You have woman hips

Yeah.  Not exactly what you want to hear from your doctor.  Ok, maybe that wasn't exactly what he said but given my wonderfully supportive and understanding wife, that's what it's been twisted in to.

Those of you that know me well know that I have taken up running in the last few months.  Why?  I don't know.  I used to run a lot but after high school all came to a screeching halt.  You know, there was partying, studying, work, marriage, kids blah blah blah.  Life in general happened.  Well my wife suggested I run a 5K run here in Tulsa and my good friend agreed to run it with me.  I started training.  One mile at first, then two.  It wasn't long before 3 miles didn't sound so bad.  I ran the 5K without any issues and it felt great.  Running is like a bad addiction.  I'm to the point now that a half marathon doesn't sound that bad.  It's a vicious cycle. 

My training was going very well until a couple of weeks ago when my knee started hurting.  Great, just what I need. A reminder that I'm not 18 any more.  Through some good advice from family, friends and my current doctors, I found a doctor in town that specializes in treating runners and running injuries.  Today was my first visit with him.  It was an hour long evaluation and a 30 minute treatment.  But let's not get ahead of myself.

First thing was a quick run around the parking lot.  He filmed me from every different angle you can imagine.  We came back in and he watched me walk, did all sorts of functional movement tests etc. etc. The entire time he was looking at me I would just hear him say.  

"Wow, that's cool." or

"Can I take a picture of this for one of my blogs or Facebook posts?"

Apparently I'm quite the specimen, in a really wonked up kind of way.  I'm not going to pretend to know all the medical terms for the problems I have but here is the synopsis.  I have a problem with my hips that he frequently sees in women.  Something about the angle at which my leg bone comes out of my hip.  It twists my entire leg in a weird fashion.  To compensate of course, my lower leg bones are twisted as well.  That's pretty awesome because the end result is that my feet are pointed out, not forward like they should be.  My hips also tilt forward instead of being level.  That apparently isn't correct either.

All that is really pretty irrelevant because my lovely wife latched on to "I have woman hips".  He did some treatments on me to start correcting some of my problems.  Then he shaved my leg, taped them and my foot up and sent me on my way.  The issues certainly aren't resolved but I feel like I'm working with someone who understands what I am going through and feels like he can help me work through it.  

My supportive wife was of course peeing herself while I was telling her about my visit.  Thanks honey.  Love you too.

Exasperated!

That's the only word I can think of to describe my mental state this evening.

Let me say this, I want nothing more than for my children to be strong willed and independent people who can think for themselves and not be afraid to voice their opinions.  That being said, I also expect them to be respectful and polite, ESPECIALLY to their elders.  There in lies the basis of my exasperation.

My daughter is going to turn 5 years old in about a month.  Maybe.  Recently we have been struggling with her attitude.  It is pretty clear that I have a strong willed girl on my hands, which is good, we have just been unable to figure out how to mold that will into the upstanding citizen we expect.  I know, she's only five.  My fear is that if she acts like this now, she is destined to be one of THOSE adults.  That is simply not an option.

She has had a lot happen to her in the last couple of years.  First of all she went from the only child, to one of three.  In addition she moved up to a "Big Girl" school.  She started pre-k in August.  Every day the school sends home every kid with a Green, Red or Yellow to indicate how they behaved that day.  She seems to go through stages of green followed by a streak of yellow and sometimes even red.  Since returning to school after the Christmas break, she has had more yellows than greens.  Not only that, but the infractions seem to be getting worse.  Today she received a yellow for being mean to her friends and bossing the teachers around.  Seriously?  Bossing the teachers?  And not only that but the teacher told me she had several warnings before being moved to yellow and after being moved to yellow she continued to act up.  Apparently she was on the verge of red.  WTH?!?!?!?!

After we came home this evening the antics continued.   After she was allowed to come down stairs, we all sat down at the table for dinner.  We were talking about how she had acted today and I said something to her, I can't even remember what it was.  I probably can't remember because I had a small aneurism when she repeated what I said in her best 2 year old mocking voice.  I seriously wanted to reach across the table and slap her lips off of her face.  That resulted in a time out, and my wife laughing at me when the 4 year old was out of earshot.  I pointed out that it probably wouldn't be so funny had it happened to her.

