A Week with Auntie Weeka...

Luke shouting, "Sperm whales!" with Auntie Weeka before she left on Saturday... Mikey towing a heavy load on his tricycle...with pink boots on, of course!

Transportation Museum, Take Two...and this is what Luke wants for Christmas. An aerial crane. Did you get that, Grampy?

Notice how nobody is looking at the camera...

In the train yard...

In the big tire outside the museum...sadly, you can't see Luke!

At the Children's Museum in Portsmouth, VA...Mikey loves the Train Table!

Luke rests after building both a crane and a power shovel out of foam blocks...with Auntie's help, of course!

"Anna tall, Mama!"

We had a very eventful week last week. Auntie Weeka (as the children call her) was here from Friday evening to Saturday afternoon! The first couple days were really relaxing because Frank took the kids while we went Wedding Dress/Matron of Honor Dress shopping. It was really fun to watch someone else prepare for their wedding. As you may recall, I did not shop for a wedding dress. I wore the $35 dollar blue cotton summer dress from Victoria's Secret that had the slight stretch in it that I needed for my 4 month old pregnant with twins belly. Consequently, I am probably the only woman in America that regularly wears my wedding dress. Anyhoo...we spent several hours enveloping Lika in various layers of tulle, chiffon, silk, and lace...and she did find one that was beautiful on her! Hooray! We also discovered that the sample bridesmaid dresses at David's Bridal are made for giant Amazon women (or, not for short people like me). I looked like a very well-dressed Munchkin.

In honor of Lika's visit, the state of Virginia rolled out its hottest week (with a great deal of humidity) yet! Hooray for days when it reaches 106 degrees yet feels like it is 125. Lika was a pretty good sport, too. Luke kept shaking his flushed face saying, "Mama, it's too hot out here. When will it be October?" We tried to think of things to do either outdoors with water (we went to the beach one morning) or indoors with A/C. She was really understanding about having to find indoor child-friendly things to do. She even made it through the chores that I have to do with 3 children in tow (we went to Target a couple times, the library once, and the grocery store...a trip that I fear has emotionally scarred her for life).

Did I mention that we picked this week to transition from crib to twin bed? yup. She had the honor of hauling in the various parts of the beds we purchased off Craig's List and then helping Frank to set them up. I had corralled the children (who were behaving like monkeys on crack at the sight of their new beds) in Luke's room and was attempting to calm them down by reading them books. No dice. After I successfully put the the twins in their rooms (though they would play musical beds for another hour and a half), I went downstairs to drown my sadness/frustration/anxiety in coffee ice cream. And I let my dear sister finish helping my husband to put together L's bed (he insisted on helping which adds a tinge of danger to any task). Will I earn the Sister of the Year Award this year? Probably not.

Anyhoo...poor Lika endured a lot of non-sleeping, a lot of tantrums (mine included) because of the exhaustion the children were feeling, and a lot of near-death experiences with Mikey the Runner. I think she now understands that while I love her and I really do want to talk to her, it is impossible to have any kind of telephone conversation with these little people underfoot. It makes me sad that I am not able to be more involved in the wedding preparations, but I think she might be willing to forgive me after this week.

By the way, Lika had some pretty good parenting/auntie-ing tactics. She started a new game called, "Go get, Mama!" whenever Anna refused to get her little tushie in gear and head in the same direction as the rest of us. This works better than dragging a squealing/writhing 2 year old by her elbow down the aisles of Target because Anna thinks she is playing a game! Hooray for Lika and her creativity! I have lost my ability to make things fun because I am always wiped out from all the attitudes the children have begun to sport (lately I've been joking that I need chicken wire cages and a Taser...I am joking, right?). Score one for Auntie!

