Let's talk

Until recently, any actual conversations I've had with the girls have been mostly one sided.  I could ask them a question, and they might answer it, but that's usually as far as it got.

Last night, Brynne and I had our longest conversation to date.  Brynne's words are in orange (her favorite color) while mine remain in black.

The setup:  Last night we were going to give Ruby her first official bath in a tub.  Unfortunately, late in the afternoon I discovered her bathtub had a hole in it.  I left it sitting at the top of the stairs when I went to get the girls up from nap.  A few hours later, the girls were eating dinner.  Mama found a tub we could borrow from a friend of ours, so she was getting ready to go get it.

They always think we're going either to Walgreen's or church when we leave the house.

And here we go:

Is Mama going to Walgreen's to get me some medicine (pronounced me-ci-cine)?

No, she's going to get a bathtub from Mrs. Anna?

But we already have a tub.

Yes, we do, but we need to get one for Ruby.

Ruby has one.  It's upstairs, lovie.

You're right, but that one has a hole in it.

Ok.  We need to put some tape on it to fix it.

That's a great idea, but tape won't hold the water in.

Oh, ok.  Papa has to fix Ruby Edith's tub. 

The hole is too big to be fixed.

Papa can fix it. Papa can fix anything.

Some things can't be fixed, but thanks for the vote of confidence.

You're welcome.  Papa, may I please have some more milk?  Yes you may.

I realize due to my incredible computer skills you can hardly tell I doctored the picture above.  If you  look closely you may be able to see it.  In order to keep this post clean, I had to do a little censoring of Bob the Builder. Sometimes, language can get a little rough on the job site, and Bob forgets he's supposed to be child friendly.   If you've ever seen the outtakes from one of his shows you'd understand what I mean.   

Go figure

Four weeks ago, Hadley starting throwing a HUGE temper tantrum every time we announced it was time to take a bath.  She would wail, cry, gnash her teeth, and even tear her sack cloth.  There was nothing new about bath.  She hadn't almost drowned or anything epic like that, and we hadn't made any changes to the routine.

The funny thing was, she was over enthusiastic to go to the pool, but bath was now out of the question.  She still didn't want to sit in the pool, even though the water was only a foot deep, all she wanted to do was play in the water and dump it out of the pool.

Two weeks ago, we went for the first time to our friend's "big girl" pool, which is about four feet deep.  To get in the pool the girls had to use floaties on their arms.  She hated them.  Obviously, she was not trusting them to keep her head above water as she clung to me like she was an extra limb. 

She does, however, like to do things bigger kids do.  She'll be almost as fearless as Brynne when it comes to doing those things.  She saw the other older children using the floaties, swimming, floating, and sitting in the floating chairs.  She immediately was fine with the floaties, but had to be in the chair. 

Once she was in the chair, she wanted to lean forward and blow bubbles in the water.  Sometimes, she dunked under just a bit, but came up smiling.

Flash forward two weeks.  Now, she can't wait to get in the tub.

She holds herself up by her hands, moving back and forth, informing us she is swimming or floating.  She slipped a bit, dunked her head under water, and came up coughing/gasping for breath.  We thought the love of bathing was now over, but we were wrong.  Once she knew she was OK, she was again all smiles and went back to swimming.

Brynne, on the other hand, continues to be fearless.  She went into the big pool and wanted to be passed back and forth, free to kick her legs to move, either unaware or just not concerned with not being able to touch the bottom of the pool. 

Nearly every day she asks about Abby's pool.

Holiday Fun

While it was weird celebrating the fourth of July without having the next day off, I kind of like it.  My reason is purely self serving:  I like having Wednesdays off from work.  It splits up the week nicely.

So what did we do to celebrate?

Thanks for asking.  We gave Mama a lot of time to herself.

I got up and got the girls out of bed as I almost always do.  I then proceeded with cooking seven eggs, half a pound of potatoes, half a pound of sausage, and eight pieces of toast.  There was a little bit of sausage left, and that's it.

Mama got her breakfast in bed, but the girls and I stayed out so she could either eat in piece or stay asleep.  She ate, then went back to sleep in case you were wondering.

