Now That Its Over, It Was Great!

Its pretty much always better in retrospect.

Quite a while back, well almost 3 years now anyway, Jeff and I decided that in order to have some family experiences with four kids that we'd just have to brave it. Our thinking was that the kids will remember the good times. They remember the places we went and the things we did. Jeff and I would remember how much the trips actually sucked.

So we went for it. We did a family camping trip when the twins were 4 months old. I have no idea how old that made Holden and Oliver... 5 and 3 1/2? It was hard, but not impossible. We sure packed a lot of stuff. Giant tent, 2 pack n plays, baby accoutrement's...we did it though.

We camp at least once each summer, we try to make it to Tahoe to see snow during ski week. Its not always easy. It often is incredibly awful. But when its all over we're always glad we tried it.

We decided to go to Safari West for Thanksgiving. ( http://www.safariwest.com). We looked into Bolinas, Mendocino, anyplace nearby where we might play in tide pools and spend a night away somewhere. But nothing was available. If it was available they'd be happy to charge us for an entire week. Um.. no, thanks. So we decided we'd try Safari West and we'd spend the night in an African tent.

I anticipated that the food would be bad. I accepted that before we got there. I made pumpkin pie, pumpkin muffins, cranberry orange sauce. I am going to have some food that is good on Thanksgiving. I just am. I packed coffee, tea, hot chocolate, crackers, pretzels. I had paper cups, wine, champagne, sparkling apple juice.

We hit horrible traffic on our drive north. 10 miles an hour through Novato and into Petaluma. The kids didn't care. They are usually pretty good in the car.

We finally arrived and had to park waaay down in a lower lot. Other people began to arrive. They were armed with mom jeans, safari themed vests, jungle print clothing. Uh oh.

We checked in and walked around a bit. I started getting nervous about our lack of warm clothing.

Dinner was buffet style. Buffet style means disaster in our family. We had assigned seating. They called our table. I went up and collected 6 heavy plates and attempted to pile the top plate with as much as it would hold, while balancing 6 rolled napkins filled with cutlery. Oliver had a fit that I'd left and ran screaming and crying to find me, narrowly missing being badly burned by the freestanding heat cylinders.

The man behind me noted my plight. " I have been wondering how you are going to manage that." He offered.

" So have I!" I replied.

I teetered back to our table and tried to cut turkey and dole out portions of bad cornbread and gummy stuffing.
I tried to go back to get salads. Oliver freaked out again and came tearing through the dining room shrieking. We were a hit.
There were no beverages for children other than soda. We requested milk. They brought 3 milks for our 4 children and that took about 15 of the longest minutes ever. Laurel spilled hers. Of course. Griffin whined and cried and moaned.

The staff then started doling out pie. Apparently we were not to be given choices. Some people got dry apple, some got institutional pumpkin. I asked for a candle for Holden's, since it was his actual birthday. He was half way through his pie when they showed up with a candle. Everyone in the room sang, which Holden secretly LOVED.

Griffin whined and cried and moaned.

Oliver waited for his chocolate cake. And he waited. There was no birthday cake???? What???

Oliver SCREAMED

Oliver YELLED

Oliver SHRIEKED

There were tears and snot and resounding echoes and yet no cake appeared.

Oliver loudly sang to himself " Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear Oliver, happy birthday to you. Oh my cake! CAAAAKKKKE!"

Oliver was distraught. People at our table laughed. Well, one woman glared, but the others all laughed.

Finally the wretched dinner was over. We grabbed our bottle of wine and began the maneuver through the dining room and around the freestanding danger heaters.

Griffin whined and cried and moaned.

We headed back to our tent. It was getting dark. And cold.

Somehow it never occurred to me that luxury African tent = freeze your butt off. Canvas walls aren't known for their insulation. It was COLD.

Griffin whined and cried and moaned.

Jeff and I drank wine in Dora Dixie cups while we waited for staff to arrive with our futons. The staff was surprised that we had 6 people when we are only allowed 5 in a tent. I assured them that I had told them when we made our reservations. I had, they had said it was OK. The futons didn't really fit in there but we shoved them on either sides of the beds. We figured the kids would be warmest sleeping together and if they fell off the high beds they'd fall on us. Perfect... kind of.

Listening to the animals was pretty amazing. Something kept me up all night and I have no idea what it was. Some musical sounding beast from the Savannah. Holden awoke around 3 am.

" I'm just a little worried about the animals right outside our tent".

I assured him they would not be coming in. Animals aren't allowed in tents.

