ran the risk of slipping in the damn stuff.  Was this really happening?  Yes, the answer is yes.  There was breast milk on the monitor, on the treadmill, in my eyes and no doubt the ceiling but I was concentrating too damn hard not to slip in the stuff.  I held onto that bar on the treadmill for dear life and ran my heart out.  I did it.  I finished.  It has to go down as the worst 20 minutes of my life to date and I know for a fact that those poor guys are still telling this story to their friends when they go out to bars.

I sheepishly cleaned the breast milk off of the dirty Reeboks, returned them to the nurse, put my head down in shame and promised never to show my face at Northwestern Hospital.  For the record, I had Abbott at Advocate Hospital.  Now you all know the real reason why.

So the next time you see a woman with a breast pump or breastfeeding, keep in mind you never know what she may have just been through.  Or the next time you see a pair of size 10 dirty Reeboks you can wonder if those are the infamous shoes.   I will never look at a pair of Reeboks the same, now neither will you.

“Mommy, can you get me a tiny cup of water?”  “Can you do Mommy a favor and get one yourself?  Mommy is busy (…ahem, lazy) right now.”  After 13 minutes of quiet my pals marched downstairs with wet pj’s, hair and some shit eating grins on their faces.  I decided to go up to their bathroom and check things out.

The water was running, the floor was sopping wet and it took me 2 bath towels to soak up the mess.  It also appeared they were constructing pyramids out of the cups and hosing each other down.  This brings me to the question, was it worth it?  Were those 13 minutes where I sat on the couch watching the news with a piping hot cup of coffee loaded with French Vanilla creamer worth it?  It was quiet.  No one was asking me to get them anything and the best part – there was no fighting.  So yes, it was worth it.

You know those times when the kids are in the other room and they are being way to quiet to be behaving?  You know that whatever is going on in there is not going to be good but you take your sweet ass time going in there to put off the inevitable.  Like the time I walked into their bedroom to find L.A. with a black sharpie redecorating everything form the walls to the floor to the white dressers….to his sister.  I was too mad to even consider whipping out the camera but as my husband said, “you had to know something bad was happening because they were quiet WAY too long.”  He was right but I think I might have had a glass of wine in peace during that episode so it is still up for debate whether it was worth it or not.  For the record, hair spray gets sharpie (yes, the permanent kind) off of almost anything.

Don’t get me wrong, there is no one on this earth that I would rather spend time with than my kids but sometimes a tiny break is amazing.  The word “Amazing”  sometimes even takes on new meaning when it pertains to this subject.   The other day I went to the bathroom by myself and it was amazing.  No one fought over who was going to flush my pee down the toilet.  It was amazing.  I pushed the lever on the toilet, stood back and smiled.  I did it.  Alone.  It was awesome – amazingly awesome.

I try to be one of those mom’s that gives my kids well balanced meals that promotes a healthy lifestyle with a full representation of all the food groups. (For the record, I have no idea how many food groups even exist).  I do try and cut up some sort of fruit at every meal – that counts, right?  Sometimes it might be a dried out clementine or an apple that looks like it went a few rounds with Mike Tyson or someone from the Jersey Shore.  When the bananas get brown we call them “Mater” bananas (from the Cars movie – Mater is that brown dumpy tow truck).  They still buy that one but my days on that one are very limited.  Bananas are not huge in our house but Minions are very popular.  The minions are the little guys from Despicable Me.  They actually want their 4th birthday party to be a “Minion party”.  At least they agreed to something because that does not happen very often.

So here is my latest fix for the “I won’t eat my banana Mommy”……I figured, it kind of looks like a minion and I have a boatload of sharpies and some extra time on my hands:

Slice that thing in half, whip out the sharpie, draw some eyeballs and hair and wah-lah, there you have it – a minion.  Get them to eat that half and then they get another minion when that is done and then before you know it you have gotten a whole banana down the chute.  If they give me the cold shoulder on apple slices I put some vanilla yogurt in a tiny 3 oz bathroom cup (the cute kind with the animals on) and tell them it is dip.  They have no clue and I tell them that they are eating apple nachos.