After dinner, she was playing with her brothers.  I walked around the corner just in time to see her kick the crap out of her brother.  She just walked up behind him and kicked him.  Back to time out followed by a shower and straight to bed.

So here we are.  All the kids are in bed but I still have heartburn.  I try to tell myself that she's only 5 and this is just a phase, but I am terrified that we will not be able to get this attitude problem under control.  I don't want my child to be THAT teenager/adult.  You know the ones, those people you would like to punch in the face on a regular basis.  Why don't these damn things come with a manual?

I think i'm going to go have a drink.

Monkey See

Hey there my loyal and long neglected blog followers.  I hope some of you are still there.  We recently celebrated the one year birthday of our twin boys.  Things are starting to seem somewhat normal in our home and I am reasonably sure we are going to survive.  In the beginning, the first six months, I was completely and totally unprepared.  As I discussed in one of my first blog posts, we really thought we had this parenting thing under control with the Diva.  We had even talked ourselves in to believing that twins would not be that much different than one.  We were wrong.

Tonight was a guys night around our house.  Not the typical drinking beer, watching football and grunting like apes kind of guys night, but it was most certainly a guys night.  Let me explain.

Mom, Diva and a few other girls are attending the Taylor Swift concert tonight.  Now, this is probably on of the major highlights of Diva's life.  She refers to Taylor Swift as her sister and can sing most of her songs from memory.  She's 4, it's ridiculous.  Ok, so I come home early from work so the girls can go out and eat before the concert and they are out the door soon after 5:00 pm.  The boys haven't eaten dinner yet, however, they were surprisingly happy.  This is somewhat of an anomaly lately as they have been in some strange growth spurt, teething, generally pissy mood.  We play for a while as their super healthy frozen mini corn dog meal is heating in the oven.  Hey, I said it was a guys night.  I sat them down for dinner and they ate like horses.  Does she EVER feed them?  Once dinner is finished I wipe them down and put them in the floor to play while I clean up the kitchen.

When the kitchen was clean I decided to play with them in the floor for a while.  They are even happier now than they were before bedtime.  While I sit in the floor, Donkey keeps bringing me books and playing in his new chair.  Shrek will go play with his toys for a while then come give me a hug, then go play with his toys again.  This is where the most guy thing of all guy things occurred.  It all started like this, I farted.  I know, crude, but it happens so let's move on.  At the time, Donkey was strolling across the floor and upon my event occurring, he looked at me, stuck out his tongue and made a fart noise.  He then proceeds to laugh so hard he falls over in the floor.  I have never seen him laugh so hard in my life.  I was afraid he was going to hyperventilate.  I'm talking one of those mouth open, belly shaking, toes curling laughs.  His brother is looking at him like he is an idiot and he comes over and gives me a hug.  I assure him his brother will be fine and everyone goes about their business.  Now, I was thinking about the whole chain of events and I had convinced myself it was pure coincidence.   Until he did it three more times.

If you follow me on Facebook you know that not long ago I had a status that went something like this.  "Donkeys latest developmental milestone is sticking out his tongue and making fart noises."  But, it was just something he did.  He had certainly never done it on cue, and in the correct context.

So we had our fun and played in the floor for a few more minutes when Shrek strolled over to me, gave me a hug, laid down in the floor and farted.  Without missing a beat Donkey looked over at me and made his new favorite noise.  They both laughed at each other and went on about their business.

Ross Car Bomb - On The River

I knew from the moment she walked in the door this evening that it was going to be a special evening.  I wasn't wrong.  Cinderella was full of piss and vinegar, more so than usual.  If you are friends with my wife and I on Facebook you have already been treated to a couple of her "observations".  But I'll repeat them here.

First of all, I was helping one of our friends put together a pre-fabricated shelf for her desk at work.  You know, one of the little pressboard things with pre drilled holes.  Now, anytime I am assembling anything in the floor, little miss thing is right there up in my stuff.  Tonight was no exception.  Now that she's 4 years old, she is not content to just observe quietly.  So here is what she said:

Cinderella: "Dad, let me do that because I'm really good at screwing..."

