All the Boys at 18 Months

It is interesting to see the differences between Teddy's behavior and reactions to things as opposed to Cal and Clark's. Here are some pictures and a comparison.

Teddy at nearly 18 months

Cal and Clark at 18 months

Concept/object	Cal and Clark at 18 months-ish	Teddy at 18 months
Vacuum	Worst thing ever, must scream and cry and wail and run away and throw selves on floor in agony.	Funny! Must chase it around and touch it and let Mom vacuum up my toes with the attachment; need to find it in the closet and touch it; I like to pretend vacuum with my toys.
Ceiling fans	Most interesting object in life so far. Must gaze at them intensely for as long as the grown-ups will let us. Must point out every single one we find. Must arrange all toys and food into ceiling fan shapes.	meh
Vegetables on my tray	Must not touch unless it is broccoli and then we can touch it and eat the tops off gingerly.	Would rather eat them than bread or mac 'n cheese or pizza. Give me more when I grunt. My faves are cucumbers and green peppers.
Fruit on my tray	We will eat it all…for another few months when we will decide we don’t like anything except apples, and only without the peels.	I will eat it all and grunt for more.
Cars, trucks, trains	meh	I want to make my food into cars; I love to watch construction equipment and drive toy cars and trucks around.
Balls	We love to throw balls and roll balls and Clark already has a follow-through on his throw.	I sometimes like to throw a ball. I throw it backwards over my shoulder to confuse people/because I’m not sure how to throw it forward.
When I fall down/ am run in to/ am fallen on/ am hit with an object on accident	Shock. Usually we cry, but have learned to read the room and sometimes don’t cry.	Never fazes me. I know no pain. I am knocked in to, stepped on, picked up and moved out of the way every day. Don’t care.

Language	We love it. We use sign language fluently and have quite a few words.	I know a few signs but am belligerent about using them because everyone knows what I want when I grunt and point. I know a few words and that's enough for me. Besides, there is too much noise in my house for me to talk anyway.
Books	We love them and have our favorites that Mom reads every day. We also like to eat the board books.	I have favorite books and Mom reads them to me over and over. Love them so much I carry them around by the front or back cover all the time so the best ones are broken in half. If Mom or Dad want me to smile they recite the first lines of my favorite book and it gets me every time.
Heights	Not sure how to get up on anything so we don't even think about it.	Everything must be climbed on. Whenever someone doesn't push a chair under the table I am ON that table and I am standing up and I am drinking/eating/throwing/ whatever is on the table.
Sleeping through the night	Been doing it since we were 3 months old. NBD	What is that? Must wake up once a night unless I am super tired. Must go back to sleep with mom and dad when I wake up because I am a spoiled brat but very cuddly.
Appliances	The oven is mildly interesting if its light is turned on.	Must be IN them if possible and/or pushing buttons if possible.
Water	Must not touch it unless it is in a puddle on the ground. Must stay far away from every large body of water.	Love the water! Put it on my face, dump it on me, let me splash in it, let me throw it at you, throw it at me.

What Teddy and I Do All Day

Cal and Clark going to kindergarten means a lot of things, but one of the most important ones is that Teddy and I get a lot of quality time together. Until last week I had no idea how to function with only one child. Seriously. I've never been at home with only one before. It's different than with two or three. Some might say easier, and so far I agree. I only have to feed lunch to one, change the diapers of one, push a single stroller rather than a double stroller, carry one baby up the 35 stairs of our building, etc. I do find myself wishing Teddy had a little twin pal to play with, though. But he'll have to settle for dance parties with my Pandora stations and me for now.

We are settling into our little routine. After we play and I corral the boys to get them into some sort of presentable state, we walk them to school and then sometimes stay outside and keep walking or sometimes come inside to escape oppressive heat. We wave at all the same people on the way to school-- the neighborhood friends and friends-of-a-friend. Today we spent the lovely, cool morning walking to the library and Trader Joe's after dropping the boys off at school. I let Teddy walk around outside for awhile. Some mornings we've had a play date with some other little babies and their moms.

