Happy Birthday, Butch. You're officially in your 30s. Scary.
A series of musings from me. Nothing exciting...
The girls are cranky and seem to like nothing. They don't want to be in their swings, their cribs, their car seats (although they sleep in them at night and love them then, thankfully), their bouncy seats, their play gyms or anything else. They only want to be held. They are either awake and crying or asleep for a few minutes at a time. It's enough to make Todd and me looney.
But there's just so much to love! When they are in good moods (it happens every so often!), we get the sweetest smiles and the most adorable coos from the girls. They both give us a breathy, "Hi!" or say "Ah-gee" (see, Gene and Linda, they're already learning your name!) and sometimes a giggle or too. It makes up for all of the crying, screaming and seeming hatred for any and everything other than me.
Devin is such a little boy now. This morning, he has managed to play teeball and golf in the front yard, eat everything in the house (yoghurt, strawberries, grapes, carrots, Goldfish and two bean-and-cheese tacos), tear up my latest issue of "Parenting," drink my Diet Coke, usurp the girls' new (well, new to them) play gyms and find a lot of joy in the words, "Pootie" and "Booty." Not words bad enough to punish for saying, but not words that you really love hearing from your three-year-old's mouth.
We're working on a new "rewards and consequences" system. We have a dry-erase board on our fridge that has two columns: one for stars and one for Xs. When Devin does something good, he gets a star. Consequently, when he does something bad, he gets an X. Once he gets to ten of either one, there is a reward or a consequence. Ten stars equals some sort of treat while ten Xs means something gets taken away.
Yesterday, he reached ten stars and got lunch at Sonic. We wiped the slate clean last night and have managed to amass five Xs already today. He's trying very hard to catch up to the Xs with stars so he can get a reward. We'll see.
Todd's getting a little restless at home, but that bodes well for me because he keeps finding projects to do. He finally refinished the chandelier in the formal dining room, rearranged the formal living room, re-painted the kids' bathroom (one side with a blue wave for Devin and the other side with pink and yellow flowers for the twins) and spot cleaned the carpets. He even refinished all of our bedroom furniture, which is gorgeous now. It was pretty to begin with, but was starting to look dated. Now it's all satin-finish black with wrought-iron hardware. So pretty. We just need to find a headboard for the bed. That'll come with time, I guess.
I love being married to Todd for a zillion reasons. First of all, he's easily the funniest person I have ever met. It's great to go through life laughing. There's never an end to his silliness and I never tire of the way he sees the world. For example, in kid-friendly neighborhoods, there are often signs that say, "Slow -- Children at Play." To me, that says, "Go slowly -- there may be kids in the street." Todd sees it completely differently, though. He sees it the correct way, of course, but he also likes to muse over the fact that the kids in those particular neighborhoods don't run very fast. You know, "Slow children at play." See what I mean?
I love Todd for his depth, too. He's not just this goofy, silly guy. He's got a lot of conviction and excellent ethics. I'm proud to be with someone like him.
And finally, I love that his family means more to him than anything else. He just lives for Devin, Faith and Grace. He dreams up ways to make them all happy, whether it's playing ball, going for a bike ride or rolling around on the floor.
And, being an excellent artist, Todd is always creating things for the kids. Devin's nursery was Raining Cats and Dogs, with giant, cartoon-like kitties and puppies falling from a rainy sky. Now Devin has a Hot Wheels room, complete with seven-foot Hot Wheels logo and orange Hot Wheels track chair-rail moulding. And you've seen the photos of the girls' room.
Along with fun, custom-painted rooms, Todd is also always making posters and photo montages of the kids. Just last night, he sat down at the computer and came up with a new rock group starring Faith and Grace -- the Sugar Honey Girls. Using sayings from two of their onesies as their hit singles, he created a promotional poster of this new musical sensation and even formed a production company (SPIT UP - Sugar Princesses in Training Unlimited Productions). All of this in a couple of hours. We'll have this printed out and will hang it in their room in a poster frame.
Yep, life is good. Precious (albeit loud) little girls, a spirited son and a talented and hysterical husband. What more could I ask for?
1 comment:
Thanks Devins! Hector just left tonite, so it is the first time I could get to the internet. When your boyfriend lives in Spain, you ignore all forms of life when he is in town . . .it was fabulous though. Blake
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