Not only has Anna developed a serious (and slightly troubling) affection for Diego (from "Go, Diego, Go!"), constantly professing her love for him and declaring she will "give Diego big hugs and big kisses," but he has become a useful disciplinary tool. It's a little like Catholic nuns using the image of Jesus on the Cross to get kids to straighten up and say no to sin...only in this case, Diego is a friendly animal rescuer and so less-threatening and scary. This is how it happened the first time...we are driving in the car. Anna shouts from the backseat: "Oook, Mama! Anna, no straps!" to inform me that she has unbuckled herself. Instead of immediately getting angry and swerving to the shoulder of the road to yell at her, a light flips on in my beleagured brain and I say, "Ooooh, honey! That's not safe! That would make Diego, so sad! He wants Anna to be safe!" Her gleeful smirk dims as she ponders Diego's disappointment and his concern for her well-being. She puts her arms back in the straps...and says, "No, Diego, no be sad! Anna waaayy-uhhh straps! Anna be safe! Diego happy, Mama?" To which I respond, "Diego SO happy, Anna!" Works like a charm. Maybe I should write a thank you note to the creators of Diego? (Did I mention that Anna got a picture out of a Diego bubble wand and was carrying it about the house with her, kissing it and hugging it? Lika said, "It starts with cartoons and pretty soon, she'll be into the Jonas Brothers." Ack!)

I should put in a brief note about our trips to various children's museums. We went to the Portsmouth Children's Museum, which is about 16 miles from here, but true to Hampton Roads traffic patterns, took us nearly 45 minutes to get to. We had a great old time when we finally got there. Possibly too good. Mikey was teetering on the edge of hysteria because the toddler bed has given him a new lease on life. No longer must he stay in his bed! He can roam about, climb on his sister, etc...so he has been tired for about a week and a half. Well, he did NOT want to stop playing at the Market place so he had THE WORST TEMPER TANTRUM EVER. It certainly did deserve all-caps, by the way. I'm pretty sure Lika has put her child-bearing plans (should they have existed prior to this week) off a couple years as a result of poor little Mikey's terrible episode. The visit to the Transportation Museum went very smoothly. The Living Museum prompted some trepidation on Luke's part because they still have the dinosaur/ice age mammal animatronic robot exhibit. Luke does not like loud noises unless they are emanating from a truck or a whale. Period. Lika was very brave and took the twins through it alone (as Luke and I sat by the front door)...Mikey loved it! He was trying to climb in with the sabertooth tigers attacking the slightly bloodied woolly mammoth...while Anna was at times deathly afraid of the robots and yet inexplicably attracted to them, causing her to demand to be put down and then change her mind and cling to Lika's legs like a frightened monkey. Lika said the mothers in the room gave her those rueful head shakes of sympathy...but they all emerged relatively unscathed.

Well, I better wrap this entry up so I can head to the library without the wee ones. F has a few trips this week before we head up the East Coast to Maine in our mini-van. Thanks to Lika for your company and sense of humor...also your patience and willingness to spend half a day at a military transportation museum and the other half of the same day reconstructing the military transportation museum out of wooden blocks with an ecstatic 4 year old! Aunties Rule!

Pics at the Park...

Anna is a freakishly good climber (and also not afraid of anything...which makes Mama have a heart attack...you can see Mikey scampering by...he is not still enough for photographs very often)...

Luke singing the "Go, Diego, Go!" theme song...which Anna loves!

Safety Glasses...Thanks to Wendy's!

The best pictures of the bunch...Luke wearing what he called the "safety glasses." He insisted they be worn at the worksite... Seriously, aren't they cool!

Hooray for safety-conscious boys!

I did the drive-thru thing in a moment of desperation and poor planning...and got these handy Safety Glasses in the kiddie meals! Jackpot for Luke, I guess! He wears these around constantly. He is a little bummed that he cannot simultaneously wear his hard hat and glasses at the same time because his face isn't big enough. Yet. And they probably will be fashionable by the time they do fit his face.

I wanted to write things down that have happened recently that you should know about:

1. Mikey threw his macaroni and cheese on the floor. Anna laughed and added hers to the mix. I started shooing them up the stairs and eventually got them put in their cribs for nap time. I come downstairs to be met by smiling, beautiful Luke...who then announces, "Don't worry, Mama, I cleaned up for you...I even ate the macaroni out of the trash can!!!" He was so proud.
2. Anna constantly talks about Diego, the animal rescuer. She carries a picture of him we got out of a bubble wand package...she says, "Mama, Mama! Diego missin me! Anna KISS Diego! Anna give Diego BIG HUGS!" (this sounds like "beeeeggg hugg!"). She falls down, scrapes her knee, runs over and gets the paper with Diego's face on it, puts it against her scrape and makes a kissy sound. She announces, "Diego kiss MY boo-boo!" I have been replaced by a cartoon.
3. Everyone else is playing with the bubbles. Mikey drinks them. Then pours them on Anna's head.
4. I told L that one of his school friends said she was missing him (she is on her way to Alaska, where her father will be stationed for a while) and he said, "Why? I'm right here!"
5. My sister is down for a visit. The first full day she was here, we went wedding dress shopping. Later on, L asked where we went, so we told him. He didn't quite get the concept of a wedding, so we explained it to him. Lika told him he'd be the ring bearer in her wedding and he'd probably wear blue or silver. He declared firmly that he'd be wearing blue as it is his favorite color. Then he looked at her and quite seriously asked, "Are there going to be any orcas at your wedding?" Whales, wedding...they both start with "w", right?
6. Mikey has invented a new sport. It is called, "Chuck your corn cob across the room like a caveman spearing a woolly mammoth while Mama frantically tries to make dinner until she is on the verge of tears from frustration and your siblings are literally crying because you are the funniest guy on the planet!" It is followed closely by, "Throw your spoon/L's spoon/random papers, etc" Corn cobs actually shatter and the kernels shower everywhere if you throw them hard enough.

I hear the thumping of the wee Marstons as they clamber out of their new toddler beds. I'll have to devote an entire post about toddler beds and why they should make wire cages for toddlers until they are old enough to behave reasonably.

Ahhh...Nap time...

It is finally quiet. I have waited all day for this moment (my mantra seems to be a countdown either to nap time or bed time lately), as I do most days. It is very loud in my world. Like primeval jungle loud (and my children do behave like prehistoric animals of some kind... judging from Anna's terrifyingly shrill pterodactyl screech, I'd say a cross between a dinosaur and a monkey is on the mark). I yearn for silence and cherish it when I finally, finally, get five minutes of pure, unadulterated silence. Somehow that sweet, naive 25 year old woman I was when I embarked on this journey called motherhood drastically (and tragically) underestimated how LOUD it would be in my world. And how long this cacophony would last. I assumed the baby stage would be the worst, what with all the crying and lack of verbal skills and all. I would look helplessly at the little Luke's baby face all twisted in rage, streaming with tears and I'd think, "Once you can tell me what is wrong, it will calm down around here." I said I was naive, didn't I?
Let me describe what I mean by noise. From the minute L wakes up to the second he falls asleep, he tells me stories. He talks about sperm whales and his desire to ride one/be one/save one. He talks about orcas and other predators of penguins. He describes various trucks and their respective work sites. He tells me jokes that make no sense but still make us laugh somehow. He gives me updates on what he is pretending to be and direction as to what I should then pretend to be. He points out every truck in our vicinity and any correlation to whales or whale behavior that we might be privy to throughout our day (for example...he might notice that I am washing dishes and say, "Whales live in the water, Mama!"). Now this might be hard enough to bear, but you must also add in the twins and their concurrent storylines (Anna is either Baby Diego rescuing an animal or a baby animal...while Mikey usually says something that is intelligible only to me and is usually related to trucks or trains). Throw in a few tantrums, a lot of fighting, Anna's wounded sniffling which comes after the fights (which many times she starts), some Elmo songs, airplane/truck/motor boat/helicopter noises, and the Mighty Machines theme song that Luke sings constantly, and you have this never-ending, mind-blowing, emotionally numbing wall of sound that descends on me and literally beats me into submission by bed time. (Whew! That was one long sentence!)
This is why I crave silence.
Of course, as all parents know, if the children are awake and silent, there is generally a hefty price to pay for savoring the unexpected gift of a quiet preschooler/toddler instead of recognizing it for what it is: a signal of sneaky, stealthy, disastrous behavior. Last weekend it was the mess I cleaned up in the bathroom after Luke dumped 2 tons of sand out of his sandals into the sink (kind of) and proceeded to "wash" them with a concentration worthy of a surgeon performing a particularly risky operation (though with much less success, I might say). I knew it meant trouble, but I kept thinking, "I'll just do this one thing, then I'll check on him, I'm sure he's fine." Then, sadly, I chose to put clothes away instead of double checking that Mikey was still on the couch reading books. Wrong! I found him energetically shoving a gift bag into the toilet (which L had recently peed in and forgot to flush or close the lid) that I was going to use for Luke's friend's gift. Fortunately for me, he dumped the bag's contents on the floor before he got down to business.
Because of these (and many other) experiences, I have come to regard the absence of sound a little like a woman in an abusive relationship. It beats me up, it knocks me down, it teaches me I can't trust it...and yet, still, I long for it. I'm always falling back under its spell. I think, "Well, maybe it will be different this time."
Anyone who knew (and endured) me as a child would say, "Karma's a bitch, isn't it?" They might even say, "The apple doesn't fall far from the tree!" or something else that is trite and stupid and totally on the money. I am a talker, an over-sharer even and so I don't know what I expected from these kids. I mean, really....look at their Mama! And while I am half-joking about this (really, I'm resignedly ranting, how's that for alliteration), I know that all this talking is a sign of good brain development and learning, etc, etc and on with the happy feel-good parenting observations. I'm grateful that we have been lucky as far as health and development goes. I know a lot of parents would pay good money to have this problem. So I do count my blessings, I truly do. But, honestly, it exhausts me, all this noise. Sometimes my brain shuts down against it. Or I try to yell above it or turn the news on to drown it out (don't try this at home, it just makes everything worse...they try to drown YOU out and seriously, they are gonna win the noise battle, hands tied behind their backs, duct tape over the mouths...theoretically speaking, of course...although...hmmm....gives one ideas).
I know what you might point out to me, too...someday, when the children have grown up and gone on to have lives of their own, I will wander through the silent rooms of my house that are full of their absence and I will long for these days full of the thunder of their childhood. I will sit drinking my coffee and try to remember what their little feet sounded like running on the hard wood floor. (Of course I won't remember yelling, "No running in the house, it will wake the neighbors!!!") I will jump when the phone rings, hoping to hear someone's voice say, "Mama, Mama, guess what!" Which certainly puts this whole blog entry into its proper perspective. Unfortunately, the only way to gain this perspective is to get the time to one's self to pause and reflect on the nature of this life. Everything ends. As my Grandmother always says, "And this, too, shall pass."