Then after the early morning fun there is nap time for Teddy, which means dishes, laundry, and maybe the beginning of dinner for me. Any phone calls to be made or writing projects to be hacked away at. The cleaning of the bathrooms and the taking out of the garbage and recycling. I turn Pandora on the TV and maybe I jam out while I Windex the sliding glass door. When Teddy wakes up we typically dance to a song I made up for him and then have lunch. He drinks from his bottle with his pinkie up. So cute. Then we have the afternoon. I love to read books with him. He has his favorites and he'll drag them around and hold them up to me to read, while grunting and smiling. He hides things in the cupboards like his firetruck I found by the almonds and the little watering can I found in the mixing bowls. He often pulls out a bag of rice cakes, and pulls it around like a blanket. He clearly misses the boys though, like I do. I find myself wondering what they're doing and Teddy usually goes over and pulls on the door an hour or so before it's time to go pick them up.

Then we do go and pick them up. We say hello to the same people, and we wait at the same doors for the boys to come through. Today I let Teddy get out of the stroller and so when he saw Cal and Clark coming through the doors, he started giggling and ran over to them. They hugged him and I had a mom moment.

The boys are now very much comfortable at school. They yell goodbye to their friends and teachers. Today Clark held up the whole kiss 'n ride line to stick his head in a classmate's car to remind him about the t-ball game tomorrow. They have to run back to high five another buddy.

And then we all come home and the boys finish their lunches or have a different snack while Teddy snacks also and we talk about the day and usually about some sort of hypothetical fighting situations (Who would win, Mom, a lion or a bear? A fork or a spoon if they were alive?). Other topics covered are usually sports, shark teeth and eating habits, food, and whatever make-believe situation they're involved in. Meanwhile, Teddy just revels in having his brothers home. He squeals while they wrestle and claps while they play catch.

The rest of the day is just normal stuff-- we go outside again if possible, eat dinner and hang out with Brian. Lots of wresting and elbows flying. I try to focus on Cal and Clark since I don't get to see them as much as usual. Some piano-practice on the new keyboard we bought for their piano lessons. Some bath time for Teddy, and the boys now shower. That's right. They shower. All Teddy does in the bathtub is stand up, turn on the faucet and tries to drink the water coming out as he squeals manically.

Then Brian and I send the kids to bed and fall asleep watching the Nationals win, cradling our wine glasses and secretly eating goldfish crackers or string cheese from the boys' school lunch stash.

And that is what Teddy and I do all day.

Just another morning before school- space mission under the table

pinkies up!

Who wants to hang out with this guy? Me!

Is it time to go get the boys yet, Mom?

Are you sure?

Well then let's turn the music up.

After school playing with clay: Clark fashions a flying squirrel

Your typical coming-home-from-school scene: boys with sticks.

Doing "push-ups" on the way to school

We found a giant butterfly!

SCHOOL IS OVER AND WE'RE WILD.

Brushing with Theodore John

Brushing your teeth is complicated, but I've come up with a step-by-step tutorial to help you first timers out there.

First, grip your toothbrush at the top like this so you can eat the toothpaste off.
Wait, that's not right.

Here we go. Hold the bottom grippy part and stick the top part in your mouth.

Move it up and down and let the spit run down your chin.

Don't be afraid to GO A LITTLE CRAZY with it.

Then swallow the yummy baby toothpaste...hold  up, I found a shower curtain!

This has been Brushing with Theodore John. Tune
in next time for How to Play in the Toilet, Undetected.

Teddy's First Birthday- A Teddy Bear Party

I figured the first birthday...maybe the second... is really the only chance I'll have to do a teddy bear-themed birthday party for Teddy. I doubt as he gets much older he'll want to have a lot to do with teddy bear parties. So I went for it.

The party hats might have been my favorite part because I designed them myself. I used a regular party hat pattern, modified it a little and poked holes for ears, used foam instead of paper, made ears with notches, and stuck them in the holes.

Bear party hats

Stapled elastic to the sides

Inside the hat

Teddy the Party Bear

Cousin Clara Bear

Best Friend Bears

Cal and Clark wanted to help with the party,
so they colored a bunch of these teddy bears for a few weeks
before the party. I hid them at the party and the kids ran around
finding them. They were a big hit.

Bear paw cookies! brownie mix, upside-down Hershey dark chocolate
kisses, peanut halves

Yum, but more importantly, cute

I made a banner. I love banners.

I borrowed the chalkboard from a friend.

Bear face cake and Teddy Graham trail mix: The mix is
honey, chocolate, and cinnamon Teddy Grahams with mini marshmallows and raisins.
I separated the mix out into cupcake liners on a cupcake stand and used
the rest in the glass container for decoration.

