The Curious Georges

Om, Excuse Me

AKA  Yogus Interruptus

Today I was getting my Zen on in yoga class at the gym when the babysitter from the "Kids Club" came in to say that "Dane had filled his pants."  That's a nice way of saying that Dane had a big poop and it's time for mommy to come out of tree pose to change a diaper.  I knew this Kids Club was too good to be true.

Flashback two weeks ago when I discovered that a 24 Hour Fitness membership included 2 hours per day of free child care ... with no limit on the number of kids.  I felt like I'd hit the babysitting lottery!  You don't have to belong to MENSA to do the math:  A membership is only $26 per month and we would pay $30 for two hours of child care anyway.   It's a win-win-win situation.  I get a small break from the monkeys while getting to exercise while they get to run around and expend energy.  OMG!  Why did it take me over 1-1/2 years to discover this? 

Today was the first day that I was pulled out of a class to attend to the kids so I wasn't prepared.  I had to run to the locker to get my keys, then run to the car to get a diaper and wipes.  I rushed Dane into the bathroom to change him and of course, Logie had to follow us.  As I was hoisting Dane onto the changing table, I heard Logan flushing the toilet.  Then I heard a distinct "plunk" as something was being tossed into the toilet.  I looked into the toilet and there were all my keys and my treasured Coach keychain.  Only then did I figure out that when Logan had flushed the toilet a few seconds earlier, he had flushed away the key to my gym locker.  I guess the solitary key was a sitting duck, too tempting to escape the mischievous plans of our little imp.  After the yoga class, the gym manager had to remove the lock with one of those scary-looking bolt cutters.

If you notice a bemused tone to these posts, don't be fooled.  I was p*%#ed off when he did this, as I often am when my monkeys cause trouble.  Needless to say, the yoga class was a bit of a bust.  Yoga is very mental and it was hard to focus after this fiasco.

Maybe Logie's looking to secure a position as the star of mommy's blog.  He's definitely providing the most fodder for my rants right now.

Anyway, time to go.  It's waaaay too quiet in the other room right now.  That always means TROUBLE!

Logie, Prankster Extraordinaire

making mischief with paper towels

WTF (What The Fax!)

I mentioned in my post a few days ago that doing everyday chores in the presence of my offspring is a Herculean feat.  This goes for errands as well. 

Yesterday I had an absolutely horrific experience at the PakMail.  Normally, I wouldn't bring all three kids on an errand like this, but I was under a deadline.

To try and minimize grabbing little hands, I put the boys in the double stroller, which never goes well.  As we know, The Boy Georges do not like to be fenced in.   After trying to communicate to the clerk above the wailing of the boys, I decided to let them roam free.  Big mistake!  Not seconds later, they are gleefully tearing apart boxes of staples and uncapping highlighters.  In the meantime, my 22 page fax is getting fed into the machine willy-nilly since there seems to be something wrong with the feeding mechanism.  After what seems like eternity, the fax is "completed," only to have the clerk announce that only 21 pages went through. 

Trying to remedy two situations at once, I grabbed the boys and force them into the stroller.  They are NOT happy!  They resist the stroller with all their might and end up in a half-in, half-out position, which only enrages them more.  Sort of like stroller purgatory.  Now back to the fax.  The clerk just sort of shrugs when I ask what can be done about the missing page.  Since she has no idea which page did not go through, she is stumped.  With no remedy in sight, I figure that I'll just have to make a copy of this monstrous fax and mail it.  On to the copy machine.  Boys still screaming bloody murder.

Of course, the copy machine gets jammed and the clerk cannot figure out why it won't re-start.  Other patrons come in to witness the twins' meltdown and one lady says, "I just want to give you a hug."  I want to say, "I just want to shoot myself," but refrain. 

Nicole is being very well-behaved throughout this and is actually singing merrily to herself,  completely ignoring her brothers' tantrums.  Unfortunately, her singing just adds to the noise factor.  Then, another little girl comes in and Nicole and this little girl start playing tag around the card displays.

To cap off this disastrous experience, the clerk charges me $25 for a fax that ended up being useless anyway.  I left the store, practically in tears, with the boys kicking and screaming, only to end up forgetting my wallet.

Another Calgon day.

Camels & Zebras & Goats, Oh My!

Today we took the kids to the Johnson City Exotic Resort Zoo.  Why travel all the way to Africa or India when you can get a safari tour in your Texas backyard?  The park has over 500 animals of 80 different species.  Nicole and Dane especially liked the petting zoo.  Nothing like your garden-variety goat to excite a kid!

