Cooper Kahn, Glam rocker

..... Will be posting a real blog post in a day or two.... 

Popcorn

The email I sent Brian today, to let him know what he was missing back home:

This is why I don't have time to blog much lately.  Because I spend my time coaching 4-year-olds to blow popcorn seeds out of their sinuses while at the same time, I'm worrying that the offending seed is causing internal bleeding.  

Which 4-year-old snorted the seed you may ask?   

Charlie.  I have no idea why he thought it was a good idea to put the seed in his nose.  Nor do I have any idea what was going on when this gem of a photo was taken.  (I found it in a pile of random shots the other day).   What's up with Charlie? And why do I look like someone just told me that the turkey burger I just ate was actually skunk?

Truth be told, I think I actually wear this expression a lot.   Like today, when Charlie appeared to be hemorrhaging because of a popcorn seed.  Or yesterday when I caught Michael happily playing in a toilet filled with pee.  Or the other day when I stepped in cat puke barefoot.  Or when Charlie charmingly pointed out "Mommy, you have a big bottom."    I'm afraid I am going to wake up one morning, with this expression permanently frozen on my face.

Anyway, back to Charlie and the popcorn seed.  The good news is that we didn't end up back at the doctor's office today for popcorn removal.  Had we gone, it would have been our fourth trip in eight days.  (Three cases of strep last week kept the boys out of school most of the week and me on the brink of insanity).   The bad news is that Charlie now knows how to shoot things out of his nose...

Underpants

Let me preface this blog with a PSA to all mothers of boy multiples.

Once your kids are potty trained, buy 21 pairs of PLAIN WHITE underwear.   Do not get suckered into buying fun underpants that decorate your kids’ bottoms with cartoon characters.  You will thank me for this advice and will be saved countless early morning fights over who gets to wear the coveted Batman underpants that day and who gets stuck with the boring soccer ball undies. 

----

Twice a week after school, the triplets have swimming lessons.   Someone from the preschool takes them from class to the pool and helps them change into their swimsuits, and an hour later,  Michael and I pick them up and take them to the locker room to get dressed.

As you can imagine, the pool locker room is mad chaos.   There are at least 10 shivering preschoolers, their moms or nannies, a handful of naked octogenarians, and Big Mike, who, fortunately, stays content in his chariot as long as he has lots and lots of snacks. 

Last Wednesday, as usual, Charlie got to his locker first.  He’s speedy-- yanked on all his clothes without help. He’s also very impatient.

In the time it takes Charlie to get dressed, Zach’s managed to take off his swimsuit and put on his shirt.  Cooper, meanwhile, has stopped to get water, to pee, to watch his friends, and to peak into the showers.  “GET DRESSED,” I tell him.  He responds that he needs to go potty (again) and disappears.    

Charlie is headed to the exit door.  STOP, I tell him.  I tell Michael to guard the door.  I hope no one notices the pile of soggy cheerios and cookie accumulating around his stroller.

I pull Zach’s blue Spiderman undies out of his locker.   They are crusty. Someone forgot to wipe.

I covertly show Zach the skid-marked underpants and tell him that he can’t wear them.   He’ll just have to go commando, at least until we get home.

Now, this would be reasonable to the normal human being, but not to Zach.  Apparently not wearing underwear is against everything he stands for.  He starts bouncing up and down, lips quivering, on the verge of a major tantrum.  Because I will not let him wear poop-crusted underwear.   I don’t have much time; my patience is wearing thin, Charlie is pushing on the door to leave, Cooper is finally naked, but marching through the locker room waiving his swim trunks like a flag.  Michael’s snacks are almost gone. 

I’ve learned to choose my battles, and I just hoped the other moms weren’t watching as I rolled my eyes and let Zach pull on the dirty britches.

Little did I know that a bigger battle was brewing. 

As Zach is pulling up his pants, Charlie spots the blue Spiderman underpants on Zach and realizes that a terrible mistake has been made. He cannot believe his eyes.   “NOOO!!! Those are MINE! Give those BAAAACK.”  You see, turns out that the poopy undies Zach was refusing to take off, were actually Charlie’s coveted blue Spiderman undies.  The very pair that Charlie himself had worn all day and skidmarked.   There had been a mixup at the lockers when they got changed.  Charlie wanted the underpants back.  That instant.

There is screaming and tears.

Charlie yanks down his own pants to show Zach the mix-up.  He is wearing the WHITE Spiderman underpants that Zach had chosen that morning.  Zach doesn’t care.  He will not take off the poopy blue underwear.