Teddy's little cake. My mother-in-law
just happened to have a beehive cake
mold, so I used it and made a banana cake
with yellow "honey" cream cheese frosting.
I was hoping to make little bees for it,
but ran out of time.

The weather was nice so all the kids got to play
outside a lot and I even got to play with the
birthday bear a little.

Bear-friends

Teddy Bear eating berries

Teddy was not sure about sitting on a table
without a shirt in front of a room of people.

He did enjoy the frosting, though.

Brother bears surround little birthday bear, who has had
enough of this party.

It was a fun party, and not too much work. I stayed simple with food. We had round sandwich thins with chicken salad for the grown-ups, peanut butter and jelly for the kids, as well as cheese and ham sandwiches and crackers with cheese and salami. We also had a berries plate, apples, watermelon, (bears would eat those things, right?) and veggies. I made strawberry lemonade.

I can't believe our little Peapod who became Theodore John, who became Teddy, is one whole year old. We adore him and can't even imagine what it would be like without him now. We are blessed.

Doing

Introduction: I wrote this entry ("Doing") after a long day of mothering. After I published it and read it through again I realized it sounds pretty bitter. I was definitely venting, but I do love being a mom. I was trying to entertain my readers a bit by finding the humor in it all through a little hyperbole. I hope that this went without saying for most people who know me, but I wasn't sure. 

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This is a lot.

I have no idea how mothers of more than three children at home manage their lives. From dawn until way after dusk and into the wee hours of the morning, I am doing. I am doing everything. And I don't mean I'm doing everything to take care of our household, I'm certainly not, but I'm doing constantly, and what I'm doing doesn't involve much sitting and sometimes not even much thinking, but it is constant.

Turns out these little turds have to eat three times a day, Teddy even more often, and preferably healthy food that makes up a balanced diet, which is a lot of work just on its own and involves grocery lists and recipes-- two things I'm not very fond of-- as well as heaps of dishes every day.

But. There are a million other things these boys need as well. Like a cup of milk please and for me to take their hair out of the other one's hands NOW, and their Batman shirts out of the laundry before the villains strike, and for me to watch the AMAZING slide into home in slow motion and for their toothpaste to be extracted from their noses and for me to observe their ant farm through their magnifying glass and show them how to make their beds and get down Candy Land from their shelf and to open their applesauce lids and to take the teething ring off the baseball bat and look at the cool car they made out of gears and take Teddy out of the bedroom so he doesn't knock over their Lego restaurant and tape the box to the balcony rail so they can shoot their basketball into it and to clean the finger paint out of their ears and the Play-doh off the chairs and read their new books and set the chicken out to thaw for dinner and label the body parts of an ant and look at the pretty drawing they made and play their memory game with them and get their damn hockey gear on them before their hockey class and floss the corn out of their teeth and give them all baths that aren't too cold or too hot or too long or too short that actually remove the baseball field dirt from all crevices of their bodies. No biggie.

On top of these odds and ends that keep me hopping all day, I am to keep the house on the better side of the filthy and cluttered vs. almost filthy and fairly cluttered line, and hopefully provide some semblance of education and exercise to the boys' lives. How do parents do it and retain sanity? I like to think I am sane, but I'm actually not so sure. Right now I am drinking a Mason jar of wine and talking to a measuring cup full of chocolate chips, so you tell me.

These menial tasks and goals are what make up each and every day of my life and are why I haven't been blogging much. We also just moved Teddy into Cal and Clark's room, which has proved challenging to say the least. We have tee-ball, which has been a blast, but also consumes time and I've been maintaining a spot in my book club, which requires some late-night reading stints. One daunting thought is knowing that it will only get more hectic from here. The twins will develop different interests and not be doing every activity together, which will involve more time spent figuring out transportation for each of them, more weeknight and weekend activities, and inevitably more freaking laundry. Teddy will begin to be involved in more activities, and meanwhile I will not be working out, but remaining a lumpy blob of a mom who eats leftover hot dog scraps and secretly makes and eats piles of nachos and dips anything and everything into her homemade ranch dressing.

So, I'm kind of a mess.

But as all the well-edited articles about this stage of motherhood that I get a quarter of the way through but never have time to finish tell me, I should enjoy this time because it will pass so quickly and soon I will be missing the days that I find superhero capes in my pillow case and raisins in my hair. I will miss washing out bib pockets and stepping on tiny dinosaurs. Right now that doesn't seem possible, but in order to keep myself on the good side of sanity, I choose to believe that the articles on motherhood that I partially read are correct.

