Blogging, laundry, and the magic penis

I have decided that blogging is basically free therapy. Getting it all out there is cathartic. I tried to use facebook as an outlet, but there are only so many times you can post bizarre stories about declaring war with the laundry and how heavily interested your 4 year old is in his penis before someone threatens to call Child Protection on you. So, thanks HMO for making it virtually impossible for me to get real therapy and on with the blog.

2 nights ago, we were all sitting in the living room watching a movie when I noticed Matthew zipping up his jammies. I asked him what was he doing and he replied in a matter of fact tone, "Doing my Penis". In an attempt to suppress laughter from the 13 year old, I quickly said, "Oh, OK" trying to end the subject but he continued with, "sometimes it goes up". I shot a stern look at Skylar and shushed Chris so everyone would keep a straight face to avoid laughing as I am acutely aware that my faulty gene pool already pre-disposes my children to serial killer tendencies, I certainly do not want an altered memory of the whole family laughing at Matthew's penis to increase the odds.

This leads me to my question... Good Lord, what is it with the penis? I know grown men are completely obsessed with it, but babies too? How do they know? It's not like he knows at this age what is does or that it is anything other than a body part. The kids do not sit around rubbing their noses or fingers. Maybe they think it is magic because it goes up and down and makes pee. The magic penis?

I don't know if Skylar and I are going to survive all this testosterone.

The Zoo -- again

It's like we really can't visit the zoo without incident. Either mating turtles or a child running away. Today it was attack of the Canadian geese.

I took Skylar, Matthew, and William -- Chris was conveniently working. We get some food and Skylar and I sit on a shady bench. The boys happily remained in the double stroller (which in and of itself is a small miracle) while we ate.

Matthew actually ate a hot dog with a bun -- 1st time and little William was holding the hot dog in a fist eating it much like a caveman would. Soon, a goose came up with some straggler ducks and a family of a mom and 3 baby peacocks. They were so cute so I tossed them some bread of the hot dog bun William was not eating. Then about 5 of the biggest, fattest geese I have ever seen descended upon us, hissing and making whatever kind of ugly honk sound they make, so I shooed them away and sat back down when all of a sudden, William screams.

One of the geese stuck his head under the front drink holder of the stroller and snatched his entire basket of french fries. Victory for the geese, all of them surrounded the stroller, eating fries and taunting the children. William was just screaming and Matthew was climbing out of the stroller clutching his soft pretzel -- crying at the top of his lungs "MOMMY, MAKE THE GEESE GO AWAY" over and over. People were gathering around and watching in horror as I was shooing geese away with one foot while trying to pack up the food. Skylar finally just took the stroller with the boys away while I cleaned up.

So of all the cool animals we saw at the zoo, all the boys could talk about were the awful geese -- Oh, and the Peeing Ostrich.

I love the zoo.

Skylar and the broken nose

So our little Skylar has returned to us after being gone for 2 years. We are so happy to have her back. She arrived June 25 and we have been having so much fun.

The other night, we were watching a movie and it got a little boring so I got up and started folding laundry -- my nemesis-- and Skylar was watching the movie but lying on her back balancing one of those toddler sized folding chairs on her feet when all of a sudden I hear -- crash -- OOWWW!!. I ran over and see Skylar holding her nose. Yup, she managed to drop a chair on her face. After ice and Tylenol, the pain was still very extreme, so off to the ER we go.

When we get into triage, the nurse, a very large bald man was doing our intake and he asked "what happened?" and with all the seriousness in the world, she looks at him with this sweet face and says... "I dropped a chair on it". The nurse busted out laughing. He could not stop, which of course made me and Skylar laugh. Each time she laughed it hurt so it was laugh -- ouch, laugh -- ouch.
So she went to X-ray and sure enough, she fractured her nose. Thank God it was a clean break, a very small crack, but broken.

We love out little clutz :)

Emergency Room

Now, I know that I am an intelligent human being with a college degree and work in the medical profession. I am also a mom. Up until a few days ago, I thought those two states of being were melded into one person. I quickly realized that there is a point in time were all reason and thought fly out the window and the mom part takes over your brain. Here is my story.

I picked up the kids from daycare and was told that William had somehow hurt his finger on a crib rail during a fire drill, it bled for a minute but was OK. He had a small bandaid on the finger and seemed fine, I was not overly concerned. We got home and he became increasingly fussy, crying and refusing to eat. He was holding up his finger and saying "Mama, mama". I took a closer look at the finger and saw it was swollen and red, then the band aid came off. (This is where rational thought left). I saw blood, lots and lots of blood and a hunk of skin hanging off his finger. Off the the emergency room we went.