The girls and I then ran errands (ewands).  Since they have a ton of new words, I'll put them in italics after the actual word just to share.  The errands took up most of the morning, until it was time for lunch, and cosisted of visiting the following locations:

local produce stand (famews maket)

bank (bant)

milk store (mik sto)

veterinarian's office (vefguthsdy ahej)

grocery store (gocery sto)

park (pak)

gas station (gees staton)

When we got home, they entertained one another while I prepared lunch, which wasn't as exciting (or as much) as breakfast (befast), just some leftovers.

They then went to take a nap (nap), but they forgot they were supposed to be sleeping (seeping), so they just chatted for a few hours.

After nap, we picked tomatoes (matoes), played for a bit by rolling dumptrucks (dumptucks) back and forth, read a few of their favorite books (being sure to include this one), and then I grilled apple flavored chicken sausages for them.  In case you're wondering, they ate a combined two and a half sausages to go along with grapes (poople gapes, and not geen gapes) and sweet potato chips.

This was chased with milk (mik), water (wawter), vitamins (pills), and a chocolate chip cookie (kookie) bar Mama made.

We then took our bath (baff), read their Bible (Bible), prayed, said goodnight (nite) to the world, and went to bed.

Mama did join us for some of these activities, so she didn't have a full day off.  She did, however, get some good down time I think.

As for me, I went right to bed and fell asleep immediately for the first time in a very long time.

Julia's always been able to fall asleep quickly, but I can understand how a busy day like this (which is typical for her) can wear you out.

PS - Spell check went nuts when I ran it on this post.  I guess it doesn't translate toddler to English.

Let's get this done ASAP

It's official, after eight counter offers we've got our (hopefully) forever house under contract.  Yes, you read that right.  It took eight counter offers (over the course of 10 weeks) to come to a price both sides could agree on. 

During this time, we've been cleaning our house, putting things in storage, and generally just getting it ready to go on the market.  I've been wondering if all those late nights and storage rental costs were going to be well spent, and it turns out they were.

The less time I see this sign in the yard, the happier I will be.

Our house went on the market Wednesday morning.  We spent about an hour Tuesday night doing some last minute rearranging of the furniture (more on that to come later) and figured we'd have time over the weekend to do another thourough cleaning. 

Thursday, we received notice about noon we had a showing that night at 6:30.  We also found out someone else drove by and called in about it and a third person wants to see it Friday.

So much for cleaning this weekend!

Back to Thursday,  We busted our humps getting the last remaining details ready, which included me doing some yard work when it was 108.  At least it was a dry heat.  HA!  Once it gets over 100, I don't care if it's dry or not, it's still hot.

Our listing agreement says no visits during naptime and people must be out of the house by 7.  Our first showing was going to throw our schedule off.

Julia made a call and our friends graciously allowed us to bring our girls, and my parents who were in for the day, over to their house to swim, take a bath (just the girls - I assume my parents showered at their hotel), eat, and hang out.

I'm sure we could've gone swimming at the neighbor's, but we decided against asking them.

As we were headed home to put the girls down at about 7:10, I got a phone call from our relator.  The people were running behind schedule and wanted to see if they could come around 7:30 instead.  We hesitantly agreed, but said they had to be sure they would be there at that time. 

They couldn't, so they said they'd reschedule.

I know if we want to sell the house quickly, we need to be as flexible as possible.  We don't mind that to a certain extent.  It is difficult, however, not to be upset when you do everything you can and nobody walks through the house.

I was a bit frustrated we had to do everything we did to accomodate a showing that never happened. On the other hand, I was very pleased the girls took the change of schedule in stride and that we got to hang out with friends during the week - a rarity.

A week away from home

I've been gone for a week, which is why I haven't posted much.  Here are a few observations from the week on the road:

Most shower heads hit me right about chest high - that's where they come out of the wall.  One hotel shower this week was actually about seven feet high.  It was wonderful, but I'm guessing not many people could take advantage of the adjustable flows as the control for it was another six inches higher. 

This is the typical shower head placement from above, and the shower curtain height from below.

I'm sure housekeeping didn't like all the water on the floor of the bathroom, but if you're going to install the shower head that high, you probably ought to go ahead and raise the level of the shower curtain to greater than five feet six inches.  If I can look out over the curtain, it's probably not a good thing.

If you are driving a shuttle, and looking for tips, I have one for you.  You didn't help the 65 year old woman load her large suitcase onto the shuttle, so I did.  Don't stand there with your hand out when I get off.  I should've taken money out of your jar and slapped you when you looked annoyed (with your hand outstretched and palm up) as I walked past you.

