Thursday, February 28, 2013

A Bubble Bath Gone Wrong

I don’t remember things like I used to *GASP* You cannot ever tell my husband that I admitted to that. Ever. My life would NEVER be the same if he knew I’d said that. We have constant “arguments” over the fact that I don’t remember things like I once did. I’m not sure that I 100% agree with him on that but  they say you loose brian cells while pregnant and I’ve carried 3 babies in the belly so I’m thinking that’s where my memory went.

Moving right along. After the kids were done playing in the back yard in all the mud and water they of course needed a bath. Well they needed a shower first to wash off all the grass and dirt. And me being in the generous mood that I was in let them:

1. Take a bath together. Which is something we rarely let them do any more because, well, they are getting older. No further explanation needed.

2. Take a bath in our garden tub. Which again is something they get to do like once a year because it takes so much water to fill it up AND they always loose their minds in there and splash all the water out creating a gigantic mess for yours truly to clean up.

3. Take a bubble bath. I just never remember to offer that because bath time around our house has never been a leisurely past time. Ever. It’s always been soap up, wash off, get out. And hurry up.

Well somewhere during all that generosity my memory got a little fuzzy and when James asked me “what does this button do?” I pushed it. And they giggled and it made me smile that I was granting my loves some more joy. I walked out of the bathroom to go do something and after a few minutes I went back to tell them it was time to start getting out and this is what I found:







Audrey insists that this happened once before but I caught it before it got so big. I insisted that that was just not true. But as I thought about it for the next few minutes, I faintly remembered knowing this small but important detail about garden tubs: The jets make the bubbles expand. My memory is still fuzzy on exactly how I know this but my 5 year old daughter was right, i did know this would happen. I just didn’t remember.

Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Muddy Waters With A Little Kung Fu

As I blogged yesterday, it’s been raining here a lot. So naturally we have lots of standing water around and had 2 pretty deep puddles in our back yard. James begged me on the way to school yesterday morning to let him play in the ditches we were passing that were full with water and even though I am a pretty laid back mama, I had to tell him no on that one.

I did however let him go nuts in our own back yard after we got home from Audrey’s ballet class late yesterday afternoon. The event started out a little iffy because I let him go right out when we got home since he was already prepared with rain boots and jacket and I went inside to get the girls dressed appropriately. We were inside a little longer than I expected and I had checked on him a couple times before I went to the front of the house to my office to grab my camera. But as soon as I pulled it out of the bag I heard these horrible, horrible (and I am not exaggerating) sounds coming from outside and it sounded like James. And I knew it was James. I panicked and ran out the front door to find my little boy sobbing on the front porch like there was no tomorrow. “What’s wrong?” I said and he says “I tried to get in the back door and I couldn’t and thought you had locked me out.”


I’ll give you a quick back story. Well, it might not be so quick but it will give you a good laugh! One day a few weeks ago after coming home from picking up the kids at school, I couldn’t get in our back door. I unlocked it but it wouldn’t open. I tried and tried everything I knew to do but couldn’t get it to budge. The alarm on the house was set as usual and we have chains on the other two doors so I knew that if I went and opened those doors I would trip the alarm and if I couldn’t get the chain off (like my cat burglar husband) then the police would come in all their glory and we have a enough other stories that involve the police and fire trucks. Maybe one day you will get lucky enough to hear those stories. I digress. Let me add that my cell phone was dead and I have no car charger so I couldn’t call Jon to find out when he was coming home and let him know what was going on. So I headed back to the school and I figured I had a good chance of passing him on the highway between here and there and already had this brilliant plan of how I was gonna flag him down.

