Randomosity

Okay, so randomosity isn't really a word, but here are some bits and pieces from casa de phillips:

1.We do our grocery shopping on the weekends. I used to simply go by myself--without anyone under three feet tall accompanying me. Lately we have been tackling this chore as a family. We divide the list, each parent takes a child, and set off to get our food and necessities. Upon arriving back at casa de phillips we all help put everything away...including Isaac. He loves to help take things to the appropriate room and is quite good at stacking or lining things up. Last week he stacked--by size--diapers, wipes, and trash bags in the shelves of Evelyn's changing table and then stacked toiletries in the master bath by size. Impressive, but a bit creepy.

2.Potty training is going nowhere at our house. However, Isaac makes a good faith effort everyday. He removes the necessary garments, sits patiently, reads a book, requests toilet paper, uses the toilet paper, and then asks if he can flush the toilet paper down the "mommy commode." Obviously he has the routine down...except the most important part of actually using the restroom. I told him we would have a party with a cake whenever he actually did something in the toilet. The aspect of a party really excites him, so I hope this encourages some progress. Our diaper bill is outrageous (however, we are racking up the Pampers Points!)

3. Speaking of diapers, we do use Pampers at casa de phillips. I know they are most expensive, but they have never let me down. I believe the extra money is worth not having to change clothes at a public place or pajamas and bedsheets in the middle of the night due to leaks. Pampers teamed up with Sesame Street and have placed these childhood characters on each diaper. During the day we have to discuss what character is on Isaac's diaper and what character is on Evelyn's diaper repeatedly. Currently Isaac is requesting that Evelyn only wear Baby Zoe di-ters (diapers).

4. Friday I was able to speak with a man at animal control regarding the duck situation. Apparently these birds are not mere ducks...they are some sort of duck-goose hybrid. The owner of these lovely animals does not see a problem with letting them run free and is trying to have his feathered friends' ability to roam free grandfathered in under a city ordinance. (Apparently there are lots of people with livestock who have gotten special permission to keep such animals despite living in the city. It has something to do with the fact that our little city used to be quite a bit more rural than it is now.) He has been warned twice and is now facing a fine. The city has called in their lawyer to review pet ordinances and see exactly what rules this man must adhere to. Perhaps this will go all the way to Judge Judy...

5. The Nanny Diaries comes out this weekend. About four and a half months ago I arranged a Girls Night Out to eat dinner and catch this film...only to realize that I was completely wrong about the release date.

6. I have heard about FlyLady for years, have checked out the website a few times, but did not really get (or want to get) the whole concept of "FLYing." However, I thrive on structure, organization, and cleanliness....all three of which are becoming increasingly more difficult to achieve with two babies. So I purchased the Flylady's book, grasped the concept (some of it is a bit corny), and have been running my household using quite a bit of her principals. Despite her awkward acronyms, it really is a good system for getting your house under control.

7. Last week Isaac, Evelyn, and I were at a local indoor play area. I struck up a conversation with another mother after we bonded over forcing our children to share a toy. She inquired as to how far apart Isaac and Evelyn are. Her face became quite sympathetic as I told her "21 months," she patted me on my arm, and said, "You are in hell now but it gets better in a year." A year??? Didn't she read my blog about how I thought after three months things would be peachy keen? Apparently her children are 22 months apart and she said if I could simply survive the first year, then things would start to look up....until the children begin to fight over who gets what toy.

8.Isaac went in for his two year check-up and weighed in at a whooping 25.6 pounds....with his clothes on. I find this amusing, considering he eats more at each meal than I do.

9. Evelyn has been identified as being a "happy spitter" meaning that she spits up...a lot...but doesn't really fuss about it. However our sweet baby girl often smells like sour milk and goes through a few outfits a day on some occasions. I also get the lovely opportunity of walking around with spit-up on me most days.

