Distraction

Has this ever happened to you? You get a phone call and you are distracted for like five minutes when you realize your children are eerily quiet and you discover that they have relocated every moveable object on the main level of your house to their beds. No? Well this is what it looks like:

Are You Toddler Tough?

Sometime I feel like a pro when it comes to being the mother of three under 3, and other times I feel like I need to go back to basic training. I often think about all of the crazy things that toddlers do (at least mine) that I just wasn't really prepared for. As a result, I've prepared this little quiz for those of you who are planning on having children, those who have a baby but haven't experienced toddlers yet, or for those empty-nesters to see if you've still got it. If you pass this written test, but would like some practical training I have three toddlers that I am prepared to let you babysit. Just let me know. :)
All test questions are based on actual events- some questions may have more than one correct answer. For answers, please see the comments section.

1. You are missing some sippy cups and bowls last used by your toddlers. You are most likely to find them
A. in the kitchen sink
B. on a shelf
C. in the dirty diaper pail after which they will need to be bleached and run through the dishwasher three times

2. You had a great day- mostly. You took the kids to the zoo and the library, but lost your temper in the afternoon when they wouldn't stop fighting for 45 minutes straight and refused to take a nap. You raised your voice, but then had a good evening and even let them watch a movie. When asked what they did today, your toddler will respond
A. I went to the zoo
B. I got a book at the library
C. Mommy yelled at me
D. I watched a movie

3. Your toddler may wake you up in the middle of the night because
A. he developed a sudden and urgent fear that a light bulb in his room could burn out at any moment and leave him in the dark
B. one of his stuffed animals is not properly tucked in
C. he needs a hug
D. he decided this would be a prime moment to have a dirty diaper
E. he's sad
F. he wants to know if it is too early to get up

4. You take your toddler to a religious service at a historic building. You toddler spends his time
A. whispering questions in your ear the entire time
B. sitting quietly on the bench and attending to the speaker
C. cramming the crayons you brought to keep him busy in between the historic floorboards which are wide enough to allow crayons to enter but not to fish them out
D. dropping the books you brought him to read so that the bang sound echoes repeatedly in the acoustically amazing building

5. Your toddler will find the following things amusing
A. knock-knock jokes
B. bodily function sounds
C. locking himself in his room so that you have to use your skills from your former career as a thief to get him out

6. If you need to use the bathroom while watching a toddler you should
A. put up gates up in every stairway
B. lock all of the doors
C. tip chairs and other climbable objects over (unless your toddler has already mastered righting chairs, or climbing on tipped chairs)
D. secure all valuable and dangerous objects

7. If you fail to take appropriate precautionary measures, when you exit the bathroom you may find that your toddler has
A. climbed on the counter and taken all of the knives out of the knife block
B. emptied drawers of their contents
C. played independently without making a mess
D. used your cell phone to make a number of calls- you'll be getting "return" calls all day from numbers you don't remember dialing

8. You say a lot of things to your toddler during the day. He is most likely to repeat
A. Dang it!
B. I sure love you.
C. High fives for you!
D. You're making me crazy!

9. Toddlers seem to have a behavioral code all their own. Which of the following activities, which are not accepted by society as a whole, might be labeled by a toddler as "acceptable"?
A. attempting to shut a brother or playmate in the closet
B. painting the walls with a non-paint substance such as lotion, peanut butter or lipstick
C. tearing up books and shoving the pieces of paper into the heating vent
D. dangerous couch acrobatics
E. talking about controversial politics

10. You will love your toddler because
A. despite all the naughtiness (or maybe because of it) he makes you laugh until your sides hurt
B. he does go to sleep sometimes and then he is the most adorable, angelic little person you have ever seen
C. he loves you unconditionally (except when he's in time-out)
D. you can't help it, there is just something about those little hands, little face and winning smile
E. there is nothing like a toddler hug

So- how did you do?
9-10 correct = Toddler Tough
7-8 correct = Wee-one Wily
5-6 correct = You'll Survive
3-4 correct = Need a Nanny
1-2 correct = You Want to Go Home and Rethink Your Life (at least about having kids)

*Bonus Question in honor of our recent babysitter*
You give a toddler a glass milk. He asks for a refill. You should
A. tell him you'll give him 1/2 glass more but that's all
B. tell him to ask his parents when they get home
C. believe him when he says that mom and dad let him have as much as he wants right before bedtime and give him 5 refills causing him to flood his room overnight

Punkins

Before...