Eventually everyone shivered themselves into fitful sleep and we all awoke to our usual game of musical beds. We all kind of shift around for a while until its clear that everyone is in fact awake, and has been for a while.

It was too cold to get dressed so we layered more clothing over our pajamas. Griffin whined and cried and moaned. Soon enough it was time for the buffet. More screaming and protesting and yelling and near burn misses. Trails of chewed on English muffins and 1/2 eaten croissants, 1/2 tubs of yogurt, unfinished fruit salad, congealed oatmeal, and unfinished lukewarm apple cider remained in our wake as we left the buffet.

We went on a tour of the animals again. Griffin whined and cried and moaned. They were giving the porcupines their breakfast. The porcupines ran to the handlers. Running porcupines are funny.

Griffin whined and yelled and screamed and refused to come with us.

We visited the lemurs. They screeched and yelled and hollered and we told Holden they were singing happy birthday to him. A man nearby concurred that that was in fact lemur for happy birthday. Holden looked proud.
" Monkey!" announced Griffin, briefly pulling himself away from his whining.

"Lemur" we corrected.

" Weee mur" he concurred.
Then he returned to his protesting and whining.

We visited the small fox creature. " A mouse!" Laurel cried with delight.

We visited some other bizarre creature that was intent on licking small fingers.

Griffin whined and cried and moaned.

We went to see the giraffes. There was a large giraffe near the fence. Oliver smiled. The giraffe bent down. The giraffe nuzzled Oliver. Nuzzled Oliver. Oliver fed the giraffe a leaf. A handler came by and told us not to let him do that and not to get too close. I did nothing. This was fascinating. Oliver fed the giraffe again. I took pictures. Oliver was soo happy.

We stayed with the giraffes for a bit then headed back to pack up our stuff. Oliver ran out of our tent. " Want to see giraffe!"

Well, he told us. Thats huge. We bribed him back to our tent with pumpkin muffins which gave me enough time to pack up our things. Then we went to visit Oliver's friends again. Oliver found some choice leaves for his new buddies.

Eventually the giraffes went further into their pen which allowed us to go check out. Griffin screamed and moaned and yelled.

The drive back wasn't too horrendous.

Looking back on it I remember this fantastic adventure in which Oliver somehow drew giraffes to him. An adventure in which my children fed giraffes. How amazing is that? I almost forgot about the cold and the whining and the tantrums. These family adventures are wonderful in retrospect. They are just not so great while you are experiencing them.

Eeeew! Scary! Yucky!

Apparently mashed sweet potatoes are inedible. I had no idea. I thought they were sweet. I like them roasted. I thought the kids would like them. I roasted them, I mashed them and added a dash of lime juice. I thought it was good.
I brought the bowl to the table.
Griffin took one look at it.

Oh, YUCK. That yucky! Yucky scary poop!

Uh, no, its not orange poop. Its sweet potato and its good.

Scary Poop! Eeeewwww! Yuck! I all done. I excused!

Try one bite. Its good.

No, yucky! Scary! Too scary poop! Eeeeww!

Griffin would rather starve than eat scary orange poop.

I DID NOT MAKE ORANGE POOP!

Tomorrow we'll have pasta.

The Month of Bribes

Its almost December. The month of bribes. This year I'm starting a little early.
I've asked Holden to make sure he puts away all of his socks as I sort through the clean laundry. You see, if Santa sees an empty sock drawer he'll think the one thing Holden really needs is socks. Santa will then fill the stockings with socks. Would you rather have socks or toys? Toys? Well, then make sure your clean socks are put away.
Time to clear out our closets. I know those toys that were stuck in the back of the closet may seem appealing. You haven't noticed them in over a year. However, if we give them to children that have no toys at all then our closets are bare. Santa might give you new and fabulous toys that will take up that exact same space. If we hang on to the old half broken things and keep our closets filled with clutter then Santa will assume we have no room for new toys. He'll skip right over our house. He'll go to houses where boys and girls only have a few cherished well cared for toys and he'll deliver something extraordinarily special. But he'll skip over us.
Look how much room that plastic projector takes up. Imagine if that space was empty. You could fit a whole Lego set in there! Or we could hang on to the plastic projector you played with that one time last year. Oh really? You're ready to see it go? Well, OK, if thats what you want...

God, I love Christmas!

