Well, two weeks into recovery and Joel and I are still married.  :)  That’s good.  But man, I’ve been busy.  Joel has always been incredibly helpful around the house but now that he’s down for the recovery count, I feel like the work never ends.  Preparing for the twin mom group bi-annual sale which occurs on March 9th compounds the situation.  Oh well, I’d rather be busy than bored.

The minute I do slow down, inevitably I get from the boys is “Mommy, play with us.”  We are very much into playing Star Wars right now and I’ve finally been able to get the boys to sit through episode 4, A New Hope (the original Star Wars movie with Luke, Leia and Han).  Nicholas hides his eyes when the movie slows down and squeals with delight during the fight scenes.  How the boys has changed.  Dexter was determined to watch the movie from our dining room but I finally convinced him it was ok to view it in the family room with Joel and Nicky.

One of Joel’s goals for the boys is to have more play dates.  So, last week, we had a play-date on Monday, 2 scheduled for Tuesday but 1 cancelled, preschool on Wednesday, 2 play dates and gymnastics on Thursday and OT and preschool on Friday.  Talk about being booked up.  We discovered that 2 play-dates and gymnastics is a bit too much.  The boys kind of melted down during the 2nd one of the day.  Thank God it was with Kristen and Cooper, people from their old co-op and thus the attitude didn’t phase them.

This past weekend was also spent working on our 10 page family profile for prospective birth moms.  There is a pregnant mom considering giving up her unborn baby girl for adoption in April.  Our profiles were due Tuesday morning.  We worked all weekend revising our old one and attempted to get everything done by Monday.  Once again, that didn’t work.  The agency we are working with is probably getting ticked that we change our profile each time a baby becomes available.  Anyway, Tuesday morning came and we woke up the boys, jumped in the van and drove down to Seattle in rush hour traffic to get our profile in before the 9am deadline. (Time will tell if we get chosen this time.)  Then we decided to explore the Museum of History and Industry, which just happened to have a preschool morning focus that day.  Pretty cool museum.  The boys loved the pink Seattle Toe Truck that was in the museum.  They actually walked around and let us read some of the displays.  A total of 2.5 hours was spent exploring.  Then it was off to another play-date.  At this rate, when Joel reviews my interim performance as a stay at home mom, I should manage to pull in a meets or exceeds expectations.  You can take me out of Boeing but you can’t take the Boeing out of me.  ;)

Attached are a few photos from our museum outing.  I know this blog is boring and has no interesting stories but I’m just plain tired tonight.  I’ll try to do better next time.  Promise.

Poor Joel.  Recovery from arm surgery sucks when you are not allowed to do anything you like – play with Legos, play on the computer, have light-saber battles with your boys.  Thus, it is I who had to become Darth Katieus, Emperor of All.  We just finished watching the second Star Wars movie – Attack of the Clones.  The boys are doing a lot better with the battle scenes.  The only thing we had to fast forward through were those awful Anikan/Padme romantic scenes – YUCK and YUCK.

Anyway, I put on my old Red Riding Hood cape and became Darth Katieus.  We dueled, Jedi Nicholas and Jedi Dexter versus me.  I won some and lost some battles.  The best laugh came when I was attempting to threaten in order to get them to strip down and get on their PJs.  Holding Dexter’s stuffed dog Baby Luke around the neck I shouted “Get undressed or the dog gets it.”  Nicky cheerfully responded “Get what Mommy?”  Now what in the world are you suppose to say to that?  I turned my head and laughed.  Oh, I so love my boys.

Well, Joel’s surgery went well and he managed not to puke.  Almost passed out though getting dressed after the surgery.  Oops.  The boys have been super good to him – making him a cereal bracelet to munch on after getting home and letting him hang out, sleeping off his pain, most of the time.

It’s funny how things happen though.  We are always encouraging Nicholas to drink more water because he seems rather constipated with his little rabbit like turds.  So, it was funny today, the day when Joel’s arm is totally out of commission, that Nicky would have the biggest poop of his life and that it would clog the toilet.  I am not good with a plunger.  The one other time I tried, I managed to splash icky toilet water all over me.  So, with Joel’s management direction, I tried again.  Didn’t work.  Then we almost flooded the bathroom floor.  So, Joel went back upstairs.  I waited for the toilet to drain.  Then I tried again.  With very little water in the toilet, I managed to splash it all over the bathroom, again.  Yuck.  Joel came down, showed me how to do it, used two hands, hurt himself and unclogged the toilet.  MY HERO!!!!!

Now we (Nicky, Dexter and I) make Lego droids and wait for tonight when we celebrate Uncle Too Tall’s birthday.  The natives are getting restless.

