Out of the Mouths of My Babes April 2017

What will my 3 year old boys and 5 year old girl say next…?

I was talking to Twin 1 and I called him son, and he said, “I’m not the son, I’m the boss”.  And he may actually believe this.

According to Twin 1, good-met = gourmet.

I always ask my kids, “How do you like those apples”?, sarcastically of course, and one day after I brought lunch to the table, my daughter said, “Good apples”!

We were playing in bed one day, and I wrapped my girl up in the blankets and told her I had put her in a cocoon. T1 said, “Put me in a raccoon”…!

At therapy one day, T1 wanted a drink of water and when he came back he told the nanny, “I filled it full, so that brother could lick it. If it was  far down then he can’t reach it”.  Sweet.

I heard this while T1 was pooping, “I wish I had a nose protector for my stinkiness”.

My daughter told me that God is the boss of all the angels and he tells them what to do. Sounds good to me.

I told T1 that I was going to bite his bum, and he said, “OK, but just a little nipple (nibble)”.

“Row row row your boat gently down the stream, marry marry marry marry like a spider dream”. T1

After I had told the kids that I had made their beds with clean sheets and blankets, T1 tenderly touched my hand and said, “My mama does the best things”.

 

Out of the Mouths of My Babes March 2017

“Hancock” = ham hock

We were talking about moving out of state and bringing our current nanny with us (which is not possible).  Twin 1 said, “yeah, but how can she drive there when you go to work”?

“Sophie’s” = emoji  ..I didn’t know this word until I was in my 40s, but for some reason my three-year-old twin does.

My five-year-old girl was telling one of the three-year-old twins that when he grows up she won’t have to feed him anymore because he’ll be able to eat real life food (as opposed to his feeding tube).

Most mothers know that we can’t even have privacy in the bathroom, and while I was sitting on the toilet once Twin 1 said, “Hey,  where did all your hair go”?   I laughingly told him that I had cut it, and he said, “Doesn’t it hurt”?

“Can we take Roxie and daddy with us”?  “No baby, why”?  “So  we can see them when we move”.  “But you don’t see them now”.

“I’m almost a grownup because my tooth falled out”,  said my girl after she lost her first tooth, literally.

We were driving, and went over a steep hill and T1 said, “Wow, that scared me. That made my penis feel funny”.

At bedtime, my girl told me she was sorry for being mean to me that morning, and it made me teary. Later she said to me, “what’s wrong? Are you still thinking about me giving you loving”?

“Is this for bleed”? ( my pad).  “Yes”.  “Why do you have bleed? To clean fuzzball’s out of your vagina”?  Twin 1

“I’m  buying a new house. Well, actually MOM is. But, I can give you cash or money when we get home”.

Twin 1 told me that his shirt was upside out.

Upon discovering that twin ones pull-up was wet yet again in the morning, I told him that there was a little bit of pee. His response? “Yeah, that’s fine. Don’t worry about it”.

Twin one’s favorite Sesame Street character is Snuff-a-luck-a-Gus.

“Hiccups give me tears”.  T1

” Your eyes look like they’re turning brown from blue”.  “Can you take me to Dad’s next time”? “Why”?  ” So I can tell him not to turn my eyes brown”.

After bedtime one night my girl came downstairs and I asked her what she wanted. She said, “I don’t really want anything, I just kinda want you”.

I gave Twin 1 his zucchini bread for breakfast, and he barked at me. He then quickly changed his tune and said, “Wow, that voice was awful”.

 

 

 

 

 

Out of the Mouths of My Babes February 2017

Here are the latest little nuggets from my 3 1/2-year-old twin boys and my five-year-old girl…

“First he sucks the pee out of my penis, and then he pees it out, and then he sucks the poop out of my butt, and poops it out”.. this all in reference to Twin 1’s pet caterpillar. Wow.

The same twin told me in the tub one night that he just laughed so hard he got boogies in his throat.

While eating zucchini fritters for breakfast one snowy morning, my daughter told me that she wanted another “critter”.

roly poly=ravioli per Twin 1

“Gggoooooooood!   My day is always great, and I have good friends, so why do you always ask me how my day is”??,  as heard from my daughter after I asked how school was that day.

I was talking on the phone to a male colleague friend, and I asked how he sounded to the kids.   My girl said, “Mmm, he didn’t really sound nice, he sounded like a boy”.

