Camping Can Be Fun

Let me preface this post with this- I am not what you would call a camper.  Until recently I had not been camping since that one time in third grade...I spent ONE night in Big Sur with my mother who is decidedly not a camper (or the outdoorsy sort for that matter).
So when some friends asked if we would like to join them for the weekend at a near by campground on the beach I jumped at the chance.  My kids, 9 and 6, had never been camping outside of our back yard and I thought it high time they experienced it.  Since my husband likes to prep for these experiences (and the zombie apocalypse) so we have been ready for this camping trip for years.  In my garage there is the giant tent that has been used once (in the backyard excursion previously mentioned- where my husband refused to spend the night! There I was with a bunch of kids, listening to crickets and snoring while he was in our comfy bed!), coolers galore, never used sleeping bags, tarps and lanterns.  My man has wonderful intentions but for some reason or another it is never the right time to go.  Well now was the right time!

We got to the camp ground after work so we ended up erecting the tent in the dark. Smores were made and devoured, the kids had a blast trying to light themselves on fire and playing tag in the dark. When it was time for bed however things got a little dicey.  Nature sounds much more sinister in the black of night... the hoot of an owl become foreboding and the rustling of nighttime creatures foretells the sudden attack of big foot.  Luckily mommy was willing to stay up singing lullabies while daddy ran away with Lunesta.  Everything was hunkey-dorey right up until 2am.  I was awoken by my bladder and the sounds of what I knew must be raccoons having a party outside the tent.   Unfortunately for me I had left the dog food in a bowl outside.  Those raccoons thought they had hit the jackpot. There were so many of them they must have gotten on their little raccoon radio and alerted the whole damn tribe!   "Dog food campsite 6, I repeat we have dog food campsite 6!"

I stumbled out of the tent with every intention of chasing the raccoons away only to discover they were in no mood for me.  As I flipped on my flashlight I was confronted with at least 10 raccoons of various sizes.  They brought the whole damn family.  It was a gang of raccoons.  Those giant rats gave me looks of disdain as I shooed them away from the bins holding our supplies.  They looked at me and I swear I could hear them saying "What you got homey?! We aint scared of you!"
What they did respect was the kindling that I started throwing at them.  They took to the trees and disappeared from view.  Great, I thought to myself! But as I wandered around searching for a place to cop a squat (yes, I am that girl who is going to pee in the woods rather than walk the half mile to the public restroom...have you seen Friday the 13th?  Movies have taught me nothing if not that camp grounds are teeming with supernatural serial killers just waiting to take me out!) I could still hear those damn raccoons all around me.  They were hidden in the trees like the freaking Viet Kong!  Chirping away at me, and I was convinced, just waiting to bite the first glimpse of white bo-hinney they saw.  After much wandering around the tent and not being able to escape the raccoons circle of death I stuck my head into the tent and told my husband that I was going to risk the serial killer that was surely lurking near the public restroom rather than get bit on the ass by a raccoon and that if I wasn't back in ten minutes to call the police.  He grunted and rolled over.

Somehow I managed not to be dismembered in the bathroom and was feeling quite brave as I walked back to our campsite, flashlight held at the level of my eye ready for a fight.  As I got closer to the tent I noticed strange lights flashing through the trees and like any rational human being immediately assumed that there was an alien abduction occurring.  What I stumbled upon was much stranger.  As I came into the clearing there were 2 small raccoons holding on to the light up hoola hoops the kids had brought.  These raccoons were having a blast rolling around, lighting those darn things up.  Had there been music it would have been a complete raccoon rave. Needless to say that the next night all the supplies were locked in the car, including the hoola hoops. I made sure to pee before bed and found some ear plugs to battle against further noises of raccoons partying.   Our weekend of hiking, exploring, eating charred food, and being generally covered with dirt, was great and I would do it again...well, maybe a little closer to the bathroom and a little further away from Club Raccoon.

Ed-a-mommy-beans

There are so many things that happen day to day in mommyland that you never would have imagined.  Raising humans only serves to remind me just how closely related to animals we all are.  Or at least how closely related to animals MY children are....