Once again, I sit in the waiting room at Evergreen Hospital, blogging, as Joel gets his arm cut open again.  However, this time, I am fresh out of stories to write down.  My previous excuse for not blogging was that Joel and I were caught up in the spell of HBO’s True Blood show.  Well, in 5 weeks we plowed through 5 season’s worth of episodes.  No longer do I have dreams of vampires (or of Alexander Skarsgard).  Instead, I feel a little empty and a whole lot of tired seeing that I gave up on a lot of sleep to watch TV.  It must have been a topic of conversation for a while because I caught Joel showing the boys pictures of what vampires look like.  Then, when I was driving them home from preschool the other day, Nicholas asked me if vampires were real.  ”Nope – but vampire bats are”, I responded.  He asked me where they lived.  ”On the other side of the world.  It would take us day and night to fly there.”  ”Is that Michigan?” he asked.  I smiled and said no, farther than Michigan.  Nicholas let me know that he never wanted to go there.  Dexter, on the other hand, said, “but Nicky, it would be ok.  We could fly there.  We could just fly there and open the door to the airplane to look out to see if we could see them.  Then shut the door and fly home.  We would be ok.  The bats wouldn’t get us.  We could look out the door or window of the airplane.”  Nicky wasn’t too sure about this plan but Dexter was convinced it would work and was trying really hard to calm Nicky down and talk him into it at the same time.  He was so earnest about it.  Utterly adorable.

As you all know, I quit work.  I like staying home with the boys.  However, I am finding out that the mental stimulation is just not there.  Any ideas or suggestions on what to do? I think I’m going to start arranging for a monthly / bi-weekly ladies night out in order to do something that is just for me.  Joel will be home recovering for at least a month (Lord, help us that we don’t all fall to pieces during this time of complete family bonding) so I’ll be able to get projects done around the house as he sits and watches the boys – not being allowed to do anything else – no computer, no Legos, no holding books, etc….  Where was I going with this?  Oh yeah, my identity.  It’s slowing going away.  First my job.  Last week, I sold my car.  My car Marge.  We didn’t need her anymore.   I’m going to miss you Marge.  Thankfully, we sold her to my friend Stephanie.  Nicky told me the other day he misses her too.  He wants to go visit her.  :)  That boy loves his cars.

Well, Joel just told me his surgery will be an hour late.  That sucks when you are hungry.   Let’s see, what else?  Oh, the night Steph and David came over to buy Marge, we got out the Wii for the boys and Maddie and Becka to play.  Nicky and Dexter fell in love with bowling and tennis.  Nicky’s high score in bowling was 154?  Joel and I are flabbergasted.  We then tried to play with them the other night.  Nicky hit Dexter in the arm playing tennis.  I then proceeded to hit Nicky in the head.  Luckily, Joel stayed in the chair and didn’t hurt anyone.  ;)

Over the weekend, we finally managed to watch a Star Wars movie with the boys.  The Phantom Menace to be exact.  After the movie was over, Joel and I confirmed our earlier suspicion that the movie was created for 4 year olds.  Dexter and Nicholas loved Jar Jar Binks and the battle droids.  Our Star Wars legos are very much in play right now.  Yesterday was a sunny, but cold day.  The only way to get them out of the house in order to go on a walk was to pretend we were the Naboo out on a secret mission.  Joel, Nicky and Dexter walked the trail around our neighborhood with swords in hand, battling each other and mysterious bad guys.  At one point in time, a couple walked by.  Joel said not to hurt the strangers.  Dexter raised his sword high over his head as he walked by them, keeping his eye on them the whole time.

Laura, you will be delighted to know that we call the two emus at the zoo, Edward and Edwina.   Daily life is filled with preschool, gymnastic class (of which Nicholas flipped himself over the bar and scared the crap out of all of us – he was fine though), library time, OT and tantrums.  The boys are taking it up a notch with the tantrums.  ”I don’t like you” has turned into “I’m never going to…(enter activity here), I’m going to hit/kick you if I don’t get what I want, and I don’t love you.”  On the flip side, they both also know how to work the love angle too.  Nicholas the other day “Mommy, I want to go with you.  I love spending time with just you.  I love you.”  Dexter hasn’t quite figured out this angle yet, but his comedic timing is still spot on.  We were having a rough night getting ready for bed so I walked away and into the bathroom.  The next thing I know, two pj dressed boys have Kleenex covering there faces and are pretending to be ghosts.  Thankfully, I was brushing my teeth and thus my laughter was smothered.  Oh, and Nicky has a crush on Eliana, a class mate.  We have an upcoming play date schedule and he is over the moon in anticipation.

Well, that is about an hour of random information.  I think I’m going to pack it up and go shopping.  My goal, is to hopefully write something every other day once Joel is home recovering.  I’ll keep you updated on if we need to go to counselling with everyone home.  ;)  Please send Joel your speedy recovery wishes!

Oh, and be prepared to see 3 old posts covering the Christmas time-frame to be posted once I get the pictures in them.  Better late than never.  :)