"a spoon full of sugar helps the medicine go down"

I feel like one of the advantages to having these twins a little later in our life is that now we have our older kids to experience it with and enjoy the fun. It's important to remember to have some fun every once in a while. If you don't then I'm pretty sure it's more a case of "when" you'll crack rather than "if" you'll crack. One way I like to unwind is to mess with Jackie and the kids. An oldie but goodie that I like to do with Jackie, is wait until she puts a baby on the couch and surround them with pillows to keep them from falling off while she runs to grab their diaper. I wait until she's gone and I carefully move the baby onto the ground then wait and see how fast all the color drains from her face when she comes back in the room. Now that every mom reading this hates me, you should know that I've quit doing that one because Jackie threatened me physically, and I don't want be the boy who cried wolf , just in case they do fall off something for real.

I do think the kids get the worst of of the pranks. Case in point, when we were in the NICU with the babies they had these huge syringes that they would feed them with. When I saw those syringes naturally I had the same thought that any dad would have, "That thing would scare the crap out of my kids!" so I borrowed one of the humongous syringes from the hospital, filled it with apple juice, threw a huge needle on it and told the kids a story. I told them that Grandma Shoell had called and told us that all the local pools had tested positive for kryptospiritum (sp) and that if they wanted to be around the babies they would need a Gamu-globulin (sp) shot. How they reacted at the sight of needle said a lot about how each of our kids handle pressure. Lindsay immediately broke into tears; Kade looked frantic and started crying; Kalli impressed me the most, she kept quiet, made herself look smaller, and located the nearest exit. Me and Jackie couldn't keep a straight face for long, and eventually the kids were able to laugh about it. I like to think that by the time they are grown, our kids will have built more character than any of their friends.

Kalli's really getting into the role.

 

Kade still needs to work on his acting a bit.

 

Kids these days

* The following is one man's judgmental opinion and should be treated as such *

One nice thing about having a blog that is read by only 3 people, is that I can go on a rant and not offend too many people with my overly opinionated views.

My rant is this, "when did kids begin to rule the world?" I feel justified in my question, based on the facts that I was once a kid, and now as a parent have a few kids.  

This all really stemmed from mine and Jackie's anniversary weekend. Everything went wonderful, with a few exceptions. One of those exceptions was our failed late night swim.  We went down to the hotel pool at 10:30 to hit the hot tub before bed.  When we walked in, we found there was a "shrieking  girl convention" taking place in the pool. We saw a mass of girls leaving the hot tub and decided we would be safe there. Unfortunately they weren't getting out to go to bed, they were just getting out to have a quick cupcake break and scream at each other before getting back in the hot tub. After all 83 were back in the hot tub, they started talking REALLY loud and splashing each other (along with us). As riveting as their conversations were, they weren't exciting enough for us to endure the splashing princesses.  I tried to make my very best "annoyed adult face" but it didn't help. I wouldn't have been so bothered by the whole thing if it wasn't for the parents reactions to how their girls were acting.  The three most popular responses were:
    
       ·         doing whatever their little angel demanded of them.
       ·         smiling at how adorable their daughters canon ball into the hot tub was.
       ·         ignoring their child, to gossip with another attentive parent.

At some point it seemed to me that if my kids were acting like that I would have pulled them out of the pool and had a talk with them.  Or maybe I would have thought "hmmm it's 10:30. I think I'll get my kids in bed".  It didn't take long to see who was running the show in that relationship.

Since I'm already on my soap box I might as well continue. I remember when I was a kid, and we had a social gathering like Christmas, birthday parties, baby blessings, that I was required to wait. Grandparents went first, then parents, and then kids.  I've watched plenty of nature shows in my day.  In all those shows I have never seen one where a family of lions sits down to a delicious Sunday zebra, and sit and watch the cubs eat all the best parts, leaving the scraps for the parents. In those nature shows the parents make sure the kids know their place. Now days I don't think people care if their kid is squeezing in front of grandma to get the biggest piece of chicken, only to go eat two bites and throw it away. Maybe we should be more like the lions and occasionally eat one of the impatient kids to remind them who's the boss.

Don't get me wrong . I love my kids. I think kids are funny, and amazing and interesting, and all that other good stuff. I'm just worried that if we act like everything in this world revolves around them, then when they're a teenager they're going to think "everything in this world revolves around me!"

 I'm glad that I'm not one of those awful parents that does everything wrong.

(Next week's rant: Annoying people who tell you how to raise your kids.)

Green Thumb

Jackie made fun of me the other day because I said that "I like gardening". After re-thinking it I realized that what I meant to say was "I like watching the plants grow, and then picking the fruit, and eating it". The whole weeding and tilling thing I'm not so crazy about, but there is something satisfying once you have the ground looking all beautiful and ready for plants.

This year the kids have really helped out, each in there own way. Kade helped me with the first weeding and tilling. It really helps the hours go by when you're answering all sorts of questions like "why we want to throw away some plants (weeds) but let other plants grow (tomato's), and why some worms are good for the garden (earthworms) and some "worms" are bad (tomato grubs, snails). As I was digging up the ground he told me to let him know when I found a worm. When I asked him why he said that "he wanted to let it slobber in his hand." Nothing like a bunch of worm mucus to start the day. Later when the girls came out he told them that "we only want good worms in the garden, not evil worms". I never knew that we had evil worms plotting to overthrow our garden. Worms these days.