Ever wonder why some companies are not as profitable as they could be?  Here's a perfect example.  My co-worker and I had a few drinks and an appetizer at the restaurant in the hotel.  I had them charge the bill to my room on two different nights.  When I went to checkout, only the second night appeared on the bill.  Also, the soda and water I had charged directly to the room from the lobby didn't make it onto the bill.  I informed the front desk they were missing those two charges and they said "looks like you got free drinks".  I feel good that I tried to pay for the services I used, but I wonder how often this happens and how many times a $50 bill just gets written off.

Hotel beds are almost always too short.


Even sleeping diagonally I didn't have room to stretch out.

Toddlers change so much more when you're gone for a few days than they would have had you been there.

Even when I try to schedule a time to talk with Julia, something comes up on one end so we end up talking in the wee hours of the morning.  We're then both exhausted the next day with no chance to nap.

Coming home takes twice as long as it does to get there. 

The time away lasts twice as long as the time at home does.

It's impossible to eat healthy on the road and the "gyms" hotels advertise rarely live up to their billing.  I wouldn't necessarily consider an 8X8 room with a treadmill, one five pound dumbbell and a set of 10 pound ones a "workout facility".  Oh, and it is tough to swim laps in a 10X10 pool.

Bathtime fun

Bath night used to be the girls sitting in the tub while we washed them.  This would be followed by them trying to escape our grasp as we toweled them off and prepared them for bed.

At some point, it became more about playing than cleaning.

They HAVE to be in the tub when the water is running so they can hold toys under to flow and clean them.  If they're not in the tub, they'll be standing at the edge, leaning precariously over the deepening water. 

I protect the faucet from little ones and little ones from the faucet.

Once the toys have been rinsed, a wash cloth is used to scrub them clean and dry them.  Sometimes, they are lined up on the side of the tub and at other times they are tossed back into the water.  The two larger animals, dolphin and turtle, are guided along the edge of the tub and up the shower walls.  For some reason, they make a VROOM sound like the cars and trucks do.

In the past, if water so much as touched one of their faces, they would be reduced to tears and screams.  Now, they stick their faces in the water to blow bubbles, pour water over each other's head, or use a "water gun toy" to spray one another.  Typically, as soon as a face is wet, the wash cloth is used to dry it off. 

More often than not, the first attempt to dry a face is done by grabbing the wash cloth straight from the bottom of the tub.  It's a funny thing, wet wash cloths do a poor job of drying things off.  So after they wring it out, they try again.

Once they're all clean we need to dry off.  They MUST get a dab of lotion on their hands so they can rub it in themselves.  Actually, they need to get a little dab about a dozen times.  Once they're dried, lotioned, and dressed, they INSIST on putting everything back in the proper drawer and putting the rolling drawer thing in the closet.

Only then can we brush hair and leave the bathroom.

It's turned into one big game.  Most of the time we have fun, but not on the days they don't nap well.

The only thing I can say to share what that is like is to quote one of Brynne's favorite sayings:

"Uh-oh"

When God closes a door...

Hadley opens it.

A few months back I did a little extra child proofing by putting the door knob covers on all the doors we didn't want the girls opening.  It turned out to be a bit premature, so Mama took them off while I was at work one day. 

They ended up being more of a hassle to us than a preventative measure for the girls as they had yet to figure out the mechanics of the door knob.

That all changed the other day. 

It was just about bedtime and the girls were winding down.  After their bath, we put a hair band on each of them to keep the hair out of their eyes.  Hadley decided she was done with hers, and Brynne agreed shortly thereafter. 

I saw Hadley walking toward our bedroom.  She paused at the door, holding the two hairbands in her hand.  Brynne began dancing around so I turned to watch her.

A minute later I heard the bathroom door shut.  The master bathroom door, which is obviously off the master "suite", which can only be accessed by going through our bedroom.  I assumed the wind from an open window had closed it, but as I walked toward our room I noticed our door was open - wind doesn't open doors.

Hadley (while her sister created a diversion) had opened our door, opened the bathroom door, opened Mama's drawer in the bathroom, and returned the hairbands to their proper storage location in anticipation of using them again after the next bath.  She walked out as if nothing had happened, informing me that she was "all done".

