Apparently, my children are going to alternate their stages of terrible two-dom.  Excellent in that we never have two mini hoodlums at once.  Sucky in that there is always one tiny tyrant in my house.  Emma first hated (and I mean haaaaaaaaaated) getting dressed in the mornings.  Then James hated everything at dinner time.  Now he is over that and Emma has begun a mad love affair with pens.

Pens.  Like ballpoint ink pens.  85% of the time, she uses them to scribble on random scraps of paper she finds.  It’s actually kind of cute because she acts like she is writing notes to people as we dictate.  ”Dear Gamma, I luff you.  Luff, Emma.”  The remain 15% of the time is shared between writing in books, on furniture or her skin.  And that is the “no me gusta” part.  Tim and I have decided to wean her off of the inky smack she’s addicted to by completely denying the existence of pens when she is most likely to use their powers for evil (and also looking into washable markers and those invisible magic marker dohickeys).

That explanation was to set up this conversation between two grown-ups and a 2 year old.

Emma: I need PEN.

Me: Sorry, we don’t have any pens.

Emma: (wailing) Mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy!

Me: Emmy, Emmy, Emmy,Emmy,Emmy,Emmy.

Emma: Mommy, NO!

Me: (in an attempt to distract her) Emma, did you have a good day today with Mrs. Bekah?

Emma: NO, Mommy!

Daddy: Did you read any books?

Emma: DADDY, NO!

Me: Did you play with Linus the puppy?

Emma: NO NO!

Daddy: Did you color any pictures?

Emma: Daddy, NO!

Me: Did you take a nap?

Emma: Mommy, NO!

Daddy: Did you eat lunch?

Emma: NO DADDY!

*Cue us cracking up because she was so adamant that she did NOTHING all day and her life was over because of the lack of pens in her grubby little fingers*

Me & Daddy: AHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAH!

Emma: You’re not funny.

Oh contrare, wee one.  I’m pretty sure I am hilarious!

The official start to summer was, for the first time in a LONG time, crazy hot in Ohio.   It was over 90 degrees with mostly full bright sunshine the whole time.  My parents came to visit for the long weekend and it was the perfect summer weekend.   Food from the grill, smell of just-cut grass, popsicles that melt too fast, and… playing outside in the water.

The previous weekend was pretty warm too, so we set the sprinkler up in the yard for the kids to play in.  Mackenzie, being almost ten, is well acquainted with the awesome fun of jumping through the sprinkler.  James was tentative at first, only going up to the edge of the spray, but getting into it when Mackenzie jumped through with him.  Emma, on the other hand, would not even leave the back deck.  In fact, when Tim got out the hose to fill up the baby pool, she clung to me for dear life (still on the deck) and screamed her fool head off.   Once the hose was off, she approached the baby pool with much weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth (since there was no one left on  the deck to play with) but eventually would dip her hands in and splash around.   James would stand in the pool, but refused to sit.

The next weekend with Grandma and Pawpaw present, both kids were brave little rockstars.  It was so flippin’ hot, I think they needed the cool-down from the water.  We couldn’t stay out long since we are all pretty pale folks, but both kids loved the baby pool.  We had the hose out to spray people (*hand up* okay just me) when they got too hot.  For whatever reason, that still freaked Em out, even though no one was spraying her.  We quickly discovered that she was juuuuuuuust fine with the hose if SHE got to hold it.  She would spray down anyone who asked and even sprayed herself.  Not like she wants to be the boss or anything.  *cough cough*

But thanks to Grandma and Pawpaw, we had a stellar start to summer 2011 and some wonderful pictures to prove it!

It takes mad concentration to step into the pool unassisted.  Tongue out = Emma concentrating.

The familial paleness cannot be denied with this one.  But how cute are the lizard swim trunks?  Or as James calls them, “Dino Swims!”

Emma, Queen of the Hose.

Filling this wagon with random crap is tiring!   Hey, Em, bring that hose over here!!

So yeah, it’s been 27 days since I posted last.  Sorry!   No excuses except that twin toddlers + pregnant mama = complete brain shut down.  So one excuse, I guess  I have some cute photos and stories to share, but it is getting late so I just wanted to share a couple of photos of Peanut (the nickname for the new baby).

We’re 20 weeks along, so halfway done!  We had a high level ultrasound earlier this week and hoped to see the baby’s sex, but in the grand tradition of Hornbeck-Fox babies, this one was way too shy to show the goods.  We have one more shot to see them next month, than otherwise, we have to wait and see when they come.  But we did get to see Peanut’s sweet baby face!

James was admiring/ playing with the sequins on my shirt this morning.

Me: “They’re sparkles.”
James: “Oooooh, sharkles.”

I think I officially like the word “sharkles” better.

So yeah, food.  I think I probably blog too much about toddlers and food, but it is always at the forefront of my mind.  I have a very very picky 9 year old to feed who would rather poke herself in the eyeball with a rusty fork than eat a green bean or anything “exotic” (but guess who tried a blueberry? *dies of shock*).  Plus with the potential for future battle with the bulge, I want to give Emma and James the best possible foot forward.

