Back to Reality

It has been so good to be home because my babies won't stop kissing me or holding my hands. I almost enjoyed being back at home today more than any day of the entire cruise. I missed Brent and the kids so much and it was also great to see how close the kids had grown to their daddy too. They don't get to spend enough time together like they used to. Lauren and I had fun although we were constantly cold. I think there was maybe 2 hours in Nassau that we actually warmed up. Other than that, we had to hang out in the hot tubs if we didn't want to shiver. They didn't have heaters anywhere on the ship!

Brent said that everything went pretty well while I was gone despite him battling a sickness he was able to knock out with some leftover penicillin. Part of me felt awful for him because I know what it's like to have to take care of those runts when you're sick. It's nightmarish. The other part of me was completely spiteful and glad that he had to see what it was like too. Heh. Callie had kind of a hard time when I left because she was missing me so much. Little thing. Brent said she was pretty weepy the first two days and he tried not to mention my name too much.

In other mommy-less news, someone pooped in the bathtub and while Brent said he was pretty sure that Callie did it, Wyatt was hell bent and determined to claim the turd for himself. Apparently, he thought it was pretty cool. Also, one day Callie walked into the bathroom to talk to Brent while he was taking a shower. She stood there for awhile and then said, "Daddy, your butt has tail!" Hahahaha!!!! I'm sad I wasn't here for that one.

This morning we took the kids to the pediatrician for their 3 year visit. Callie is in the 57th percentile for height and 50th for weight. Wyatt is in the 31st percentile for height and 29th for weight. When the doctor walked into the office, Wyatt busted out with, "Hi wady (lady)! I did a BIG POOP!" Ahhhh. I missed that nugget! I can't stop hugging all over them today and they don't want to let go of me either. It was so nice to be missed and to feel a little bit renewed again. Cruises are awesome and are possibly becoming addictive. This was one of my favorite pictures from the trip - it was taken in Port Lucaya.

Bonus Floaters

We had our first showing of the house on Monday and of course, the house was wrecked (since neither of us have absorbed the reality that this thing is actually on the market) and Brent was out of town leaving me completely alone to hide the mess in 45 minutes. By the end of it, I had sweat dripping off my nose but managed to do a pretty good job - i.e. shoved everything in baskets and threw in the storage room. Hell, I even hid dirty dishes in the fridge. Anyway, I loaded the dogs and kids up into my van in the pouring down rain and drove away upset that I didn't have enough time to run the vacuum over the carpet.

Heh. That turned out to be the least of my problems. Because when I got home, I realized I had scooped the cat turds out of the litter box and dumped them into the toilet. In my psychotic rush to get everything done, I forgot to actually flush them down. Lovely. Welcome to your new home. Have wonderful sniffage and enjoy the scenic beauty of our powder room. You pay top dolla.

Whatever. At the moment, I'm so excited to see my Vadge tomorrow! I'm actually leaving today for Jacksonville to pick up Lauren and to stay with my aunt and uncle for the night. We sail away tomorrow. And, while the whole purpose was to get away for a minute to myself, I'm already sick about leaving the kids. I used to think that the goodbyes would be easier the older they got, but it almost seems like it's a little harder. I know we are going to have fun. I'm dreading walking out that front door though. Sad.

Big News!

Okay, 2 things...

First, our house is officially on the market! Hooray! I've only been trying to put this piece up for a good 3 years but a series of events just always left us hanging with "bad timing" and while I'm not sure that it's perfect timing right now, at least it's up! The market sucks, so we have low expectations - but we just want to see what it does. Where are we going? No clue! I have an idea of where I hope we land, but things are so shady around here that you never can tell which new neighborhoods are on the verge of collapse.

Here is the link to the realtor's slide show for our home: http://shirleymarbach.point2agent.com/Listing/VirtualTour.ashx?ListingID=11700913

Seeing it this way makes me feel sad that the house might think we are abandoning it. I love this house. I will always love it because Brent and I started our life together in this house. I brought my babies home here too.