The closing of the door, I believe, served three purposes.  First, we've taught them to pick up after themselves and always leave things/places nicer than they found them, which includes putting stuff away in the proper location.  Second, they have learned to always close doors.  Third, she was covering her tracks.

I guess it's about time to put the door covers back, but I have a dilemma.

If I reinstall them, Brynne won't have the opportunity to figure out how to open a door yet.  If I don't reinstall them, the odds are very high the girls will now have free reign to rooms that are not supposed to be accessible to them.

As I see it, I have three options: 

1 - Cover all door knobs to keep them in their quarantined area. 

2 - Cover no door knobs and give them unlimited access.

3 - Cover only those doors that lead to unsafe places so Brynne can work on opening the other one - which leads to the hall closet.

If I knew anything about blogger technology I would include a vote button here, but since I don't, all I can do is ask for your comments.  What do you think I should do?

PS - for those of you that are new to reading my writing rambling, the embedded links are three of my personal favorites from last summer and fall, which just happen to fit in here, I think.  Hope you hop over to them and read a bit of my "old" stuff.

Pure Genius

We were not looking forward to the time change - again.  It seems like it has never been easy to transition the girls smoothly, though we have tried both doing it gradually and ripping the band aid off.

This year looked to be especially bad as we were slated to work the nursery at church, which meant not only would we all lose an hour of sleep for daylight savings, but we would have to get them up earlier so we could make it on time.  The day showed signs of being the perfect storm.

Flavor Flav, Mayor of the time change.

Thanks to a bit of luck, and a stroke of genius if I do say so myself, it went off without any problems whatsoever.

Both girls woke up Saturday morning an hour before they normally would have.  I got up with them, changed them into their clothes for the day and started to feed them breakfast. 

As they were eating, I noticed the clock behind them.  I went ahead and sprung it one hour forward.  I then went around and did the rest of the clocks in the house. 

We became trendsetters.  Before anyone else in the country, I presume, had moved their clocks forward, we were doing just that.  I was sure the rest of the country that participated in the time change would follow suit, and sure enough, they did.   

Lunch was an hour early, and so was nap time.  Dinner, bath, and bedtime all came early.

When Sunday morning came early, it was no different than any other day we worked the nursery.

I will admit, it was very strange having all our clocks "wrong", but in the end, our ability to remember we were operating on a slightly different time zone paid huge dividends for us.  I doubt we'll be able to repeat the performance in the future, but we'll take it this time.

How old is too old...

A little while back the girls were at a play thing with lots of other children.  They were both standing there, looking in the same direction.  As I followed their gaze, I noticed a little boy hanging out.  By "hanging out", I mean he was standing there with his little boy junk dangling in the breeze for all to see.

I quickly called their names.  They came to me without hesitation and I continued to distract them until little Freddie's twig and berries were tucked safely away.

As the girls get older, I am finding myself wondering more and more often "when are they too old _____?"

A few examples for the fill in the blank section:

to be in the bathroom when I an using the facilities?  Just to clarify, I don't let them in there with me now, and haven't since they became mobile, but it's still a valid question in my opinion.

to have Papa help with bathtime? 

to have Papa help them in the bathroom, assuming they get out of diapers at some point?

to have Papa help them get dressed?

I really have no idea as to the right answer.  Do they magically become aware, at some point, of the differences between Papas and Mamas?  Any advice from mothers and fathers out there?

Professor Papa - Part 5

Sometimes, little ones learn more by watching than they do by hearing.  Here is an example.

I close doors.  The video is only 22 seconds, but it proves Brynne closes doors too.

Mostly, I do this to block off access to potentially dangerous parts of the house.  Our house is not a death trap for little ones, but a bathroom obviously poses more of a threat than the living room - as does a kitchen or any room with stairs.

The girls have picked up on this.  More often than not they will close doors behind them. 

Brynne is almost beside herself when we leave the bathroom after a bath.  She will close the door to the bathroom, then the door to our closet, and finish with the door to our bedroom. 

Most of the time she is closing the door to a room she has just left, but not always.  When getting ready for the bath she will close the door, shutting us all inside.  I assume it's to keep the heat in, but who knows for sure.

Doors in the house are not all that get closed. 

Refrigerator doors, car doors, hatches on the back of the car, baby/puppy gates, doors to the dog's houses, cabinets, entertainment centers, drawers - I think you get the picture.  If something can be shut, she will shut it.  Hadley will do the same, but she doesn't appear to be as OCD as Brynne is.