By the time we get there and the triage nurse admits William to the ER, rational thought and sanity slowly begin to return and I realize that I have completely overreacted, William is fine by this point and I can assess the damage. Yes he had a deep cut, but NOT ER worthy.

As I begin to feel really stupid, the doors burst open and this woman having a heart attack comes in receiving full CPR. So right next to us, separated by a curtain, a full code with paddles and intubation.

At this point, I not only feel stupid, but sorry that we are taking up time from all these doctors and nurses. So in the midst of all this chaos, the doctor comes in and I looked up at him and said "my son has a boo boo, It really looked a lot worse at home". He laughed and said all the right things. Evidently it was a very bad skin tear and would have required stitches if there was enough skin left on the stitch. So I felt better about going to the ER, but not much.

William's finger is healing nicely, but my pride is still a little injured:)

Finally back.

As I finally log onto this blog because I am determined to update it, I read the last entry from October and realize that I have mode absolutely no potty progress. Matthew is now scared of the potty. I think we need professional assistance.

I have so many blog posts running through my head, there is no way to recap the past 3 months. Chris definitely wants me to mention the mating turtles at the zoo, which was amusing.

I do want to mention the reason I stopped blogging and the reason is I was turned on to Facebook by Britt. My dear, dear friend Britt who mistakenly thought I was as good a multi tasker as she. Britt successfully manages 2 children (albeit girls who ARE easier then boys), facebook, and blogspot. I humbly admit, I can not.

I can at least talk about Christmas. This year, we again set out to terrorize Santa at the Moorestown mall. If anyone is not familiar with our first mission to ensure Santa never returns to NJ, please refer to last December's post.

Of course, this year, William is heavily involved in the plot. Christopher, however, escaped, claiming work. He left me and his mother alone to manage the carnage.

Much like last year, all was wonderful as we sneakily approached the unsuspecting Santa. We were all Ho-Ho-Ho and counting in Spanish. As I placed William on Santa's lap, all hell broke loose. William immediately began screaming and reaching for me as I chased Matthew around the cameras. I picked up Matthew and he played my favorite game "No bones - No muscles". You know the game where the child goes totally limp and you can't control all the flailing body parts.

So this year, Santa is smiling (well, actually laughing at me), and both kids are screaming and I am in the picture ... which will not be posted.

Potty Time

So we have been toying with the whole potty training deal, encouraging, but not pushing or forcing the potty issue as to not scar Matthew for life and turn him into a deranged serial killer. These How to raise your child type books are pretty harsh. I mean it. If your child turns out crazy, they make no bones about it totally being because you did not give him that damn balloon or take him to Arby's once.

Anyway, he has sporadically gone on the potty, will sit for long amounts of time, then get up and pee or poop in his diaper. Quite frustrating.

So out new daycare tells us that they have a fool proof potty training method, they have adopted this method after consulting with a child psychologist and once the child shows the "right" amount of interest in the potty, he will be placed on "potty patrol" and will be trained within 10 easy days.

This sounds GREAT!!!

So, I get a letter home in Matthew's packet informing me that Matthew has shown interest in the potty and is now ready. (The interest by the way was harassing his friend Dylan while Dylan was pottying and trying to pull Dylan off of the potty to keep playing). Again, I digress.

So in this letter, it tells me specifically what I will need to bring to school for this program. The items needed are as follows:
3 shirts
3 pairs of pants
5 pairs of socks
10 pairs of underwear, and
1 extra pair of shoes.

It became very evident that the child psychologist formulated potty patrol plan is to let the child pee and poop all over the place until he decides to use the potty.

I asked the teacher if that was about right and she shrugged and said "well, I guess that's one way to put it". At least it's there and not here.

Tonight before bedtime I found myself sitting on the edge of the bathtub singing songs about "poop goes in the potty" and "like to poop poop poop ... in the potty".

I need wine.

William's birthday

So 10-23 was Liam's first birthday. We were in New Orleans the week before and decided to have a small birthday party for him. This rapidly turned into a large baby blow out complete with Space Walk (which incidentally Northerners call a Moon Bounce and look at you funny when you say space walk), small blow up ball pit, Saint's game on the big screen TV and all the BBQ you can eat.

We had lots of fun. Liam did not want to stick his fingers in his piece of cake and rejected it when we offered him some. This is in direct contrast to Matthew who immediately began jumping up and down chanting "Cake, cake, cake" when the cake was brought out, proudly wore his safari party hat, sang "Happy Birthday" but replaced William's name with his own, assisted with blowing out the candles, and ate so much cake throughout the day he honestly pooped blue the next day (from the icing).