So the thing Tim and I try to do the most is continue to eat a variety of foods and offer it to the twins to try.  We know their standby favorite and we enjoy a spaghetti dinner night too, but sometimes we like different stuff.  Most of the time I anticpate that I will put a plate in front of them, promptly recieve the toddler stink-eye and then go find the cheese and crackers.  But every once in a while they surprise me.

Last night Tim made dirty rice with kielbasa coins for dinner (can I get a woot woot for a yummy dinner not made by me?)  I figured the little bit of “kick” the dirty rice had would be enough to stop J&E in their tracks.  But… but! Emma ate 3 or 4 bites of rice and kieldbasa before she gave up and wanted something else.  James ate all of his meat and probably half his rice!  I was so so proud!  New foods!  Different foods!  (And James has now proven his track record for liking spicy foods.  The boy can put down some chips and salsa!)

So to go along with their orange segments and milk, Emma had a PB&J.  And since I think James is going through a growth spurt right now, he demanded one too.

Hooray!  I ate good AND got a PB&J!

Guess who just destroyed her sandwich?

And guess who got their behinds dumped into the bathtub to clean that mess up?

There sure are plenty of joys being a Mom of Twins.  The holding of each other’s hand, the quirky mirror movements when they’re babies, the playing together, giving each other kisses.  And we expect the challenges – sleep deprivation, expense of diapering/feeding two babies at once, etc.  I even expect the challenges common with new developmental stages – like the terrible two’s.  One thing I didn’t anticipate was how differently each kid would challenge me.

Both James and Emma are firmly in the “NO!” stage.  But they go about things so so differently.  James thinks “no!” is a game.  When you ask him to do something he is about 50-50 between doing it and happily accepting the praise, and giving you a sly smile and hollering “NO!” before he runs away.  He’ll usually stop after a few feet to turn back around and grin at you.  To him, saying no is fun.

Emma, on the other hand, either does what you ask, or she throws epic meltdowns.  Getting dressed in the mornings, to Emma, is tantamount to being stabbed with hot pokers.  Snot running, face streaking, kicking screaming fits.  What makes this all the much more painful for me is that her “no” is almost always a screamed, “No, Mommy!” no matter who is doing the changing/diapering/feeding etc.  I rationally know that she probably just started using that phrase with me and it became a habit that “Mommy” always follows “no.”  But I can’t deny that it stings a little that so much of her negative experiences come with my name on her tongue.

So I need to come up with my ways of dealing with two totally different versions of this stage of toddler-hood.  So far, the only things I have come up with is to call in the reenforcements when I am starting to get too frustrated.  Any other ideas?

It was a beautiful day today, one of those first 70 degree days with bright sunshine that serve as reminders that, even though we live in Ohio, spring has to come eventually.  And even though Daylight Savings Time severely messed with our bedtime/wake-up routines, we would take advantage of the sunlight hours after work and play in the back yard for the first time in a looooong time!

At first Emma and James just kind of followed me around the yard as I checked out our black raspberry bush, bamboo plants and the site for the vegetable garden.  That is, until Daddy brought out the balls and wagon to play with!  Then it was a kicking, running, throwing, climbing whirlwind!  It was actually a lot of fun to spend and hour or so out there before dinner and watch the kids play.  And James officially earned his first grass stains ever!

Look Emmy, this door makes getting in the wagon really convenient.  I’ll show you!

Yay!  We both have a seat!

Faster, Daddy!  Mush!  Mush!!

No, Mommy!!  I do NOT want to go inside!

Me either, Mommy!  I’m not getting out of this wagon!  What?  It’s dinner time?  Okay, I’m coming!

Hey, this is the famous (or is it infamous) FoxTwins Daddy.  I’m taking over the blog tonight and stepping out from the shadows to post a video I had floating around on my cell phone.  I’ve been wanting to post it for awhile, but didn’t want to split it up due to it being 14 minutes long and YouTube only allowing 10 minute video’s.

On that note, YouTube just increased the time limit to 15 minutes.  So now I can post the whole thing without having to split it up.

Without further adieu, here is James getting his first haircut.

Emma & James are excited to announce that they are going to be a big sister and big brother!!  Mackenzie will reprise her role as elder stateswoman of the Fox siblings.  Peanut will join the motley crew in September!

High – Tim took me to Don Pablos for dinner Saturday night.  (Does it count as date night if two two-year olds and sippy cups were involved?)

Low – We had a drive an hour to get there.

High – Queso dip and fajitaaaaaaaaas.

Low – So much queso dip and fajitas I could hardly walk back to the car.

High – I got to take nice naps both Saturday and Sunday.

Low – Absolutely no housework got done because I was otherwise occupied (aka napping).

High – It had been raining continuously ala Noah-style, so I was hoping it would stop raining.  It did.

Low – It freaking snowed instead.

How was your weekend?