random thoughts tuesday

i don't know if i am going about this the right way, but i keep coming across "random thoughts tuesday" posts, and i have lots of random thoughts, so i figured i am going start one too. hopefully, just by linking back to the un-mom makes it cool. thanks to her for starting this whole thing!
so here i go (late in the game, of course), jumping on the bandwagon...

1.) whenever i have to type in a security password, i have to wonder how those squiggly letters are actually protecting anything. i mean, are crazed internet stalkers not able to read them? if i get them wrong, does that mean i am a crazy internet creep?

*************************************************************

2.) i wish someone would just zap spencer pratt off the face of this earth. i have never seen a single episode of whatever show he is/was on, but i hate him. i actually read a quote from him today that said "we both love god and music. we're both ridiculous, and we're both rock stars!" he was talking about himself and miley cyrus. umm...spencer, dear....miley is a po pstar, maybe even a country star, but rock star, no. bono is a rock star. you...not even close. i think i may be more of a rock star and i'm sitting here in a row home with my five kids and i'm wearing sweatpants, but i am sure that i have more rock star potential than you. good luck with that rap album.

**************************************************************

3.) i hate the "jump arounds" and the stupid "loco legs" song that is constantly blaring out of my tv.

**************************************************************

4.) i just read that kate is able to shop for free at gymboree because they sponsor the show or something. now, i don't like her at all. really?!?! the free tummy tuck wasn't enough, she gets free gymboree, too? she should be a much much happier person.

**************************************************************

5.) could the catholic church get any weirder? as i sat in mass with thomas on sunday (longest mass ever, by the way. baptism in the middle of it), looking at the stained glass windows, i noticed that the one directly above my head was a scene of the crucifixion. pretty morbid subject matter to start. then i noticed that on the ground at the foot of the cross there were skulls, just laying there. really? is that necessary? we get that the whole crucifixion and death was a really bad deal, does the "art" work need to be THAT explicit. the crown of thorns and blood dripping from the nails in his hands and feet aren't enough?

**************************************************************

6.) i truly think i am going to hell for #5.

**************************************************************

7.) us weekly did a story about jon and kate (you're shocked, i know) and they had an insert with a split screen picture of kate and nadya suleman with the title "they love french nails." how glad am i that i went with the french pedicure this week instead of the french manicure?!?! what does it say about me though, that i am also a mother of multiples and enjoy a french manicure once in a while?


in other blog news, i was given an award this week from my bloggy friend valentine and her sister, demosthenes. i am now, officially "queen of all things awe-summm," as if that wasn't already a given! so now it seems that i must list seven awesome things about myself and pick seven other awesome blogs and provide links to them all (let's keep our fingers crossed here people. i am not the best linker).

1. my shoes/ accessories are really awesome

2. my baby birthing skills (seriously, i can have babies like no one else. it's not even really difficult for me. it's almost criminal when you consider what other people go through)

3. i make pretty much perfect omelets (i went to culinary school, so i am a pretty good cook overall, but my omelets are really pretty)

4. my children are always well dressed and color coordinated

5. i am really good at laughing at myself and not taking myself too seriously

6. i am raising children that can identify u2, the killers and michael jackson (so far) when they hear any of them on the radio

7. i just asked my husband what he would say is awesome about me and he answered "your hair when you wear it curly," the he said "your eyes." who knew?

now, here are the seven of the blogs that i think are awesome.

1. the girls at bon bon rose . who doesn't love some fun fashion advice?

2. heather kathleen, the mouthy irish woman because her blog address contains the words "irish catholic potty mouth"

3. nicole because she taught me how to link to other blogs

4. mrs. fish at one fish, two fish... because i totally get her

5. pam at pam's perspective because i really love books and so does she. plus, she has incredible taste in actors.

6. beth at what i should have said 'cause i really like her blog and she's got such a great name

7. sjt at they really are laughing at me because she makes me laugh and she curses about as much as i do in reference to her kids. i gotta love that.

so, thank you again valentine and demosthenes. i do so love your letters (even when they contain horrible images of old guys and their erectile issues)! everyone else should go check them out now, too!

poor baby

so...yesterday culminated with a trip to the children's hospital of philadelphia for dennis and i. on sunday, when tommy and i picked the children up from my parent's house (my mom kept the kids for us saturday night so we could go out. sunday was my birthday), dennis had started throwing up and was running a fever. we got some tylenol in him and got him home with no more vomit. monday he still had a fever, so i took him to the doctor, where i was told he has a stomach virus...that is contagious...try to keep him away from the other kids. that shouldn't be a problem here, we'll just keep him in the sick wing of the house. ha. he did not eat one. single. thing. on monday. he is a 35 pound three year old (to put this in perspective, caroline is a 33 pound two year old). nor did he really drink anything. tuesday morning, same thing, however now we've added the fact that he only peed once in around 18 hours to the mix. you guessed it...doctor says off to the er for some fluids.

