So all three boys are sick right now. Nothing huge, but there’s coughing and wheezing and because of this, I slept with my ear more finely tuned to the sound of crying toddlers last night.

Well. At about 1:00, I was jolted out of a nice slumber by the sound of hysterical crying. I’m still not great about telling who is who over the monitor, but I had a feeling it was Oliver. Maybe a nightmare? Or he was having trouble breathing?

Heart pounding, I raced out of bed into his room and unzipped his crib tent.

(Here’s where I really, really wish I had a night-vision camera or something, so you could see for yourself.)

Oliver was sitting up, clutching the DVD case in one hand, and the cover in the other. He couldn’t get the cover back in the sleeve, and by golly, who can sleep when a DVD cover is out of its case? (Kinda like this)

No one in our house, obviously.

So I put the cover back in, and he laid right down and fell back asleep.

Pardon my French, but you gotta be shittin’ me.

Best part?

He did it again half an hour later.

The other day, the boys were re-evaluated for speech therapy through our state’s Early Intervention program. As recently as a couple of months ago, I was sure they still needed it. Well, not anymore.

They talk all.the.time. And I love it, but man, sometimes I wish I could get into a sensory deprivation chamber. Or get noise-cancelling earphones. Whatever.

Some of the things I’ve heard them say lately:

– I cook dinner (in their play kitchen)
– That funny! (Oliver)
– I fix it (generally DVD cases)
– Good night! (instead of “nigh-night”)
– Good bye! (instead of “bye”)
– I got bo-bo (and then I must kiss it.)
– Pam! (yes. They have been calling me by my name.)
– I give Gill Nemo! (Mr. Gill is the daycare director. They have to give them their DVDs when they walk into school, and they like to tell me on the way to school how they’re going to give him Nemo or Cars or Poppins or whatever DVD they have.)
– Mama jacket off! (I must remove my jacket upon entering the house.)
– Mama!
– Mama!
– Mama!
– Maaaaamaaaaaa!!!!

They are constantly narrating their world. They like to point out colors, letters, numbers, what they’re wearing, what you’re wearing, what’s on TV, what they see.

I’m so happy that they’re not really delayed in their speech anymore. But if anyone has a spare set of earphones, send ’em my way.

A few pictures from this weekend….we spent it at my mom’s house.

Linus loved his baby cousin’s play mat:

Baby cousin was slyly giving me the finger.

The boys loved running around my mom’s backyard:

Linus and Oliver playing the piano:

Miles found a disturbing new doll. Okay, it was mine in college.

Oliver found another one of my old dolls. Not quite as weird.

As if falling down some stairs wasn’t bad enough, as I was pulling out of my parking space at work yesterday, I totally scraped the corner of the bumper of the car next to me.

Ugh. It looks pretty bad, but hopefully it won’t cost too much to get repaired. Of course my car is fine – I wish my car had gotten scraped up and the other car had been fine. I’ll be driving mine forever, so I don’t care about a few scrapes.

Fortunately, the woman who owned the car is very nice and is being cool about it. But still. Not what I needed.

And to top off the spectacular day, Oliver woke up screaming at 11:30 and would not go back to sleep. Not until we brought him to bed with us. I don’t know about you, but I don’t sleep well next to a two year old. At least he slept. Last time I brought him to bed with us, he tried to talk to me about his DVD all night long.

It wasn’t all bad, though. We found out we’re closing on our refinance on Friday (woo!) and our friend Lindsay came over to work on wedding invitations (I love that kind of stuff) so we watched Biggest Loser and drank wine while cutting cardstock and punching holes in stuff.

Lindsay helped George pick out my engagement ring many moons ago, so it sort of feels fitting to be helping her with her wedding stuff now. And she was George’s best woman. Awww!

And the boys were in good moods at dinnertime. They ate PEAS! That’s TWO green vegetables they’ll eat!

They danced after dinner, but that’s hard to get pictures of. But it’s cute. Speaking of dancing, I got a call from daycare yesterday that Linus bumped his head in a freak dancing accident with Miles. Hee hee! (He was fine.)

Okay, first, let’s get this out of the way.

Woo!

I actually watched the game last night (well, the second half, anyway) which I’m sure you know is very unlike me. But I knew it’d be fun to watch it in the company of other fans, so after the boys went to bed, I headed to the pub. I’m so glad I did. It was a lot of fun, and man, when that field goal was being kicked (gosh, don’t I sound like a football expert there?) everyone was holding hands and when it made it, everyone was screaming and hugging and kissing and there were many tears.

So that was a nice ending to a nice weekend. The boys and I spent it with Ren and her daughters Alison and Chloe. We hung out, went grocery shopping, made yummy food, went to a park, and took the kids to a movie.

Yes, you read that right. The two of us took FIVE kids to the movie. Chloe and Alison have been before, but this was the boys’ first movie. My last experience with taking a kid to their first movie ended after about five minutes, but I was very impressed that the boys lasted a whole hour! We probably could have stayed the whole time, but they were giggling and talking to each other and dropping their DVD cases and so Ren and I figured we should cut our losses (and spare the other moviegoers) and just leave. But an hour! That’s not bad! And there was no crying!

So yeah, that was our weekend. Woo!

Had a great birthday yesterday! Honestly, I couldn’t have asked for more.

Spent Friday evening with a few girlfriends and a bottle of wine, and then Saturday morning I was not awakened by three two year olds. Well, I kinda was, but I didn’t have to get up. I laid in bed while they were changed, fed, and brought back to the playroom. Then I had my breakfast and only after that did I grace them with my presence.

We put the boys down for a nap shortly after our friend Julie and her husband arrived, and then George and I headed out to lunch. We went to Palace Cafe to have the best hamburgers in the whole wide world, and then walked around the French Quarter to find a birthday gift for a friend’s seven year old. It was cold, but so sunny and clear that I didn’t care that I couldn’t feel my fingers or toes.

After we got back home, we played with the boys for a little while and then got them ready for the seven year old’s birthday party. That was fun! There was pizza (not that I ate any, after our huge lunch) and chocolate cake (I did eat that) and homemade ice cream (ditto) and light sabers for the boys and twinkling wands for the girls (or whatever…see yesterday’s post) and wine for the adults and all sorts of fun toys for the kids to play with. We spent a couple of hours there until the boys’ stench forced us home to change diapers.

Lightsaber fight!

Sparkly wands are fun too…and note the DVD cases.

The boys were absolutely insane when we got home. I mean, talk about a sugar high (though I suspect it was more from the caffeine in the cake)…they were spinning and jumping and yelling and running and giggling and doing fine impersonations of tornadoes. We were a little scared they wouldn’t go to sleep, but we put them in bed at seven and they crashed hard. Whew.

A couple of girlfriends came over, and we got takeout Chinese food and drank yet more wine and played on the Wii but mostly just gossiped and chatted and all that good stuff.

And that was my perfect birthday. 🙂