Me: "Well so is your mother but you don't see her over here helping."
Cinderella: "Huh?"

At this point my wife and our friend are trying not to let her see them laugh and diva is just looking at me like I just said something to her in Arabic.  I dropped it and let her use the screwdriver.

Now that the work was done for the evening, it was time to get some food.  As you know, we have twins.  That means it is a little more difficult than just "running out to get a bite" than it was before.  Tonight everyone decided we needed to get out of the house and go to a restaurant.  We take the boys out and put them in their car seat, all the while deflecting the 475 million questions that come out of the 4 year olds mouth in any given moment.  I swear, I have never heard one human being say so many words in my entire life.  Some of them are questions, but mostly it's just a non stop yammering.  Our friend chose to just ride with us.  Even with twins this is possible because believe it or not there are two free seats in the back of the swagger wagon.  However, in order to get in to them you have to squeeze by the booster seat where Cinderella has built a little fort of crap to keep her entertained.  She doesn't need an air bag back there because of all the stuff.  This is where the next zinger that is worth mentioning comes in.

Our friend is putting Donkey in his car seat and Cinderella is, in true form, yammering non stop behind her and trying to push her way into the van and to her seat.  

Our Friend: "Hold on girl, I have to get my fat butt in there before you get in!"

Cinderella: "It's not a fat butt!  It's a VAGINA!"

We both look at each other.  Wha?  Her mother had just walked into the garage and caught the end of the conversation and is looking at me like I knew what the hell was going on.  Oh no sweet pea, this is your doing.  You were adamant that she know all the proper anatomical names for all of her body parts.  Well, there ya go.

Now, I was a little nervous because it was almost the boy's bedtime at this point and I was quite certain that the trip to the restaurant was going to be entirely unpleasant.  Turns out I was wrong.  We had a lovely evening.  We decided to go to Los Cabos in Jenks.  It's a reasonably tasty Mexican restaurant situated on the Arkansas river and they have a patio.  It was such a beautiful day that we were up for that.  Plus there are typically a lot of people stirring around which helps to keep the boys entertained.  We arrive at the restaurant and not only do they have a patio table available for immediate seating but there is a live band playing.  PERFECT!!!!

I know many of you reading this do not know my daughter.  I swear sometimes I don't.  She's outgoing, nothing embarrases her and she thrives on being the center of attention.  I honestly don't know where she gets it.  Another trait she has is the inability to sit still when ANY music is playing.  We leave the TV on a lot in the background with our iTunes library playing throughout the day.  When it is time for dinner, we have to turn it off or she will just sit at the table and dance instead of eating.  Well, you can imagine about how much luck we had getting her to eat with a live band playing.

I'm going to go ahead and apologize in advance for the shaky video.  I couldn't hold still because I was laughing so hard.  You can also hear the crowd reacting to her antics.  While you can not see them in the video, off to the left of the shot, there were probably 75-100 people watching her.  She lapped it up!!!

This dancing and carrying on went on for a good 30-45 minutes.  There were other people taking pictures and cheering her on.  I should probably check you tube this evening.

When she finally tuckered out and we were leaving the restaurant she asked us.  Daddy, can we come back to ross car bomb - on the river sometime?  Sure honey, as long as you promise to dance again. 

On the way home we lost the boys.

And when we pulled in to the garage, Cinderella was out as well.

Time Marches On

Tomorrow my twin boys will be 6 months old.  Ugh.  Honestly, the last six months of my life have been a roller coaster.  Very little of which I remember.  It's all a blurry mess.  But the fog seems to be lifting.  They aren't sleeping through the night yet.  They roll over on their back and chat with their mobiles for thirty or forty five minutes before they get really pissed and scream at the top of their lungs until we flip them over and give them a pacifier.  That's right, we are the proud parents of pancakes.