I will post pictures when I'm not feeling quite so lazy. William is currently sick so today has been somewhat stressful.

The zoo revisited.

Thongs and things

So many fun and unusual happenings continue to plague my family but there is so little time to write about them. I can't pass this one up. Today, I took the boys shopping. We went to The Container Store (which is like candy land to a pack rat like myself) and then to Target. By the time we got to Target, the kids, who were uncommonly good in The Container Store, had had enough. I take that back. William was still being good, Matthew was having meltdown after meltdown.

The first meltdown occurred when we passed a large tractor outside of Target and I would not stop to let him climb on it (please reference the previous Touch a Truck blog post). The second meltdown occurred when I would not let him "have it" to absolutely everything he was able to physically reach by stretching and contorting himself out of the shopping cart, especially a light up hula hoop which resulted in an actual tug of war in the freaking Target. Really try to imagine this ... Matthew standing in the back of the cart with one leg over the side (straddling the cart) with both of us holding on to either side of the stupid blue light up hula hoop with Matthew screaming "HAVE IT" and every time I pried his hand off the hoop, the other hand shot up to hold on to it over and over again.
This went on for entirely too long. I eventually won, which resulted in the biggest public meltdown we have had yet.

As I am rolling the cart toward the front to pay for all the items that are constantly being tossed out of the back of the cart like a Mardi Gras float by the screaming child, other customers kept looking at us and after they passed, I could hear some giggle and some would just laugh as they passed and everyone was staring at us.

Finally taking my eyes from Matthew, I looked down at William who was sitting in the front of the basket and had been quiet for too long only to see that he had a hold of the 5 for 15 dollars batch of thong underwear that I was purchasing and had one pair hanging out of his mouth, another pair in his hand above his head waving them around like a prize and 3 pair were scattered on the floor like a path through the woods.
(Yes, I buy my underwear at Target. I am poor). I wanted to die, but it was so funny I could not help myself from laughing.

I'm sure this is just the beginning of humiliating experiences at the hands of my boys. (I am out numbered).

Daddy dressed William

This is what happens when I forget to lay out William's clothes for Chris. This is a stained Philly's baseball onsie and red and white striped Valentine's Day pants. The picture just does not do it justice.
I am now going to go torture Chris by making him watch 27 Dresses :)

Touch A Truck

A few weeks ago, we went to Haddonfield, NJ to a fun day called Touch A Truck where kids can (you guessed it)... touch a truck. It was so much fun. They had all kinds of trucks from garbage trucks and 18 wheelers to police cars and SWAT team vehicles. You could climb up on them and sit behind the wheel and honk the horns. It was great except for one thing. Matthew is totally obsessed with tractors. Initially, this was why we brought him there, so he could see a tractor up close. Well he saw the tractor. We could not leave the tractor. We tried to see other things and he just screamed bloody murder and ran back to the tractor. All day, nothing but tractor.
Here are some pictures of the tractor. We all took turns on the tractor.


There was a small tractor with Homer Depot on it for the little kids. Here's Will. He did not like it too much.
There was even a band who played songs such as "Don't pick your nose" and "Don't hit your friends". I swear it. Who could make this stuff up? Apparently this was a cover band who normally plays adult cover songs and they were contracted to play this gig and their child friendly repertoire is low.
Fun Fun Day, Matthew still talks about the twatooor (tractor).

The Howell exhibit

On Mother's day we went to the Philadelphia Zoo, which incidentally is America's first zoo. Chris, his mom, Matthew, William, and myself all loaded into the car for a day of fun filled excitement at the zoo. We were supposed to get there for 9:30 AM. We left our house at 10:45AM only to find once we were in downtown Philadelphia that each and every one of Philadelphia's 6 million residents and their mothers were running the "Race for the Cure". Nobel cause, I support it wholeheartedly, but it took us 2 1/2 hours to get to the zoo. I know you expect me to say that Matthew and William were hysterical, but no, they were good. Chris on the other hand had a little cabin fever temper tantrum after hour 2, but calmed when we promised him ice cream.

By the time we parked 1/2 a mile away and walk to the zoo entrance, we see the line to get in wrapped around the block. The only way to bypass this line is to become a zoo member, so Jackie graciously joined us up for zoo for 2 years and in we went.