The Talking Marshmallow

We're back in the land of potty training. I'm half relieved that I've finally found the courage to face it for the 3rd and 4th times. I'm half just wishing I could fast forward this phase. All the accidents, ugh.
I'm already looking forward to the end of potty seats. One bathroom with two potty seats to trip over can be annoying.
But, at least we have entered the realm. There is light at the end of the tunnel. Potty seats are out. We talk about underwear all the time. We cheer and exclaim over bodily functions. We read books about potties, books with our favorite licenced characters on potties, we throw potty theme parties. OK, there haven't been any theme parties yet. Hmm.. actually I did make cupcakes the first time Griffin peed in the potty.
We've resurrected the potty videos. I'm a big boy now. I haven't bothered to buy a girl version. Poor Laurel. She'll be a little confused. For some reason all the kids still like watching " Potty Power".
Maybe the songs are particularly compelling? Maybe the stories and re enactments are well crafted?

I am continually humming :
I can do it myself
I'm a big kid now
I can do it myself
I've got potty power
POTTY POWER!

This particular video features an animated, talking roll of toilet paper. Holden had been convinced that it was a talking marshmallow. Every time the marshmallow/ toilet paper roll would speak Holden would laugh and say " Silly Marshmallow".

I asked him once why a marshmallow would be in a potty video, didn't he think it might be more plausible that the character was a toilet paper roll?

Nope, it was a marshmallow.

So the brightest light in the process of potty training so far is the resurrection of the talking marshmallow. He still makes me laugh.

Being 2

Sometimes I have to take a step back and realize how much harder other people have it. Take today for instance.

Laurel is 2 and 1/2. OK, thats pretty tough right there. But today, ooooh... today. She had a ROUGH day.

She wanted more Mighty Bites in her princess bowl and I accidentally poured Cheerios in there.

She wanted to wear her kitty dress to school and since the kitty dress is blue and white I put her in pale grey leggings with it. Princesses don't wear pale gray. Ever.

We settled on her pink princess shoes, and then we put her princess lunchbox and her princess pacifier in her princess backpack.

Laurel likes the new Tiffany's catalog that just arrived. The Tiffany catalog is her "princess book". She likes to leaf through and show me her princess earrings and her princess necklaces.
I wouldn't let her bring her princess book to school. Princesses don't like that.

I told everyone it was time to get in the car. Time to wear our backpacks. Holden helped Laurel with her backpack. Princesses like help. " Thank you Princess Holden" she said, thereby bestowing on him the highest compliment in her world. 6 year old boys don't like being called Princess. Holden was mad. Laurel screamed because her compliment was rejected.

So we went to get in the car, but we have to take our backpacks off in order to get strapped in to car seats. Princesses don't like to take off their backpacks.
Tears.
We drop Holden at school and carry on to Griffin and Laurel's school. Finally the backpacks can go back on. But when we get inside guess what? We need to take the backpack off.

No! S'Mine! My Pwincess backpack! Is not funny!

The day got worse for poor Laurel. Not only was she stripped of her backpack, but the backpack was then eviscerated and the princess lunchbox was put in the refrigerator. Could things get any worse?

Well, I don't know what happened while she was at daycare. Who knows what assault to princesses was in store for her there. But I do know that she continued to struggle after I picked them up in the afternoon.

Laurel wore her backpack as we headed back to our car. In a surprising turn of events she learned that she couldn't wear the backpack while she was in her car seat. I had Oliver with me at this point. Oliver likes to be buckled in the second he sees the car. By the time Oliver is actually sitting in his seat the tears and snot are flowing and the decibel level has reached a level which inspires neighborhood dogs to begin howling. So Oliver and assorted afflicted animals are howling and Laurel is trying to make her princess displeasure known.

Finally Oliver is buckled and Laurel is holding her princess lunchbox and her princess backpack on her lap.

We drive south to Oliver's appointment. Laurel needs to bring her princess lunchbox and her princess backpack. She sees a pink sweatshirt in the car and needs to bring this beautiful princess item as well. Laurel's side of the stroller overflows into the second seat. Laurel can barely see because she has so many accessories piled on her and over her.

I dropped Oliver. Griffin, Laurel and I head to Whole Foods to buy enough to get us through the night. I picked them up before their snack at daycare so I planned on buying them something.

Whole Foods has automatic doors. Griffin doesn't like automatic doors. He sees people go through and then he sees the door shut. I guess he worries that we missed our chance. I explain that we too will be allowed inside.

I usually get them an apple or some berries and some jicama. But I wanted to avoid the fruit today for reasons no one really wants to know about. I head down the cracker aisle where they of course spy fruit bars. Griffin inexplicably calls them " barns". They begin clamoring for barns. I pick up a box of apple bars and give them each a bar in the store. Blissful silence as I quickly pick up a few items.