That's a good thing.  At least she won't ever be accused of being raised in a barn or trying to heat/air condition the whole neighborhood.

Along with the good comes the bad. 

I will confess that I almost always lock doors behind me.  When my in-laws sold their house they had to change the locks.  I don't know any reason why you wouldn't change the locks when you move into a new house anyway, but they had to do it as they were moving out. 

Why?  Because they couldn't find any of the keys. 

That blew me away. 

I don't purposefully leave the house and leave it unlocked, or my car for that matter. 

Brynne has taken up on that.  The only problem is she knows how to use the locks on our internal doors and might have locked herself in a room before.

Once the girls could reach the handles I made sure Mama knew how to unlock them from the outside.  She already knew it, but I just wanted to be sure. 

It came in handy the first time Brynne was knocking/banging on a door from the other side and Julia tried to twist a handle that wouldn't turn.

For now, the external door locks still are too hard to turn for them, but I'm sure the time is coming when they'll figure it out.

Guess I should have left those child proof things on the doors after I moved in instead of pitching them.

Happy Thanksgiving...Eve...Day

From us and our two little indians that got into the spirit of Thanksgiving by doing a little tribal fingerpainting bodypainting.

It's not racist or meant to be deragatory...they each have 1/32 Chickasaw blood coursing through their veins.  I don't think the NCAA will come after us, but I will remove the post if deemed offensive and/or challenged in a court of law.

Professor Papa - Part 4

More good teaching and the usual bad things to even it out.

We'll start with the bad and end on a high note today.  The girls now know how to use the drain in the tub.  They don't always let the water out this way.  Typically, they are more focused on splashing it out, or so it would seem.



I started using this to teach them bath time was over.  Nobody really wants to sit in a tub when all the water is gone so it seemed a natural indicator that we were done and moving on to getting ready for bed.  It worked a few times, and then they would start letting the water out when we were only partially done. 

More often than not, we would be rinsing one's hair and the other would become impatient, so she would open the drain. Unfortunately, this means that if you don't catch it in time, the freshly rinsed one would be standing in an empty tub while the other one was being rinsed.

Not the worst thing in the world, but standing in an empty tub after you've been rinsed can be a bit chilly - especially when the one getting rinsed is having warm water poured over her.

The good lesson is a further teaching on a prior post - fist bumping.  I have to give at least partial credit to Mama on this one since she has been working more on it than I have.  The girls have learned to "blow it up" after the fist bump.  Thanks to Travis for recommending the technique.


For those of you not as hip as I, to blow up a fist bump you simply retract your hand immediately following the initial bump.  If you are truly a hipster, you'll open your hand during the removal stage.  For those of you that are even cooler still, you'll wiggle your fingers during the last part.

I would call this adding jazz hands or spirit fingers to the bump, but that probably nullifies all cool points, so we'll avoid that explanation.

Croup

(Sung to the beat of Shoop, from Salt-n-Pepa)



Here they go, here they go, here they go again
Girls, what's your weakness? Coughin

Ok then,

chillin', chillin', mindin' my business
I heard the monitor and I couldn't believe this
I swear, I stared, Julia my witness

My girls were coughing kinda
Wicked, wicked, have to kick it

I'm not shy so I gave them some benadryl

A doctor? No, that don't make me
We need sleep so I dose them swiftly

Croup, croup ba-doop
Croup ba-doop
Croup ba-doop ba-doop ba-doop

Don't want no croup, baby.

Too late.  Both girls have it. 

You can stop singing now. 

Nights are awful.  Cool air humidifier, steamy shower, walks in the cold night air, ibuprofen, benadryl, honey elixir - none of these are working. 

Waking up (assuming they actually got some sleep) with their hair stuck to the snot that's drained from them overnight can't be much fun. 



At least we have Boogie wipes for this.  These have a magical formula that destroys dried snot on contact...more potent than regular wipes, Formula 409, or straight bleach.

Professor Papa - Part 1

I've had a lot of teachers in my days.  Some were good, and some were not.  They all taught me something, whether they believe it or not.

Today I thought I'd look at one good thing and one not so good thing I have taught the girls.

Let's start with the good one first.

Picking up.

I am a firm believer that everything has its place.  My office is organized - some might say it's too organized, but it works for me.

