This weekend we were at the Rochester Public Market. During nice weather in spring, summer and fall you can typically find us there getting mass quantities of fruits and veggies. This is just another part of our routine with my husband and I each pushing our way through the masses with a double stroller... yes, two double strollers. Chad always gets first dib on the big kids. For some reason I can never remember to call dibs. I mean, you might think that it doesn't matter which kids you get but that brings us back to the eye contact... two babies draws a lot more attention that two four year olds. Nonetheless, we were there and ready to go. I typically use the stroller as a device to make my way through the crowd. Is this wrong? Quite possibly. Do I care? Not usually. If a person can't get out of the way of the double stroller after a few polite attempts I usually say screw it! Then I crash into their ankles. Of course, I immediately follow this with overwhelming apologies and explanations of my inability to maneuver such a bulky stroller and then am forgiven. Phew. The good Catholic in me might throw in a couple of Hail Mary's later on for acting like such an idiot but honestly it gets my by. Carly has gotten to the age of sticking her leg out to the side of the stroller to kick people or maybe get some attention (remember, she is a deprived twin with twin siblings who apparently goes unnoticed... hmmm).
So this week I am being observant of the fact that we have gotten a lot of blessings over the years. Friends, family and mostly strangers bless us all the time. They act like we are saints for having so many kids. God Bless you; you must have so much patience! hmmm... sometimes... God Bless you and your beautiful family; you must have your hands full! Yes, typically....and so on. However, there is the occasional blessing in which I kind of sense a tinge of sarcasm. "God bless you!" (more like, glad it is you and not me). Well you know what I decided this weekend? Instead of my usual thoughts of wow, what a loser that person was... I am going to take all these blessings from strangers and be thankful for my absolutely amazing, far from perfect yet family. Yup, I love them all... even though we might be able to join the circus.
Monday, June 20, 2011
Sunday, June 12, 2011
A dance recital is not the best place to find out you parked in the fire lane...
This morning I woke up feeling completely refreshed - birds chirping outside, totally cozy snuggled in under my comforter and listening to the reassuring sound of my husband snoring lightly beside me...I rolled over to look at the clock.. 8am... 8am!!! What? Who decided to sleep this late??? We had to be out of the house in an hour to get Julianna to her dance recital by a little after 9am. Carly and Aidan wake up like clockwork everyday at 7am. I immediately resort to the only logical solution to them still sleeping... they must be dead. Okay, maybe that is not so logical but it's me...... or if by some chance they are still alive then someone clearly climbed in their window last night and stole them. They probably thought that they were helping us out. It takes about 3 seconds for these thoughts to pass through my head and in no time at all I am in the babies' room. Of course, they were soundly asleep and now I have woken up the entire house in my mad dash to make sure they were all alive, which of course they were.
Somehow we manage to get everyone feed, bathed and dressed in time to get out of the house. My husband Chad and I have the management of our children down to a science. Our assembly line baths are done in 15 minutes.... Chad undresses the babies one at a time, shuffles them into the bathroom with me while I bath them head to toe in three minutes flat. It kind of reminds me of a Nascar race where the team works with speed and precision to get a tire changed on the course. Sometimes I think that I should start timing us and setting a new goal for the next time but then Chad reminds me that I have a serious problem.
Needless to say, we do make it there in three cars... yup, we picked up my Mom and Dad along the way in their car. Chad took the older two a little early to get Julie set up and I finished up with the babies and met them there. The recital starts at 10am and I am feeling freakin awesome because we are pulling into Nazareth College at 9:45am feeling confident and ready to tackle the recital. Of course, everyone else coming to the concert arrived at 9:30 so the parking lot is as full as a can of sardines. But remember, I am super mom (so I tell myself) and I find two spots right on the side of a little road that winds through the school. I park my minivan and my Dad parks his SUV and in we go.
First sign we see: No food or drinks allowed in the auditorium. Well, obviously that only applies to the common folk - not the freak show with two sets of twins because there is no way in hell that I am going in there without sippy cups and goldfish.We take up an entire section - Chad, Nick, the babies, my mom, my dad, Chad's parents, Uncle Matt, Aunt Yolanda, super nanny Karyl, one of my best friends Meghan and her son Taylor ... whoa. No one sits near us. Seriously, can you blame them? Carly is climbing across the seats like she is at Gymboree and Aidan has already started attacking the box of goldfish. And you better believe that I keep those fish coming because if his little chubby hand doesn't have goldfish in it the whole auditorium is going to know.