Well, I neither passed him nor found him at the school. Even though I’m sure I completely freaked some dude out in a white pick up truck similar to what my husband drives (did you just get a mental of that?). I decided since those efforts were in vain I would do some good with the extra time I had been given in the day and go visit a friends elderly grandmother who is 101 years old and even though she’s been going down hill the last few months is still ticking away!! We had a nice visit and headed back home after an hour or so only to still find no Jon at home. I started to get nervously frustrated because in the back of my mind I knew Jon had said he had a pretty long meeting that day but I couldn’t remember if he’d said it was from 4-6 or 6-8. And it was getting late and I didn’t want to be sitting around till 8:00 with a bunch of crazy kids. So when I tried to open the door again and still got nothing, I gave it a good kick. And another good kick. After about 4 of those good kicks, I was in. Yes, you read that right. I kicked our door in. I’ve been working out. Obviously. And, my husband came home 10 minutes later.

SO, fast forward to the sobbing boy on the front porch who thought his mother had locked him out of the house. Since said mother had kicked said little boy’s back door in, you can no longer just shut it and have it stay closed. You have to lock it for it to stay closed. And I was not anticipating him trying to get in and thinking I had locked him out. So, there. I am not a bad mother. At least not a really bad mother. Hey, I let my kids play in the MUD!!










Monday, February 25, 2013

Rainy days in Georgia

It has been raining here in our little town since Friday. Pretty soon we are all gonna need boats to get around in. Okay, maybe not really. But it sure feels like it. It will take at least 2 weeks to dry out though. If it ever stops raining that is. 

On Friday I let Olivia go out and play in the rain. While I was getting her ready to go out, I had a sudden twinge of pain in my gut because I remembered all the times James and Audrey would go out and play in the rain when they were little and not in school. And I’ll admit it was the first time that I really was sad, really sad, that they were not at home with me. Don’t judge. It’s hard raising twin babies thousands of miles away from any of your family and I needed a break and I have been enjoying my break!!! 




The school year is beginning to drag and I will be/already sorta am looking forward to the end of said school year so we can all be together all the time for a couple months. It will be nice!! James and Audrey are growing and changing so fast, even faster than when they were at home all day it seems like. And I am looking forward to some serious quality time with them. **Remind me of this post about two weeks into the Summer, please!!

Moving on. Olivia wanted me to go out in the rain with her and I was trying my best to get some pics of her like I have of the twins at this age playing in the rain. But it’s hard to do that when you don’t own an umbrella. Yeah, I’ve discovered in the last few days that for whatever reason we don’t own an umbrella and I don’t own a raincoat. And Olivia doesn’t have rain boots or a rain coat. Nice time to figure that out. Again, she wouldn’t venture to far with out me so I eventually just had to be a good mom and put the camera down and go play with her.





Monday, February 18, 2013

Sentences

Olivia said her first sentence this morning. I almost ran off the road. Really, I did.

On the days that Jon doesn’t tutor after school, he has started riding with us in the mornings. This morning he wasn’t with us and Olivia kept saying “daddy, daddy, daddy.” I asked her where daddy was and she said “Daddy at kool.” She’s been saying “Audey kool, Bubba kool, daddy kool” but today was the first time she made a complete sentence out of it. Someone please pass the kleenex.

 I mean, I am thankful and grateful that my baby is almost 20 months old and is turning new words out left and right and is now capable of forming and saying complete sentences. It’s something to be thankful for and I am. But at the same time my mommy heart is kicking in. Wasn’t my Tookie baby just born??!!??!! Didn’t I just snuggle my nose into the fat rolls of her little newborn neck while she slept in my arms? Wasn’t it just the other night that I had to get up and feed her and rock her back to sleep praying she would sleep at least 4 more hours? Well actually, she did keep me all night Saturday night. Maybe that’s where I am getting confused.



Friday, February 15, 2013

Party Pooper

I am the resident party pooper in our household. At least my children seem to think so. Any time I have to interrupt their play time, they get so put out. I mean you would think that children would rather fill their bellies with good food than keep playing one of their many games. But, what do I know?

If the twins ever wake up in the mornings before I go upstairs to wake them up, they start playing. And when I go up to get them ready for school, you would think that I just told them they had to go run 12 miles in the freezing cold or something.