We have twin boys, but when you get to know them they couldn't be more different.  It's certainly not what I expected when we found out we were having twins.  Not only are they not identical, their personalities are FAR from identical.

Shrek is the jolly old fat happy kid of the two.  For the most part, if he has been fed, is dry and has something to gnaw on, he's a happy camper.  He laughs at everything, especially his dad.  Not just little smiles but deep wrenching belly laughs.  He was 18lbs a couple of weeks ago when we went to the doctor.  He's definitely the larger of the two.  All those things are what he is, here's what he isn't.  He's not what I would call "a thinker".  He flirts with Cinderella's dolls and looks confused when they don't talk to him.  He shrieks at scantily clad women on the television.  And he drools.  Goodness he drools.  He's that kid that has to wear a bib at all times.  At least it isn't a helmet, right?

Donkey on the other hand is the stoic quiet type.  While he will occasionally smile at you, for the most part he just looks at you.  I never thought a six month would be able to make me feel like such an idiot, but he has managed.  While I'm acting like a fool trying to entertain his special brother, he's just starring at me with an air of disappointment.  He's like Stewie on Family Guy.  If he could talk, I'm sure it would be condescending.  Donkey seems to be about two or three weeks behind his brother developmentally.  He's not rolling from his back to his belly yet, which is his brothers latest trick.  He does, however, eat from a spoon much better than his brother.  He LOVES sweet potatoes and about any other orange vegetable.  Green beans on the other hand are completely unacceptable.  He's up to 16lbs now and if he keeps eating like he has been, he's going to catch his brother in no time.

Cinderella turned 4 a few weeks ago.  She clearly loves her brothers to death and will not leave the house in the morning without giving them hugs and kisses.  The boys on the other hand look at their mother and I like "she scares the hell out of me".  It amazes me the way her mind works.  She seems like such a big girl these days.  On the other hand, we have had some attitude problems that we have been attempting to put an end to.  I've always heard about the dreaded teenage years, but it seems like she may have started a little early.

Last weekend we had a house full of teenage girls, Jayna's niece and her friends came to Tulsa to shop for prom dresses.  As a result, I was awarded the dubious honor of staying at home with the twins.  Alone.  Not the first time I had taken care of the boys by myself, but this time I decided I needed to run some errands.  Jayna does this all the time and I respect her immensely for her lack of fear.  I on the other hand am not as accustomed to the trials and tribulations of taking twins to any retail establishments.  I planned my trip carefully.  I had all my stops mapped out and the order in which they were going to occur.  My first stop, The Home Depot.  I pull into the parking lot and the trial begins.  Get the stroller, put the car seats in, strap on the diaper bag, make sure they are warm then we head in to the building.  So there I am, strolling through a hardware store with two babies, a land train of a stroller and my extremely stylish paisley covered Petunia Pickle Bottom diaper bag swinging nonchalantly from the stroller.  I had to buy a hammer just to man up the trip a little bit.

We made a couple more stops after the hardware store and we all survived.  I feel like I'm getting better at this father of twins stuff.  Maybe it's more growing accustom to it than getting better at it.  I guess time will tell as it seems to keep marching on whether I like it or not.

Clarification for all you ladies

It never ceases to amaze me the sheer volume of products it takes to maintain a woman.  Give a guy a bar of soap, a toothbrush and some deodorant and we’re good to go.  My wife on the other hand has an entire arsenal of salves, lotions, creams, scrapers, sanders, pluckers, pickers, pushers and on and on.  This brings me to my story.

The other day we were asked by a close friend to order something for them from Amazon because we have Amazon Prime.  This was not a problem and the product arrived a couple of days later.  The product that we ordered happened to a Clarisonic Mia.  The description of this new fangled device from the manufacturers web site is: “Clarisonic developed the sonic technology proven to gently yet effectively loosen dirt and oil to clear your pores. The Sonic Skin Cleansing System uses a patented sonic frequency of more than 300 movements per second to clean, soften and smooth your skin. In just 60 seconds a day, the micro-massage action cleans more than twice as effectively as manual cleansing.”  It’s a vibrating face brush.  It’s very similar to the Sonicare toothbrush, but for your face.

