My Whirlwind Children are Growing Up Too Fast

Hey friends. How you been? I know, I've been all not writing on my blog and whatever. But I'm here to put up some cute pictures and tell you funny stories and hopefully not lose my entire audience. Don't stop reading my blog, Mom!

First things first: my hooligans are two! I'm not kidding.

Remember this?

They were such tiny little squirts. Little matching football-sized squishy bundles. And all they wanted to do was snuggle me and each other. And, you know, eat and poop.

Now they look like this.

And yes, sometimes they are spoiled.

I'm having just a little bit of a crisis about this. My babies!!!!!

They are such hooligans! It feels like they're constantly at each other's throats, but they're still super besties.

Ain't nothin' like a brother when you feel the need to snuggle.

Their affinity for lions and tigers is amazing.

They sure know how to get into shenanigans.

They definitely know how to deal with big sisters.

They sure do love to slide. And also watch tractors from the top of the slide.

They can make TRIPLE the mess as a team!

They sure can roll in style!

So in honor of their birthday, I'll do the catch-up of hilarious things they do backwards. Starting with my home-boy . . . PETER!!!

Yep. Chicks dig him.

Peter is such a little man now. And he has quite the opinion. A very strong one, if you're wondering. Also, see how cute and innocent his little face is? Well, those eyebrows can make you fear horrible murder. Luckily, he really likes me.

My favorite thing about Peter is the way he sort-of refers to himself in the third person. It's super funny. "Oh no! I dropped Petey's cup!" "I need Petey's socks." He's got subject pronouns, but not object ones. But he sure talks enough to get it figured out soon. He just gabs pretty much all the time. His other most common thing to do is to tattle on his brother. He puts on his most pitiful pouty face and then says "Joshy take Petey's applesauce." He even sticks his bottom lip out.

Also, I have discovered that Peter is his father's son. You know what Petey could eat for EVERY SINGLE MEAL for the rest of his life? Pizza. Boy LOVES pizza. Also sammiches. I asked him what he wanted for his birthday and he said, "Um, a sammich."

That is my favorite of their shirts. The hot dog is holding a sign that says, "Help me!"

But you know what Peter loves the most out of anything in the entire world? Basketball. Remember that one time how last month was this big basketball event? Well, on the rare occasion that Mike got to take a break from all of the crazy in his life, and got to turn on one of the games, Peter was immediately his BEST friend. Remember how he's 2? Usually that means he has NO attention span. This is not the case for basketball.

Thus, they got something awesome for their birthday. And it has taken over their lives.

See that? That's two boys in heaven.

To be fair, we've moved it into the kitchen, because they're not super good at it just yet. But Peter has been practicing. This boy can now shoot from a couple feet away and make it. It used to be the only thing either of them could do was dunk, on their tip toes. Peter is now intent on being the next Jimmer. Or John Stockton. Or other short white guys who got famous for basketball. I don't know who they are.

Josh, however, is way more into being a tiger. Or a puppy or a bear or a scary monster. Or a dinosaur. I think you get the picture. There is absolutely no sound like a 2-year-old growling in a deep, throaty, dinosaur voice, "More juice please!" I just about die every time.





Do you see this hooligan? He's (as you can probably guess) usually the most willing to get his picture taken. And he loves to take selfies. LOVES it. He'll come climb on my lap and grab my phone and say, "say cheese!"

Josh has officially entered the age of "No! By self!" He even insists on getting himself dressed, even if he wears his clothes entirely backwards all day (see the bottom center). He loves to climb everything, growl at everything, and get into everything. Especially their birthday cake. Top right was after I finished changing Petey one morning after their birthday and came in to find Joshy fist-deep and saying, "Look Mommy. Giant knife!" I did not realize he could get the cake carrier open to get to the knife. I am sadly naive. Don't even get me started about finding Mike's brown dress shoe in a filled tub.

My favorite thing that Joshy has said recently is actually my fault. See, the boys have figured out that when Mike gets in trouble, I call him Michael. And apparently my Chicago accent is getting stronger. Because the other night, Mike was tickling Josh, and Joshy managed to giggle out, "Stahp it, Michael!" Holy mackerel. Mike and I were rolling on the floor.

Unfortunately, despite my best efforts, Josh still manages to get into trouble and danger. I think the only way I could stop it was if I duck-taped him to the wall and spoon fed him applesauce. Last Friday, the boys were playing in my room while I got dressed, and started playing a game with my closet door. I heard a thunk and a scream and ran out of the bathroom to find that they had knocked Mike's pull-up bar out of the doorway (HOW?!?!?!!?!?!) and it had landed between Joshy's fingers, splitting his hand open pretty deeply.