Julie's first number goes on. She's adorable; we cheer; we clap; we think we have the cutest little girl in the world (along with every other parent in the auditorium). Then the entire recital stops. There is an announcement. "Would the owner of a ...." uh oh... I don't even have to listen... I start digging through my purse.."silver Honda Odyssey and blue Honda Pilot (license plates listed)... please move your cars out of the fire lane..." Really? That was a fire lane?? There wasn't even a sign... "your cars are about to be towed". Yup, that's it...just a day in the life...
Somehow we manage to get everyone feed, bathed and dressed in time to get out of the house. My husband Chad and I have the management of our children down to a science. Our assembly line baths are done in 15 minutes.... Chad undresses the babies one at a time, shuffles them into the bathroom with me while I bath them head to toe in three minutes flat. It kind of reminds me of a Nascar race where the team works with speed and precision to get a tire changed on the course. Sometimes I think that I should start timing us and setting a new goal for the next time but then Chad reminds me that I have a serious problem.
Needless to say, we do make it there in three cars... yup, we picked up my Mom and Dad along the way in their car. Chad took the older two a little early to get Julie set up and I finished up with the babies and met them there. The recital starts at 10am and I am feeling freakin awesome because we are pulling into Nazareth College at 9:45am feeling confident and ready to tackle the recital. Of course, everyone else coming to the concert arrived at 9:30 so the parking lot is as full as a can of sardines. But remember, I am super mom (so I tell myself) and I find two spots right on the side of a little road that winds through the school. I park my minivan and my Dad parks his SUV and in we go.
First sign we see: No food or drinks allowed in the auditorium. Well, obviously that only applies to the common folk - not the freak show with two sets of twins because there is no way in hell that I am going in there without sippy cups and goldfish.We take up an entire section - Chad, Nick, the babies, my mom, my dad, Chad's parents, Uncle Matt, Aunt Yolanda, super nanny Karyl, one of my best friends Meghan and her son Taylor ... whoa. No one sits near us. Seriously, can you blame them? Carly is climbing across the seats like she is at Gymboree and Aidan has already started attacking the box of goldfish. And you better believe that I keep those fish coming because if his little chubby hand doesn't have goldfish in it the whole auditorium is going to know.
Julie's first number goes on. She's adorable; we cheer; we clap; we think we have the cutest little girl in the world (along with every other parent in the auditorium). Then the entire recital stops. There is an announcement. "Would the owner of a ...." uh oh... I don't even have to listen... I start digging through my purse.."silver Honda Odyssey and blue Honda Pilot (license plates listed)... please move your cars out of the fire lane..." Really? That was a fire lane?? There wasn't even a sign... "your cars are about to be towed". Yup, that's it...just a day in the life...
Saturday, June 11, 2011
A trip to Home Depot -a good idea?
Well, here we go...
I mean, I know that I lead a busy and fulfilled life. I am VERY good at managing my time and not getting overwhelmed. However, now and again, there ARE times when I wonder if I have actually gone mad. Our trip to Home Depot was one of them...
Mondays and Wednesdays have become precious days this month for me and my kids. I don't have to work or go to class at night so when I get home from school we can spend some quality time together. On Wednesday when I got home it was a beautiful day and I shuffled all the kids outside after the babysitter left. Side note: I could write an entire post about my wonderful nanny Karyl and I WILL! She is amazing. Even the babies are really enjoying the weather and are just getting past that crazy stage where they think it is cute to run into the road as fast as they can while you run after them screaming. It was so peaceful... the big kids riding bikes in the driveway and the little ones playing in the grass... I decided to start weeding. I mean, heck, I already decided that since I went back to school I was not going to worry about my gardens this summer but, come on, it was a great day and I have a hard time not doing something. Well, low and behold, in a matter of 30 minutes I had that whole front garden weeded! And instead of sitting back or playing with my kids I thought.. "I HAVE to get to Home Depot right now to get some mulch. If I can mulch the garden it will be the ultimate sense of accomplishment."
Soooo... feeling so overcome with motivation to make one small garden look tended to I chased all the kids into the minivan. "Seat belts on, buckle up, we are going shopping!" Of course, I was met with immediate requests to stay home from the older two. I tried to use my best Mommy reasoning skills to explain why it was so important to abandon this beautiful sunny day to head to a home improvement store. I must have kicked up my positivity just enough because a few minutes later we were on our way.