I was cuddling in bed one morning with Twin 1, and my daughter came up to tell us that the Berenstein Bears were on, and that her brother better get down fast. I said, “Wow, who does she think she is”?,  and he said, “I think she’s the boss”.

I asked T1 if he stays up late so he can spend some alone time with me, and he said, “Yes, and to watch Hallmark, because I love Hallmark”.  The truth..

One night before bed we were having a conversation about death for some reason, and I told the kids that people either come back as angels or another person. The next day while Twin 1 was getting dressed, he asked me where his favorite happy birthday shirt was.   He said, “Can I take that with me when I come back as another person”?

Mom there’s something black in my eye.   What is it? I don’t know, it’s black, look. I don’t see anything. Look, it’s in the middle of my eye, it’s black! Oh… Your pupil! T1

“I have boogies stuck in my teeth”.  T1

My girl lost her first tooth this month. And by lost I mean she went to school one day and came home without it.  I found a piece of salt that slightly resembled a tooth, and she seemed excited when I gave it to her.   She decided to go into the bathroom and try to put it in the hole to see if it fit, and she told me it tasted like salt. I said well of course it does, since I found it in the middle of the road.  Her reply, “It looks like my tooth, so I’m just gonna go with it”.

We’re having a tough time getting rid of the pull-ups at night time. After another wet morning I said, “Listen, at your age your sister wasn’t wearing diapers anymore “.  She said, “Yeah, I wasn’t, I knowed much better than you”.

“PLEASE get your finger out of your nose!” “Aaaaaaaaggggh, can  I just have a second to eat boogies”??!!

And then there’s the not so pleasant memories…

The kids woke up talking about their stinky armpits, and my daughter said that her daddy has really stinky armpits because he works so much, and then she asked if he was working today. Her brother added that they hadn’t seen him in a really long time. I just told them again that he was working on problems and that he wants me to take care of them. My daughter said, “And then when he’s done, he will want us back into his life..”?

We were watching an old video of me in the lake where my ex in-laws lived. I told T1  that that was me at grandpa’s house, and asked if he remembered his house. He said, “Yes, but I don’t remember grandpa”.

It was the end of a long, hard day at home with the kids. My girl and Twin 1 had fought all day. Twin 2 whimpered and whined all day unless I held him, and then decided to take a nap where he woke at bedtime. When I finally got him to bed he cried and ended up puking after I had gotten in bed.  After 15 hours of fun, I lost my temper.   When I finally got back into bed I told T1 I was sorry.  He had told me I was awful when I was yelling.  He sighed and said, “OK I hear-ed you”.  I told him I wish I was a better mom and he said, “Me too, I wish I had my daddy”.  Ouch.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Abnormal Normalcy

It never occurs to me until  we are in a normal situation, just how abnormal our situation is.

I remember  seeing a movie a couple of years ago called “Including Samuel”.  It was right around when my twins were one, and right around the time I was still in shocked denial with my son’s diagnosis of cerebral palsy.  There are only a few things I specifically remember about this movie, but I recall Samuel’s mother saying that she misses most of the adult and family events that they go to, because she is busy caring for her son with cerebral palsy.  It is a full-time job (and there were 2 parents!).

At the time, I had three children under three, and was newly single, and we didn’t go out much except to appointments.  But now, the four of us go everywhere together (within reason), and I get what she said,  but try not to.

Tonight a dear friend invited us to a celebratory, spiritual potluck dinner.  I didn’t hesitate to go, since invites to our family are not so plentiful. I did happen to know the hostess and her family, but not in a personal sense.   We would be the only single-parent family there, minus my older single friend, but this seems to be the norm most days.

My kids are adorable, and they are well accepted and loved no matter where we go. But, I always wonder what people must be thinking when I introduce the boys as twins, and one is walking and talking like a champ ( even beyond his age), and I’m carrying his brother,  as if he were a baby still.  When people ask their age, I see them politely act as though a three-year eight-month-old child that doesn’t walk or talk or sit is normal. Maybe it’s my hold-up, not theirs..

