Kids are from Vulcan

In my quest to find out what really goes on in the early hours in my apartment, I've resorted to spying on my children. Every morning I usually awake to an impressive mess and a stash of candy wrappers in the trash can. Of course no one knows how any of it happened. I move anything resembling sweets to a new location most every night, always up high. So the other morning I happened to be awake early and hear Greg saying something about candy. I snuck around the corner and watched as Hailey and Gregory conducted what I can only assume is a regular morning ritual. Greg stood on the floor watching Hailey in excited anticipation as she used a stool to get up and stand on the counters, searching from cupboard to cupboard. She'd open each one and say "none here Greggers", then move on. When she found the stash she yelled "I found some Greggers" then sat right down on the counter and proceeded to hand out candy to both of them. I snuck after them as they took off down the hall to unwrap the candy in their bathroom, where the wrappers would be less obvious. At least they're putting some thought into it. When I turned the light on, I expected to see two shocked guilty looking faces look up at me with a look of sheer terror that they'd been caught. In fact I was looking forward to that moment, planning to relish it while they waited in fear for me to yell and dole out a punishment. Imagine my surprise when all I got was two calm looking children, looking for all the world like it didn't matter one bit that they were busted because really what was mom going to do? Augh why can't I be a scary mom. 20 years ago my brother and I would have gone white with fear in that situation. I wish I could yell at the kids like some big scary black lady on tv and whip the whole family into shape.
Contrast this to McKenzie who, that same night at dinner announces that she doesn't think we should have any dessert tonight because we've had dessert the past few nights and its really not healthy for us. Huh? Dave and I were speechless, then we laughed. Where did this kid come from anyway? We're actually not sure where any of them came from. Surely we didn't produce these weird offspring.

Yep I'm officially a soccer mom now. I drive a stinky, dirty minivan that needs more repairs than we can afford but I don't fix it because it technically still works, woo hoo. I have bad hair, mommy clothes, giant bags under my eyes and I spend 3 days a week parked out at a soccer field. That oh so special hidden food in the back, lost diapers, and wet soccer clothes aroma. I am constantly stuck listening to the Disney Princess cd (even Greggers demands the "rella" cd). So much for being the cool mom. I was going to drive a fresh smelling, freshly painted, souped up Yukon with a stereo to rival any gangster wanna be. I would only wear cool clothes and would never look like, well I do a lot these days. I would NEVER have bad hair. Actually I'm glad I don't have that stereo, I'm pretty sure the current cd choice wouldn't sound so great cranked up with the bass thumping. I switched my part to the other side to hide my few gray hairs. And today in the rearview mirror, I noticed I have rather noticable wrinkles in a few areas. How did this happen to us?

Cars, cars, cars

My girls have always played mommy with their dolls and acted out scenes from princess movies, but I never thought I'd see Greg do the same thing with cars. Greggers is totally obsessed with cars. He drives them around the house all day, car in one hand, blanky in the other. He lines them all up and yells "lets wace!" then makes vroomings noises and yells "I win!" Or they greet each other and have conversations. I don't know what they talk about but I can occasionally make out the words "Kachow" and "let's wace". He loves to reenact parts of the movie Cars. He chases around the toy bus with his Lightening McQueen yelling "wait Mac wait." Then he wedges his car in the ottoman and yells for Mater to come help. Then he races over with his Mater in a panic to save McQueen. Its pretty funny. Interesting to see how he interprets relationships with a matchbox car. To him they talk and have feelings. He likes to put them in a backpack and take them in the other room to "school" with him.

My chunky little monkey. He's happiest late at night. This was about 11 at night. Cute but cuts into my sleep more than a bit.

Another Hailey original.

Greg out riding his bike. He insists on wearing his helmet like the girls do for his tiny bike.

Kenzie and her build a bear she made with her birthday money.

Gene Simmons!

