My Son the Monkey

Several mornings ago I woke up to the sound of the babies babbling in their bed. It mostly sounded like Haadi but I wasn't positive. Since he wasn't crying yet, I decided to take advantage of some "baby free" time and do the kitchen that was still not complete from the night before. Upon completion I hear that both babies are both up and they seem to be playing and laughing. I go to wake my husband as I wanted to take a shower and I wanted to make him cognizant that the babies were awake and he needed to keep an ear out. He says for me to bring them to him in the room and then get in the shower. I go to get them and lo and behold. I see Haadi, naked, jumping up and down in the bed. I am not sure where his clothes are or where his dirty diaper is for that matter. I see he is jumping and Haniyah is laughing hysterically at him. He is definitely "performing" for her. It was really hilarious. I go to get them from the crib and I find Haadi's dirty diaper in Haniyah's crib. Perhaps i should pause to point out that Haadi LOVES to throw things in her crib. I am not sure if this is his way of waking her, of if he wants to play or what. There has been an occasion that a bottle has nailed her in the head much to her irritation. I remove Haadi and Haniyah and take them to the room. I come back to collect the dirty diaper. At first glance I am relieved, I dont see anything other than #1 ... until ... I bend to collect Haadi's clothes and find several "pellets" of poo - thankfully not in the crib, but on the floor next to it ...

The babies

The babies are officially 18 months now. Both are talking (sorta) and walking (running, jumping, climbing) and its interesting to see the differences between the 2. I love how people are so quick to spout off advice as to how to raise your children, making you feel that you should be/could be doing something differently to make THEM behave differently. I am not discounting the power of nuture and environment. But i love that i have an inside view into the power of nature. how pure personality and genetics can determine a persons temperament, mood, attitude, likes, and dislikes. Its interesting as I cant say that one is fearless and one is not or one is happy and one is not - they are both everything, just in their own little way.

TBC

So sitting at the dinner table the other day Hamza asks, "mom, whats a vagina" i thought my mother in law was going to choke on her food she was soo surprised, I trying to stifle my laughter, thought that although this was a "girl" part, the question would be best answered by the dad. Mainly because I thought it would be funny :)

So I tell Hamza to go ask his dad and again my mother in law freaked out "no, no, dont say such things..." voice trailing off .. this time i let my laughter escape a little and say thats ok, "he needs to know" Hamza go ask baba. As if on queue baba walks in and hamza asks him this question. Umer visibly taken aback, shoots me a WTF look .. i shrug and give him a "i dunno, answer the question" look.

I was impressed with his answer, he said, well, that is what girls have. You know how boys have a penis, well girls have that (note he never said the word)

Conversations with a 6 year old

On our way home from my dads house the other day my 6 year old tells me he is hungry. Knowing that i would tell him that we would go home and eat proper food he quickly adds "...for a snack". "OK" i told him, thinking that we could still go home and eat. He must have read my mind and quickly announced we could go to Sonic or Mcdonalds as they are close by. Feeling generous i agreed, pulled into McDonalds, got him some chicken tenders and a snack size oreo blast. After he ate his tenders I had him the oreo blast. he inspects it all around, a little annoyed he said "mom, why did you get the snack size" (clearly it was too small for his liking) quickly i came back with "well, you said you were hungry for a snack" he thought for a second and replied "good point" I said "thanks for seeing my point," he continued  "no really, usually i just say good point, but this time i really mean it, that is a good point"

Questions of a 6 year old

Last night my 6 year old and I were on the computer, I recently allowed him to get a facebook page, but he can only use it if his father or myself are present. Once our time was done I logged him out which brought us back to the sign in screen. On the sign in screen there is the area to sign up a new account. One of the fields says "I Am:" with the default of "select sex" then when you click the drop down menu you select male or female. The six year old sees this and the following conversation ensued:
Hamza: sex, i am not going to have sex
Me: why not?
Hamza: ewww... that is gross
Me: Hamza, do you even know what sex is?
Hamza: yes, that is when a boy and a girl are kissing a lot and then they get naked, but the girl is wearing her underwear and that thing that you cover the breasts with oh and the guy is naked too but he is also wearing his underwear. ... Do you and baba have sex?
Me: um, Hamza that is none of your business
Hamza: (playfully nuddging me) aww .. come'on you can tell me. Do you and baba have sex? (he is now standing there with his arms folded across his chest, peering at me from above the rim of his glasses
Me: I am not going to discuss that with you. Hey, look at this isnt that cool (pointing to some uninteresting object in an attempt to change the subject and quickly run away)

Daily Ramblings..