I have a headache.

I look at Michael, whose face and hands are covered with mushy training cookie goo.

I look at Cooper, who is now singing God Bless America, wearing his swim trunks on his head.

I look at the other mothers in the locker room, perfectly cool and calm, with their perfectly cool and calm children, none of whom are wearing soiled underpants, I am sure.

I look at the old ladies and hope they don’t get soggy cheerios stuck to their bare feet (and if they do, that they don't associate them with me).

I man-up and threaten hours of time-out to any child of mine who dares take off underwear or any other article of clothing (except for Cooper who I threaten a 3pm bedtime if he didn’t start putting clothes ON). 

And that, my fellow parents of multiples, is why 21 pairs of matching underwear is the only way to go for your preschooler boys. 

Skills

Today began a new chapter in our lives.

Team Sports.  The much anticipated Micro-Soccer league began this afternoon.
 
Practice began on a high note before it even started when Zach sat in our driveway and stuffed rocks down his socks under his shin guards.

Cooper moved like a robot to the van.  The "pee wee" sized shinguards (the smallest we could find) came over knees.  His socks were like thigh-highs.

Eventually, we arrived at practice, ready to DO THIS.  Today was "skills assessment" day.

I looked around.  Most of the kids were wearing cleats.  My boys were in their brown-leather, rubber soled school shoes.  The ones with the hologram of a dinosaur eye on the side.  (What we lack in skill, we more than make up for in pure intimidation.)  

Unfortunately, the intimidation factor of the bad-ass dinosaur shoes quickly wore off.

Cooper and Charlie held hands midfield.   Zach kept looking for more rocks to add to the collection in his shinguards.
 
I think their favorite part of practice was getting to put their hands on top of the other kids' hands and shout something about teamwork.   To their credit, though, it was hot, and they were trying their best to do the drills.  I was very proud, and they seemed very proud of themselves.

During the skills assessment, I could feel Brian shooting me dirty looks.  I knew what he was thinking.  This was MY fault.  "Don't blame my genes for their lack of coordination,"  I told him. (I may be as unathletic as they come, but I reminded him that HE was the one in an acapella group in college).  

By the end of practice, the boys decided that - despite still having, well, no skills, and really no clue as to what the game entails - they love soccer are super excited for next week's game.  And Brian decided to volunteer to help coach their team. 

Michael and I are looking forward to bringing orange slices and practicing our cheers. 

Cooper's Best Friend

Cooper has a new best friend. A stuffed stegosaurus named Jimmy Jim.

Cooper tells us that Jimmy Jim lives in a house near the Blackhawk Hardware store. (I think this is a lie because Jimmy Jim seems to spend most of his time at our house).  Jimmy Jim also takes yoga classes, and after yoga he eats lunch at IHOP.

I can't make this stuff up.  Neither can Cooper.  This is the stuff that Jimmy Jim tells him.

Charlie is a bit afraid of Jimmy Jim, and I've had to take the dinosaur out of the boys room at night to protect Charlie from being bitten.

That's not all Charlie is afraid of lately.

The boys are I were discussing who looks like who. "You look like me," I say to Zach. I told Charlie he looks a lot like daddy. He started crying. "Nooo! I don't look like daddy.  He doesn't have much hair!!"

In addition to being afraid of losing his hair, Charlie is also afraid of Jeff Burton. That's because Brian found a life-size Jeff Burton cardboard cutout in the garbage at work and just had to rescue him and bring him home. So the tacky piece of trash treasure ended up in the boys' playroom that night, and the next morning, around 6 a.m., the boys discovered the creepy man in the orange jumpsuit. I'm not sure poor Charlie will ever be the same. On the bright side, he probably won't ever be a NASCAR fan.

And now... the scariest thing of all.  Our house.  Please, no judgement.  The other 99% of our day is pure bliss.      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_2xOMgtTFc

Field Trip

This summer I’ve found that the only way for me to keep the big boys from destroying my house, killing each other and driving me insane is to keep them as busy as possible -- usually out of the house.

So the 5 of us take lots of trips.  To the pool, to the park, to the mall, to the Teeter, to the library, you name it.

Yesterday we took a trip to hell.

It started with a Groupon to a place I’d never heard of called Zootastic.  Advertised as kind of a mini-zoo, full of exotic animals, about 45 minutes away.  Sounded like the perfect way for 3 4-year-olds and a 7-month-old to spend a morning.

