What a weekend!

Let's see; gardening, shopping, playing at the park, and getting locked out of the house, yes it was quite a weekend.

GARDENING is a new thing for me. To say that I am not much of a gardener would be a severe understatement. Every time in my life that I have tried to take care of a plant it has ended badly for the plant. I either have no idea how much to water it and end up drowning or starving it to death (enter my new tool the handy dandy water meter) or I get busy with other projects and totally forget the plant exists until it is no longer a plant and just a bunch of dried up leaves. Now that we own a house (and my kids begged me to plant some flowers "like Nana") I have decided to try my hand at this. First stop the library to find out what types of plants do best in my area, followed by which need the least amount of upkeep, and since I plan to start in our back yard which is mostly shady I needed to find out which plants are best suited to shade or light sun. Then off to Wal-Mart and Lowe's we go to get some tools and plants (this is where the SHOPPING part of the weekend comes in). Get home Friday afternoon and start digging a hole to plant my new Dwarf Gardenia plant and fairly quickly I discover that where I want to plant is already home to several large tree roots from the large shade tree 6 feet away (who thought tree roots would be so close to the surface this far away from the tree, certainly not me) so after digging a 3 inch deep hole and being blocked by roots to large to pull out I decide this is not going to work. Then I get the brilliant idea to just pot the plants and set them in the spot I had chosen. Okay, tomorrow, more SHOPPING.

So Saturday morning we head back to Wal-Mart and get the pots. It is such a nice day we stop on our way home at the PARK and play for a bit. But, alas, the fun ends when the ice cream truck shows up and the girls start whining for ice cream and I have to explain to them that the ice cream man won't take debit cards and that is all I have on me. Then I remember that we have popsicles in the freezer at home and figure this will keep them busy while I start potting the plants so we head home. Two popsicles later I have only potted like half a plant and they are already begging to "help" so I let them "help" (and I use the word help very loosely) me plant the flowers we got and then they swing for a while. Now somewhere in here between them running in the house to wash their hands, let the dog in/out, changing into flip-flops, and going potty the door gets locked and closed but I'll get to that later. About halfway through the potting of the plants they start playing first with their watering cans full of water, then a bucket full of water, then the mud made from the bucket full of water and I realise that it is probably a little too cool for them to be playing in the water but I let them anyway because I figure all kids should get to play in the mud when they really shouldn't once in a while. Okay, who am I kidding, I let them play in the mud and water so they will leave me alone so I can finish this gosh darn potting before my back completely gives out! Finally I am finished. I still need to clean up the mess we have made but they are starting to complain they are cold now (I wonder why) so I hose off their feet and hands and we head in. Or not. We are LOCKED OUT!

At this point I curse a string of profanity that my sailor husband would be proud of, and no 5 year old should really hear and beat my head against the door hoping it will magically pop open. When it doesn't I try to "bump" it open like they showed the criminals do on the evening news the other night but no luck. Of course I haven't got a spare anywhere, my cell phone is in my purse (in the house) and my husband is out to sea for a month. It is truly one of those "Calgon, take me away" moments. So we head over to the neighbors to beg the use of a phone to call a locksmith, and she couldn't be nicer but I feel like such a loser. Luckily the locksmith says he can be over in a half hour so we head back and clean up our tools and sweep up the potting soil mess. Well I should say I clean up the mess while my darling daughters huddle up in the sleeping bags I drag out of the garage for them because they are "freezing". Some days it just doesn't pay to try and be productive.

Are you a boy or a girl?

It is really a good thing I don't get embarrassed easily because lately the girls have been working overtime with the awkward questions (see previous blog entitled "Are you from France?"). Yesterday as we entered the library a pretty woman in a white dress was walking by who had a shaved head and Savannah just popped right out with the question "Are you a boy or a girl?". Luckily the girl was really nice about it she smiled and said nicely "Well I'm wearing a dress, so what do you think?" and they both said girl and we went on. I mouthed sorry to her but she shook her head and said it was okay. Later inside the library I saw her walking by with a friend and she was pointing at the girls obviously telling him what happened and I heard her say "at least they asked and didn't just stare at me like most kids do".

Are You From France?

So we are at the grocery store and we get the usual question . . . "Are they twins?" from the guy bagging the groceries. He had a heavy accent so the girls didn't really understand him and I sort of "translated" the question to them. So they say yes they are twins and then one of them (I forgot who said it first, but it seemed almost like they did it together) says "Are you from France?". Well it was obvious to me he wasn't French, however, since he had a pretty heavy accent and they haven't been exposed to any accents very much I guess France was just the first place they came up with. They watch several shows in which the characters travel the globe such as Little Einsteins, Wonder Pets, and even Dora and Strawberry Shortcake had world traveling adventures so I can see that they are learning about different cultures sounding different. Now they will know a Filipino accent.

Why do I buy them toys?

Sometimes I question why exactly I buy the girls toys. If I had a better imagination and didn't have toy addiction of my own I don't think I would have to buy them much because a lot of times they entertain themselves with the simplest things. Here are a few of their latest "toys".

"Blackie" - Blackie is the name they have given to my computer wrist rest. It is one of those long gel filled things you put in front of the keyboard to support your wrists when you are typing. They discovered it one day while playing on the computer. Next thing I knew "Blackie" was in the doll cradle being covered with a blanket like a baby. The thing is they have at least 10 baby dolls between them.

"Upside down tv" - This is their favorite lunch time game. In our house we have a breakfast bar between the kitchen and dining room. I have them eat lunch most days at the bar. Since I am always telling them they can't get up when they are eating (and they follow this rule pretty well actually) they have found many ways to amuse themselves (and drive me crazy) while supposedly eating their lunch. There are two versions of upside down tv. The first version is there they both lay on their chairs on their backs with their feet facing each other. They then proceed to basically tickle and kick each other with their feet. In the second version they lay on their backs on their chairs with their faces facing each other. They then tickle each other and grab each others faces. They think it is all very hilarious and it is pretty funny to watch. I still can't figure out why it is called upside down tv. The upside down part I get, but where does tv come into it? I have no idea.

Got the Wii

We got a Wii game console. Figured it would be something fun to do as a family. So as Joey is setting it up it comes to this screen that asks you to give your Wii a nickname so Joey asks me and I say "whatever you want". He says "Wow" and I'm thinking that is the nickname like "Wow-Wii" and then he starts telling me about some cool thing it does. A few minutes later he asks me again what should the nickname be and I say "I thought you said Wow". He just gives me this dumb stare and so I clarify "wow-wii" and tell him I think it is cute. He burst out laughing because he was saying wow about whatever cool thing it does that he told me about not the nickname, but now he thinks it is cute too, so we use it. Later as Joey and I are testing out the games the girls come in and want to try it. At this point we are doing the boxing game. So we set them up and instruct them on how to play. They got so into it! Joey and I were laughing until we cried watching them box at each other and we had to keep grabbing them by the shirt and pulling them back because we were afraid they were going to punch the tv screen because they kept moving forward they were so excited. The kids are better entertainment than any video game!

That's Freaking Me Out

The other night at dinner after asking the normal dinner time questions (how was your day? what did you do today?) the girls asked Daddy to do a magic trick. I really don't know where they came up with this because Daddy is not really a magic type guy and I can't recall him ever doing magic for them before, but anyhoo . . . Joey does the standard, taking his finger apart and putting it back together trick for them. They are both pretty impressed and ask to see it again. Savannah watches closely, takes a moment to absorb it then states "That is freaking me out."