I also remind myself that I have only a little over two months before my little baby twins will be off to kindergarten and I might have time to actually vacuum the carpet and chop an entire onion up at once. But I know I will also miss them and their LOUD presence throughout my day.

I'm actually not even sure what the point of this entry is. I guess just to write something, because it is therapeutic and fun and it's a weekend night so I'll have Brian's help in the morning. And now Teddy is awake and I have to put him back to sleep without waking up Cal and Clark.

I know I will not miss this part.

These rings around the tub and dirt at the bottom sum up
the conclusion of my days quite well.

Thursday Thesicle

Tough hockey players can feed little cousins too.

It Is Morning

It is 3:30 am in a dark house. A fan blows. A distant wind chime is heard from the sliding door that is opened a crack. A baby whimpers and then starts crying.

A weary mother rises mechanically and plucks the child from his bed. His feathery hair smells like a bath and is sticking straight up on his head. He makes eye contact with his mom through the grey shapes of the house, and he smiles. He squeals happily. The mother smiles back and sighs. She slips down the hall into the living room and sits on the couch with the baby, who bounces on her lap. He wants to play. She tickles him and he giggles.

She hears a soft pad, pad, padding of a sleepy boy's feet as he slowly enters the room-- a silhouette against the living room window.

"Mommy," he croaks.

"What, Calvin? Why are you awake? It's not morning yet."

"My bed woke me up."

"How did it do that?"

"I don't know, it just did. Just all of a sudden. It keeps happening," he explains. "Also my turtle light keeps waking me up."

"Well why did you turn your turtle light on?"

"I don't know. I guess it was too dark."

The little boy snuggles on the couch with his mom and baby brother for a few minutes until she gets up to go nurse the baby.

"I'm going back into my room to nurse Teddy now, Calvin. You need go back to bed too," she says calmly, as she rises and walks down the hall.

A quick intake of breath is followed by two other quick intakes.

"But, but, my bed is waking me up and the light is too bright," the young boy sputters. "Is it morning yet?"

"No, it's not. Turn off your turtle, Cal," she patiently explains again, "and it will be darker."

"But it's too dark when it's off and I can't sleep and my bed wakes me up." The whimpering gets louder.

"I have an idea," the mom says. "Keep the turtle light off and open the door to your room so it will be a little lighter but not too light."

Whimper.

"Ok," he whines painfully, into the night air of the house.

The little boy shuffles into his room and the mom goes to her room and sits down on the glider, having solved the problem. She closes her eyes, breathes a big, long sigh, and begins nursing. Sleep is close.

Shuffle, shuffle, pause. Shuffle, shuffle, pause. Boy feet on carpet.

The mom lifts her eyes to see her other boy in her face.

"Mmmmoooommmyyy?" Sputter, sputter. Whine. "Did you really say we have to sleep with the door all the way open?"

"No. No I did not say that, Clark." Frustration is setting in. Really? 4:00 am and all three boys are awake and two are arguing? The mom rolls her eyes in the dark room. Massages the back of her neck with her unoccupied hand. "If you want you can sleep with it open, but you don't have to."

Sniffle, sniffle. "Okay, Mommy," he quickly leaves, eager to tell his brother he was wrong.

The mom sighs again, stretches her legs all the way to her toes, and nuzzles Baby Teddy's warm little head.

Shuffle, shuffle, pause. The mom lifts her head and sees two swaying heads in the hallway on the other side of the crib. They appear to be deciding if bothering her again is worth it. She pretends to be asleep. They move away from the hall door. Then she hears their little breaths, their tiny whispers, as they look at her from out of the bathroom door this time. Still, she feigns sleep and hopes for the best. Their sounds disappear from the bathroom door and she thinks she has won.

The swaying, bobbing heads again silently appear on the other side of the crib. One boy enters the room. Immediately his is there, in her eyes.

Sniffle, sniffle. Louder this time. His heart is broken.

"Mommmmmm?" he moans.

"What, Cal?"

"Did you really say to Clark that we have to sleep with the door all the way closed? Not even open a crack?" he holds his hands out, palms up, and slouches his shoulders to show his utter despair over the door's possible position. "When will it be morning?"