At checkout Laurel hands me the final crumb of her bar. " I don't like it" she states.
I guess she ate it to be polite.

We hurry back to pick up Oliver. Laurel drops her backpack. It landed in leaves. Her princess backpack has been tainted by leaves. I assure her the princesses are fine. She remains unconvinced.

I try to speak to Oliver's therapist for a few minutes while Griffin screams to get out of the stroller. Laurel decides she doesn't like the placement of Griffin's feet so she screams too. Its hard when someone else's feet are improperly placed. Its just so ... disruptive.

We get back to the car. Its very hard for Laurel to get out of the stroller while holding a princess backpack, a princess lunchbox, and a pink princess sweatshirt. She dropped the sweatshirt. She screamed. Things just have not been easy for Laurel.

Then we do our little routine. Oliver shrieks about being buckled in, Griffin won't get in his seat, Laurel can't get in her seat because she can't climb in or sit down while holding all her princess accessories and princess accoutrements. Eventually we all settle in and we drive north to pick up Holden at soccer.

On the way Laurel manages to wedge her lunchbox between her seat and Griffin's seat. Can you imagine the horror of a stuck princess lunchbox? Hard to fathom. Then she dropped her princess backpack. Then her dolly was inside the princess backpack when she wanted it in the outside pocket.
NO NO NO NO NO
Dolly was supposed to be half in and half out of the outside pocket. I had positioned the dolly WRONG.

NO NO NO I DON"T LIKE IT AAACCCKKKK WAAAHH WAAHHHH

Its not easy being two. Sometimes I forget that.

The Spoon

My mom gave me a set of silver plate cutlery that had belonged to my grandmother. Or so she claimed. It could very well be a set of silver plate cutlery that she picked up at a thrift store at some point in time. Regardless, I've always liked the set.
The set, however, is incomplete. So about 9 years ago I set out to find the missing pieces. I searched places like Ebay. I did find a few of the missing pieces on Ebay. I still had only one bowl style soup spoon which I prefer to the other other kind. Finally I found a few in a lot. In order to get them I had to purchase a lot which included some silver plate iced tea spoons that appeared bent, 3 random sugar spoons with most of the silver plate worn off, and a teaspoon, the pattern to which I could not quite make out.
I had the winning bid. I think I may have had the only bid.
The package arrived and I was happy to see my bowl style soup spoons. Perfect. I've used the bent iced tea spoons once or twice in the last nine years. Every now and again I need a long spoon to capture the last olive.
The last spoon took on a life of its own.

This spoon has an embossed portrait of an old woman on the top of the spoon. She kind of looks like the woman on the Grandmother's Molasses label. But its not her. Then, on the stem of the spoon, there is a date: 1913-1938.

There are no other markings. At first I was amused by the hideous spoon with the old woman who was apparently 25. Jeff and I concocted stories about the old woman. Eventually we referred to the spoon as the dead grandmother spoon. We had decided that the most legitimate of our concocted stories included the information that this woman was being honored posthumously.

As it turns out I didn't like eating with the dead grandmother spoon. The silver plate is worn and I don't like eating on worn silver plate. I also am not terribly fond of the dead grandmother looking at me while I'm eating.

Anytime Jeff gave me that particular spoon I'd groan.

Eventually Jeff decided he didn't like the spoon either.

We concluded that if we accidentally got the dead grandmother spoon we'd have bad luck.

Jeff wanted to take the dead grandmother spoon out of rotation. But I thought that was akin to cheating.

The dead grandmother spoon stays.

As the kids got older we began to make the shift from plastic cutlery, to licensed character cutlery, to solid color children's cutlery, to our own cutlery.

Holden noticed my horror if I ever ended up with the dead grandmother spoon. ( We didn't call it that in front of him, I just alluded to my forthcoming bad luck). Holden noticed Jeff's reaction to the dead grandmother spoon. He was intrigued by this spoon that seemed to indicate whether or not you were loved.

The other night after dinner we had ice cream. Holden got the spoon. This happenstance was not premeditated. Jeff simply doesn't notice things. But Holden was aghast.

WHAT? I got the NO LOVE spoon?? DADDY! I need a different spoon!

And the saga continues.