I should have turned the van around about 20 miles from home when Charlie started shrieking for me to “TURN IT OFF TURN IT OFF TURN IT OFF…” --- referring to the DVD I checked out from the library about clowns, which apparently scared the crap out of him.  Damn clowns.  Charlie was traumatized 20 minutes into our field trip and never fully recovered.  

At about 9:15 we arrived at Zootastic.

There was nothing tastic about this place, at least, not to the group of 4-year-olds I was traveling with.

The “zoo” was basically a large piece of farmland, with a bunch of random, fenced-in animals.  You get assigned to a group with tour guide to take you past each animal.   It wasn’t one of those places you could simply wander around in on your own.

And let me tell you.  Four-year-olds love guided tours. 

In the heat.

With swarming bees.

Cooper was stung about 5 minutes into the tour.   This trauma, compounded with the clown trauma, made Charlie a basket case.  (Perhaps he overheard the helpful gentleman who was worried that Cooper would go into anaphylactic shock and die).  Charlie really needed a Band-Aid too.

After we rejoined the tour, the boys were patient (for about 5 minutes) because I   promised them that (at some point) our tour guide (who was actually very sweet) would let us feed some animals.  After all, I’d paid $6 for them each to have a huge cup of foul-smelling animal feed, which they dutifully carried.  Until the bee sting incident.  After which Charlie and Cooper abandoned their cups (to me).  Zach insisted on carrying his and dropped it about every 100 feet.  Each time he dropped it, he was devastated beyond belief, and I had to bend over (with Michael attached to my back, mind you) to scoop the foul-smelling stuff with my hands. 

At 9:30 a.m., just as we were entering the barnyard animal portion of our tour, Charlie demanded lunch.  And Zach needed SOMPHING TO DWINK MOMMY SOMPHING TO DWINK. Cooper just kept on the lookout for bees.

And so it went for the next 45 minutes, as we continued our tour down “safari row” (which contained fenced-in cows, goats, donkeys, and other assorted safari animals).  When is lunch?  Can we leave? What DVDs do we have in the car? What are we doing after quiet time?  This is not fun.  Bees!?! Somphing to dwiiiiiink. Somphing to dwiiink.

At about 10:15, when Zach collapsed and claimed he could no longer walk because of the volume of wood chips (and animal feed) that had gotten into his sandals, I gave up.  We abandoned the tour.

I tried to give the boys a snack and feed Michael some pureed sweet potatoes at a picnic table, but when the bees started to swarm, we made a beeline to the car.

And poor little Michael had been so good, so patient the entire trip that he decided to scream the ENTIRE 45 minute drive home.

And the boys (despite being terribly unhappy by the selection of DVDs I’d chosen for the field trip) complained the whole way home that they couldn’t hear said unsatisfactory DVDs because of the constant screaming.

All in all, a great day.  Can't wait to go back.  I think Zach still has some feed in his shoes we need to return.  Next time, though, I'll find some extra preschoolers to bring with me, just to make the experience that much more delightful.  

[This incident aside, we've had a really wonderful summer.  Will post some pics of the gang and an update in the next day or so!]

We are 4!!

The boys turned 4 today!!!  And we celebrated with nearly 30 preschoolers and a bouncehouse/waterslide in our backyard.

And now... it's time for the annual "Cooper Kahn v. The Slide" photos. 

Don't worry --- truth is, for the first time, Cooper actually enjoyed the waterslide.

Speaking of the truth, apparently not all 4-year-olds understand the concept...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2spVKa3uso&feature=youtube_gdata_player 

The Tunis Problem

People ask me all the time: Do the boys have their own secret language?

I've heard rumors that twins can develop their own "twinspeak," but my boys really never have. Until now.

The past few months we've had a problem with potty mouths. "Can we have diarrhea for dinner?" "Pee-nis, pee-nis, pee-nis" (chanted as they congo around the room). You get the point. At first I thought it was a phase. Until the phase didn't stop after a few days. And the boys would feed off each other and seemed to be in competition for who could use the word "penis" at the most inappropriate time and make the others laugh the hardest.  Finally I made threats and told the boys that they could not use these words unless they were in the bathroom.  (That would solve the problem, right? Ha.)  Cooper and Charlie ignored me and continued to get in trouble for their dirty mouths. Zach would run to the bathroom for the sole purpose of shouting out the forbidden words (he's big on rules, that Zach.  And I did say they could use them in the bathroom...)

