Baby Socks

Baby socks should be single-use items. I pretty much suck at keeping my laundry up as it is. So when everything is folded, hung and in their respective piles for distribution, it is so deflating to see a mound of socks filling the bottom third of the basket.

I apologize to all of you who are in the “baby sockies are so cute” phase. They are small, annoying, don’t go in with their friend and certainly *never* come out that way. The island of mismatched socks rides around in the bottom of my basket for so long that when the pair is finally reunited, one is sparkling clean and warm from the dryer and the other is dusty, ragged and probably been used to mop up a minor spill.

But heaven forbid you leave your house with a sock-less baby. I’ve gone so far as to go out with shoes and no socks. Perfect strangers feel the need to point this out. I’m afraid a bout with PMS will someday get the better of me and I’ll drag this poor, unsuspecting do-gooder home and suffocate her in the orphaned sock pile that is equal to my children’s weight.

I think my lost sock pile will evolve into single-use items. I’m going to stuff them into a tissue box and start using them to clean my bathroom.

If you give a boy a daffodil

There is a wonderful and silly series of books that create a goofy trail of events that are all started with one seemingly harmless action. If you give a pig a pancake, she’ll want syrup, get sticky, need to wash and on and on and on until you are back at giving her another pancake.

Well, Dad brought Sam a little daffodil plant, so we had to put it in the sun. We had to water it. So we needed a cup. Then we had extra water in the cup. So we had to water the other plants. Then he had to put the cup in the dishwasher, but it was full so we had to empty the dishwasher. He sorted the silverware. Which led to an instructional by Sam to the twins on who uses the knives (Mommy and Daddy only). While he was on the chair he looked into the backyard and wanted to go play. So we all went to play in the yard. Where there are daffodils growing and Sam needed to pick one, so we had to put it in water…….

Admittedly, there is a bit of license here with the timeline. But as we read, as we call them, "Pig a Pancake" and "Mouse a Cookie" tonight, I thought this is literally every day of my life, except my title would be “If you give a Mommy a Clorox Wet Jet”.

Bath time

Tonight was bath night. For everybody. Usually we either do one boy at a time or do everybody at once. Tonight, we let Sam stay in and did the babies one at a time with him. He's much more amenable to sharing everything in the tub (toys, water, space, attention) when both babies are there. It's like he gets wrapped up in the chaos too and doesn't have time to get too focused on anything. But tonight he was tired and wound up tonight. I felt like the "NO Mommy"; I was no-ing and don't-ing every other sentence. Finally my reprieve came when Scott tagged me out to put Noah in. Aidan was done and we went to get dressed. Of course the phone rings. Aidan's naked, but had a full diaper before the tub and was sitting in warm water for 10 minutes. I think I'm safe to let his chunky butt cruise around the floor for a minute. I go to the office (10 feet away from him) to get the pen I needed. Something made me turn around to see him sitting straight up flicking his fingers in the stream of pee he's making, trying to catch it. At least he was on the wooden floor not the rug.

Scrimshaw

My grandfather was a dairy farmer. He was, in my eyes, 6’ 18”, with the shaggy beard of a sea captain and the jovial tone of a man without a care in the world. He was the father of 5, married for over thirty-five years to the same woman, my grandma. When I was 14, I strode down the stairs of their house and found them kissing the way only two people in love kiss. At the time, he was 58, dying of malignant melanoma. Grampa Barber was also a scrimshander. He carved on ivory; whale, elephant or mastodon. He crafted the most breath-taking, awe-inspiring pieces of art, mostly clipper ships in action or an occasional nonsensical dolphin for an adoring granddaughter.

One of my most favorite memories of Grampa was standing, chin-high to his folding table where he worked. He would start by lighting a match to drip beeswax candle into the dug-out well of an old slab of wood. He would next nestle the ivory into its secure place. Then the skill began. Grampa would lick the end of a lead pencil and sketch the outline of a ship. The untrained, ten-year old eye could distinguish the ghost ship, three masts and the hull. Unimpressive. But he smelled like pipe smoke and musk and gave me his undivided attention without glancing my way. The exacto knife carefully slid over its guidelines, making short order of the pencil lines. What was he still doing drawing? All the trace marks were gone. He continued to carve. I continued to watch, careful not to move or talk.