Why I Should Pack the Lunches at Night

Its never a good idea to wait until the morning to pack the lunches. Especially on the days when I have 4 lunches to pack. It doesn't matter how early I get up. The only way to beat the chaos is to get up while everyone is sound asleep. But when is that? 3 am? I don't want to pack lunches at 3 am. I want to sleep.

Of course sleeping isn't an option at 3 am anyway. Thats when WallE, aka 'Possum, finds me. Its like clockwork. I hear this purring machine which get louder and louder. Suddenly he is in my face, on my face, on my head, nuzzling me, nipping at my nose, nuzzling his head into my eye sockets. I have no idea what he is doing or why he is doing it, but its impossible to sleep through.

When he finally scampers off I sleep restlessly for a bit before Griffin stomps in with his shirt choice of the day.

Daddy? Mommy? Wear the G shirt? Get dwessed? Mommy? Daddy?

Sometimes he wears a witch hat.

OOOHHHH Spooky witch!

Then he takes the hat off.

No! ITS GWIFFIN!

Oh hilarious 6 am joke.

Laurel stomps in and flops herself down, and begins expressing her disappointment in the morning.

Where my pwincess kitty shirt? WAAAA WAAAAA I need pwincess kitty! Where my backpack? Where pwincess lunchbox? Where C'rella? Where Jasmine? Need Tinkerbell!

Jeff puts on the coffee. I have to get up before the chaos gains momentum.

Too late.

I NEED CHEERIOS!

I WANTED PANCAKES!

WHY DON'T WE EVER HAVE WAFFLES?

NEED WICE KWISPIES!

MORE MILK!

MORE MILK!

MORE MILK!

I like to point out that no one gets MORE milk before having had any milk, but no one knows what I'm babbling about.

Jeff goes to wake Oliver. He needs to be out the door first, therefore he is the hardest to wake.

We don't have enough counter space to set out all the lunchboxes so I pile them on the toaster. I set out the containers I'll use.

4 containers for grapes

4 containers for jicama sticks

3 containers for cheese ( Laurel won't eat cheese)

4 tubs of yogurt

1 carrot cut into sticks for Griffin, Laurel, and Oliver. Holden gets a whole carrot

Oliver wants an almond butter sandwich. I keep the plate and knife separate from everything else. Holden's school is nut free.

Edamame for Holden. No one else will eat it.

Crackers for everyone.

MORE MILK

MORE CHEERIOS

NO! WHERE MY SPOON?

OH NO! NEED NAPKIN!

HELP I SPILLED!

NOOOO THATS MINE! NO I DO IT!

MORE BAGEL I WANNA BAGEL! NOOOOO THA'S MY BAGEL! NO! MINE! I DON'T LIKE CREAM CHEESE! THANKS A LOT! NOW MY DAY IS RUINED!

NOOOOO THATS MY SEAT! OUT! NO MINE! OUT! OUT! MORE CUP! NO!

BACKYARDIGANS CUP! I WANT BACKYARDIGANS CUP! MINE!

NO FAIR! I NEVER GET SCOOBY!

HEY WHY DOES HE HAVE THE GREEN CUP?

OK, maybe some pretzels for everyone, half sandwiches for Laurel and Griffin...

I NEED MILK! OH NO, PADDINGTON'S ON THE TABLE! MOMMY! HELP! HE IS EATING MY CEREAL!

I have to wash the Sigg cups, Holden gets Paddington, Oliver gets the alphabet one, Griffin has the airplane, Laurel has the pink cat....

I DON'T WANT TO GET DRESSED! IS IT A SCHOOL DAY? WHY ISN'T LAUREL DRESSED?

HEY STOP IT! THATS MINE!

WHERE IS MY HOMEWORK?

DO I HAVE SOCCER TODAY? WHERE DID YOU PUT MY SHIN GUARDS?

NO! NEED SOCKS! NEED BACKPACK! NEED SCHOOL SHOES! TIME TO GO, SAY GOODBYE!

OK, I just need to put cold packs in and I'm done. Then I just need to get the twins dressed, lunches into backpacks, make sure Oliver has his red notebook and his green notebook. Holden needs to return the Tuesday folder, and turn in his homework....

HISSSSSSS ROOOAAARR!

SHRIEK!

The cats are fighting because we haven't fed them yet, the kids are screaming because the cats are fighting.

OK, everyone needs shoes and coats!

DO I HAVE TO WEAR A COAT? I HAVE LONG SLEEVES. WHAT IF I GET TOO HOT?

You have to wear a coat. We all do.

NO! OFF! OFF!

No, you have to wear a coat.

And we are on our way.

But I should really pack the lunches at night.