Secondly, and about as equally exciting, I get to be reunited with Vadge in less than a week!!!! I can't tell you how giddy and hyperventilatish it makes me feel! Lauren and I booked the thing a little over 2 weeks ago on a spur-of-a-moment whim. She texted me, "Do you want to go on a cruise?" And of course, I said "Hell yes!" We had the thing booked in less than 5 minutes. In fact, we actually looked up what ports the boat was stopping in AFTER we had already booked it! We didn't care. We would have jumped on a turd if it floated away and meant getting a much needed break! We are so excited. T-minus 5 days!

Happy Valentine's Day!

I hope you all had a good Valentine's Day! The kids love getting balloons. They spent most of the day lunging their bodies through the air and tackling these balloons. We even ended up putting tiny holes in the dumb things so they would hurry up and deflate and we could gain some of our sanity back. Brent got me my favorite pears, an ipod thing for my car, and roses. It was a cute day!

SNOW!

I've been trying to commit myself to blogging more but I avoided my blog unintentionally again this week! Maybe it's the cold weather. Maybe it's the dullness of getting back into the swing of things after such a great time during the holidays. I know that I'm absolutely still burned out from the monstrous responsibility I had during Brent's travel schedule last year, and while thankfully it's slowed down to a small trickle, I still feel like I need some time to myself. Anyway, I apologize to you lovelies that check my blog more regularly than I have been updating it lately. I'm totally sorry! Please don't give up on me. Pedal. Metal. I promise.

Anyway, WE GOT SNOW! You don't understand how excited we were! Brent and I haven't seen snow since we lived in Atlanta and I sure never thought the kids would get to see it in their own backyard! It rained all day on Friday, and by the early evening it was sleeting. After a couple hours, the snow was in full effect and had turned into nice, big floaters! We just couldn't believe it!

Of course, we had to get the kids up since I knew they probably weren't going to get this opportunity again. I'm so glad we did too because we had such a blast! We got into a full-on snowball fight and the kids were screaming with excitement. They were loving that they got to throw stuff at each other and didn't get in trouble. It was so cute. I NEVER thought we would get to see snow here!

Pretty quickly, we remembered the intense pain of frozen, red fingers and how numb they get! We took time-outs in the garage to warm our hands with the space heater and had to put socks on the kids hands because we don't even own gloves. The dogs wanted nothing to do with the snow except to quickly venture out and turn some of it yellow.

After we put the kids back to bed, we heard "Dat cool!", "Awesome!", and "So pretty!", bellowing over the monitors for a good 20 minutes before they fell back asleep. They absolutely loved it! It was such a perfect gift for a momma that dreamed of seeing her babies play in the snow! I will never forget it!

Randomness

I've been such a slacker on my blog lately! I don't know what my deal is. Anyway, I've been wanting to post a bunch of random pics that kind of fell through the cracks over the last few months that were cute but never really fit into a post. Let's see what I can dig up...

A couple nights before Christmas, Santa came by on a firetruck and threw candy to all the little kids. It's one of the things I love about living in a small town. Our big city Santas never did that. Now though, every time the kids hear a firetruck, they want to go outside and wait for candy.

The top picture of Wyatt at the bar looks kind bad... like, "Here's my toddler at a bar and I'm so proud!" But this bar is a tradition in my family. It's a local seafood bar called Hudson's and my parents started taking me and my brother there when we were about this age too. I have the best memories sitting up there with my bro feeling so cool, peeling shrimp, and being elbows deep in clarified butter.

Apparently, Callie thought the cat needed a little glam and I guess Gracie was okay with it because we found her like this, napping behind the TV cabinet.

This is a picture of the best baby girl, sleeping in a big bed for the first time ever. We were in a hotel in Jacksonville that night. Wyatt slept with daddy and Cal with momma. I probably watched her sleep for a good hour before I fell asleep too. I couldn't stop looking at her.

