My first flower

Little Man gave me a flower today.  He picked it at the park, then brought it to me and snuggled.  I melted.  It is being pressed to save.  He is the sweetest little boy ever, although I might be biased.

Someday...

My life will not involve cleaning or tracking other people's bowel movements.  Today is not that day.

P.S.  My tub has been cleaned 4 times in the last week.  This is not a good thing.

Something you should never ask

We were at a small local museum today and an older man noticed Little Man and Honeybun.  He asked if they were twins and then asked, "Did you cheat?"  I was taken aback and replied, "No."  I thought this would end our conversation.  I couldn't imagine that anyone would continue to question a complete stranger about how her children were conceived.  He followed up with, "So you just let Mother Nature take its course."  I moved us along as quickly as I could.

As I walked away I thought of all the things I could have said in reply.  A few of my options...

"Yes, I cheated.  I copied someone else's answers for the pregnancy test."

"They lived inside me for nine months, so no, I didn't cheat."

"Oh, so we're discussing personal health issues.  How's your prostate these days?"

And perhaps my husband's favorite, "Go f#@& yourself!"

I always thought the problem with these sorts of situations in life is that I am so shocked by the person's utter lack of respect and common decency that I am unable to come back with an appropriately affronted reply.  I try to end the conversation and remove myself (and my children) from the rude person as quickly as possible.

Looking back on it, though, I am glad I walked away with dignity.  First of all, his rudeness does not have to make me rude.  Secondly, there is no point in engaging someone who is displaying such poor social skills.  Thirdly, if he was clueless enough to ask such an inappropriate question, my profanity free responses might have sailed right over his head, and I don't curse out loud.  Finally (and most importantly), I don't want to place my children in a situation like that.  Leaving quickly was the best way for me to keep a rude, coarse and disrespectful person way from my impressionable little ones.

I do wish I had replied differently.  I am rehearsing my reply for future occasions. "That question is  inappropriate and rude.  Please leave us alone."  It communicates the person's breach of decent social conduct and allows me to end the encounter quickly.  

It is amazing, though.  Nobody would ask a person with one child which position they used to conceive, but plenty of people have no problem asking about my children's conception.  Twins are not public property, people!  

Buddies

Our new favorite pastime is squeezing into small spaces together!

Clean!

For a few brief minutes this week, my living room was clean!  The toys were all organized and put away, the floors were freshly swept and all clean laundry was folded and taken upstairs.  It stayed like this for about fifteen minutes, until the kiddies finished their snacks and got down to play.  Good thing I got photographic evidence!

Now it looks like this...

C'est la vie!

An accidental hike

Yesterday I accidentally took a four mile walk with my sixty pound stroller.  I know, four miles is not that much in the grander scheme of things, but I was pushing a sixty pound stroller and our neighborhood has some rolling hills and I had only planned to do two miles.

Why did I double my planned walk, you might ask.  Because I decided I didn't want to walk with my key and phone in my pocket.  They kind of mess with my gait and make my hips hurt a little.  Unfortunately I remembered this after I had left the house and I decided to put the keys in the stroller instead of going home to get a purse.

So my neighbor and I took off on our walk, me with my double stroller and kiddies, her with her carrier and baby boy.  We did our full two miles and then let the kids out to play in the grass at the little park on our route.  As we split up to head home I realized I did not have my keys or phone.  I flagged her down and we tried calling my phone and searched for my keys.  

Eventually, a nice old lady answered my phone and I picked it up from her.  Then my friend and I searched the park for my keys to no avail.  Finally we split up to finish the search.  I took the long loop and she headed home to search the rest of our route.  I ran into my husband almost immediately, so at least I had some help with the stroller for the second loop.  Halfway through my loop she called to let me know she had found them.  

Thank heaven!  I was not looking forward to rekeying my doors and getting new car keys.  We arrived home exhausted (all three of us) and covered with graham cracker crumbs.  I was forced to buy cooperation with snacks after the cherubs got sick of being in their stroller (I can't blame them, I was certainly sick of pushing their stroller).

Lessons of the day...

Bring a purse on walks

Put key and phone in purse

Do Not Lose Purse!

Also, I can do more walking than I thought.

Things I Love

Now that I have emerged from the haze of postpartum depression and anxiety, I'm enjoying my life so much more.  Here are some of the things I love these days.

Freshly painted toenails.  Nicely lacquered nails make me feel like a grownup, and these days I love expensive nail polish.  Okay, so it's still from Target, but it's still nice polish.  And I love that my daughter is old enough to request matching toes!

Gently stroking the backs of my babies heads as a walk by them.  This is Little Man's head, his hair is so soft and just a bit fuzzy and curly in the back.  I call him my fuzzy duck, which I suppose will bring him endless humiliation later in life.

Crayons!  I have a huge crayon tower, which my kids are not allowed to share.  I bought them a box of big, fat crayons for our art project times.  Little Man mostly tries to eat the crayons, but Honeybun colors a bit.

My new bed.  We got a new bed a few weeks ago and it is divine.  We're both sleeping so much better, it's ridiculous that we suffered with our old mattress so long.  It was saggy and unfortunate and had survived many years and the months of giant twin pregnancy.  

The "nummy jar."  It is actually an elephant shaped cookie jar, but it does not contain cookies.  It sits on our table and holds all of the kids' favorite treats/snacks.  Freeze-dried fruits, bunny grahams, fruit leather, yogurt melts, etc.  They get so excited when I lift the lid.

And my babies... They were once this tiny.

And my husband.