I don't get many of these moments, however, so I don't always remember how temporary this role I'm playing is. I'll be a mother for the rest of my life, sure, but I won't always have this responsibility nor this importance. I should savor that, I suppose. I should cherish this time, tantrums and all, because one day not too long from now, I will wake up, wrinkled and old, back to being mostly me, with my time to myself to spend as I see fit, and I will wish I could have held these children closer, without so much impatience, without checking the clock so often to see how long it would be until I could sit down, for God's sake! On the days when I cannot connect to the beauty of motherhood nor the beauty of childhood, on the days it just feels annoying and overwhelming, I'll try to recall this feeling I've had for the past 20 minutes while I write this. I'll try to repeat to myself my Grandmother's words...and if I can't hear them above the clamoring for attention and the constant fight for sibling supremacy, I'll put in a pair of F's ear plugs. That should do the trick!

"Animal in trub-bah, Mama!" or, "Luke and Anna play "Diego, the Animal Rescuer!"

Nonnie Visits...and 4th at the Fort!

Anna wearing her 4th of July getup. They set up a concert area and a bunch of bouncy houses in a baseball field right up the street. The real hit was the Hampton fire truck we found in the parking lot...the guys were nice enough to let the kids climb up in the cab and in the back...they even patiently answered all of Luke's questions...

Luke liked it up there...

Anna in the driver's seat...God help us!

Mikey was so proud of himself in the back of this truck...for days after he'd look at me and earnestly say in his gremlin voice, "Mama! Mikey drive fire truck!" Anna at the top of the bouncy house slide...pretty steep drop for a 2 year old!

Mikey chose to slide on his belly the first time around...

Fourth of July brought us a pleasant surprise...Nonnie! Hooray! Our dearest Nonnie came to visit on Saturday afternoon and stayed until we left to go to North Carolina on Monday afternoon. It was such a great visit. Anna and I got to pick her up by ourselves...girls only for an hour or so (we'd been up at the Williamsburg Farmer's Market at which Anna was offered free flowers and free cupcakes...free berries, etc.), which Anna LOVED! She not so secretly wishes she were an only child, I think (or that she only had one brother, Oooo-key). Anyhoo...we did go home, she took a nap, Luke woke up and had Nonnie all to himself for about 20 minutes. We discovered that Nonnie is very patient (which we already knew) and shows a great interest in whales and trucks. Then Mikey came down.