Bodhi, my youngest, is my eater.  My son has since birth seen eating only as a means to survive.  Bo LOVES her food. She will try anything once.  So it came as no surprise to her father and I that she sat down to a giant bowl of edamame beans at a Japanese restaurant and polished them all off.  Since that day we have made sure to always have a stock of them in the freezer.  Bo calls them Mommy Beans.  So cute.  What happened the other day though has, well....not so cute.  I may never be able to look at the edamame bean the same way again.

A couple of days prior to my tale Bo had requested said beans, and as is her custom she at every last one that I put in her bowl and skipped off her merry way.  Come morning two days later and the little 4 year old light of my life is prancing around my room, still in her pajama pants and tshirt, when all of the sudden she stops dancing, giggles, gives a shake of her leg and states matter of factly "Oh, edamame."  And off she walks.  Now, I am confused, because what would edamame from two days ago be doing on the floor.  My pre-coffee brain would not allow me to understand, so I say "Edamame? What on earth is edamame doing on my bedroom floor?  We haven't had edamame since Thursday...."
"Well, I farted, it fell out of my pants," Bo says as if she were talking to a toddler.

AAAAAARRRRGGGGGHHHHHHH! Oh the horror! My child just sharted edamame beans.  Still trying to pretend that this didnt happen, I peered over the side of my bed only to discover the disgusting truth.  There were three whole poo covered edamame beans. Who sharts {and if you dont know this term go google it, I'll warn you it is as nasty as you think it is} whole beans????!!!!

As it turns out my daughter does not chew her food, or at least Mommy beans, and like an good and  hardy legume it just passed right through her and onto my floor :) .  All I can think of is those monkeys from goodness knows where who eat those coffee berries and poo the whole beans.  People are roasting those mothers and selling those beans to people at an exorbitant rate, who then brew and drink it all the while extolling on its excellent flavor. Wholly crap I am raising a monkey.  Now if only the product of my monkey wasnt just nasty, and gag inducing....we might have a cottage industry here.

Flu Who???

I am going to start spraying everything with lysol including people... stomach flu, the flu season, ear infections, coughs and breathing treatments. It is the damn plague! Bo is on her second round of antibiotics for an ear infection in her right ear and on day 5 of 10 she wakes up in the night screaming about her left ear. So it is back to the doctor to figure out what is going on. I am about to take some desperate measures here, and since I cant dip my peeps in disinfectant or seem to keep their fingers out of their mouths....

So when we roll up to the next school day in a giant bubble try not to stare....ahh hell, go ahead and stare, you know you want a hermetically sealed bubble of your own!

Oh Honey!

Maddox: Daddy why do you like honey?

Daddy: Probably for the same reason you do buddy...

Maddox: Because it tastes like a bee's butt??

Daddy: Ummmmm.....

Mmmm, breakfast

Around once a week the kids will want a hot dog for breakfast. Its a tad strange to me, but then I like strange things for breakfast too.

For instance I'll eat a bean burrito in the AM. But when the kids ask I stand there stupidly blinking in a wash of momentary guilt.

It is then that I rationalize...

Sausage is breakfast meat.

Hot dogs look like sausage.

If sausage is a breakfast meat and hot dogs look like a sausage...

Then it stands to reason that feeding my children hot dogs at 6am is just fine and dandy.

That's right, I turn it into a SAT question and thus I can live with myself.

This is the most important meal of the day and it is hot dog and V8 juice...

Dont judge me. That is a full serving of fruit and veggies for a boy who has no interest in eating other than a means by which to stay alive... that baby wouldn't feed himself until he was almost 2. Bo is just an all around eater or rather a taster...she relishes food and has a much wider palate.

But the smell of hot dogs in the morning...gag.

Its been a year...

It has been a year since I last blogged. Ouch, such is the way of things. But it is still better than my record with scrap booking. No, neither of the children have one yet.

In the past year Mad celebrated his 5th birthday and I couldn't bring myself to write about it. That would be tantamount to admitting he was no longer a baby! He had a wonderful time playing soccer for the first time. Mostly he stood on the field chasing butterflies and pretending to be spiderman. He got his first phone call from a girl in his preschool class. She tells me that they are going to be married, Maddie just doesn't know it yet. Um, is there a way to lock him up in a tower with a dragon or is that just for fairytale characters...