I traveled with our own tumble form chair, so I would have a break from holding my son (thanks to my children, I don’t need a gym to lift weights).   Prior to dinner, everyone was circled around for a spiritual reading, and my son and I sat off to the side in his chair, while I fed him his blended liquid food through his feeding tube.  When he gets excited, he breathes very noisily and heavily, and so being in a new situation with new people and a curious dog, had him doing this throughout the whole quiet time.  He also has a weak swallowing reflex, which usually makes him drool profusely. It seems worse when he’s in a situation that makes him excited or uncomfortable, and he was drenched by the time we even arrived.  I don’t want him to have to wear a bib in public, so I constantly just catch drool in my hand and wipe it on whatever is handy, usually me.

While I was trying to eat my dinner, he started yelling because he wanted to be held. So for the rest of the evening, I sat or walked around holding him.  The kids all went upstairs into the playroom, and he missed out because I wanted to stay with the grown-ups. He usually has to do what I do.

Although I make it a point for us to not miss out on the activity at hand,  the things that seem so ordinary and routine at home, are the things that most stand out, out of the home.  At a teacher conference this week, they asked if we had any books that we could bring in that teach kids about my kiddo, and  I told them that I don’t know if he realizes that he’s any different from anyone else because I never point it out to him.  His physical limitations, and five-word vocabulary, and drooling, and feeding tube, and heavy breathing, are just my boy. We don’t know any different.  I only hope that by including my family in all activities that other normal families do, that someday we will just be the norm.

I Wanna Know What Love Is

Love is…..

Bending over a crib for 20 minutes, at 10 PM, giving your  Little dude his last meal of the day through his feeding tube, while he snores, so that he can get just a few more calories to sustain him, when you should be in bed yourself.

Out of the Mouths of My Babes January 2017

As said by my five-year-old daughter and one of my 3 1/2-year-old twin boys.

“You clean EVERYTHING”..Twin 1

Twin 1  was reading a book with a goldfish, and said, “Dad has goldfish (glutinous, cheesy kind) at his house.   But you’re  not supposed to”.   I asked if he liked going to his dads, and he said, “Yes, but now I’m at yours house, and you have lots and lots and lots of food and he doesn’t, but kinda, but not really”.

Dialogue one bedtime between me and my daughter…  where did you grow up? Is my daddy killed? No. Is he dead? No. Is he in a cage? No.  He’s not well, and he’s getting help for his problems. He wants mama to take care of you. Is he at home? I think so. Will I see him again? Ever ever? Yes, I think you will. Good I hope he has a tree for us. Is my daddy OK? I hope so. I bet he’s dreaming about me right now.  When is daddy’s birthday? It was the week before Christmas. Oh darn it. I wanted to make him a card. Well he wouldn’t get it because we don’t see him. But you said I would see him again…

“Hi sleepyhead”.  ” I’m not a sleepyhead, I’m a wakey head”.  Twin 1

I told Twin 1 to check out a pretty house and he said, “Wow pretty… Almost as pretty as our house. But we don’t have a house, well not like that one”.

“My nose is snuffy”.

We were watching a Meghan Trainor video and T1 told me that he loved her dress and her voice and that she’s so pretty and he wishes she was his mom.

Twin one told his brother that his cheeks were so red and then asked if his were. I said,” Yours are pink”.   He said, “Why because you kiss them so much”?   When I told him yes he replied, “So those are hearts”.

Twin one was nursing his baby dolls and I asked if they were twins. He said, “Yeah twins, but no sisters”.

Twin 1 was laying his head on my lap, and I was scratching his back. He suddenly sat up and said, “And I’m smelling your vagina. What does you think about that? Awful”.  Omg

“That’s why I tell you that I love you when you’re sad, to make you happy, cause I don’t like you sad. And when you’re mad, sometimes you yell at me and that makes me cry. That’s why I don’t be naughty”.  T1 at it again.

“I think my nose hurts cause I pick my nose all the time”. T1

I told T1 to give me a hug on his way to eat his dinner, and he said, “Let me have a darn second to eat”.

Our new favorite game is Candyland, and it now has a Diskit pile instead of a discard pile.

We were watching Tangled, and my daughter told me that the mom was not nice. I asked her if I was like that. She said, “No, you let me go outside and you make me good breakfast-es. She’s like evil. You aren’t that bad”.

Germ Phobia Revealed

I don’t recall being a germ phobe before I started having kids. Being in the health field, I definitely had an awareness, but it wasn’t near the Jack Nicholson “As Good as it Gets” OCD that it has become over the last 5+ years. So let me explain….