I pulled into the parking lot, got a front row spot and knew that we were going to rock this shopping trip out. Until I started thinking that is... Okay, why was I here again? Right, mulch! Okay, how am I going to get this mulch to my car? Okay, get one of those flat bed carts! Okay, what about the kids? Right, shove them all in a shopping cart and go! So I get the carts and off we go. Push the one with the kids; pull the one for the mulch. The whole time thinking... I got this. These are my kids. If I can't do this I am a failure as a mother. Yup, these are things that go through my head. We make it to the mulch somehow. I drag ten bags on the flatbed. Then I throw on two more hanging plants for good measure. I drag that flatbed to the register like it's my job. Meanwhile, I deter eye contact from at least 6 people. See, if I make eye contact it is all over. Then, I am forced to answer 27.25 questions about why I have so many little kids - Did I take fertility drugs? Are they all mine? Why would I take them all to the store? Do twins run in my family? Did I know that my daughter looked like me? Did I know that I have to have 4 car seats in the car? Am I going to go for the 3rd set? ... and so on. So, needless to say, avoiding eye contact is a good thing.
The register - SUCCESS! I see the light at the end of the tunnel. We pay, I shove all that mulch in the back of the mini van and we are off. Headline reads - "Mom of multiple multiples beats the odds again and survives a trip to the local home improvement store". Yup, this is it. Just a day in the life of me.
I mean, I know that I lead a busy and fulfilled life. I am VERY good at managing my time and not getting overwhelmed. However, now and again, there ARE times when I wonder if I have actually gone mad. Our trip to Home Depot was one of them...
Mondays and Wednesdays have become precious days this month for me and my kids. I don't have to work or go to class at night so when I get home from school we can spend some quality time together. On Wednesday when I got home it was a beautiful day and I shuffled all the kids outside after the babysitter left. Side note: I could write an entire post about my wonderful nanny Karyl and I WILL! She is amazing. Even the babies are really enjoying the weather and are just getting past that crazy stage where they think it is cute to run into the road as fast as they can while you run after them screaming. It was so peaceful... the big kids riding bikes in the driveway and the little ones playing in the grass... I decided to start weeding. I mean, heck, I already decided that since I went back to school I was not going to worry about my gardens this summer but, come on, it was a great day and I have a hard time not doing something. Well, low and behold, in a matter of 30 minutes I had that whole front garden weeded! And instead of sitting back or playing with my kids I thought.. "I HAVE to get to Home Depot right now to get some mulch. If I can mulch the garden it will be the ultimate sense of accomplishment."
Soooo... feeling so overcome with motivation to make one small garden look tended to I chased all the kids into the minivan. "Seat belts on, buckle up, we are going shopping!" Of course, I was met with immediate requests to stay home from the older two. I tried to use my best Mommy reasoning skills to explain why it was so important to abandon this beautiful sunny day to head to a home improvement store. I must have kicked up my positivity just enough because a few minutes later we were on our way.
I pulled into the parking lot, got a front row spot and knew that we were going to rock this shopping trip out. Until I started thinking that is... Okay, why was I here again? Right, mulch! Okay, how am I going to get this mulch to my car? Okay, get one of those flat bed carts! Okay, what about the kids? Right, shove them all in a shopping cart and go! So I get the carts and off we go. Push the one with the kids; pull the one for the mulch. The whole time thinking... I got this. These are my kids. If I can't do this I am a failure as a mother. Yup, these are things that go through my head. We make it to the mulch somehow. I drag ten bags on the flatbed. Then I throw on two more hanging plants for good measure. I drag that flatbed to the register like it's my job. Meanwhile, I deter eye contact from at least 6 people. See, if I make eye contact it is all over. Then, I am forced to answer 27.25 questions about why I have so many little kids - Did I take fertility drugs? Are they all mine? Why would I take them all to the store? Do twins run in my family? Did I know that my daughter looked like me? Did I know that I have to have 4 car seats in the car? Am I going to go for the 3rd set? ... and so on. So, needless to say, avoiding eye contact is a good thing.
The register - SUCCESS! I see the light at the end of the tunnel. We pay, I shove all that mulch in the back of the mini van and we are off. Headline reads - "Mom of multiple multiples beats the odds again and survives a trip to the local home improvement store". Yup, this is it. Just a day in the life of me.
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