luckily, we live in a city with one of the top children's hospitals in the country. it literally takes me 10 to 15 minutes to get there. it is one of the truly great trade-offs for being city dwellers (no backyard but exceptional medical care for my babies). we got to CHOP and they took us right away. my poor, lethargic baby was so good. right up until they had to stick a vein to draw blood and give him the iv. so sad and pathetic...poor little guy. however, after he had some fluids and a dose of tylenol (his fever spiked to 102 while we were there) he perked up considerably. the fever did come back through the night and he did throw up again, but he seems to be a little better today and the fever seems to much lower. yay for him!

the real question here now is...with five kids and a communion party (which is also a graduation party for my sister in law) on saturday for which i am doing all the food for about 175 people...how many of those five children will be sick and at the hospital by then? i'll keep you posted...

color wonder?

dear crayola -
color wonder is a really really great idea (right up there with the magic eraser in my book). i think it's such a great idea that i spent $10 yesterday on thirty sheets of paper and 10 mini markers. here is what i have to wonder about though...you make these products for people who can not be trusted not to draw on walls, themselves, cabinets, appliances...you get my drift. are you aware that these same people are also, for the most part, unable to put the caps back on these markers? so the $10 worth of color wonder stuff i bought yesterday at 6 pm is useless to us by 10 am today.
just wanted to see if you guys at crayola were aware. i am sorry to say that i am not about to support a $10 a day color wonder habit (in reality, i can buy a three pack of magic erasers for much less money and just clean the regular crayons off the walls everyday).
thanks -
beth

ps - as i sit here typing this, jack is having a photo shoot with the girls (using my cell phone). he just showed me a cute picture he took of the girls hugging. then i hear him say, just do this and i see him holding his arm around an imaginary person next to him. next up, i hear the girls barking and jack telling them, now stick your tongues out and act like you are breathing. the girls are on all fours being doggies. maybe jack should be austin powers for halloween..."and i'm spent..."

they're twins? really?

i have twin two year old daughters, kathryn scarlett and caroline elizabeth. i can not figure out how they came from the same two parents, let alone shared a womb for nine months. they are exact polar opposites.

in the beginning, when we had coordinated outfits (usually one purple and one pink), my husband decided cara would wear purple and katie would have pink. for some reason, that stuck and now when you ask them what color they are, katie answers pink and cara, purple. it has gotten to the point where neither girl will use the other sister's color if given a choice (i.e. katie won't let me dry her with a purple towel after her bath. fun). in fact, when you ask them what they are, cara answers "purplicious" and katie, "pinkalicious." (we totally LOVE those books here! thanks to the authors for writing one for each girl!)

caroline is the younger of the two. she is slightly shorter (maybe an inch) and a couple pounds heavier. katie is a string bean, noticeably lighter. they have completely different builds. katie has wavy red hair. cara has stick straight brown hair.

the differences do not end with their physical appearance. jack just had his fifth birthday, so birthday party themes have been a big topic here lately. caroline frequently tells us that she wants a princess party (she has a slight princess fetish. she tells me all the time that she is a princess and that i am also a "pincess...like me!"). my darling miss scarlett, on the other hand, has decided she wants a monster party (i'm thinking maybe a fairytale party with a purple princess and a big scary dragon that doubles as a monster). dressing the girls for mother's day in their pink and purple seersucker dresses, katie INSISTED on wearing her sneakers (with her lacy socks) and cara put on her pretty ruffled sweater with her white maryjanes and ruffle socks (note the photos). on sunday, we were at my mother's for mother's day and all of the kids were playing in the yard. only one of the five asked their father to play baseball with him/her. it was katie. this morning, as i sat drinking coffee, cara asked me if she could brush my hair. i said yes and she stood on the back of my hair, hitting me in the head with a plastic brush, and asking "i do pincess hair fo you?" at thomas' communion mass, the girls came in with my mother, dressed to the nines (white organza dresses, pretty pink bows and pink maryjanes, pink satin purses). caroline was carrying her favorite baby and her purse. kathryn had her brand new home depot tool set, complete with battery-operated drill. apparently, i have one total girly-girl and one tomboy.

people frequently ask me if they do everything together and if they have their own "twin" language. umm...no. they barely speak to one another at all, let alone have a special way of speaking exclusively among themselves.

the one place where they have happened to find common ground is in the "getting in trouble" department. it's funny how they do not play together AT ALL, yet when cara decides to wash dishes with a bottle of dish detergent, katie is more than happy to join her. and when katie decides to make scrambled eggs in the dining room, cara is glad to be her sous chef (however...cara is totally picking a way fancier apron than katie is when they are cooking). and when either one of them decides to empty EVERY SINGLE article of clothing from the drawers in their bedroom, her sister's got her back.