The likeness is uncanny. Both remarkably strange individuals too. Hmm. These two goofballs were rocking out to some classic rock on my alarm clock the other day and it was just too funny. This is how she was dancing by when I came in and well I'll have to bust this one out when she's a teenager. Aside from getting the neighbor arrested I'm having an exceptionally dull week. Hailey hasn't done anything more strange than hide chocolate in the washcloths, sorry to say but her adventures do add some excitement around here. Greg is on a cars kick. All day long its "pay cars me?" Its very cute but really how many hours of the day can I play cars? I probably spend a good hour or two a day in there right now driving matchbox cars around and its just not enough for him. I honestly can't wait for Connor to get big enough to play with him. I think he might enjoy racecars a tad bit more than me. Is that horrible that I get bored playing with my own child? Don't get me wrong I love being home with my kids, but sometimes it can be mind numbing. Dave thinks his job is dull, but let's not forget he gets to wave the little orange sticks at incoming planes while I have to listen to an EXTREMELY detailed narrative of Kenzie's day.

Awkward Moments

What do you say to your neighbor after you get them arrested? I called the cops on our upstairs neighbors last night after an alarming amount of noise and the kids screaming. The guy got arrested, but I hear him up there now so he's back. He has to know it was me that called the police. That and I spied out the window the whole time, and eaves dropped as well as I could. And I think he saw me hiding up there when he was waiting to get loaded into the patrol car. So what do I say when I run into him on the stairwell? Hey sorry about getting you arrested last night. So how was prison? Good, good, well see you later. Yeah that seems like an awkward conversation for sure. Maybe I'll sprint to my car for the next week. I can open the door and tell the kids to run for it. Oh well I'm off to the store so I must leave the confines of my apartment, like I said who needs cable?

Warding off vampires

Hailey and Greggers must be secretly reading my Twilight books and developing a fear of vampires. Because they felt the need to make our clothes garlic scented. I popped open the dryer last night to move laundry and out pops a bunch of garlic cloves. At first I was baffled, then as I dug around I found what appeared to be an entire head of garlic, broken into cloves and all the little peels in the lint trap. Dave came out to see what I was mad about and said oh yeah Hailey said something about putting something in the dryer. Apparantly, during their morning hunt for food we inadvertantly left out, they decided it might be fun to throw garlic in the dryer. I must not of noticed because I dried a load of laundry with it. Not only does that load reek, the dryer does too and I'm afraid to use it. I don't want everything to smell like we've been eating at the White House every meal. I swear those two will get into anything. The garlic isn't down low. I'm thinking of buying those grizzly proof food canisters backpackers get and keeping all of our food hung from the ceiling in those.

More tales from the ghetto

So this afternoon I call one of McKenzie's friends mom's to find out if the little girl is coming over tomorrow. This poor child's mother has a song called "Horny like a rock star" playing for her message. Seriously. At first I thought I was hearing wrong. Surely this is not really her answering machine. But by the second time through (those are the only words, apparently she selected the chorus for her message) I knew I was hearing right. Who does that? Crack dealers? Pimps? This woman has children for pete's sakes. I certainly hope she changes the message before the kids know what it means. I mean sure me and Nik had songs for our message before. Things like Anne Murray and Lionel Richie. But I think "Hello is it me your looking for" is a lot better than "Horny like a rock star." Is there a polite way to tell someone that they are not giving the impression that they will make stellar friends for my child? I guess all get togethers will be at my house. If that's her public persona heaven only knows what she plays around the house.

Missing the Campbells

Sunday evening I was playing dollhouse with the girls and all of a sudden Hailey got so sad. I asked her what was wrong and she said "I saw a picture of Maddie and it made me think about her and miss her and now I'm sad." It was so sweet. So we called the Campbells right up, Hailey told Maddie that she missed her and loved her and then she was instantly fine. Then they make a whole bunch of plans they'll never do (sounds like me and Nik) and life was good again. Then I see Greggers walking around talking on the phone to Sadie talking about who knows what for 20 minutes. Its like living in a house full of pint sized teenagers. Even the mention of Sadie, Maddie, or Eli is enough to send Greg running the window to look for them. He'll stand there with his little face pressed up against the glass saying "Sa Sa coming Mom!" Over and over until I finally tell him no not today and he melts it tears. After Sunday's sadness incident, I put the Maddie picture in a frame for Hailey. Now she randomly runs over to kiss her picture and then right back to playing. Maybe it makes her feel like Maddie's with her.