Remember when you got used to high speed … and then you went somewhere where there was only dial-up, and you had to sit and wait for a page to load and you could feel your soul being slowly ripped out of your body, as you prayed to the internet gods to take mercy on your soul and speed the process along and promised you would give them their due respect and appreciation for the high-speed that you have grown accustomed to. Unable to do or open anything else for fear of retaliation and immediate freeze on everything, so you sit there at the edge of your seat, watching in anticipation as each pixel renders itself counting down until it is finally done (woowhoo only 3 more images left, almost there …) Remember that? THAT is what today has felt like J

Is It Normal

My household consists of myself, my husband, our 3 kids, and my husbands mother,(my mother in law). It is natural that when living with someone, whether it be your husband, a boyfriend, or even a friend or roommate that each of us will do things that will inevitable annoy the other from time to time. Most of these things are typically within a normal range of annoying. Things that range from occasionally leaving a dirty dish out to always failing to put a new roll of toilet paper in the bathroom when you used the last piece of the current roll. These are the things that make you sigh, shake your head once or twice or perhaps solicit a stern finger wagging at the offender. These are the things that you know just come with the territory of living with another - they deal with your annoying habits and you have to deal with theirs.

Ok, with all that said, there are however, those things that leave your head shaking a little more than once or twice. There are those things that are so beyond the scope of normal that you can possible conceive of how the other person ended up there in the first place. Things that leave your head shaking in dismay for days if not weeks to come. Things that leave you to wonder ... Is It Normal? So I encourage the readers to weigh in, perhaps I am way off base, perhaps I am right on, and let me know ... is it normal?

Story of the missing ice cream

In our house we have 2 refrigerators. One main one in the house for daily use and another outside in the garage for overflow. Mainly for things like drinks and frozen foods that are too much to fit in our regular freezer. So typically my husband puts any ice cream that he buys in the outside freezer. (you will understand why i am making this distinction in a moment) So maybe 2 or 3 weeks ago my hubby tells me he bought my favorite ice cream (mint chocolate chip) for ME and it is in the freezer outside. I savor my ice cream eating only a little bit at a time. anyway, so last night my six year old was asking for ice cream, i told him to check the outside freezer knowing that 1) i had not finished the container of ice cream myself and 2) had SEEN the container in the freezer just the other day.

He comes back and says there is none left. I send him back tell him to ask his dad. He comes back and says that dad says there is no mint chocolate chip ice cream left. ALthough skeptical i didnt really push the issue and went about my business.. later that evening i decide i should check as i know i saw the container of ice cream. Yes, I knew it, there it is the container of ice cream. Man, well it really feels light, i guess someone has been "tasting" it. Huh, what?! EMPTY?! WHO PUTS AN EMPTY CONTAINER OF ICE CREAM BACK INTO THE FREEZER.

Theory #1 - "someone" (obviously not me, not the six year old and not the babies - this leave hubby and his mom) must have come outside, gotten the container of ice cream, taken it inside, either a) scooped it in a bowl or b) eaten from the carton - noticed that it was empty and instead of throwing it away (which would be ideal of course) or even just leaving it there on the counter decided to take it back outside.

Theory #2 - the same "someone" took a spoon outside, opened the freezer, stood in the garage eating several bites from the container, noticed that it was empty, and again instead of either throwing it away, or even throwing it on the floor opted to put it back in the freezer. Again if the freezer was inside i would find this theory a little more plausible. But to stand in the garage to eat ice cream ... really? Perhaps I should also note that we do not live in a mansion and the distance from the outside fridge to the closest counter in the kitchen (also where the trash bin resides) is a grand total of 10 steps.

Result - when I took a quick scan of the fridge and freezer before leaving to go grocery shopping I saw a container of ice cream and assessed that we do in fact have ice cream to be eaten (a jump perhaps, am I making to wide of an assumption?) and therefore do not buy any more. However, clearly I should have considered the fact that although the container is there it does not mean by default that there is actually ice cream in it and checked the container for contents before embarking on my grocery journey.

You tell me ... Is it Normal?

My New Home Article

http://btop.commercialappeal.com/news/2010/may/30/my-new-home-a-firm-foundation/

Getting Started

A Day in the life of.
For a long time I have wanted to write a blog. partly with the hopes of being discovered and be offered a book or movie deal, but more importantly in order to chronicle our daily trials and tribulations so that one day we can look back and remember, and when my kids ask "mom, when did I take my first step" or "mom when did I loose my first tooth" instead of rely on my already failing memory I can refer them here and they can look it up.

Its 11pm and although I should be taking advantage of 2 sleeping babies (well 3 if you count the 6 year old), I decided that enough was enough and I should make all the talk of creating a blog a reality. I want to record the trials and tribulations of being a mom of twins as well as having another child. The twins are a little over a year old and my memories of what happened in the past year are already so hazy. Hazy, I am sure, because I have only recently been able to enjoy more than 4 hours of continuous sleep; that coupled with keeping track of multiple kids in general makes it impossible to remember the exact time and date that various events occurred.