Last night was the first night in a long time that Kari and I actually took time for just the two of us together. We learned how to play Backgammon and she beat me 4 out of 5 games. It is easy to get caught up with all the day to day things that need to be done with four kids and miss out on your spouse.
Here are some more random events that I thought that I should commit to digital paper before I forgot them.
This morning I made French toast for the girls. I had Rylee and Reagan sit at the dinning room table and served them a hot, freshly buttered, slice. They like it with powdered sugar and who wouldn't? I returned to the kitchen to prepare some for the little girls. A few moments later Rylee called to me. "Dad, I sneeze."
"What"
"I sneeze."
"You sneezed?"
"Yes, I sneeze."
"Okay."
I didn't think much more about it. Rylee always needs to have what ever she says repeated back to her. If you don't repeat after her, she will go on saying whatever it was until you lose your mind. So it is easy to just repeat without considering the consequences of what she just said. A few minutes later I peeked into the dinning room to see how they were doing. There was powdered sugar spread across the entire table. I didn't think that I put that much on there, but it looked like a sugar bomb had gone off with Rylee's plate as ground zero. I just wish I would have seen the actual blast. I bet it sent a white cloud nearly to the ceiling.
The twins have become very difficult to change lately. I don't recall ever having much of a problem changing Rylee and Reagan's diapers. Now as soon as you unfasten the little Velcro straps the twins thrust their hands down between their legs. They seem more motivated when it is really messy. Normally I would just brush their hands away and that would be the end of it, but now they are persistent. You push the hands away from the front and they reach behind and pull the diaper out from under them. When you focus on the diaper that is askew they switch back to the front. It has gotten so bad that I try to hold both hands and both feet while changing anything other than a damp diaper. It probably need not be said that they don't approve of this technique and squirm even more.
We took all four kids out to IHOP and then to the park yesterday. I was proud of us for getting out with all of them. It is still a daunting task, but we did it. This was the first time that the twins have ever been to a park and as you might expect they were off in all directions to explore. It is a challenge to keep an eye on all four at once, even with two adults. I was supprised that Madison seemed more independent than Jordan. Jordan hung around Mom for the most part with a minimum of wandering. Madison, on the other hand, took off and was not to be detured. Hanging out around the jungle gym was not what she had in mind, until she discovered the sand. She was having a ball digging. We had kept a pacifier in their mouths witch prevented them from sucking on their sandy hands, for awhile. It eventually occured to Madison that she should sample some of that sand and apparently she found it to her liking. She liked it so much that I was unable to stop her from getting a second handful into her mouth. While I was trying to brush off the pacifier she tried to reload her mouth with her right hand, witch I successfully blocked, followed immediately by the left hand, I blocked this one too, and she finally succeeded in scooping up more sand with her right and getting it too her mouth. I couldn't believe how fast she was. This all happened in about four seconds, afterwitch I picked her up so the sand would be out of reach. After I got the binky cleaned off and reinserted I figured that she would lose interest in the sand eating. Nope. As soon as I set her down she slung the binky to the ground and grabbed two handfuls of sand to put in her mouth. I was ready this time and she didn't get very far. Madison spent the rest of the day at the park in Dad's arms. Maybe that was her goal in the first place.
It was also the first time that the twins got to walk in shoes. We have not bothered with shoes much since the twins arrived. We don't really go out all that much and up to this point we kept them in the stroller. They were not quite sure what to make of them. They walked around doing the goose step for awhile and there were a few tumbles, but they seem to be getting the hang of it.