Mad has become adept with video games and Lego's. I have become adept at stepping and kneeling on said Lego's. He loves Harry Potter and we have read the first two books together this year. He is still very sensitive and easily embarrassed but makes friends every where and always has a plan for play. We have taken to calling him "the Cruise Director", he wants it the way he wants it and he wants you to want it the way he wants it too. Luckily his sister is just happy to be invited to play whatever it is he has concocted. He is a happy boy over all and that is amazing to me after how long he took to get out of the terrible twos and threes and well, you get the picture...

Now I remember why I haven't blogged in forever...as I type there is a three year old banging on my chair with a couple of paint brushes screaming for me to dance to the music she is beating out. Aaarrgggh!

The three year old in question has had quite the year herself. She has mastered the big girl bed and goes most nights with out wetting the bed, during the day she is full on potty trained. Her vocabulary is astonishing...she actually uses words like "astonishing". Like many other girls her age she is three going on 23. She still has a sick shoe fetish happening and can walk in my four inch heels better than I can. Bo continues to be the best eater in the house, she loves steak, eating raw oysters with hot sauce and lemon, every kind of veggie you can imagine...and will pretty much try anything. Bo loves to sing and dance and perform. Everything is a story with her. While brother likes to tell himself stories and will play in his room talking to a Lego for hours, sissy wants to tell YOU the story. She wants to be just like brother which makes for some nice fights. But still the worst punishment I can meter out is to tell them they cant play with each other.

Daddy and I have decided that we are done having babies. And he is going to be getting his snip on soon. At first I was sure that I wanted three kids and it took a lot of convincing to bring Brian around, and then I realized that all I really wanted was the choice. So once Brian said he would give me that I, um, decided that getting him to tell me I could was all I need to hear. Says a lot about my personality I guess...hmmm. So now that I know I could have another baby if I wanted to I see that I really don't want to. I would much rather snuggle other people's babies. And as Brian says "if we had another baby we would never be able to sit at a four top again!" LOL!

My parents moved to town and it has been a dream having them here. As a kid it was all I wanted as a Navy brat. To live in one place surrounded by family, the picket fence the whole deal. The only thing that could make it more perfect would be if my sister and her family moved here. I want the kids to know their only cousins. Brian's brother is still in his twenties and just graduated from law school so by the time he has kids mine will be grown...meanwhile my sister's kids are 9, 7, and 3. Mad and Bo love them and ask to see them all the time. I will just have to bend my thoughts to getting them down here permanently....

Summer this year is almost over. We have done a lot of beach going, visits to hotels and parks in Orlando. Bo decided she wanted a big birthday bash centered around strawberry cake with candles. Not three candles, lots and lots of candles. She also decided that she wanted to have a double birthday party with her little friend Aubry who shares her birthday. Aubry and her family just moved to town and wasn't going to be able to have a big "pink party" like she wanted so they shared and had the best time. My mom made them matching outfits and we had a grand time.

Mad, who has never been really interested in having a party, has decided he wants a big one after seeing the grandiose scheme Bo designed. Who knew a three year old would have so many party planning ideas. She knew what kind of cake she wanted, the decorations, the food to be served and so on.

The kiddos play together so well most of the time and I have turned the back sun porch into their domain. Brian calls it toy land. Which of course it is. They have learned the words "I'm bored" much to my chagrin. Their rooms usually look like a bomb exploded but then my room usually looks like a bomb exploded too....yeah, way to teach by example Mom....

Mad starts kindergarten in a few weeks and I am trying not to freak. He is so excited and even had me move his desk and chair to a better spot so that he could be ready to work should he have homework. I can only hope the enthusiasm will last. Bo is starting pre-school three days a week and will have the same teacher, Mrs. Williams, that Mad had. She too is sooo excited. It doesn't seem real. I just brought these babies home and now they are going to school and reading and writing and growing faster than I can keep up with.

Brian took our annual couples trip last week, this year it was to NYC, and my mom and MIL took turns staying with the kids. Turns out the kids are damn well adjusted, they didn't cry once and barely gave us a Hello upon our return. They told me after they missed us and didn't want us to go away again. But the grannies took such good care of them they hardly batted an eye. Of course they are ridiculously spoiled now and that is coming as a shock to them that mommy doesn't behave like Nana and Nonni...ahh the granny privilege to spoil rotten and give the kids back :)

Today the heat wave has hit town and we are off to a play date which involves a water slide. I am trying to pretend summer is not coming to an end, they are not going to be starting school and imagining that they will be my babies forever....