9. Here are some funny things Isaac has said to me lately:
"Mommy, I woke up!"
"Mommy, take trees and grass bath?" (this was said because I was watering our backyard one morning. He says that someone "takes" his bath but means "give" his bath instead.)
"Mommy, play I-ick just few minutes" (yes, he has the guilt trip thing down to an art)
"Mommy, Baby Ev-in hungry/mad/asleep" (If Evelyn makes the slightest peep, Isaac likes to diagnose the problem immediately.)
"Mommy, one more time?" (Every desired activity is now "one more time" meaning that he wants to do it again...and again...and again.)
"Mommy I see _____ sign." (His new thing is to say that he can see the sign of wherever we are going, such as Target, mall, etc. He says this even if there is no sign for our location and if we are still five miles away.)
"Mommy, I or-nize Mr. Tater Head." (He said this to me tonight after I gave him the chore of putting all of his new Mr. Potato Head toys into clear plastic bins to make them nice and organized.)
"Kiving Room" is Living room and "banas" is bathroom

10. I have a confession: I rock Evelyn to sleep for most of her naps. This might not seem like a big deal to some people, but I am an advocate for teaching babies to fall asleep on their own from a very early age. This means that you don't rock the baby to sleep. It was quite easy not to rock Isaac as a baby because he hated to be held. Well, Evelyn was not doing so well in the falling asleep department so I began rocking her so she could nap and our day could stay on pace. Lately she doesn't want to rock, yet she cannot drift off by herself for her little naps. This has lead to the use of the large stability ball. Bouncing on a large stability ball is soothing to babies and makes Evelyn drift off to sleep peacefully. It also is great exercise for one's abs and quads. It took me a few days after starting this new method of getting her to nap to realize why my legs felt as if I had run five miles that day. The positive side of this is that I am two pounds lighter than I was at weigh-in last week---the whole ball-bouncing thing must be working! If you need to shape up your lower body, feel free to stop by at 9:30am, 11am, or 5:15pm to bounce Evelyn to sleep.

11. Twelve years ago this month I headed off for college as an eager little freshman. Twelve years sounds like a really long time, but college feels like it was just yesterday. That might be because Tobe and I rehash college antics at least once a week...if not more. Our children are going to hate the fact that Tobe and I shared our college years together and have a vast collection of stories to tell over and over again.

12. About a year and a half ago I decided to grow my hair out to donate to Locks of Love. I know that sounds glamorous, but the truth is that I wanted to grow my hair out anyway, I do not color it (donations cannot be dyed), and I figured if I decided to do something with the hair after growing it out I would be prevented from chopping it off early. Well seems like Evelyn's favorite thing to grab is Mommy's hair...by the fistfuls. I looked up the other night how much hair one had to cut off to make a useful donation to Locks of Love---10 inches, my friend. I had Tobe help me figure out exactly how short my hair would be should I hack off ten inches now. It was not a flattering length for me (think Posh Spice's hair...not so "major" for me) so I am going to stick with this "growing my hair out thing" for another six months.

13. I just made a Posh Spice and "major" reference in my blog...seriously I need to get out more.

14. Sometimes I feel like Isaac, Evelyn, and I are kid-magnets. Perhaps we look interesting to other children or they feel sorry for us....whatever it is, we seem to attract the children whose parents are oblivious. At the library story time, the rowdy children like to plop down next to us. At the picture studio on Friday, the children who were climbing the couches chose to come talk to us rather than play with the nifty Lego table. We often have random children tag along with us at the park as we set out to check on the fish pond. The play area at the mall typically generates one or two children who feel the need to tell me the intricacies of their life. I hate to be rude to children, but this seriously bugs me. Perhaps I should pretend as if we don't speak English...

15. Apparently Isaac knows how to set the alarm on my travel clock because it just started chirping in my bedside drawer. Fortunately he set if for 9:24pm rather than 2:25 am.

16. In this month's issue of Cookie magazine, they printed the result of some survey they had taken regarding families of different sizes (in relation to the number of children, not waist size). Tobe hates such surveys because they are not statistically sound and fail to mention that "correlation is not causation". I gleefully read the survey "findings" to him the other night, being sure to show him that families with two children reported higher marital satisfaction than families with one, three, or four+ children. It was then that I noticed the part of the survey that showed parents of two children tended to drink more than the other parents...hmmm.

17. Each week when we got to the library, Isaac gets to choose some books that look interesting to him (I throw some into the pile that I know he will actually enjoy because he sometimes grabs some random stuff). This past week he chose a children's book called "Dance By the Light of the Moon" where various farm animals (all girls) get ready to go to a dance in the barn to "dance by the light of the moon." The premise of the book is based on the old song "Buffalo Gals Won't Ya Come out Tonight". Tobe tells me that this song is referring to "women of the night" when it speaks of Buffalo gals....do you think the authors of this children's book understood the real meaning of the song?


Have a great week!