The garage, basement, and pretty much anywhere else I have any influence is picked up and neat most of the time. 

Let's face it, once we get past the basement and garage I have no influence - and the basement is limited to the unfinished part.  Pretty much, any space we don't routinely use, I can control - at least until someone uses it.

The girls have an uncanny ability to make one heck of a mess wherever they are.  Everything goes from organized - to scattered - in minutes.  I don't mind picking up someone else's mess, but doing it two or three times a day was getting out of hand. 

I like games.  The girls seem to like them as well.  It only seemed logical to make a game out of organizing.

We start with the books.  I ask the girls to bring me the books, and as they do I stack them on the shelf and praise them for helping.  Sometimes, they stack them all by themselves.

Then, we move on to the rest of the toys that go in the toy bin, ball bin, or toy bag--everything has a place.

Finally, we put away everything that comes with its own storage capabilities - puzzles, cups, shapes, etc.

Typically, we do the clean up just before they get changed and head to bed.  This lessens the likelihood of them undoing all their (and my) hardwork.

Now for the bad one.

Running their fingers through their hair. 

At first, you may be asking yourself why is this a bad thing?  It's not, by itself, a bad thing.  It becomes bad based on timing.

If they do it in the tub while we have soap in their hair, then it is a good thing.

That almost never happens. 

Most of the time they run their fingers through their hair when we have placed blueberries, blackberries, or a red pasta sauce in front of them during meal time. 

They also love to touch their hair when any sauce that is sticky is covering their little digits.  Syrup and BBQ are their favorites, but any sauce will do. 

It started as a cute little joke to make Mama laugh. 

We did the Home Alone pose, but then it quickly escalated to hair.  Once they realized how funny it was, they couldn't stop doing it. 

Fortunately, they have stopped it for the most part.  I'd love to take the credit for teaching them not to do that at mealtime, but I can't.  For them, it stopped being funny when they started using forks. 

Got Milk?

Let's do some math.  There are 64 ounces of milk in a half gallon.  If I drink an eight ounce glass with breakfast and Julia has about the same amount in her coffee, how much milk must each of the girls drink to go through the entire half gallon each and every day?

Stop looking for a calculator - it's 24 ounces each.

If you got your calculator, just to double check my math, you should find that I'm correct.  While sign language may not be my strong suit, numbers are.

 Math IS fun, so let's do some more. 

Each day, the girls have on average six wet diapers.  The diaper I change first thing in the morning usually holds about 12 ounces of urine.  Their clothing holds another four ounces.  The sleep sack catches two more.  That's 18 ounces of urine in the first change. 

Put the calculator away, please?

This leaves six ounces of milk unaccounted for, but with five other diaper changes yet to be considered.  This is where the math stops adding up.  Yes, I did just put a horrible pun in here.

Each of those five diapers has more than one ounce in them.  Where does this come from?

The obvious answer is other items they consume that have liquids.  On some days they get orange juice or water, so that makes up some of the shortage.  Fruits, vegetables, and BBQ sauce (sometimes the only way they'll eat an item is when it is doused with Bone Suckin Sauce) make up some more of it.

There are still fluids unaccounted for!!  Are they losing water weight each and every day??  Their skin looks healthy, so I can cross that fear off my list.

The truth is, they subsidize their intake with water from their pool or the tub.

There is nothing more beautiful in life than watching both of your girls "make water" in the tub (aka pee), grab something that holds liquids, and then re-ingest some of their homemade "water". 

Often, the new concoction contains water, urine, and soap.  YUMMY!!!

I'm not a chemist, but I am pretty sure the following equation is true, so I'm not too disgusted.

                                Soap + Urine = Clean Water 

I think it's great that they're learning how to use a cup on their own AND we don't have a huge mess to clean up.  I think it is NOT great when they are drinking their own filth. 

 In a third world country there may be no other option but to drink your own (and often anyone or any animal that happens to be upstream from you) urine, but here at home, thankfully, there is.

So how do we stop this despicable practice?  Simple.  Remove anything from the tub or pool that can be used as a drinking utensil.  The only thing we couldn't remove was the wash cloth, which counts as a drinking utensil.  Since the primary function of the cloth is more important than the other uses, we decided to leave it in the tub.  We do, however, have a protocol for usage:

1. It goes into the tub only when we are ready to use it.
2. If it is confiscated by toddlers, we try to take it away (using other toys as distractions) or at least wring it out before it can be used inappropriately.
3. We remove it from the tub as soon as the washing stage is complete. 