And then last week the boys kept talking about "tunis." Tunis-this and tunis-that (i.e. "you a tunis!", "hey tunis!", "what are you doing tunis?"), followed by hysterical laughter. This had been going on for several days. And when they were getting ready for their bath one night and talking about their tunises, I realized what they had been doing. Making up a secret language for their potty mouths. Circumventing my rules.

So then I started wondering whether I could/should put them in timeout for use of the word "tunis"?? You can't call your mother a tunis and get away with it... right?  RIGHT??

And at the same time that I am pondering this whole tunis situation, I'm reading the recent (and controversial) book, The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. I can only imagine what the tiger mama would have to say about the tunis problem and my parenting skills (her girls were deep into piano lessons and math by age 3. I highly doubt they were singing songs about poop and tunises). But were they making up their own language?  I think not.  That's real talent.











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Taking the Gloves Off

Last weekend, the boys and my dad built a mean vegetable garden in our backyard.  Granddad did 105% of the work.  The boys, -5%.  We had two issues.  First, Zach lost his pants.  Second, and more problematic (because, really, isn't gardening while wearing pants a bit overrated?), we only own 2 pairs of gardening gloves.  One of those pairs were being worn by my dad, leaving two other single gloves for three boys to fight over.  And they were willing to fight to the death over those damned gloves.   

So this weekend, Granddad (who, to the boys, is even cooler than Handy Manny, if you can believe it) was visiting again, and this time the project was replacing one of our sprinkler heads.  Another project involving shovels and dirt.  The boys were beside themselves, and couldn't wait to help, and were even more excited because this was an opportunity to wear their brand new, very own pairs of gardening gloves that Grammy had brought especially for them:

I have to hand it to my mom. Her idea prevented another world war. 

A bit later, it occurred to one of the boys that he had seen these gloves somewhere before...  These weren't JUST their special gardening gloves. "These wook wike dentist gwoves too!!!"

Back up and running

Hello friends and family!!  It's been a tad busy over here, hence the lack of any updates.  So without further ado...

Michael (a.k.a. The Fat One) is large and in charge, weighing in at over 17 pounds (90th percentile, thank you very much). Fat and happy as can be. TFO is fascinated by his big brothers, who are less than fascinated by him. "He doesn't have teeth, mommy," they keep reminding me (apparently the day he grows teeth he'll be worthy of their attention). Every once and a while one of the big boys will show him some lovin', but he usually gets ignored. His big brothers are just too busy playing and too involved in destroying my house, trying to kill each other, flushing plastic people down the toilet, chanting the words "diarhea" and "penis" over and over and over and over again in their own lives to worry a whole lot about Michael.

Big Mike today.

1 week old.  Nice, fluffy hair.

TFO's been a great baby. When I'm chasing the big boys around outside, Michael's perfectly content to ride along on my back.  (To all of my pregnant friends: buy the ErgoBaby carrier NOW).  And when we're inside, he's pretty happy just watching the crazies in action. We've only had three real issues with TFO. First, his need for attention at 3 a.m. He's a terrible sleeper. And in that respect, it's been a long first five months. Second, something is terribly wrong with his hair. At birth, he had thick, beautiful hair. The recent metamorphosis of his hair into something Trump-esque on top and bald in the back is a bit disturbing. Third, he only poops about once every 10 days at best. And let me tell you something. There is no outfit (let alone a diaper) on this earth that can contain the volume of poop that comes out of a child who hasn't pooped in two weeks.  Last explosion happened while I was nursing him, at the gym.  I'll just stop right there, because I don't ever want to relive those moments. 

The big boys are great. They are about to graduate from their 3-year-old preschool class, which terrifies me because it means the summer is here, and SCHOOL IS OUT. Last summer (I was newly pregnant and potty training)  (the boys, not myself) nearly did me in. Age 3 to 3.5 was rough.  But when the boys turned about 3.5, they suddenly became so much more mature. OK, so I use the word "mature" extremely, extremely loosely, but let's just say that poop painting appears to be a thing of the past.  The boys are best buds, and the best thing about multiples is that your kids have constant playmates and (for better or worse) partners-in-crime.

Before I sign off, a quick shout-out and thank you so very much to all who supported our March of Dimes team this year.  We exceeded our goal and raised over $1100! 

At the 2011 March for Babies, showing off their signs on Ambassador Row.

Thanks for checking in.  Now that I've done an official update, I'm back on the blog wagon.  Will start reporting again regularly on the delights and chaos of living in a zoo raising 4 under 4.