She wryly smiles to herself at the ridiculousness of the whole situation. Kisses Teddy on the head and lays him in his crib. She stretches to the tops of her fingertips.

"No, Cal. I said sleep with the door opened. Or closed, or partway open or partway closed. And no, it is not morning." She gains volume as she walks closer to their bedroom door. Becomes more and more irritated. She grabs the doorknob and illustrates her points, swinging the door open and closed in various stages-- various options of openness that they have. Maybe she does it a little wildly, a little desperately.

"Ok," they murmur, obediently filing into their bedroom, perhaps regretting their decision to rouse their mother again, but happy to know that they are not being forced to do something as abusive as sleep with their door a way contrary to the way they think it should be.

"I don't care how you do it, just go back to sleep," she loudly whispers.

Back in her room, she slips between her cool sheets and snuggles onto her pillow. Deep breath. Closes eyes. Peace.

Suddenly she opens her eyes with a jolt. Clark is standing there. It is light-- 6:30am.

"Mom, just so you know, Dad gave us milk to drink while he takes a shower," Clark explains, as if this makes any sense, as if the sleeping mother needs to know this nugget of information so badly that she needs to be wakened. She is speechless.

"Okay, bye Mom!" Clark is gone, yelling something about Spiderman's webs to Calvin.

The grumpy mother pulls the covers back to her chin.

The baby whimpers and moves in his crib. He squeals. Sunlight pokes her in her eyes through the slanted window blinds. Feet run up and down the hall.

It is morning.

MORNING, MOM!

Bonus Teddy picture

"

"

The Other Half of Idaho

I've been blog slacking.

About a month ago I wrote about our Idaho surprise and posted some pictures from our first few days there, but thought I'd add some other pictures from the rest of our visit. It was so nice to have that time with my parents, sister, and grandparents. It was also nice for Teddy to have all that time with his grandparents and aunt; it meant that I had so much more brain space than normal. Didn't have to think about the everyday responsibilities that come with keeping three small, moving children alive and well.

I did some reading. I cooked for fun. (what?) I watched Pride and Prejudice with my mom and sister while we wore irrelevant skirts and drank tea. I worked out to an exercise video (yes, a VHS) that we used to work out to when I was like 12 years old, just for kicks. I did a lot of sitting and laughing around a roaring fire by my parents' wood stove. Just relaxing. Stretching. Foot-rubbing. Cat-petting. Striking pensive poses. I even tried to cross country ski for the first time in something like seven years. The result was beautiful scenery and great exercise but did not end well. (See how it ended.)

On the other side of the country my husband and our amazing friends took wonderful care of Cal and Clark. I was wondering how the boys would do in my absence. I missed them-- I'd never been away from them for so long. When they picked me up from the airport they were decidedly indifferent to the fact that I was now with them. Then there was an adjustment phase where I was reintroduced to life with three children by myself all day. They seemed a little put out that we did normal stuff like clean their room and eat sandwiches after having gone to a movie, made mini pizzas, gone duckpin bowling, skating, ate a lot of pizza, ice cream, cheesecake, played a lot of Wii, watched movies, in general were treated like little princes. I think we are now adjusted back to reality.

Here are some pictures from the rest of our Operation Ted Sneak Idaho trip:

Four generations!

Great Grandma eats some little feet.

Walking on Papa

Heading uphill on cross country skis

Teddy had lots of hands eager to feed him.

The scene from my parent's dining room one morning-- that's the frozen
lake out there

Snow!

Super adorable pygmy owl that hung out for hours one day

Pride and Prejudice watching

Pinkies up!

This was my handmade and hand-painted chair when I was little.

Afternoon snuggles with Aunt Bean

The rocket ship birdhouse Cal and Clark painted for Papa last year

Grandma loves Teddy

and so does Aunt Bean!

Meeting Winnie the horse-- not so sure about her

Meeting Great Aunt Gwen and
Something-or-other once removed Anna, visiting from Ecuador

Little grocery shopping with Grandma

Rocking with Great Grandpa Joe

Making Great Grandma laugh

Teddy found his best friend. Turns out he likes to hang
out in the locker room of Grandma and Papa's gym.

First swimming pool experience was a smashing success!

Soaking up the fire

Me attempting to cross country ski...it's been awhile

Out on a walk with Papa

Teddy's friend is also in the Denver airport
after a poop-splosion!

Watching the planes in Denver on the way home

Teddy is now an experienced traveler.