I am a single mom (with no contact with “Dad”) of a five-year-old girl, and 3 1/2-year-old twin boys. One of my boys had a birth injury and has cerebral palsy, and has a feeding tube that keeps him alive.  I also own my own successful small business, and have been required to be there full-time for the last 4+ months due to losing an employee.

So, when one of them gets sick, it tends to spread to all of them, to me and/ or the nanny, and it means lost school, lost work, and almost a lost mind.  It has been a rough winter so far, with three mild colds up to this point ( I barely get what they get, but I have had strep throat and three mild colds also due to being burnt).

Thursday my girl woke with a fever and a cough. On Friday I had a sniffly nose. On Saturday, twin one had the fever and cough. On Sunday the nanny started. And yesterday everyone seemed much better.  And then today… The nanny called out sick, my girl regressed and had a fever, cough and sneezes, Twin 1 (and I)  were up for hours with coughing fits in the middle of the night, and Twin 2 finally got the fever. So, no school, again, no physical therapy, no work.  I don’t think I have slept soundly  in six days. I’m too tired to notice how tired I am.

And my day was spent trying to calm T2’s cough, that was non-stop all day, while comforting  him and babying him as much as possible, since he wanted me to hold him all day.   Simultaneously, I was trying to please and help my girl, who went between periods of quietness with TV and the iPad, to demands for more water, her heat pack again, tissue after tissue after tissue, and food.  And per usual, Twin 2 just wanted me to himself all day, and to be held.

When Twin 2 gets sick, it’s more than just comforting and holding him, but it can be quite scary. He missed a meal due to his long afternoon nap, which never happens, and then puked his final meal (from coughing or mucus or both) three different times between seven and nine. He can’t afford to lose calories.

This is not to mention the time that it takes me to shovel vitamins and herbs and homeopathy down their throat all day long.  Or the time I spend making a meal that doesn’t get eaten. Or the time that I hold one child in my arms while rocking, in a room filled with steam and essential oils to stop him from coughing while I have tears pouring down my cheeks.

So, when you see me use my hand sanitizer religiously, or grab a door handle with my coat jacket instead of my hands, or  pump gas with gloves that I ball up and throw in the glove compartment, maybe now you’ll understand why…

Out of the Mouths of Babes Nov Dec 2016

“Squeetie”= zucchini per Twin 1

I recently bought a necklace that says “blessed”, and we were telling my mom about it via FaceTime. Twin one said, “yeah, it says blessed because she has bleed, and it helps to clean her vagina”.  WHAT?!

I was having an issue with Twin 2’s feeding tube, and my daughter asked if I needed God. I said something about him, and she said, “God is not a him, it’s a girl”.

I was singing some reggae, and my daughter said, “Mom, don’t do that. I don’t like it. Act like a normal person”.

We were driving in the car and the sun was coming in the window on Twin 1’s face. He says, “Mom turn down the sun”.

My daughter told me that I could make a doctor appointment with her play therapist without her so that she could help me be a good mom.

Twin 1 told me he was NEW today (NUDE).

Sometimes, I’m not so proud…. Twin 1 said, “Mama, you scare me. You make me want to cry”,  after I yelled at his sister for saying his name over and over.

“Mama, can you take my skin off? It’s bothering me”?  Asked twin one about the string on his toy…

“Your hair is so warm that I wish I could cut a piece off and sleep on it”.  That’s love..

Twin 1 has been potty trained for over a year. He still wears a pull-up at night, and sometimes it’s still wet. One day I said, “Buddy, you gotta stop peeing in your diaper”.  He says, “I can’t help it, sometimes it just shoot-es out”.

Twin 1 asked me why I put him inside my tummy. I told him that I didn’t, but daddy did. He asked why he put him in there. I said, “Because he wanted to give me a precious present”.

He used this info against me another night when  he was acting silly and I told him that I had carried him for nine months. He said, “No you didn’t. Daddy put me in there”.

Getting ready for bed one night Twin 1 asked me if I put panties on. I told him no. He asked why not? I said, “Sometimes I don’t wear panties with jammies “.  He seemed puzzled and said, “Does it feel weird”?

The nanny told me that they were driving home from therapy one day and T1 told her that he loved her a really lot. He said, “You know why? Because of your smell. You smell good all the time. Really good. You don’t know it, but I’m smelling you a lot”.  She told him that was good and she was glad, and he replied “sure”..

Twin 1 was watching me go to the bathroom and he said, “Eww vaginas, get them outside”.

