Bedtime on Oregon Avenue

If this title conjures up images of drooley, calm, quiet and sleepy-eyed children, let me dispel any such notions from the start.
Maybe it's the Johnson and Johnson ads, maybe it's Other People's kids who happily fall asleep sucking their thumb/pacifier/ear of ragged animal of choice, but I expected to have two drooley, calm and sleepy-eyed children around bed-time. One figures a nice warm bath, muted lighting, a nice cup of milk, and a few bedtime stories should set the right mood, or at least close to the right mood, right? Well, see for yourself what 4 nights of 7, with small variations on the theme, follows the quiet reading of the bed-time books. Oh, yes, and if you happen to think you hear Vasco yelling "Moose-kaka".. ummm, yes, he is. Reference to the "Moosaka" comment in
"My Big Fat Greek Wedding". Long story: Mike was calling Justine "Moosy Moosaka" (???!!), and I said "huh huuhhhh Moose-kaka" but rather quietly; Vasco, of course, decided that was his new favorite word. I hope it disappears from his vocabulary by tomorrow morning, but I think that is wishful thinking. More likely than not, I will be trying to explain this one to the day care teachers :)

Suds and Sensibility

So, what do your kids talk about as you are pulling into your driveway/garage/street parking spot/front door? Perhaps noting that they would like X for dinner? Perhaps talking about what they want to do when we get home? Complaining in advance about washing hands or taking a bath? Singing a song? All quite normal. You may wonder why I'm asking? What do you think Vasco and Justine energetically and repeatedly request, as we are pulling into the garage? Nope, not cookies. They want to wash the car. Again. Yup, you heard it right. On Saturday, a fabulously beautiful day, after a super nice trip to the zoo complete with a picnic by the waterfall across from the lion/tiger area, we decided to try out a fun and useful family activity, involving a bucket full of suds, oversize sponges, and a hose! Turns out that that was at least as entertaining as the zoo trip, if not more, because so far I've counted 3 requests for a follow-up trip to the zoo, and 5 requests for washing the car again. :) See some pictures below.

A brief course in how to win an argument if you are clearly losing, courtesy of Justine, circa 9:19pm tonight:

(I should say I don't remember how this particular conversation started, but let's just jump in, shall we?)

Vasco: "Grandma and Grandpa live far away" (which they do. 8 hours away. In North Carolina)
Justine: "No, Lulu and Emma live far away" (well, they live 20 min away in Arlington, not close, but not Grandma and Grandpa-style far away)
Vasco: "No, Justine, Grandma and Grandpa live far away"
Justine: "No, VASCO, Lulu and Maddie live far away (new characters. The plot thickens!)
Vasco: "NO! Grandma and Grandpa live far away!"
Justine: "Moooooooommmyy! Vasco's talking!!!"

How does one keep a straight face???? Where is the instruction manual for these kids????!!

Girliness and Hybrid Cars

Albeit not a milestone that is on the checklist at the Development Clinic, a girliness milestone nonetheless it was: Justine's first painted toenails! She was so thrilled and so excited to show everyone, it was tremendously cute.

The Ryans, who we hung out with this afternoon, bought a hybrid car: Toyota Prius. Us ladies went for a spin, and I am totally fascinated by 1) the "On" button, which.. quite logically serves the purpose of turning the car on, but it's just hard to get used to turning on the car in the same manner in which one would turn on a CD-player, and 2) the information screen which, once the car is put into reverse, changes into a backward looking camera, so that one can see the entire road behind the car unobstructed.

The Twins Visit the Eye Doctor

Time for the annual eye exam at Dr. Plotsky's! (The kids enjoy saying his name)
The doctor was amazed that the kids cooperated with the eye exam so well: the first part consisted of a slide show with increasingly smaller images. The kids thought it was the coolest game, and Justine was just so excited to see the picture of the "Birthday Cake" pop up every now and then on the screen, but apparently kids their age usually don't want to name the images. Add to this an exam chair that moves up like an elevator, and the kids were practically fighting to take their turn in the chair for the exam. All by themselves in the chair: they looked so grown-up. For being so super good, they got a lolipop and cool sunglasses.
Nothing notable in the exam, which is always good news. Both are slightly far-sighted, which I believe is normal, and Justine may have some barely noticable strabismus (hope I spelled that right!!), which is I suppose a medical term for being cross-eyed?? He said it was nothing alarming though. I thought I'd mention that genetics are not on their side, given my horrible vision, and the doctor was joking "Kids, you picked the wrong mommy!" In the car on the way back, Vasco's version of that statement was "Mommy is a mistake" :) At least I need to give him credit for knowing how to paraphrase...

Grandma and Grandpa's House!

This past weekend we ventured down to North Carolina for our first (and long overdue) visit to Grandma and Grandpa's house. After a long drive (which could not have happened without the all-important DVD player) we arrived at Grandma and Grandpa's log house. The kids really enjoyed playing in the wide-open yard, but the highlight was sitting on the neighbor's tractors. They also had a blast playing with Andrew and Megan.


Then Sunday came and it was time to go home. Of course the thought of leaving Grandma and Grandpa was met with great resistance, but that was nothing compared to the endless drive. The return home started with the interstate closed for presumably an accident. So we had to drive along a small overcrowded rural road until the highway was re-opened. Then a massive hail storm hit, followed by a heavy downpour. Eight hours later, including short stop at McDonald's to appease the restless troops (I won't go into how we tricked them into getting back in the car), we arrived home.