(photos courtesy of Barton)

 

Not Exactly Bonbons

Being a Stay-At-Home Mom is not exactly luxurious.  Even the acronym SAHM is unglamorous.  It reminds me of something from the breakfast menu at Denny's or IHOP (Moon Over My Hammy anyone?)  Anyway, what now counts as a "treat" for mommy is a block of two hours to clean the house.  I'm dead serious too.  It takes Herculean energy and patience to try and do chores with a trio of monkeys trailing after you, either clinging to your legs or undoing all of your cleaning and straightening.  The fact that all three little Georges boycott naps doesn't allow for even small breaks for chores or gasp, rest!  We're back to Sisyphus here.

Cleaning up the house for playdates is one of the more ironic parts of a mom's life.  You bust your butt to clean up the house, only for it to look post-apocalyptic five minutes after the arrival of your whirling dervish-like guests.  Yesterday I had a playdate/happy hour.  As the mom's tried to enjoy our mojitos or wine, the kids thought it was a fun game to stuff toys and clothes in the toilet upstairs.  Unfortunately, I think my kids were the ring-leaders of this particular party game.  Logan even admitted to it, but he might have just been being agreeable.

Any minute now, the troops will descend so gotta run!

Casa de George ... Pirate Playground

She's My Girl

I often ask Nicole what was the favorite part of her day.  When we were in Seattle, her answer to this question was "ice cream" (not Space Needle).  I queried her again after another day during our visit to the Pacific Northwest and the answer was  "sushi" (not Snoqualmie Falls ... as if a toddler could say "Snoqualmie" anyway).  Tonight, when I asked her the question, she said "peanut butter."  Obviously, food is top-of-mind for our Nicole.  A girl after my own heart!

Frozen bananas ... yum!

Barton's New Gig

With Nicole's 4th birthday, the kids starting school and keeping up with Logie's career changes, I've been remiss in blogging about Barton's big news.  After 13 years at Sun, my hubby has moved on to an Austin-based company called Lombardi.  Being semi-illiterate in tech-speak, I'll give you his parting words:

After 13 years, today is my last day at Sun Microsystems. After taking

the weekend off Im going to start on Monday at Lombardi software here in

Austin. I will be marketing director for their cloud-based Blueprint[1]

offering and am really excited.

 

I'm on Facebook, Linkedin and Plaxo and going forward I

will be blogging at http://barton808.wordpress.com

 

Cloud-based Blueprint ... huh?  Okay, I'll take your word for it.

Barton was very well-respected in the Open Source Community (as well as within Sun).  You can read about it on cnet and The VAR Guy. 

I'm so proud of Barton and also ecstatic that we get to stay in Austin!

Bye Bye Sun

Barton, 1 year old, future Marketing Director

Sunday

It's a balmy 78 degrees in Austin right now and we're loving the mild weather.

Monkeys in pajamas, enjoying the glorious Sunday morning

Baby Barista

Logie's practicing for a job at Starbucks.  Today, he climbed on the counter and tried to make coffee.  He put the grounds directly in the pot.  I hope you like your java strong and crunchy!  At least his barista job is safer than his last position ... Samurai.  One day, Barton caught Logie on the kitchen counter, where the daredevil had removed all the knives from the butcher block and laid them on the counter.  With a huge smile on his face, Logan handed Daddy one of the knives, blade-side up.  Handling sharp objects can be fun and all, but also quite perilous so Daddy made Logan search for another profession.  Mommy is voting for one that doesn't involve climbing on the kitchen counter.

Would you like an extra serving of Kid Grime with your coffee?

Seven Years Later

My friend, Akemi, who also has twin boys, "tagged" me for a game of "remember when."  It's a blogging game where you detail what you were doing when certain significant events happened.  Unfortunately, I can't remember where I was for the majority of the events, so I'll have to gracefully decline.

I do know where I was during the attack of the Twin Towers in 2001.  I was sleeping.  In fact, it wasn't until Barton came knocking on my door around 10am that I had any knowledge of these tragic events.  As a little background, on 9/11/01, I was a "freelance consultant" which is a euphemism for "laid off."  Like many people in San Francisco after the demise or perhaps it should be called "flattening" of the dot.com industry, I was out of work.  The dot-com boom that brought me to San Francisco in 1999 for advertising work was officially over and we were all holding wakes for accounts such as "Petstore.com" and "HomeImprovement.com."  There were absolutely no jobs in San Francisco at the time and I figured this was as good a time as any to catch up on my beauty sleep.  Hence, the sleeping. 