... and after.
From left to right, that's David John's, Elijah's and Gabe's pumpkin. They are made with potatohead-like pieces that push into the pumpkin to create the faces. The boys choose the pieces and where to stick things. I just help push them in. I highly recommend this method of decorating for those of you with little kids- or those of you with lazy husbands who don't want to carve. :)

The Week: Ricks Edition

Our Top Stories of the Week

Toy Story 3 Arrives at Dollar Theaters- Smallest Critics Applaud
Last Wednesday, Marc and I took the boys to see Toy Story 3 at our local "dollar theater" (it deserves quotation marks because the price is actually $1.50). Marc invited several colleagues and their families so we ended up with 19 people planning to come. Since it is a popular movie and we had such a large group we took the precaution of driving out to the box office early in the day and purchasing all of the tickets. We are not in Utah anymore, Toto. In Utah, this movie would certainly have been sold out. In Utah, sometimes you have to purchase tickets days in advance for the dollar theater and/or wait in really long lines. In Cleveland, we needn't have bothered. Number of other families who showed up at the theater for the movie: 1.
We all had a really great time. Gabriel and Elijah were completely engrossed although they asked far too many questions. Anytime a main character was off-screen we heard "Where's Woody?" "Where's Buzz?" or just random other questions "Where's Woody hat go?" "What that guy doing?" "Is Woody sad?"
David John was content to sit on a booster seat and eat sickening amounts of theater popcorn for the first hour before he became wiggly and fussy. No one minded, we were in a room full of pediatricians, and a binky fixed the problem. It really was a great evening. If only they had slept in the next day after getting home at 10 PM.... I guess we can't have everything.

Blue Man Group Comes to Cleveland: Marc and Sarah Leave House
Thursday, Marc and I got to go on a rare date to see the Blue Man Group at playhouse square. Fellow resident Stephen Mac watched our boys for us and by all accounts they all had a great time. We really enjoyed the drumming, black light effects, humor and total randomness of the show. It was highly entertaining and we definitely recommend it with only a small disclaimer: Some of the humor is definitely aimed at boys in the 10-14 age range. There was an entire song devoted to the various names for "bottom". Also- do not come late. You may be spotlighted and mocked. You've been warned.

Twins Discover Tether Ball
We walked to the playground after school on Friday to discover that someone had left the tether balls out on their posts. The boys were all fascinated by the concept and enjoyed hitting the ball back and forth. Some unusual moves were tried including hanging on the ball and swinging around the pole like Tarzan and walking the ball around the pole while holding onto it. I even played a game with my little brother Sam. It was very nostalgic including the part where I lost in spectacular fashion.



Doctor to Balloon Man, "Yous Gots Skills"
Our Library (the charming brick building in the background of Gabe's picture) held a family fall fest on Saturday. This included a maze, a beanbag toss with prizes, a puppet show, cookie decorating and the most amazing balloon artist I've ever seen. This guy could make anything. Pictured is Elijah with his dinosaur, Gabriel with Thomas the train complete with three train cars, a simple balloon toy made for David John and three other creations I snapped pictures of- Tinker Bell, Sponge Bob and a horse. When Marc saw the balloons (he was on call during the festival) he immediately said "I need an apprenticeship with this guy!" We'll keep you posted on Marc's possible midlife crisis and career change.







Primped Progeny Pose with Pumpkins
The boys got haircuts on Saturday, so I wanted to have a little photo shoot with their new hairdos, the pumpkins they chose earlier in the week and the pretty fall leaves. As evidenced here, it did not go well. I was unable to get all three of them sitting at the same time much less looking at the camera simultaneously. None of the pictures really turned out great but I thought these three examples of my efforts were pretty amusing.