Happy Easter!

The stories about the Easter bunny bringing Easter baskets for the kids that we have been discussing for days now culminated in Mike secretly dragging the two easter baskets into their bedroom while they were busy destroying the couch early this morning. The next few hours were very...sugar-infused. I had dumped out all of the pre-packaged candy in the plastic eggs, and conservatively replaced it with two mini Hersey's Kisses in each egg. The focus was supposed to be on the eggs themselves (with various cool features such as suction cups, glow-in-the dark, handy strings, etc), on the new Easter-themed books, and on the Pooh, Tigger, Piglet, and Eyore stuffed animals that joined our family this morning. The kids were each allowed just one candy before breakfast....
Ten minutes after the first candy was eaten, as I wonder why the house has been so quiet for the past 85 seconds, I see two sets of feet sticking out from behind the curtain, with the faint crackling of plastic eggs being opened.
Me: "You guys are not eating candy, right? No more candy!"
Vasco and Justine:"No, mommy, not eating candy!"
I pull back the curtain to find a delicious ring of chocolate around Justine's lips, as she tries to quickly finish up chewing... The process repeats at least twice, with the kids disappearing and reappering with new chocolate residue, until I decided this whole "I'm-going-to-trust-you-not-to-eat-the-chocolate" thing is not working, and I dumped out the remaining stuff, despite Vasco's pleas that all he wants to do is "touch the candy".
And somehow, despite all the madness, we managed to get make it to church at 11a.m, where, it seems all of the rest of DC had arrived, before us, and the single space left to squeeze into in the whole cathedral-sized church was 3 rows from the front, next to a woman who, if she did like kids, managed to hide it very well. She was less then amused when Vasco pointed out to her that the sheep in the stained-glass window scene were drinking water. While Vasco kept repeating random snippets that Pastor Meredith said during the children's sermon ("Jesus was gone!" (from the tomb), "celebrate!" , "disciples, mommy?"), Justine used the platform to yell for "PerriErin", "PerriEriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiin", who were not there, but may have nonetheless heard us calling for them, as they drive up from North Carolina! :)
Happy Easter everyone!!!

Springtime in DC!

Crocuses, Tulips, Hyacinths, too,
Cherry Blossoms... Flowering bushes.... SNOW???!!!

Antibiotics, a 10 mile race, and the theater

What a weekend...Justine's cold seemed to get worse Friday night, and she had trouble sleeping, and with the way her breathing sounded, we decided it was worth a trip to Children's hospital on Saturday morning. Mike took her in, they gave her a chest X-ray, because her O2 saturation levels were only 93-94 percent, and based on the X-ray, she may have had a mild case of pneumonia. She came home on antibiotics, and a bagful of Xopenex. She took a long nap when she came home, and when she woke up, she insisted on helping me do the laundry: she climbed up on a step stool and put everything from the hamper into the laundry machine, and helped pour in the liquid. I honestly don't know where she gets her energy, but it was a comforting sight to see. By Sat evening, she slept so soundly and peacefully, that it was hard to imagine it had just been 24 hours since she sounded so awful..Justine is one tough lady! (she's showing off her hospital wrist-band in the picture)

With such a start for the weekend, and a gloomy prognosis for Sunday's weather, the challenge level was raised on one of my several personal goals for this year: the Cherry Blossom ten mile race loomed before me. With 3 hours or so of sleep on Friday night, and a non-stop Saturday, by Saturday at 9pm the prospect of getting up at 5:30am, tying on sneakers, and lining up for a run around the city seemed... well... challenging. Nonetheless, by 6am, in full running attire, a banana and gatorade for fuel, I set off. Standing at the starting line, I had no idea why I thought this was a good idea. But off we went, and between miles 1 and 4 I was feeling good, "Hey, I'm doing it!" By mile 5, I thought okay, "Half-way there!". Mile 6: "What was I thinking???!!!" There are 4 more miles to go, and this is the longest I've ever ran in my training runs!" 2 minutes later: "Shouldn't mile 7 be somewhere here?? Did we pass it already???" The real mile 7--the bargaining stage: "If I can just make it to mile 8, I can walk for 5 minutes". Somewhere around mile 8 a guy is standing under an overpass dressed in a red sequined skin-tight off-the-shoulder evening dress, cheering on his buddies, and handing out not water but beer cans (this was not a hallucination, just to clarify). Mile 8: "Wow, 2 miles left: everything below my waist is numb from pain, so I might as well keep running". Mile 9.5: I can see the finish line and some guy is cheering on the sidelines: "Almost there, this is the time to empty your tank!" Odd, I thought, why would I pee right here??? Then I realize he is talking about emptying a tank of fuel, or energy, giving it all I've got. Then, I hear my ChampionChip beep against the mat at the finish line, and somehow I've done it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 1hour and 44 minutes. Yeah! Big thanks to Mike, for his support and for watching the kids all Sunday morning.

Some Advil, a hot shower, and a 30 min nap, and we were ready to go: Sunday evening we took the kids to their first show at the theater, to see "Go, Diego, Go!" The award for appreciation of fine arts goes to Vasco, who enjoyed the show very much. Justine insisted on leaving after the first act, so we spent the second act running around outside the Warner theater chasing squirrels while the boys finished watching the show.