By following these simple steps, you too can live a life free of botulism, cholera, dysentery, and typhoid fever. 

Maybe that is a little over-dramatic, but at least you can stop watching your children drink their own pee.

MAMA - That's me yelling, not the girls

As Red, from The Shawshank Redemption, said about Andy Dufresne's first night in the slammer:

That was the longest night of his life.

It wasn't exactly the longest day or night of my life, but it sure felt like it. 

Mama was getting out of the house for some much needed social time last night, and Papa got to put the girls down for the night by himself.  It wouldn't have been that bad, but we're in the middle of transitioning to one nap, so they just didn't bank enough sleep yesterday. 

That by itself is not a bad thing - I can handle sleepy and fussy babies. 

I have about four things I can do to entertain them, and typically one of those four will work.  I had all my best tricks ready to go, but I didn't plan on more difficulties.

Plan one:  Play with toys.  We'd been doing that all day so they were not eager to continue that.  Mama had also been gone during the day, so they were a little sick of my entertainment.  Plan one = fail.

Plan two:  Read some books.  Again, we'd been rotating books and toys all day, so that was met with a less than enthusiastic response.  Plan two = fail.

Plan three:  Go for a walk.  Aaahhh.  This worked wonderfully - for about ten minutes.  You see, the one thing I failed to count on was the weather.  We've been lacking rain for so long I forgot what it felt like - until we were at the farthest reach of our estate and it came bursting forth.  That means we were about 25 yards from the back door.  The rain came fast, hard, and cold. 

Both Brynne and Hadley were moving their hands up and down as they squinted at me through the downpour.  I now know, that is the sign for rain.  I had no clue they knew that sign or what the sign for rain even was, but one of their signing books was open (right to that page) on the floor when we got back inside so now we all know how to sign "rain". 

Lemonade out of lemons. 

We made it to the back door, only to find it locked.  We went around to the garage - I had closed the door.  One last mad dash took us to the front door - which was locked.  We were now stranded.  Locked out of the house and standing in the pouring rain. 

I'm lying.

The front door was open so we came inside.  Still, plan three = fail.

Plan four: drink until I pass out and wait for Mama to come home.  I'd never gotten to plan four before, and I just couldn't bring myself to drink that much.  I thought to myself:

Self - What is the stupidest thing you can do now? 

Self replied:

They seem to enjoy bath time - let's try that!

I wasn't thinking.  I was out of good options so I decided this would suffice.  I gave the sign for bath (another one I now know) prematurely.  Fail. 

I grabbed the loudest screamer and struggled with her until I was able to get her changed and dressed only in a diaper. 

I now grabbed the lesser screamer, who had become the greater screamer, as she pounded on the bathroom door waiting for her bath. 

One wiff was all I needed to know that this would not be easy.  Blowout.  Fortunately it was contained, but just barely. 

I could hardly hear her screaming as her sister had now picked up where she left off, banging on the bathroom door.  Both girls were now diaper clad and ready to bathe.

Typically, Mama would be getting the bath ready while I was getting the girls ready.  I didn't think about this ahead of time.  The girls and I were now in the bathroom and I was totally unprepared for a bath.  I ran the water and tossed in their toys.  They were so excited to get into the tub. 

Their screams were making it impossible to think. 

I put them in the tub.

Fail.  Diapers were still on.  Pick up one, remove the diaper, return to water.  Repeat. 

Fail.  The running water had encouraged them to empty their bladders.  I now have two girls in the tub and no clean diapers.  In addition to this, I realized I also didn't have their towels (still in the dryer), washcloths (also in the dryer), clean pajamas (in the changing room), or my drink (in the kitchen).

I ran throughout the house to gather everything, pausing only momentarily, to freshen up my drink, and returned to find them right where I left them. 

I lied again. 

I wasn't about to leave them alone in the tub, for anything other than my drink. 

One more lie.  The drink was already in the bathroom.  That, amazingly, is the one thing I remembered.

The actual bath itself went fine. 

We got ready for bed, read from our Bible, had a glass of brandy, and went right to sleep - 45 minutes earlier than we should have. 

It is amazing how a little bit of brandy can put a baby right to sleep. 

I am the baby in this scenario - my girls got milk as usual.