So this morning when I had to be the party pooper and tell them it was time to get ready for school, my son told me he wanted me to teach him at home because, are you ready for this? Because he wants to learn more about God. I was in shock and didn’t know weather to feel like a terrible mom for making my son go to public school or to applaud him and say “Well played son. Well played.” After about 30 seconds of us just starring at each other, I decided to do neither and just told him to get dressed.

Fast forward about 15 minutes to the bathroom downstairs where I am braiding Audrey’s hair. He comes in and says again that he doesn’t want to go to school. So I said well I guess on Monday you can stay home for the rest of the school year. He said ok and then I told him I hope he knew he would not get to play all day long. He said “Yes I will. I will be able to play as long as I want.” Audrey hasn’t said a word all morning about this and she finally turned and looked at him and said “Well I’m not staying with you.” Hahahahaha!!!! The look on James’s face was priceless and I had to stifle a laugh. She’s never said that before; she always wants to do/go what/where James wants to do/go. He replied with a whiney “whhyyy notttt Audreyyyy” and she said “Because. I like school and will miss my friends.” Just as matter of fact as you please. She didn’t even need to think about it. He decided shortly after that he did want to go to school. I followed up with “James when you get home every afternoon I will be glad to teach your more about God like we did when I taught you at home last year.” His reply, “Nah, we can do that tomorrow.”


Disclaimer: Please do not judge and think that we don’t teach our children about God. We have nightly devotions and talk often to our children about the sermons that they hear on Sunday’s and other days :)

Friday, February 8, 2013

Mardi Gras

James and Audrey (and Olivia too) went to their first Mardi Gras parade last weekend. And to say that they enjoyed themselves would be the understatement of the century!

Mardi Gras Day on Bourbon street in the Quarter is what most people think of when they hear the words “Mardi Gras.” And we all shudder to think of it because it’s not exactly a good place to be.
Well, we were not in the Quarter and we were not there on Mardi Gras Day. Just sayin. For two weeks prior to the ‘big day” there are parades all around the city of New Orleans and the burbs and my in-laws happen to live in one of the nicest places outside of the city in the burbs  in the burb called Old Metairie (did you follow that?) And the parade we went to, Ceasar, was in Metairie and it is one of the best parades of the season especially for children! Oh my goodness we had so much fun!

Even though it was sorta cold and we had to wait for a long time and we were all pretty tired, we had an amazing time!! Even Livi was waving to the people on the floats. I am still amazed at the fact that she hung in with us until 10 pm, even if she was on auto pilot. And again, a big thanks to her Aunti Ange who held her pretty much the whole time so I could get some pictures.

It was a quick weekend trip that we crammed a bunch into and we definitely can’t handle weekends like that very often but it was well worth it. A lot of great memories were made and time spent with those we love is always worth a little extra effort.














Wednesday, February 6, 2013

Audrey’s Corner

Last night was one of those nights. You know the ones I am talking about. The ones where everything you touch explodes in your face. One of the things was supper so I had to go to plan B and order a pizza. Audrey rode with me to go get it and when we left she noticed the flowers that were blooming in the yard across the street and commented how pretty they were. A few minutes later we passed a couple more houses that have perfectly manicured yards and my ever observant daughter says to me, “Some people that live in houses don’t have kids. They have really pretty yards.” I couldn’t help laugh and even though there were about 10 things I wanted to tell her, I just agreed with her. Cause she’s right, really.

Then while we were eating supper and discussing James Bryant’s upcoming t-ball season, her daddy asked her if she wanted to play this time. She shook her head and said “No, I will just watch.” I asked her why not, it would be a lot of fun and then named a few of her friends who played last year. And this was her reply: I don’t want to play cause it’s hot and I will get sweaty. I don’t like to sweat. WHAT???!!!!

I wanted to die laughing, like literally lay out on the floor laughing because she’s 5!!! She’s 5 and she doesn’t want to sweat?!?! And then I wanted to ask her who’s child was she?? Because she certainly did not get her disdain for breaking a sweat from her father nor her mother. I’m still shaking my head at this one!!