Dropping Bombs

So, my sweet, adorable 2 and half year old has begun dropping the F-bomb again.  It is currently part of our everyday vocabulary.  Her absolute favorite time for this expletive is when she is jumping and hopping around like a frog.  Instead of "ribbit, ribbit," it is "f***, f***."  This is especially cute and adorable as we are walking (well, she is hopping) into the grocery store.  I have repeatedly told her that only Mommies and Daddies can say that word, but she replies, "No, I can say it too Mommy, see, F***!"  Yeah.  Great.

We have had trouble with this word before.  APPARENTLY, she picked it up from me (yeah, I'll take the blame for this one) when I was pregnant with the twins.  At about 4 months pregnant, I was already measuring close to full term - I WAS HUGE- and already having extreme difficulty picking things up off the ground.  Well, Karlie was about a year and a half then, so throwing things down for Mommy to pick up was still great fun.  In my extreme pregnant state, I MAY have let an F-bomb go each and every time I had to do the straddle, squat, and try to get back up part of the game.  During the peak of this phase, I would be pushing her around in the grocery cart, and Karlie would systematically grab things out of the cart, throw them down on the floor, literally scream "F***," then dissolve into a fit of giggles, followed with, "Fun Mommy, it's fun."  To which I would reply, "Frog baby, is that what you're saying?"  Eventually, we moved on to bigger and better things.  Thank God.

Come to think of it, we are probably at a natural progression with the F-word.  I did try to cover it up with saying frog, and now, that is what a frog says. 

Great.  How am I going to get out of this one?

Fuck.

Our Christmas Craft

In the spirit of reducing, reusing, and recycling, we came up with a container idea this year for the "goodies" that we give family, friends and co-workers.  Actually, my super crafty Sis came up with the original idea for Halloween - see the Mummy - and I played off of that and decided to just use ribbon.

What to do:  Take clean coffee cans or formula cans (of which we had a TON of), remove outer paper and drill 2 holes in the top for handles.  I wrapped them all in streamers first (because some of the ribbon was see-through), then wrapped them in ribbon.  I then tied a bow, and used pipe cleaners for the handles.  I actually had a much cuter idea of using different colored streamers to make candy canes, snowmen and I even had a tree figured out, but in the interest of time, I punked out and went with the ribbon.  I still think they are super cute anyway.

Happy Holidays!

Morax of the Borax

Borax Laundry Booster is my new all-time favorite cleaner.  As you can imagine, I've spent a LOT of time spraying stain remover on my 3 babies' clothes.  A LOT of time.  So much time in fact, I feel like I don't need to lift weights for my arms on laundry days.  Sounds silly, doesn't it?  Not really.  It's also VERY time-consuming.  But now, all I do is just soak the load of clothes for about 20 minutes with some Borax, then wash them again with some Borax mixed in with the laundry detergent, and the clothes come out cleaner than they were when I was spraying them individually.  I LOVE not spraying stain remover on every bib, onesie, shirt, sock, etc we own.  Also, now I don't dread washing a load of whites - that is until they need to be folded.

Anyway, I figure if a product has been around for close to 100 years, something about it must be good.  Truth be told, I just like buying a product that says "20 Mule Team."  It makes me laugh.  Plus it has about a million other uses.

So, yes, 20 Mule Team Borax is my new best friend. 

Thanks Mom for the tip.

Benadryl or No Benadryl?

So the babies are almost 6 months old.  Six of the shortest and longest months we've ever experienced.  Short because they've grown so fast, and long because they still do not sleep through the night. 

I'll say it again.  Still not sleeping through the night!!!!  Ok, we've had the occasional teasers - probably about a dozen of them, but nothing consistent.  What IS consistent is Ella up at midnight, Maggie up at 2am, Ella back up at 3am and Maggie up by 5am.  Then of course there is Karlie Bea.  She wakes up with the babies each and every time, so not only do you need to take care of an unhappy baby, but you need to put back to bed a very unhappy toddler.  Add that to the fact that Maggie is a screamer - not an unhappy screamer - a happy, at the top of her lungs, wake the entire house up because she doesn't care it's 2am screamer and you just can't win.

Yep, 6 months of this.  My husband and I have tried taking turns.  It doens't really work.  Right now we are doing the shift thing, but truly that just creates a teaser for both of us.  Neither one of us are really greedy with sleep.  Both of us wake up wonderfully refreshed after a solid 5 hours - the trick to that is it needs to be solid. 

So, we've tried different routines.  Right now we are feeding them as much cereal as they will take, giving them a bath, then a bottle.  You'd think that would do it right?  Ha, ha.  Up at 12, 2, 3 and 5 everytime. 

We've never been the parents that gave our kids drugs to sleep, but as my step-mom pointed out, you should NEVER say never.  We've discussed giving them Benadryl, and I've shot down that idea each time, but I'm thinking it might not be a bad idea. 

Maybe.

Possibly.

I'm thinking about it.