First order of business: diaper changes. Have you ever been to the restroom at the zoo? I do not recommend it.
Second order of business: "OF Fies", this translates to French Fries in Matthew-ese. After standing in line for 25 minutes and spending 35 dollars on a hot dog, a hamburger, and 3 orders of OF-Fies, and a soft pretzel, we realized we had no where to sit and eat.
... I present to you "The Howell Exhibit".
There we all were, squatting down, shoveling food quickly into our mouths, me holding William's bottle with one hand and eating with the other, Matthew threw his soft pretzel into a tree, Chris retrieved it, blew on it and gave it back to him. At one point, I picked tree pollen and debris off William's head, still eating with the other hand and realized I looked like a mommy orangutan preening her young.
Finally, we walked around and enjoyed the zoo. It was really fun. Matthew and I rode a horse. The whole time he was screaming "No Thank You" at the top of his lungs and as usual, I was cracking up laughing.
Matthew and Chris fed a goat and a sheep, we watched a Cheetah pee, we roared at lions, made elephant noises along with arm motions as if they were trunks. William slept mostly, but did see a peacock and the giraffes (my personal favorite).
We left exhausted but had loads of mother's day fun.

JC Penny Portrait studio

Let me preface this story with this: I love Chris' mom dearly.
With that being said, she purchased the gayest (Not that there's anything wrong with that) light blue sailor suits ever made for little boys and brought them to New Jersey during this latest visit. We hid them from Chris until the day of the photo shoot. As I'm dressing Matthew, I have him standing on the toilet lid while I was combing and spraying his hair and I was not watching what he was playing with. When I turned him around to fix his bangs he had grabbed my eyeliner from the vanity and smeared it all down his face.
Determined that I was not going to have any sort of fits this date, I calmly said, "Matthew,sweetie, sit still while Mommy removes this eye liner".
At that precise moment, Chris opens the bathroom door to see his eldest dressed in this extremely feminine outfit with makeup all over his face and hair spray in his hair. The look of distress that overcame him was absolutely priceless. Like in those old Saturday Night Live commercials for the fake drug "homocil" that you take to combat the ill feeling in your stomach when you realize your son is gay (again, I reiterate... Not that there's anything wrong with that.




Anyway, Matthew and William took very cute pictures in their matching sailor suits and were both very good and sweet and surprisingly cooperative during the process. I'm quite proud.




Matthew seemed to like the outfit all except for the shoes. We had to get those old style white leather soled non bendable shoes that make you march instead of walk because they decrease the natural rocking motion of the foot. It's a wonder any of us learned to walk in those things.

Kentucky Derby

So last night was the Kentucky Derby. I love horse racing, I used to love going to the Fairgrounds in New Orleans for my birthday and play all day.

Anyway, my mother in law is up visiting and we decided we'd like to bet, so I went online to figure out how to do off track betting. This sounds easy. I finally got a hold of a company and was very hesitant to give my credit card info and sign up. I kept calling them asking questions about how hacker safe are they and do they charge me for any transactions and do they take a percentage of my winnings. They were laughing at me and assured me that everything was free and safe. I wondered how they made any money if everything was free and the man chuckled and said "We make money when you lose".

So the next step was to get a prepaid VISA so I could deposit betting money into my book (like bookie, bookmaker etc...). I go through all this bull, time consuming, and I finally have it all ready to go, I call to place the bets, we are only minutes away from the starting bell of the race and the phone rings. It's the fraud prevention unit from our credit card company. Chris answered the phone and apparently I opened an account in Israel and they were trying to charge our card $54.00 over and over again.

Chris explained to the man that his insane wife and mother were drunk on Mint Julips and were trying to bet on the stinking Kentucky Derby. Chris and agent shared a hearty laugh and he removed all charges from my card.

Incidentally, I would have won. I was going to bet "Eight Bells" to win, place and show. Eight Bells came in second (Place), but sadly was euthanized immediately after the race on the race track because she broke both ankles as soon as she crossed the finish line. It was a very somber end to an otherwise fun and happy day.

So, the moral of the story is ... Next year, I'm just going to go to the Kentucky Derby myself.

So spring has sprung. Matthew has decided that outside is great. He got his first skinned knee. He was really cute too. He fell down, cried for just a minute, asked me to kiss his knee, and continued playing.
Such a trooper.
William is starting to sit up and it is a whole new world. Matthew is not very pleased with this new accomplishment and pushes Will down frequently. Will also is grabbing for more toys, another annoyance for Matthew. He is adjusting to his developing brother.
We planted flowers, I planted 2 trees in large terracotta planters and 3 bulbs in another planter. To keep Matthew occupied during this process, he got his very own "build your own sunflower" kit. It comes with dirt, sunflower seeds, and a trowel (a small kids sized one). Side note, I did not realize sunflowers grow from the sunflower seeds you eat. It was interesting to me.
Anyway, as I was planting my bulbs, Matthew was trowling his dirt and shoving his seeds into the dirt. I looked up a few minutes later and saw to my surprise Mathew eating dirt. The kid sized trowel does look very similar to a fork, but to eat dirt. I give the kid steak, he throws it on the floor, but give him a trowl and some dirt, and he's in business.
Oh well...