Falling

I do not like being cold. Thus, I always greet the fall season with a cringe and multiple layers of clothing. I get a little depressed knowing that winter is next- the seemingly unending season of cold. I have often wondered to myself why I don't live somewhere in the south where winter is fifty degrees. But then, we get days like today that you just wouldn't get in places without four distinct seasons. Today was beautiful. Everything was green from our recent autumn rains, but some of the trees and plants were already starting to turn those glorious shades of yellow, orange and red. It was sunny and in the mid-sixties all day long. The boys and I just couldn't stay inside. We drove to Chagrin Reservation for a picnic, feeding the geese at the pond and a walk in the woods. As we were driving back home after our excursion Gabe said from the backseat, "Mom?" "Yes, Gabe?" "That was fun!"
Today I am in love with fall. Here are some of my favorite pictures from our outing. I may have had a little too much fun with some of the color settings on my camera but it's not often that my boys are well-behaved enough for me to play around so just indulge me.

P.S. Is there anything that says "fall" more than little boys in overalls? I know I'm biased, but I think my little boys in overalls are the cutest things ever. Just one more reason to love the season.

Therapy by Mail

I get a lot of misdirected mail at my house. I mean a lot. This kind of concerns me. I wonder if there are pieces of my mail floating around the neighborhood in other people's mailboxes. I guess this could be a good thing- maybe they don't read carefully and will pay my bills. On the other hand, they may be receiving that letter stating that I have won a million dollars, in which case, I'd like it delivered to my house, please.
At first, the misplaced mail was innocent enough: a stray circular here, an occasional bill or a customer survey. However, the last several months I have only been receiving misdirected magazines and catalogs. Sometimes they are addressed to my house number but on any number of different streets, sometimes they are addressed to our street but one number off, and sometimes it seems that they have arrived at my house completely at random sharing neither my house number nor my street name. How, I wondered to myself, could the South Euclid post office be so completely inept? Were they hiring blind persons to sort the mail, because it is not brailled, nor are the addresses in large print. Do they have an inadequate number of sorting bins so that, when postal employees run out of places to put mail they just match it with the closest address already utilizing a bin? I just could not think of a logical scenario which would produce so much wayward mail.
Then, I remembered that the post office is, in fact, a government organization. I started thinking along the lines of conspiracy theory. Maybe, this misguided mail was no accident. I began noticing patterns. My lawn was in desperate need of mowing. The dandelions were threatening to take over- when lo, and behold, what should arrive in my mailbox? A seemingly innocent copy of Better Homes and Gardens that belonged three houses down. The cover? A pristine yard.
My mail carrier has decided that I need some direction and that she is the person to give it to me.
She has delivered copies of Newsweek, these seem to come on weeks when I am feeling especially unintellectual and disconnected from the world- how does she know? I have received a copy of Woman's Day whose cover features indicated I needed to improve the menu in my house and decorate for the new season. Has she been talking to Marc? Health magazines, movie magazines, book catalogs, and jewelry order forms have all made their way to my house with very suspicious timing.
This week, I have not been dressing especially nice due largely to the fact that my clothes are slowly refusing to fit correctly. As a result, I even went walking with the boys, in, I am ashamed to admit it, sweat pants. So yesterday I got The Week in my mailbox featuring a large elephant on the cover, and today I found waiting for me an L.L. Bean women's catalog with a large caption "chase away the chill with our Fitness Fleece". Apparently, our mail carrier appreciated neither the sweatpants nor the bump now evident on my middle.
There is still one magazine, however, whose purpose in my mailbox I have been unable to decipher. Last month, I got a copy of National Geographic (I was actually excited thinking maybe someone gave us a gift subscription, but no- just more therapy mail). It had something very similar to this picture on the cover:My question to you is- what does this mean? Any suggestions? Do I need to get a facial with "light tweezing"? Do I have wrinkle lines? Should I dye my hair red? I'm just not sure what my therapist is getting at and until I figure it out I am guessing that the barrage of magazines will continue finding their way to my door.
Oh- and to some residents over on Lawnway- I have your magazines. I will walk them over at my earliest convenience, as soon as my L.L. Bean fitness fleece arrives.... by mail.