Finally, he would blow on the piece, rub his thumb across to examine and move along to the next step. He would reach for the tube of ink, half squished and smush out a glob. Grampa would take his rough, calloused farmer’s thumb and work in the ink. This inky, yucky mess went from bad to worse with the ink smearing his thumb and making a huge mess of this formerly pristine piece of ivory. As if that wasn’t bad enough, he’d then reach for the stained, smelly handkerchief he kept in his pocket, spit on it and then put that on the piece and rub. And rub.

Like magic, that foul cloth would unveil a breath-taking masterpiece of miniature proportions. The same hands that aided in extracting a calf at birth moved in excruciating detail to carve, without the benefit of seeing his lines, a 2 inch clipper ship. This was just one of the countless ways that my grampa was magic.

Victory!!!!!!!!!!

Much bidding, anticipation and some last minute patience and I am now the proud owner of the Jogger Stroller brand Triple Jog Stroller. It is only 2 years old and the previous owner used it until her oldest was 5! I am thrilled!!! I have an appointment to pick it up. It will fit in the back of my van and it even comes with the sun shield. You would think I've just hit the jackpot. Or that I've gotten insta-liposuction. I've come to believe that this is the only hope I have for dropping pregnancy weight that is so stubbornly lingering.....stay tuned for news on that front! At very least these boys will get some fresh air and sunshine everyday.

Feeding Time

Just can't wait until we are done with formula. We should actually be about one month away. Then I realized today that what they are already eating is just going to increase! An almost three year old and 2 almost one year olds and this is what got us through the past 2 meals:

Breakfast
¼ Melon
10 Pancakes
2 Bananas

Lunch
4 slices turkey
Handful cheerios
2 slices provolone
1 ½ cups of yogurt
Two pears
½ cup grape tomatoes
¼ cup baby carrots
Grilled cheese sandwich
¼ cucumber

Forget school, I need an investment account to feed them through the teenage years!

The Triple Jogger

I'm in the market for a triple jogging stroller. I know, just the phrase sounds obscene. I have no intention of jogging, running orotherwise moving beyond a regular walk. I think that the "regular walk" actually counts for marathon running if I'm pushing 70 lbs of dead weight.

So these puppies are expensive!! (the jog strollers, I mean, not the babies. They are too, but my point here is the stroller) There are only 3 kinds that are on the market:

1. The Industry Standard: The Jogger Stroller brand. It is available in limited quantities starting in May. Really just want to get the thing so that I can get these babies out of the house and wiggle my jiggle.
2. For the Family Whose Nanny Will Be Walking Their Triplets: The Mountain Buggy brand. Almost twice as expensive as the Jogger Stroller. Available now. I'll sooner put on a Mama Cass mumu than pay $800 for a stroller.
3. The Opportunist Piece of Garbage: The Safetech brand. Available on eBay only. Red flag anyone?? Cheaper, by all accounts in every way.

So I'm left waiting for either luck to smile upon my chance on eBay or wait until May. Of course, no one will ship these monstronsities, so you have to get one from a local vendor on eBay or have a friend close to where the seller is who is willing to help you out in a huge way! Then when all hope was lost, A TRIPLE JOGGER STROLLER IN AMHERST!!!! I'm biding my time until the last minute b/c I don't want to drive up the price and certainly don't want to loose it. I am finding myself hating "gentzel123", my obvious competition. Really I want to contact him/her, split the cost and share the thing! It isn't as if he/she is any less desperate than I am and certainly anyone considering this sort of investment has three small children...we are all in it together! Stay tuned. The auction ends tomorrow. It will be mine!! And you'll know me as the svelte lunatic shoving cheerios and animal crackers at her children to keep them happy on our 5th rotation of Delaware Park.

The Right Shoes

The precursor to this awesome Sam-ism is as follows: The former owners of our house had a water garden in the backyard. They put the fish in the basement in a tack before they moved, leaving them for us for the next year. Well, Sammy + Aidan + Noah + Rocky = no water garden for us. We have one-by-one flushed these fish and now have just one cheese who stands alone. Every so often Sammy and I go down and feed the fish and just generally visit with them. I always wear flip-flops on these excursions. When Sammy got his new sandals last week, he put them on, looked up thoughtfully and announced, “Now I can go in the basement and see the fish!” Like all that was standing between him and a basement free-for-all was the right shoes!