Guess William or Matthew

Can anyone guess who's who?







In the top picture, William is on the bottom, Matthew is on top and has the duck.



In the Christening gown picture, Matthew is on the white background, William is on the red.
In the last, Matthew is eating carrots and William has the spoon.

We had William's Christening in late February. It was very nice. He wore the same gown Matthew wore. It is beautiful. The little bonnet barely fit his big head though. We shoved it on for a few pictures then took it off for fear of squeezing his brains out in the middle of mass.
Everything was great except Will's Godmother was not able to make it due to school and work. We totally understand, but she was missed :) We love you Elizabeth!

Here's some pictures:

sledding

In late February, we had a pretty decent snow and decided Matthew should sled. At first he was totally apprehensive, but as time went on and he got used to Chris pulling him around in the sled, he braved down a small hill. He loved it!
William felt so left out, we thought he should give it a try too. The outcome was priceless. Here are some pictures. Just look at Will's face. So funny, but Matthew was really protective and held on tight.





So then Chris had to use the snow blower to clear the driveway and Matthew had to participate. I was terrified of limb loss, but all went well. Chris was just happy Matthew was interested in something more manly than the vacuum cleaner.

March is birthday month, AKA March Madness. Chris and Matthew have back to back birthdays so we do a whole lot of celebrating. Since we had just done Will's Christening, we decided not to do a big party. Chris' mom came in town and I made a cake. Yes, I really made it and I iced it too, which is why it looks they way it does, but it was made with love and that is all that really counts.









William loves balloons. He is absolutely fascinated by them. He looks like a drunk lunatic with his party hat sliding off his head, like he spent the night partying with the balloon in the French Quarter.




Matthew loves singing "Happy Birthday" but it comes out "Ha bur da to yew" He sings it frequently.

We had a great time.

Mardi Gras

We were in New Orleans for Mardi Gras.

The second night we were there, my sister had a get together at her house for friends and family to come visit. It was great to see everyone. It seems like my group of friends is having it's own little "baby boom" as most of us are all having kids at the same time. We had 9 or 10 kids from 3 months (William) to 3 years running around. It was really cute to watch them all interact. I really missed my friends and family so it was wonderful we could all get together.

The next day Chris' mom had a little party at her condo so all of her friends could come see the kids. She pretended it was so they could see Chris and me, but we know the truth. Nothing like showing off your grandkids, and we think it's really cute. My mom came too, so we had 2 proud grandmom's there.

Thank goodness Chris' aunt lives on the parade route because I don't know how people go out there with children and don't have a home base. I guess it's easier when they are still in diapers as they can just pee and you don't have to worry about finding a bathroom or getting arrested for letting your kid pee on a tree.

We had so much fun. Matthew was there last year but he was little and really didn't participate in it. This year he was dancing when the bands played and was raising his arm up and yelling "hey" in his precious little boy voice. A rider on a horse handed him a doubloon and he just held onto it like it was a piece of gold.
So cute.

William liked all the commotion too, but eventually fell asleep at the first parade in the baby sling. Skylar came with us for the first parade too and it was really good to see her. Matthew loves her so much.




We took our big old double stroller out to the Endymion parade route the Saturday before Mardi Gras and showed off our kids. Matthew had a meltdown and we left before the parade. We parked over a mile away so on our journey back to the car, we passed by all the floats and bands as they were lined up on their way to the route and we got to see the GoGo's up close and all the floats. Matthew really liked that.

Sunday was a big day. Chris rode in Bacchus that night so I was on my own with the kids (of course I had Chris' mom, aunt, cousin, and 2 of Chris' mom's friends to help me). Thank goodness too because it was hectic.
I am somewhat ashamed, but I put Matthew on a leash. They don't call it a leash to make you feel better about it. They call it a baby harness, but we all know what it is. He runs away from me and all I could envision was him getting kidnapped or run over by a horse or float. I leashed him. I actually don't feel nearly as bad about it anymore. It kept him safe and we had a better time. Everyone took turns "walking him" and he felt rather independent as he thought he was just leading the way. William slept in the stroller most of the time.

We got to see Chris ride on the float and he was able to stop long enough to give Matthew a teddy bear. I still don't think Matthew believes us that it was really Daddy on the float (he was wearing a mask and hat costume).





So it was a good vacation. Tiring as neither child slept well being out of their beds. The day after we got home we sent the kids to daycare and Chris and I slept and watched mindless TV all day. It was the best day of the vacation :)