Utah Part 2: Marc and Sarah's Grand Adventure

Tuesday, Day 4
We spent the morning swimming at Ryan's mom's house who generously offered to let us use her in-ground pool while she was at work. We took Meagan, Camden and Kaleb with us while their parents were at the temple. Jen met us there with Cayelle and Cassius and Lora came with Maya. It was quite the party. We all enjoyed swimming even though the morning was a little cool. Gabe, however, decided to add some additional excitement to the event. He came walking up to Marc with what looked like a rubber snake wrapped around his arm. "Look Daddy, a snake!" Then the snake started moving. Marc told Gabe to put it down so Gabe threw it in the pool. It started wriggling frantically and Marc had to fish it out. Needless to say, there was a lot of screaming from the girls.
After lunch, everyone 2 and older went to see The Sorcerer's Apprentice. It was highly entertaining and even though we thought it was a little scary our boys weren't bothered at all. On the way home, we learned that our nephew's favorite part (Kaleb is 8) was when one character said to another "You're sexy." We thought that was pretty funny.
Oma watched all of the kids so the four remaining siblings and their spouses could go out to dinner. Here is a picture she took of Elijah, David John and their cousin Maya jammin' on the piano.

Wednesday, Day 5
We said goodbye to Rebecca, Marcus and their kids as they drove back home to Denver before Marc and I left for our first overnight getaway since the twins were born. Oma and Opa bravely agreed to watch all three of our boys for 24 hours. We hit our favorite burger joint for lunch. It's called Burger Supreme- if you are ever in the Provo area please give it a try. It has awesome burgers and fries and the best fry sauce. After that we headed to the Mount Timpanogas Temple where we were married almost 8 1/2 years ago. We didn't get any pictures there this time, but for those of you who didn't know us before we were married here is a flashback:


We then headed to the Thanksgiving Point gardens. They were just incredible and far more expansive than we expected.

My favorite was the garden entitled "The Secret Garden" complete with an ivy-hidden door. It really made me feel as if I were in the story I read so long ago.


We checked into a bed and breakfast in Salt Lake City with themed rooms. Ours was a secret agent theme complete with a bookcase that really opens up to an awesome bathroom with two-person jacuzzi. Our stay included cheesecake and sparkling cider at night and an amazing breakfast in bed in the morning. We loved it. For dinner that night, we went to a Brazilian steakhouse- if you've never been to one you need to go. We definitely enjoyed our romantic and relaxing night away.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, our boys were spending time with Oma and Opa. They loved helping Oma pick pears from her tree in the backyard.

They also "helped" Opa sort out six boxes of files around bedtime.


Thursday, Day 6
We were grateful to find, as Opa put it, that "Despite everything, everyone is still alive." Absence certainly makes the heart grow fonder and we were happy to see our little guys again.

I did some shopping at the BYU bookstore and got a favorite and rare treat of chocolate-covered cinnamon bears. Lora and I also learned that the clothing store Shade is going out of business. We visited the store and I scored an awesome brown tank top for $4. Their online store still has a few things left. You should check it out.
At night we went out with our good friends Josh and Evette Dutton to the Pizza Factory, another Provo favorite. Marc also got to see his friend Ben Sorensen. His wife was due on Friday, but their little girl didn't favor us by arriving before we had to leave.


Friday, Day 7
Sadly, this was our last day. We spent the morning packing and grabbed lunch at Cafe Rio (who knew Provo had so many delicious restaurants?) before heading to the airport. We had an absolute blast on our trip and, thankfully, the flights home were not nearly so long as on the way out. We arrived back in Cleveland at 11 pm and our kind neighbor met us at the airport with our van. It's always fun to travel, but it also good to come home. I found that what I missed most (besides by friends, and the birth of my friend's baby) was my pillow. We are glad to be back, but will be looking forward to our next Utah vacation.