When Barton roused me and told me that "planes had crashed into the World Trade Center," I, in my bleary-eyed state, could not for the life of me figure out what he was saying.  At first, I thought it was some sort of accident.  In pre-9-11, the synapses in my brain were not wired to think "terrorism" as the cause of disasters like they are now.  Like a lot of people, I think of the time before this tragedy as a time of innocence and naivety.

As the day progressed, the unfolding of the events was surreal.  Barton's family friend from Honolulu, Mary Ho, had a daughter, Heather, who was a pastry chef at Windows of the World, the restaurant atop the World Trade Center.  Mary Ho lived right around the corner from us in SF and we went over to her apartment that afternoon for moral support.  Under the circumstances, Mary was in good spirits, if somewhat dazed over what had happened.  At this time, it was too early to know what had happened to her daughter.  The fact that Heather started work at 5am every morning to prep for the day was not a good sign, but one always hopes against hope.  We later learned that Heather died that day, as did countless other innocent people.

The aftermath of 9-11 was a time of mourning and also self-reflection.  Times of tragedy and grief are intertwined with both haze and clarity.  Unfortunately, it often takes loss for people to appreciate what they have.  On a national level, patriotism was at an all-time high and it was beautiful to witness this sense of unity with one's country.  On a personal level, the grieving made people realize that life is short so what am I doing with my life?  There was an urban myth that birth rates spiked nine months after 9-11, but Snopes debunked this.  For every person post 9-11 who decided that now was as good a time as any to get married/have a baby, there was another person who decided to move on from a nowhere relationship.  Both may have been spurred on by the tragedy, but not necessarily in the way that was reported.

Seven years after 9-11, our stats are staggering:

- one week after 9-11, Barton and I moved in together
- five months later, we were engaged
- one year later, we were married
- five pregnancies
- two early miscarriages
- lost two babies
- had three wonderful children
- lived in 3 cities in 2 states
- 5 moves

There is a quote by Theodore Roethke that says, " In a dark time, the eye begins to see."  I'm not saying that I attribute the events of my life to the tragedy that occurred on 9-11.  But, as someone who has lost many loved ones, I feel that these losses shape who we are and how we react to life.  When I worked in advertising, I remember having co-workers/stress junkies say how calm I always seemed in the midst of chaos.  It's not that I didn't feel stressed, but I would just put it in perspective.  Particularly after my mom died, I just couldn't get that worked up about the "small stuff" of advertising.

On the 7th anniversary of the tragedy, we reflect on those who we lost and how this influenced our nation and us as individuals.  Post-9-11 was indeed a dark time.  I'm sure we all have stories about how it shaped our perceptions, and ideas on how to "see" in a way that will foster both personal and global peace.

Rolling That Rock

I'm taking a break from folding laundry to post about The Myth of Sisyphus.  In Greek Mythology, Sisyphus was a king who was punished by being forced to roll a huge boulder up a hill only to watch it roll down and have to repeat the process all over again and again.  The myth has become synonymous with repetitive and thankless jobs.  Can anyone say LAUNDRY?  This mind-numbing, endless chore is my own personal Sisyphus.  At least it's a positive sign that my mind has not been completely devoured by "mommy brain" that I actually remember this tale from my Freshman English class.

Being a mom has many rewards, namely watching these little beings that you created form into wonderful people.  However, sometimes I want to be like Prince and write the word "slave" on my face.   My lowly position is most evident during meals.  This is a time where every other word is "want" or "gimme."  It's a cacophony of "nooooo, not the Dora cup; I want the Princess cup" (and that's just from my husband)!  But seriously, it's insane.  I know that I am here to literally serve these little helpless people, but I'd like to eat just one meal without hopping up ad infinitum to cater to their every desire.  Some of it is my fault.  I've been too willing to put up with the demands of my mini tyrants. 

Dane's most recent reaction to any thwarting of his mercurial whims is to say a terse "no" and then fling the nearest object with alarming aim, strength and speed.  No matter that the nearest object is a plate of eggs, he will fling it.  We've all been conditioned, Pavlovian style, to cower when we hear his angry "no."  He's an intense guy, our Danie, as extreme in his loving, cuddly side as he is in his tantrums. 

Well, gotta get back to that laundry...