Want to know how I've been extremely desensitized by motherhood and my medical husband? My immediate thought when I saw Joshy's hand oozing blood was "Oh, let's get you in the bathroom so you don't stain the carpet." Geez, Brittany. At least Joshy is a tough kid. I got him cleaned up and pressed a towel on his hand while I called people and finished getting dressed, and he was sitting on my bed watching Katie and Peter and saying, "Take tissue off! Go play!" Um, no.

So Mike came home from school and asked to take Joshy to the ER for me (seriously, it was like a kid saying, "Mom, can I PLEASE go to the zoo?"), and Katie and Peter and I went to Costco. When we met back home, Josh had two stitches between his fingers and Mike and I had the impossible task of getting Houdini Junior to leave his bandages on.

The kid is ridiculous. We tried just using bandage tape to hold his hand together, but he kept peeling it off and picking at his stitches. At first he wanted to get them off because he thought they were bugs. Now he just thinks they're super cool. Then I tried using an inordinate amount of bandage tape. That stayed on, but I caught him shoving pieces of sandwich and cereal down into his bandage. Now, he lives with a sock duck-taped to his sleeve. It has been quite effective, actually.

Oh, except for meal time, when I have to use more waterproof measures.

I'm actually kinda proud of his hair in this picture, too. Not that he cares at all.

So my boys have been two for a week and a half and we've already had our first ER visit. Yay. At least they had a super cool birthday. 

They're the coolest kids ever. Admit it. The week of their birthday, they even got to go to the zoo because it was the first really nice day this spring. Basically, I took them to a place that was more like their natural habitat. You know, the monkey house.

Peter wanted nothing to do with riding the lion.

Last, but not least, the princess. Want to see something crazy? Here's Katie a month ago.

She doesn't like being told to hold still.

Here is what happened right after this picture was taken.

To be fair, I trimmed her bangs before I remembered to take the "before".

Isn't she just the cutest?!?!?! Now that she's had her little bob for a month, I get weirded out by old pictures of her with long hair. The short hair is just so her. I just see a little blond Ramona Quimby, which I think is an exactly perfect way to think about Katie.

She has really embraced this grown-up new hairdo, as well. Right after this she decided we were going to get more serious about reading practice, and she decided that she was big enough to start . . . PIANO LESSONS!!!! (duh duh duuuuuuuuuuuhhhhhh!!!!!)

My motherly pride is overflowing right now.

So I got out some old lesson books my mom gave me and ordered her a new workbook, and we got started. She's got quarter notes down, and she can usually remember which fingers are which numbers, but we're still a little confused about where to put the fingers. But we'll get there. She is 4, after all. We had the missionaries over for dinner and she was trying to teach them how to clap half notes, and it was funny. I just listened and laughed.

I tell you, this girl is WAY too smart for her own good. And she's curious about EVERYTHING. She especially loves learning about anatomy and Mike's medical stuff. And she's fascinated by this baby. She was only 2 when the boys were born, after all.

Every night, when I'm tucking Katie in, we usually have very long discussions where she teaches me really bizarre songs she's made up (about a cowgirl who has stopped riding her horse and now the cows are waging battle against each other because they've been left alone too long) and then she asks me a whole bunch of questions about anything she can think of to stall me leaving and closing the door. 

The other night, baby came up, and Katie said, "When the baby is born, can I feed her yogurt?" (No, we do not know the gender yet. Katie just is absolutely confident it's a girl. "But mom, I already have two brothers!") Long story short, I ended up having to give Miss Curiosity a lesson in how breastfeeding works. And she LOVED it. Then she was fascinated by the idea that when she grows up and gets married, she could grow a baby in her tummy and feed it, too. "You mean, after I get married, I can have Mommy milk come out of my nipples too?!?!?!"

That girl cracks me up. Almost as great as the time she came prancing out of the bathroom, naked, singing a perky little song about how she has chubby bum cheeks because everyone has chubby bum cheeks. And now Peter sings that song, too.

Isn't she beautiful?

Holy cow, my children. Now, for the rest of the pics.

My little physicians like to give me exams all the time.

Mike, the night he shaved to raise money for St. Baldrick's .

This was his solution to the baldness problem.

The three burritos after tubby night.

Happy Spring!