do you think this is giving me a glimpse into the future? i can just see it now...the only time i ever find my girls out together is when i get a phone call from the police station/annoyed parent/neighbor, etc. awesome.

jack is five!

i had very good intentions of doing this post on friday, but in true "mother" fashion, what i wanted to do got pushed back behind other people's wants and needs and now it is 12:30 am tuesday morning and i am finally getting to it. this is my combination mother's day/jack's birthday post. you see, five years ago on mother's day, i gave birth to john sterling. i think that maybe the fact that he was born on mother's day gives him a little edge. jack is my middle son...he's not my first born that had all of the attention for 4+ years, he's not my baby boy (who really is about the prettiest child i have ever seen) and he's not one of the twin girls, so he needed a little edge there to avoid being lost in the shuffle.

jack is the only child that i went to my due date with. by may 9th, 2004 i had pretty much decided i was done being pregnant, so my mother-in-law took me to the cherry hill mall, which we walked FOR HOURS, in the hopes of inducing labor and buying about $140 worth of baby girl clothes from gymboree (we were convinced that this was a girl, you see). by the time we got home from the mall, i was crazy uncomfortable and crampy. i called my midwife and she told me to go get checked out (i'm sure she said this out of pity, not because she thought i was actually going to have the baby). when i got there, all the nurses assumed i was getting sent home, but the doctor that gave me the (most painful ever) internal said that my water broke, and voila...i was allowed to stay!

at this point i was given my antibiotics (group b strep + for the last three pregnancies) and my epidural and settled in for the night. i clearly remember that there was a woman screaming bloody murder down the hall, while tommy and i watched snoop dog on letterman or leno (i can't remember which one, i just know it was snoop) and laughed our asses off. anyone that went by our room must have thought we were insane. i labored peacefully through the night (love a good epidural!) and around 8:30 am, my midwife checked me out and determined we were read to go. she said she wanted to see me push just once, to see how i was at it and then we would see if she would deliver me or her other patient first. apparently, i am a REALLY good pusher, as she told me not to do anything else until she was able to get her gown on and get scrubbed up (as an aside...my mom was really good at labor and delivery too. she thinks that our ancestors were the kind of women who gave birth in potato fields and then went back to work. lucky me). i pushed about three times and my baby boy was delivered. WHAT?!?! i thought i was having a girl! didn't matter...john sterling was born at 9:45 am on mother's day morning. how's that for a gift? (by the way...the other girl who was ready at the same time as me didn't deliver until around 3pm.)

jack was my biggest baby at about 7 lbs. 10 oz. he was a pretty tough baby, too with his "jack attacks," fits during which he just screamed uncontrollably for no apparent reason. but he is also my most affectionate baby and he's really funny. thomas was always pretty funny, but not intentionally. jack is funny to make people laugh. he is crazy lovable, even though he is also crazy stubborn. in september of this year (our first attempt at preschool which was NOT successful) he told us that he quit school and haircuts. he also compared his "package" to the eiffel tower before. he's just a funny kid.

as far as appearance goes, jack looks nothing like me at all. he is my husband's spitting image, but he is my total mama's boy. he's my baby. and he is, quite literally, a gift (they all are, but he gets props now for his birthday).

i've included some of my favorite pictures of him, including one of the day we brought him home from the hospital.

media rant

lately i have been noticing some headlines that catch my eye and then annoy me...without even reading the story. i feel like the media will do a story about ANYTHING these days. the three headlines that really stick out in my mind are the following:

1) us weekly's cover story this week was a "jon and kate exclusive." apparently, jon was "caught with other woman" this story i actually did read. now, please know that i am no huge fan of jon and kate. i used to love them when they both had jobs outside the home and a house that was too small and they actually had to struggle and deal with issues that the rest of us do. now, however, they have a gigantic home with acres of land and they both are home, as jon works from home as a consultant. plus, all of their vacations and stuff are paid for. there's no real challenge there. as far as i'm concerned they totally jumped the shark when they went to "day out with thomas" and did not have to wait in line AND were given a private train car. how tough was that? i would take my five if it was going to be that easy, too. anywhoo...i don't really care either way if they break up or not. sure it would be crazy hard for kate then and sad for the kid, but it does not affect my life in any way whatsoever. however, that said...this article was crazy stupid. it showed pictures of jon obviously intoxicated getting into a car with a "mystery woman." a quote from the magazine actually said "at 2 am 'he could barely walk' as he exited the bar..." now, call me cray, but isn't it better that he WAS getting into a car with a "mystery woman" rather than driving himself home? he could barely walk, should he be driving?!?! totally annoying article. i have been trying to find a phone number to cancel my us weekly subscription because of the sheer stupidity of the articles, lately.