This, of course, is the most flawless and perfect man in all the land.

Happy 3rd Birthday!

(Free crappy photo from restaurant)
Oh my babies are 3! Wow. I hate how fast they're growing up. 3 sounds so old to me too. When your kids turn two, it still feels like they are little. But when they turn 3, they seem closer to 5 than being newborns. I can't deal. I'm looking forward to all the new milestones and things, but I miss my itty bittys too. I find a little bit of comfort knowing that I can still have another one if I can't stand it anymore. But for now, just the idea is good enough. (I have a feeling that the 3s are gonna kick my butt harder than the 2s.)

Their birthday was precious. Callie's birthday wish list included a birthday cake, some flowers, and this certain kitty toy. All Wyatt asked for was a Momma hippo to add to his growing hippo collection that dwells in his crib. They opened presents in the morning, played with their toys, and recovered from the weekend getaway. My parents came over in the afternoon with more presents and then we all headed out to dinner.

We took them to Hibachi hoping they would love it and kinda crossed our fingers that they wouldn't be too scared of the fire. I think Wyatt's exact comment was "DAT COOOOOOOOL!" so it was a huge success! The waitresses sang them a little birthday song and beat on drums and stuff while the kids tore into their birthday icecream. Wyatt ate enough food to feed an elephant and still had two pieces of cake when we got home. They were so cute and it was great to see how they really did feel like it was their special day. As I kissed Callie goodnight she said, "Nice day, Mommy!" and she was right. It was such a nice day.

Birthday Weekend!

We had planned on taking the kids up to Charlotte for the weekend and meeting Lauren there with her kids at the Great Wolf Lodge for their birthday. Unfortunately, the snow and icy weather forced us to postpone that trip and instead we ended up in Jacksonville for the weekend.

One of Callie's favorite things in the whole world is giraffes so we thought it would be fun to take the nuggets to the zoo and to let them hand feed a giraffe. It worked out perfectly and the weather couldn't have been better (Low 70s). We spent a couple hours there before heading to Jacksonville Landing for dinner. It was one of my favorite short trips so far and the kids really enjoyed it too. Callie kept saying, "Fun day, Mommy!" and Wyatt didn't want to leave.

Almost there!

So far, we've had an great weekend celebrating the twinks birthday (Tomorrow! 3! Oh my goodness! Already?!) But, before I get to all that, I wanted to update you on our potty training status so you know how totally incredible it was to go out of town for the weekend and Cal never had a single accident! So HUGE! Happy Birthday to us too!


(I wrote this during the beginning of last week.)

Both kids are doing awesome with potty training! Callie has been trained on and off for such a long time but she finally decided that she was ready to try for good. She went an entire week without a single accident, but had a set back when I tried putting pants on her. We convinced her to try again and it's been almost two weeks now without another accident. I'm crossing my fingers that we've almost got this nipped with her.

Shockingly enough, Wyatt has wanted in on the potty training action too. He's mainly been using the potty for entertainment and sticker-getting purposes only but I'm hoping that Callie is going to encourage him enough to keep up with her. Cross your fingers for us... I'm not gonna be sad to see the diapers go!

"Stupid" Debunked

We busted the culprit. It's 'Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs' and it's been the kids' favorite movie lately. When I asked Callie where she got the word "stupid" from, she said, "Meatballs has it!", and she was right too. There's a part during the movie where the dude sprays his feet with rubber shoes that he can't take off. All the kids at school call him "Stupid!" and my nuggets have been watching it constantly since before Christmas.

I'm just glad that she didn't get it from me! (Our cat is stupid and I'm sure we address him as such from time to time.) Callie felt bad about it too because she ashamedly said, "I not tell you that anyyyy more!" without even being prompted. Little thing. She didn't mean it and I honestly think it was one of the first times she realized you can hurt people with words also.