I can't even remember what we did that night, to be honest. So much of our life seems to pass in a blur...I look back on it and can't remember large chunks of it. I do know we had fun, chatting with Nonnie (reading People magazine, thanks, Sheri!), rescuing imaginary animals, playing trucks, building towers and bulldozers with our wooden blocks. What a wonderful relationship the kiddos have with their grandmother. We dont see each other nearly enough, but somehow, despite the distance, they know how much she loves them. They have a solid bond with her, that is for sure.

The next day was Fourth of July. We took a long walk around Fort Monroe. Then Nonnie and I tried to take the kids down to see the military cermony at the gazebo by the Chamberlain Hotel. That is, until Luke heard the MP say, "The cannon salute might be loud, so you might want to sit well behind it." Cue the panic and the crying and the insistance to go home. We did go home and halfway there, we heard the cannons go off (they fired them 50 times) and Luke looked at me and said, "Mama! That wasn't so bad!" Later that day, we headed down to the concert area. The kids played for a long time in the bouncy houses and the bouncy obstacle course that leads to the slide. Poor Mikey...he kind of got knocked around in there. Big kids really are not aware at all of little kids who may be stuck trying to scamper over the huge inflated obstacles. Anna loved it...she didn't bother with anything other than the slide.

They were blaring the music...really, really loud...and I had to wonder, why is country music the unofficial "patriotic" music to play on the 4th? You think country music and you might automatically assume that they were playing Toby Keith's "we'll put a boot in your ass/it's the American way," but really...does "Save a horse/ride a cowboy" inspire a love of country and a deep desire to protect and serve??? Apparently, yes, according to the DJs at the Fourth at the Fort celebration. Whatever. We found that Garth Brooks in particular makes Anna want to shake her groove thing...which made the whole thing worth it.

There was a fire truck parked a few feet away from the concert area...they had two really kind and patient firefighters out there who let the kids clamber all over the truck. Which made the boys' day, of course. We kind of had to peel Mikey out of it...I think he intended on staying on call with them all night. For some reason, F and I decided to let ALL the kiddos stay up to watch the fireworks. Stupid, I know. They kind of liked it, I think. We walked out on the boardwalk and saw a lot of them across the water in the VA Beach/Norfolk areas (Anna kept saying, "Ites workin, Ites WORKIN!"... Luke remarked with awe, "I've never been outside at nighttime before in a long time!" and Mikey just kept running away). The fireworks here started and held the kids' attention for about 6 minutes. Then, Mikey resumed running away, A started to demand specific colors of fireworks, and L sat down, faced the other direction, and began telling stories to nobody in particular about various trucks and whales. At one point, he suddenly shouted, "Boo!!!" at a couple of ladies standing adjacent to him who were actually enjoying the pyrotechnic display. It was time to call it a night. What a great time, though!

For your viewing enjoyment, I've attached a couple of videos of Anna-pants breaking it down. My favorite part is when she spins and spins until she actually gets dizzy and falls on her face!

Ft Eustis Army Transportation Museum...

Mikey in the Boat/Helicopter Yard...

The boys love shiny trucks!

Anna and Mikey, up close with no fighting!

Love this smile!

Daddy is awesome!

Stop the presses. F put in for 6 days of leave this weekend and hasn't gone in so far. We are only 2 days into the 6 day leave period, but it is pretty exciting for me that he hasn't been in at all in two days! Hooray! We've done some fun things over the past two days...namely, yesterday we FINALLY took L to the Transportation Museum at Fort Eustis. He's been asking since he saw it about a year ago. I meant to do it myself, but then between the traffic and the Mikey (who is a runner, especially in crowded places), I always talked myself out of it. I felt it would be much better to have 2 parents on the job and boy, am I glad I waited!

Let me say that we have confirmed that Luke can talk for hours without once pausing for anyone else's input. Especially about trucks. And aerial cranes. Mikey wanted to actually ride the trucks. Anna liked it for the most part, but she kept asking where the animals were (apparently she got the place confused with the zoo). I did find out that Mikey likes the song "Eve of Destruction," it was a song from the Vietnam era (an armored vehicle was named after it as well). He was clapping away, doing his awkward little butt shake dance.

The video I posted was taken under the aerial crane exhibit. Anna was busy "making" food out of pebbles. We had an awesome morning here...the kids were very excited about our day which prompted Frank to say, "Does Luke talk this much EVERY day?" I just laughed. Because yes, they all make this much noise. Every day Usually at the same time.