Kalli also tries her best to help out, but when it comes to weeding Kalli has about as much interest as I do in eating a pickle. She is however, great at watering. She can water the heck out of a plant. In fact we have a couple of watermelon plants that may not make it because she did such a good job watering them.

Lindsay is just always willing to help out whenever and wherever. She does an awesome job. Hopefully we won't burn her out on helping, before we get the other two all trained up.

So I may not like weeding, but I do enjoy hanging out with my wife and kids. And just in case anyone has any doubts of my mad gardening skills I decided to post a progress picture of my avocado plant "Gwock". He's one year old now. We probably won't be having a party but you can send a birthday card with money if you'd like. I'm not sure what we'll do if he outgrows the house. Move to Brazil I suppose.

Kade's School of Dance

I know that we've forced nearly everyone we see to watch this video of Kade dancing in the back seat, but in case we missed anyone I decided to post it up here. The one thing that is obvious to see in this video (besides the size of my huge ear) is that dancing is so much more than just moves. Anybody (except my brother Joe) can learn some basic dance moves, but that's not what makes a great dancer. What makes a great dancer is the attitude, which I think Kade clearly demonstrates.

Can you hear me now?

Communication is kind of fascinating to me. There are so many different ways that people can communicate with each other these days. It’s also amazing how early in childhood it starts. I’ll try to keep this short (but that might be impossible).

First off there’s Kade. He’s really turned into quite the talker. Like any other kid his age he just repeats everything he hears. I guess that’s why everybody has funny stories about kids at that age repeating funny little things, like racial slurs and swear words. Kade hasn’t said anything too embarrassing, he prefers to express himself through song. He has a beautiful little song he sings which is a mash-up of “all the single ladies” and “the sun will come out tomorrow”. Normally I would say that these two songs go together about as well as diarrhea and a trampoline, but Kade has managed to blend them seamlessly together.

When it comes to communicating Lindsay and Kalli take it to new heights. My first example of the brain trust is when I walked into the bathroom and found Kalli crammed under the bathroom sink screaming something into the cutout for the drainpipe. Just as I’m about to ask what on earth she’s doing I hear Lindsay’s muffled response come back through hole. Apparently they felt that this way they could share secrets back and forth between the two bathrooms. I guess it would be secret as long as no one else was in the house at the time to hear the muffled screaming. I would make fun of them but I seem to remember a couple of other kids who made a pair of peep holes that looked into the back of Mom & Dad's closet in the old Orem house. Want to know what a suit coat looks like in the dark?

They don’t use the bathroom to communicate anymore, because for Christmas they got some sweet texting devices ($10 at Wal-Mart). Kalli doesn’t read very well yet, so this is usually how it goes down. They sit down a foot away from each other and Lindsay starts to type out her message (it’s usually “Kalli what are you doing?”) then Lindsay tells Kalli that she sent her a message and takes Kalli’s texter to read to her what she just sent. Then Kalli gives her answer to Lindsay who then responds and sends the message back to herself. I could only bear to watch this whole process once. Come to think of it I would probably rather have them yelling at each other through the bathroom walls.

Veteran-arian-egetarians

I love that my kids are old enough to communicate with each other in full sentences. One of my favorite things to do is eavesdrop on my girls in the back seat as we drive somewhere. They always have the most interesting conversations. The other night we were driving home from a Memorial Day party, and I heard the girls in the back seat discussing holidays and birthdays, and how cool it is to have a birthday on a holiday. Lindsay proudly told Kalli that her birthday was on Veterans Day. Kalli asked Lindsay what Veterans Day was. So Lindsay told her it was the day that we remember all the Veterinarians that have died for us. Kalli seemed impressed with Lindsay’s knowledge of the subject. On a slightly unrelated (but somewhat related note) Lindsay was telling us that there were some kids in her class that were really rude because they eat meat in front of a girl whose mom is a veterinarian. Me and Jackie thought that maybe she had mistaken a veterinarian with a vegetarian but she clarified that she thought the kids were being rude because the girls mom takes care of animals and all these kids are eating animals in front of her. The whole thing seemed very funny at the time. And apparently Lindsay has a fixation with veteranarians.

Why does Tigger Stink?

I agree with my wife in the sense that I don’t really like the idea of using a blog as a self brag forum, but I do like both of my sisters approach of using it to keep track of funny, cute, special things my kids do or say. So, although it won’t be very often I did want to keep track of some of these moments for myself.

I think that kids are hilarious. Occasionally they are trying to be funny and succeed, but for the most part I think they are funniest when they are not trying. Today my second child, Kalli, started telling me a joke while I was home for lunch. She said “Dad, why does Tigger smell bad?” Having heard this joke before, I tried to act like this was new material. Then she said” because he eats poo!” Personally I think that her punch line was far better than the original, and showed a lot more creativity. After I stopped laughing and told her the correct version of the joke (to avoid her telling anyone else about Tigger eating poo.) She decided to give me a disclaimer that it’s not good to eat poo, because it’s unhealthy. I have no doubt that with her new found knowledge, she will go far as a dental hygienist. She really is a sweetheart, and I think that joke made the second half of work a little more bearable.