Anyway, miss thing started gymnastics a couple weeks ago and she loves it! She's so bouncy and smiley during class and just absolutely shines! She's really good at listening to the teacher and following directions. I could literally melt when she is doing something challenging and glances over to make sure I'm watching her. Not only do I have the privilege of being this baby's mother, but she hopes that she's making me proud!

If she only knew...

Truth is, the most important thing to me in this entire lifetime is that they are proud of me.

Ouch!

January 20th, 2010... Callie just told me that I was stupid.

I'm sad.

I just put the kids down for a nap and walked back downstairs to crash. As soon as I sat down, I heard loud banging over the monitors. So, I walked back up stairs and found Callie banging on her crib rails with her sippy cup. I took the cup away from her and told her to be quiet or I was going to have to close her door since Wyatt was trying to fall asleep too. Of course, she got upset and started to cry just as she does every single time we put her to sleep. Nothing new. The kid hates naps.

So, I walked back downstairs only to hear, "Mommy's stupid!!!!" belting over the monitors! My knee-jerk reaction was 'OH! HELL NO!' and I jumped back up to head right back upstairs. By the time I reached the top of the stairs, I had to take a moment to stiffle my giggles. It was kinda funny. (Where was she getting that from?!) But, after only a couple more steps to the door of her room, I felt sad and destroyed. My baby hates me.

That girl has a straight path to the root of my heart and holy shit, did it ever sting!

I asked her, "Callie? What did you just say?" to which she responded, "Mommy's stupid." I told her it wasn't a nice thing to say and that it made me sad. Then, I walked back out of her room.

What the hell am I supposed to do with that? Part of me wanted to beat her ass, part of me wanted to laugh, and part of me had just died a little inside. This baby girl, that I love more than breathing air itself, just told me I was stupid.

I know it's just gonna get worse the older she gets, but W-O-W. Now, I'm stuck in an internal prep-rally type of monologue with myself that goes something like, "Come on, Heather. She's two and just trying on different phrases. She didn't mean it. Where did she pick that up?!" over and over.

How am I supposed to discipline her on that one too? I don't want her to hate me more. I'm getting over it, but it's just so shocking because it's the first time that it has happened to me. I have no idea what the proper way is to handle this either. Help! Supernanny!

Happy New Year 2010!

I can't believe that I'm just now getting around to posting about New Years! We were so busy around the holidays! Laura came to visit and the kids renamed her "Snoopy" instead of Zippy. They love playing with her because she never tells them 'no' so they treat her like a human jungle gym. Infact, even when one of the nuggets would get upset, they ran to Snoopy for comfort instead of mommy or daddy.

We automatically fall into our typical New Years pattern when she gets here. I think she's only missed a few since we started spending it together right after college during a super crusty New Year in buttcrack Virginia. I can't believe that was almost 10 years ago! Once Brent entered the picture, we have never had a new year sans hot wings. It's tradition. Recently, it's evolved into wearing stupid outfits and doing funny stockings. I love it. Hopefully, the tradition will continue on until we are gray and liverspotty with tons of grown-up kids running around.

"Apple City" (Greenville)

Because the traffic in Atlanta can make a tightly clenched inky hole scream for mercy, we decided to see if Greenville was an alternative to moving back to "Stick City". We also wanted to catch up with our friends Byron and April who live in Simpsonville, and since it wasn't too late by the time we got up there, we stopped by their house for a little while and let all the kids to play together. Callie fell in love with Ella. She asked to bring her home with us.

In the morning, we just wanted to get a quick feel for the area, so after a couple of helpful pointers from Byron and April, we sniffed out Simpsonville and then headed downtown to see Reedy River Park. We were so tired by that point though, that all we wanted to do was to eat lunch and go home.


We stopped at Rafferty's (an old school fave) to eat lunch before finally getting on the road to come home. Greenville always feels bittersweet to me. I love being there and all the memories it floods me with, but it's so sad that they are just memories now. My life changed so quickly and so dramatically after I met Brent about a year after college. While I wouldn't change a single thing about my life now, I will cherish those memories and the people I took that journey with forever.