I told Twin 1 he was a sweet boy, and he said, “And I’m cute too”.  Most definitely.

 

 

The Nutcracker Night

I don’t realize how abnormal my family is until we are at a normal public event.  Our daily lives consist of home, school, and multiple therapies, and we are surrounded by people that know “our situation”.

Tonight I took the three kids to see The Nutcracker at a local theater, and I invited our dear friend to join us.  We were miraculously given the aisle seats of the last row on the floor, and they couldn’t have been more perfect.  My friend held Twin 1, while I held Twin 2, and my girl sat in between us.  To my amazement, my girl and Twin 1 were enthralled ( minus the frequent questions by my girl) and behaved splendidly.

However, Twin 2 was completely unsettled, and arched, squirmed, and writhed for the full 2 hours.    I’m pretty certain that my chest is bruised, and my arms will look like Popeye.  I got headbutted,  smacked, kicked, and pinched more than a few times each. He also yelled during the entire performance. In the beginning, his yells were excited talking, and I noticed that the mother, daughter, granddaughter trio in front of us were disturbed. I got more than a few dirty looks from them throughout the first half alone.  It got even better when he let out a loud burp, and then several farts that  had me convinced I needed to change his diaper.  During intermission, he spit up while we were standing in the middle aisle.  It might have been comical, had it not been us.  I’ll blame it on the overstimulation.

Truth be told, I was excited for the kids, but also almost dreading going myself. I even had a wave of nervousness getting ready to leave. You see, most public events haven’t gone as well as I would have expected.  We’ve tried plays, circuses, and our first and last movie, Finding Dory. They all end the same, with me sore, frustrated, and annoyed that I missed the event.

I want us to be a normal family. I want us to be able to do things that other families do. I don’t want one child to not do what the other two are doing.  And so, I sacrifice. I sacrifice seeing .whatever I have paid to go see, in order that 1,2 or all 3 of them will be happy.

I remember around the time Twin 2 was diagnosed with cerebral palsy and I was floundering, that I watched a movie called Including Samuel.  It made me feel so not alone. I remember the mom saying that they missed being part of any event that they went to, because they were so busy caring for their son. I get it.

What I would’ve liked to have said to the trio who thought that I just had a noisy child, and was disturbing a few minutes of their program,  that they have no idea the effort or love that it takes to just BE there, and thankfully they never will.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Out of the Mouths of Babes Oct 2016

-Twin 1  said, “I love funny things because they make me laugh”.

– As we went outside for school one day, Twin 1 said,”It’s froggy”.  Froggy? “Yes, froggy”!   Froggy?  He very exasperatedly said, “Yes, it’s froggy out”!!  Aha….foggy!

– At 9:15 PM after my second try of getting Twin 1 up to bed he said, “I’m not going upstairs you silly feet… My feet want me to go upstairs but I’m not listening”.

– We saw an ad for the Muppets movie and I told my kids that I had grown up with them. That day we watched the peanuts movie for the first time, and my daughter said, “hey mom, can I grow up with THEM”?

– After a third attempt at bedtime at 8:30, I thought I heard creeping.  Minutes later I called to Twin 1, who was creeping down the stairs. “Don’t talk to me. I’m hiding”.  From who?!  “From you. Hush your mouth. I’m watching TV”.

– I was watching Sweet home Alabama one evening when my daughter decided to skip bedtime and come hang out. Someone on the movie said son of a bitch, and my girl laughed and said, “Stupid dish”?!

– Twin 1 was chowing down on some olives and so I asked him if he liked them. “Mmm, I love olives. They are my favorite fruit”.

– I was doing a project, and Twin 1 kept messing with it. I finally said, “Stop it, you’re being a brat”,  and he said, “I’m not a brat, I’m a little sweetie”.

-I asked T1 what movie he was watching and he replied, “Aurora, I just told you.  I don’t need to tell you 16 times”.

-According to T1, an envelope is a mailvelope.

-T1  and my girl can either be best buddies or fighting like lions. One night after T1 choked my daughter “playing “before bed, he said, “I gotted her,  I  beat her up all right”.

-My girl was talking about her Ariel doll that she got for her birthday and she said, “I’m going to have this till I’m all grown up, like 18, your age”.  Bahahaha

-T1  is sitting on the toilet and he randomly says, “Mama, why is your tummy always so big”?

-T2 “tells me” that the best part of his day, every day, is me coming home.