2) i can not even believe i am going to write about the next person, but here goes. octomom. i actually have a passionate dislike for this woman. i hate everything that she has done, i hate hearing about all of the free stuff she is given, i hate it all. i'm even a little irrational when it comes to octomom (in my defense, i have five children and i feel like they NEVER receive one on one attention from my hsuband and i, and then this jackass goes and has 14 children, not naturally, with no husband. i think she is a total a-hole). (again)however...i saw a headline that said "octomom's son photographed with black eye." really?!!? this is news? she has 14 kids!! of course one of them is going to show up with a black eye once in a while! come on, people! their freakin' kids...kids get black eyes for crissake! i didn't even read that article because...a) the headline annoyed me so bad and b) i refuse to read anything about nadya suleman in my own little protest of her. i really don't like that whole situation. she is actually the NUMBER 1 reason for my desire to cancel us weekly, with "speidi" being an extremely close #2.

3) "actress loses 60 pounds without exercising" is the third headline that i've read this week. super impressive that someone could lose 60 pounds with no exercise, right? this one i thought i might read, so i clicked on the article and up popped a picture of the actress. it was rebecca romijn stamos o'connell. hmmm...somewhat less impressive, considering she recently gave birth to twins. it would have been far more surprising had she not lost the 60 pounds at all. it's great that she didn't have to exercise, but come on! everyone loses weight after giving birth! she's a freakin' model for crissake! she's genetically engineered to be thin. i did not read that article either, as i was so annoyed to see that they were talking about her. stupid, stupid, stupid.
well, i am glad to have gotten my little rant off of my chest now. do you think maybe, just maybe, i should give up tabloid news coverage? i wonder how annoyed i would get at real news coverage? ha...who am i kidding? i would probably be the same. i'll stick with just reading fiction and be done with it!

i'll always love my mama...

and do you know why? because she took my daughters to her house for the weekend. ahh...peace reigns again (which is saying ALOT since the three boys are still here). i love my mother. guess is should start shopping for a killer mother's day gift, huh?

little cleaners

yesterday was my husband's birthday. he gets a free pass.

my husband's aunt came to hang down to hang out with us yesterday and help me get some stuff done. she stayed with the kiddies and baked tommy a birthday cake, while i ran some errands and decorated the front of the house for thomas' first communion on sunday. after dinner and cake and ice cream, i had to take tracy home. she lives about 20 minutes away. tommy stayed with the kids. everyone was bathed and upstairs. the girls were not in their own room, they were still in the "guys" room (it's the cool hangout these days). i asked that he try to put them in their room so they would go to sleep.

this is what i walked into at 10:20 pm last night...tommy fell asleep on the couch, dennis came downstairs and fell asleep on a chair, and the sisters decided to do the dishes, and make eggs, apparently. i walked in the house and saw the girls both standing on a dining room chair that they had dragged over to the sink. the sink was full of water and suds (a half bottle of dish soap had been added to pretty much everything in sight) and there were about four broken eggs on my kitchen floor. WHAT!?!?!?!?!?! are these girls for real? i start yelling like the crazy person i am and try to remove the darlings from the situation. meanwhile, the sink is still running(luckily, i have a big double sink and a stainless steel counter with a lip, so the water did not really run on to the floor). i send the girls upstairs to get baths, and tell tommy i will handle the miss in the kitchen, thinking he would handle the girls (haha...that is what i get for thinking). i cleaned up the mess in the kitchen, which involved a cup stuck down the garbage disposal, hence the non-draining water, soap EVERYWHERE, for real everywhere, my counters are still filmy because of the amount of soap on them; 4 more broken eggs in the sink; and rinsing the soap off of all the clean dishes that were in the drainer.

now, that's a pretty bad night, right? when i get upstairs to throw the girls in the tub...THEY DID IT AGAIN IN THE BATHROOM! brand new bottle of shampoo, half emptied into the tub, shower, floor and potty. i'm not kidding. not to mention their hair and jammies. i walk up to their sweet little voices saying: " look! pink! it pink, now!" in reference to the shampoo in the tub. silly me, i had no idea what they were talking about. (at this point i totally cracked up. it was probably more of a hysterical/insane laugh, but at least no one was physically harmed) i have now filled and rinsed my tub about four times to get the soap out, and i am still not having much luck with it. i have wiped the tub down, but everytime i fill it up, it is a bubble bath. i had to get in the shower with both girls last night to get them completely rinsed. the shower floor was so covered in soap that katie fell and cara slipped.

i frequently remind myself that i really, really wanted a girl and that it is a good thing that i had two at once because, now my daughters have a sister (and my sister is my best friend, so i know that down the line i would have wanted a sister for her) and i only had to be pregnant four times, instead of five. and that is all stuff to be happy about, right? maybe a little happy, right?