Year 1, Month 2, Week 2

The boys and I had a really busy week.  On Monday we went to Costco with J and Ana to get the boys some chicken patties.  We were looking for something to do while the cleaners were here and that was the best we could come up with.  Afterwards we ate lunch with J, N (her husband), and Ana at McAlister's.  It's funny how I'll order an adult and kids meal but the boys will eat half of mine (in this case a baked potato) and I'll eat part of theirs (hating mac 'n cheese is their loss!).

Jim and I have found the ultimate solution to eating out with the boys.  Honestly I don't know why it didn't occur to us sooner.  Buffets.  There's no wait to get the boys food, so I'm not stuffing them full of cracker just waiting on their meal to arrive.  They eat for free since they're under two.  This might not sound important but Alex and Zach combined eat about the same amount as an adult.  We've had to order each of them a kid's meal a few times now, and at $5 a pop, it adds up.  No left overs!  Again, this might not be obvious but our boys really, really don't like eating the same things in a row.  Very rarely I can cover something in cheese and fake them out.  So leftovers sit, then I have to throw them out.

Tuesday we went over to H and B's house.  H is 28 weeks along with fraternal boys and B is her 17mo old son.  She's on 100% bedrest and stuck in a gap where help from friends ran out but her mom isn't due to arrive for a couple of weeks.  Her husband works during the day but does what he can.  We took a turn helping and watching B.  I made them a broccoli casserole and peach/raspberry cobbler, since meals can be rough.

The day was much more exhausting than I expected.  I guess I thought one more boy would be a little harder, but still reasonable.  What I didn't know was their playroom was too small for all of us to comfortably fit.  They also have two really big dogs that our boys were petrified of.  I'm talking literally unable to move and bursting into tears every time the dogs came into view.

We made due, though.  The kitchen chairs were too small for the boys' booster seats.  So, I fed all three boys in the living room, with Alex and Zach's chairs up on the couch, and B's high chair pulled along side.  I had to get them off the floor or the dogs would have jacked their food and given them permanent emotional scars.

I was also freaked out that I was supposed to feed B hotdogs for lunch.  There's few things that our boys have never had and this is one of them.  The choking hazard issue is just too much for me to chance it.  I watched B like a hawk and cut each doggy disk into tiny pieces, determined he wasn't going to croak on my watch.  Luckily he survived.

The house wasn't super baby proofed (but props for gates on the stairs!) so just keeping an eye on 3 boys was a challenge.  I didn't really appreciate it before, but our house's kitchen/living room/playroom/bathroom are all in a line, giving me a distinct advantage when it comes to monitoring little kids.  This house was more L shaped, so if I was dealing with a boy at one end, I was blind to the other.  The idea us of having another kid seemed a whole lot less appealing by the end of the day.

Wednesday we went to another H's house, but this one has two 10mo boys, L and L.  I'm so used to our boys and their identicalness, it's fun to be around obvious fraternals.  L1 is blond haired, blue eyed, and a flirt.  L2 is brown haired, brown eyed, and more reserved.  L2 is also visibly bigger than L1.  M and her two 11mo identical girls, A and B, were there, too.  So it was 3 adults and 6 little kids.

Initially I was worried that our boys (being the only walkers) would maul the others but that wasn't the case.  Everyone was standing and cruising, and the only incident was between Zach and Alex.  It was over a toy and Alex ended up with two bite marks on his elbow.  Sigh.

I don't know how to say this without sounding like a snob.  Sometimes I get so caught up in doing what I think is best for the boys, I sort of loose track of what's normal.  Mostly this centers around food.  We do the whole grains, no corn syrup, little sugar, low sodium, selectively organic dance at the grocery store every week.  I've been known to carry boxes from the "normal aisle" to the "natural aisle" to compare labels.

At H's house she provided sandwich materials for lunch - white bread, prepackaged meat, individually wrapped sliced cheese.  There was also salad (the three of us can't chew it) and crackers.  Her kids ate some jarred baby food.  For some reason I felt incredibly liberated.  She just bought normal stuff and they ate it, and we were, too.  She didn't look like she felt guilty because the whole wheat bread she researched didn't still contain some evaporated cane juice.  There was no agony over whether her boys' love of salty foods should be enabled with pretzel sticks or abated with low sodium crackers.  She just grabbed what everyone else does and her kids were perfectly healthy.  The occasional chicken nugget probably won't stunt my boys.

Friday we went to J and Ana's, but a little late.  I put the boys down for their normal morning nap at 9am.  They slept about 30min and woke up in crazy cranky moods at 10am.  Ugh.  I figured we'd all lay down on our bed until their attitudes adjusted more towards happy.  We all fell asleep for another 2hrs.  Sigh.  We were supposed to eat lunch at J and Ana's.  It was noon and the boys were starving.  Somehow I managed to feed them, change diapers, and get us all out the door in 30min.  (Ok, so I cheated and made them eat Cheerios in the car on the way.)  To make things worse, I when I call J to tell her we're really late, I find out she tried to get a hold of me and was imagining us all dead along the road somewhere.

We ended up having a good afternoon anyways, and stayed until after 5pm, making us late for dinner.  I guess I was just having one of those days.

As if this post wasn't long enough...  hehe  Zach has figured out how to stand up from the floor, ending about a week of frustration that Alex could do it but he couldn't.  Zach now happily pops up from anywhere.  Alex has discovered that heavy breathing through his mouth is fun.  It's like a mini Darth Vader walking around.  Zach makes car noises for anything he's driving around, be it a car, train, or a pop bottle.  Both boys have figured out how to hum into a kazoo.  Anything long and skinny gets hum tested, just to be sure it's not a kazoo.  If it turns out to be one, much laughing follows.

Throwing things has become a big issue around here.  So far no one's gotten hurt, but it's only a matter of time.  We ditched the inflatable tubs.  I just fill up the garden tub and toss in the boys.  They can stand or do whatever, unless it's playing with the blinds or trying to climb out.  Alex immediately went to work trying to evict all of the bath toys.  Zach practiced falling on his rear end, causing massive splashes.  Jim and I were soaked.

Jim and I decided to not only open a can of worms, but invite them for tea - we've been showing the boys how to climb the stairs.  Zach can go from bottom to top under his own power.  Alex likes to pretend he's stuck so we'll help him.  At Granny J's today they learned how to go down her one step into the living room.  Hopefully this will replace their previous method (falling off face first).  Stairs are not something I can do solo with them.  Too much gravity and not enough arms to catch them.

We've also been doing a fast walk while holding their arms.  It looks like their taking these giant steps very quickly towards the nursery.  Other things I wish we hadn't started include tossing them in the air, letting them play in the fridge, and showing them where I hid their school buses.