My baby is 2

Bo, you are 2 years old now. Mommy cannot believe it!

Well, it is really two going on 12. Who knows if it because you are the second child, because you are a girl, or it is just your big personality, but you constantly act like you have been there done that already. You pout and put on theatrics. You still love your knock, knock jokes. Right now your favorite is this one:

Bodhi: Knock, Knock.

Mommy: Who's there?

Bodhi: Interrupting cow.

Mommy: Interup...

Bodhi: MOOOOOO!!!

You are the best eater in the family and I love it! You will try anything. You especially love what ever it is your Daddy is eating. He never before, in the 12 years your father and I have been together, had to worry about having to share his favorite culinary indulgences. Now he needs to up his game and shuck those oysters or craw fish fast if you are anywhere near. "I want one, I want one," or "Pleeeeaaaasssse...." is what you squeal, and girl, you can and will climb people like a monkey when you want something.

You love hot sauce and want it on everything. You can put down a half a fillet in under five minutes.

We have yet to find something you wont eat...well, technically you will only suck the juice out of watermelon. You do spit out the actual fruit. You l0ve coffee and and hot tea. Pickles and olives are a particular favorite. Poor Daddy came home the other day to find that his much beloved Manzilla olives were already gone...

You still love shoes more than anything, with the except of books. Your bed is always filled with books in the morning- despite it being devoid of them the previous evening. Jewelry is next in line and then comes pretending to feed people. You love that. Oh, and anything and everything your brother plays is ultra cool.

You have a small obsession with your Sassy, and I am assuming it is going to take a little bit longer to separate the two of you than I originally planned. But that was my faux paux as I should know better than to try and plan something with kiddies. You all are on your own schedules. Right now we are just working on getting you to take it out when you talk although you speak perfectly clear with it in, I would rather not have to stick it in your mouth when I want to understand you and not be able to tell what the heck you are saying without it.

You love your piglets, blankies and puppy. You want ALL of them. All 3 blankies, three piglets and one puppy. You don't seem to mind if one goes missing for a while, as long as you have one of each you are good to go. You are sleeping in a big girl bed because you climb everything and have no sense of danger or fear. While your brother will sit and play you have to figure out your way to the top of the tallest thing in the room. Needless to say you have to be watched constantly. I am loathe to let you play in your own bedroom for longer than a minute without supervision for fear I will find you on top of your dresser or worse pinned under it. I have a new wrinkle in my forehead which bears the name "Bodhi Learns to Climb".

You are the most amazing child to take to the Doctor. Freakish almost... You do everything they ask you to on command, including taking deep breathing for the stethoscope. When you have had to have blood drawn for all the tests on your tummy you hardly cried at all, really only when they first pierced the skin. Then you thanked them and patted their hand when they were applying the band aid. I pray this strange and wonderful behavior lasts.

You refuse to sit in time out. You long ago figured out that your brother always throws a fit and ends up sitting in time out longer than if he just ceased and desisted. Instead you apologize relentlessly. And are willing to do what ever it takes to kiss and makeup so you don't have to sit in that chair. Sure, I'll kiss the boy I was just whacking over the head, just don't make me sit in one place for 2 minutes!

The real way to get you to behave is to separate you and your brother. You two could be at each others throats all day long and nothing I do makes a difference, time outs, raising my voice, threatening the destruction of the universe. The only thing that works is telling you two that you cant play with each other anymore today.

You love Lucy. That poor dog loves and hates you. Loves you because you rub her belly and feed her off your plate any chance you get. Also you are a very, shall we say, exuberant eater...and there is always some good eating under your chair to go along with whatever that chubby hand is passing under the table. You rationalize it perfectly. That you and Lucy both like the meal, so why shouldn't she partake with you?

You more than anyone loves to play tug of war with her and yet...

She hates you because you poke her in the ears, butt, mouth, nose, eyes and chase her relentlessly. You pull pillows out from under her when she is fast asleep and then laugh when she flails around all over the couch on her back trying to grasp her bearings.

I could go on and on but I think that you are waking up from your own nap. Your nap that you are more frequently refusing to take. Its is the end of an era...the end of MY afternoon naps!

You are sooooo 2. And I love every minute of it!