Now, astonishingly, my wife did not have one of these primping devices and was naturally drawn like a moth to a flame.  It arrived in the middle of the week and our friend happened to be out of town.  Jayna texted her to let her know her dreamy new device had arrived.  Our friend told her to give it a try and my wife certainly couldn’t resist that offer.  About 10 minutes later I was ordering another one from Amazon to replace the one Jayna had just confiscated.

A couple of days went by and I have heard nothing but how wonderful this wiggly brush is.  It’ really exhausting.  Then it started.

“OH Michael, you HAVE to try this!!!!  You won’t believe how amazing your skin will feel.”

Stop right there.  Guys don’t really give a damn how amazing their skin feels.  But the incessant nagging continued.

Tonight I was taking a shower and the little device was stacked among the plethora of bottles of god only knows what that Jayna keeps in the shower.  Really, we have this tree thing in the corner of our shower with 3 shelves.  All of them are full of various products, many of which I have never heard of.  I have a little caddy thing that hangs on the wall.  It has body wash, shampoo and shaving cream.  Three bottles.  That’s it.  Ok, I’m going to try this damn thing so I can tell her once and for all, WHATEVER…  So I take the cap off and then begin the search for some type of product to use with this device.  I find a tube of stuff that looks like something that someone would use for their face and squeeze a small blob into the middle of the brush and away I go.  I’m working in small circles like I presume you do and I’m starting to feel the effects of this device.  I move it up to my forehead and my cheek starts to burn.  That doesn’t seem right.  Oh well, power through.  By the time I finish with my face it feels like I am bleeding from the pores and someone just threw acid on my face.  Not to mention the fact that in the midst of all this, I got some of that crap in my eyes and they are burning.  Is my skin smooth, well yes, all be it thinner.  I didn’t even have to shave, I swear it just pulled all the whiskers out by the root.  After a few minutes of recovery I decide to check out what I put on that freakin brush.  Turns out it was a microdermabrasion product.  Apparently that isn’t necessary with the ultrasonic vibrating brush thingy.

As I’m drying off I’m thinking, now what the hell am I going to tell Jayna.  Maybe I just won’t say anything.  Then I see the “one step facial cleansing soap” on the rack.  Nice.

“Hey Jayna, do you use that Purity facial cleanser with that Clarisonic?”

“Yes, it’s wonderful isn’t it?”

“Oh, I’m sure it is.”

“What are you blogging about?”

So, as I said in the title, I would like to clarify something for women.  I don’t ever want to hear how disgusted you are because I can be ready to go in approximately 5 minutes, and it takes you HOURS.  All you have to do is open some cabinets and look around to see that the sheer complexity of your daily regimen couldn’t possibly allow you to be ready in under 3 to 5 hours.

I’m sure your wiggly shaky brush is wonderful.  I think I’ll stick with some soap and a washcloth.

I Have The Answer

We’ll get to the question.

Things have been really hectic around our house.  Before the twins arrival we had our routine down to a fine art.  It was home by 5:45, dinner around 6:30, Cinderella’s shower around 7:00, read a book at 7:15 and in bed by 7:30.  Jayna and I would have several hours in the evening to unwind and enjoy the silence.  Well, things have changed.  We still try to have all the kids in bed around 7:30 but we have had to divide and conquer.  One of us will work on getting the babies in bed while the other takes care of Cinderella.  Even then, we have found that we rarely have those precious hours to unwind.  Usually it is the babies that aren’t cooperating and by the time we get them in bed it is time for us to go to bed as well.

The other evening I was trying to get Cinderella ready for bed.  For some time now we have let her take showers with us when we are too worn out to wrestle her through a shower in her tub.  This evening was one of those evenings.  Cinderella and I went through our shower routine.  When we were done I dried her off and she stepped out of the shower to wait for me to get out to put lotion on her and get her pajamas on.  As I was drying off I see her looking at me, and then it happened.

“Daddy.  What’s that tail doing on your vagina?”

So, dads.  If you’ve ever asked yourself when your daughter is too old to take showers with you.  I give you the answer.