It seems like packaging goes a long way for my kids just like adults.  I write their names on EVERYTHING.  Every juicebox, every bag of pirate booty and even on their banana’s (when they do not look like minions).  They like things in their own individual cups for dipping sauces/yogurt and I am happy to oblige as long as it works.  Applesauce – throw some food coloring in there and they will eat a boatload of it.  I buy unsweetened stuff and let them pick a color.  Bright blue apple sauce is pretty cool.  They want to try Red and see how that tastes.  I lean back and pat myself on the back for being so clever…..that is until I realize that I have 43 baskets of dirty laundry and we all have been wearing the same underwear since Tuesday…..but we do turn them inside out if necessary.

Who doesn’t love a good hot dog?  I only eat them at a Cubs game after a warm PBR’s but my kids love them and when they want them for dinner – no problem…..as long as it is not 5 days a week.  (4 could possibly fly).  My kids started out eating them just like a log. “NO…Mommy, don’t cut it.  Then it doesn’t look like a laser!”  Ok, so let me get this straight you want a hot dog, not heated up, just laying on your Ikea plate.  Just laying there like a pathetic excuse for encased meat?  “Yes Mommy….it is a laser dog.  It looks just like a laser.”  I really cannot argue with him for so many reasons.  Not only does he give me credit for being the coolest Mommy ever because I am letting him eat a laser, it literally takes 4 seconds to put a hot dog on a plate.  Cut some Jersey Shore apple slices and dinner is served.  This phase lasted a while but they get bored easily, like their mom.  This is why we have random dance parties during the day and my kids have to tell me to “zip it”.  Which we all know that “zip it” is the fancy/polite way of saying “shut up”.  I hate “shut up”.  It is terrible and crass and it makes my skin crawl but “zip it” I can handle and deal it out regularly.

So when we got tired of the laser hot dog we moved on to a VERY complicated hot dog that you really should have a masters in physics to tackle -the octopus dog.  It takes very precise measurements and you may or may not need a pro-tractor to get Oliver the octopus just right.

So here is what our laser hot dog morphed into – Simon.  He takes about 8 seconds to make and is even cuter when they let me stick little cloves in for eyeballs but that doesn’t happen very often.

So everyday we try and get a little creative and beyond the peanut butter and jelly and scrambled eggs.  We have make your own pizza faces on the dinner for tomorrow night so that should be interesting.

Just as long as I get to eat their scraps I am good.  I have officially turned into my dad and cannot let food go to waste.  “Finish that fish stick LA….but I don’t like it.”  “Well neither do I but I will eat that mushy mess of bones that I paid for so it does not go to waste”.  I have turned into my dad.  It is official…..although I am way better at charades than him.

Case in point:  

He was acting out a taco.  You guessed it right away, didn’t you?

We did it.  We made it.  The last phase of our remodel is done.  The downstairs bathroom that our contractor told us would take 10 days and actually took about 90 is done.  Finished.  Complete. Dunzo.  Over.

Not only is the bathroom done but the contractor is…..Thank God.  No more strangers in the house.  No more random men taking dumps in my bathroom.  No more cleaning up cigarette butts.  No more trying to figure out what they are saying about me in polish.  You know when you just know that someone is talking about you?  That happens to me on a daily basis.  I think the head honcho thinks I am a giant crotchety mom who watches to much Bravo and lets my kids run wild.  Sometimes I do watch too much Bravo when I am not working or the kids are napping and yes, my kids are a little wild.  They will actually be confused when the workmen stop coming.  They call the painter “Uncle Ranko” and think that every screwdriver, hammer or measuring tape belongs to “Mr. Mark”.

Is it weird that I put a picture of us (ahem, a GIANT one at that) in the bathroom?  I guess when I was choosing what should go there I was dreaming of being back in Cancun and out of this weather.  I guess I wanted people to take a dump, think of the tropics and look at our backsides.  Actually, I have a “no dumping rule” that I will enforce for this bathroom.  My parents have a specific bathroom at their house that we all refer to as the “poop bathroom”.  It is far removed from the main hangout room so if you have to go number 2 you do not have to leave everyone in the kitchen/great room gasping for air after you do your business.  There is nothing worse than when someone takes a dump like that.  I will never understand that.    Although I am not sure I am going to be able to enforce this rule with my son L.A.  That kid likes his bowel movements and he likes to take his sweet ass time while doing so.  I have NEVER understood this.  Never.  Why do guys do this?  Why would you want to sit there and marinate in a giant brown cloud of stench?   L.A. actually asked for a book the other day and I refused.  Do your business and beat it.